Banking in EVE

Communications Center General Discussion
1

I’ve just read an article on the E-Bank that existed in EVE a few years ago.

Deeply complex and fascinating stuff, and well worth a read.

I’m left thinking several things …

1 . I’m impressed that it got to a point where a significant amount of trust had been established so that players were trusting enough to deposit lots of cash into the bank.

2 . The idea that there was once a way of getting a loan and indeed earning interest on your ISK in EVE, is utterly brilliant. Proof, if you ever needed it of the deep level of potential complexity that exists in the game.

3 . I’d really love to see this kind of thing exist again although this time with multiple sign offs (or something similar) so that no one can run off with the money.

One of my all time fictional heroes is George Bailey and I love the way that he’s an honest man and a force for good in the world, even in the face of evil. And he wins in the end too.

As far as EVE goes, @Chribba is one of my in-game heroes. If I grow up to be like him, I’ll figure I’m doing okay.

4 . The CEO running off with the cash is, in many ways, a confirmation of the deviousness and duplicity of some people. I hope the $6,000AU was worth it.

I think the sad thing for me is that to create something as brilliant like this and then to kill it off (and probably any chance of it happening again1) for such a small amount of money seems a real missed opportunity.

:mouse:

1 . I’d definitely be up for being involved if anyone fancies trying to set up a bank again. Having said this, we’d really, really need to make it absolutely air tight so that no one could ever run off with the money. I’m not sure if that’s even possible in EVE.

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2

Nice post, but IM wondering what Its A Wonderful Life has to do with it?

3

Where is money. RL or in game, there is no trust. Only business.

You can do similar thing again. It’s sandbox, nothing stops you. But there is reason why no one did it already. Fake trust is not enough and there was enough backstabs in EVE history that people don’t really trust someone word.

4

Still exists, there is plenty of offers based on trust in the Market Discussion forum, including my own EVE Museum that has run since 2015.

To get an idea how early “public offerings” like these developed, read my old forum articles on the market development here. The direct links in the articles are now defunct, but of you take the thread id number from the url of each link, you can find them in EVE Search.

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5

Thanks for the compliment. The reason I mentioned George Bailey is because he’s a banker.

Assuming that you’re not that familiar with the movie…

The lead character of the movie, George Bailey is the CEO of a bank in an American small town called Bedford Falls. In the town there is a rich skinflint, Henry F. Potter who makes his wealth from slum housing. He longs to take over the entire town but pretty much the only thing stopping him from doing this is the Bailey Brothers Building and Loan bank.

The bank is a positive force for good because, under George’s leadership, they establish Bailey Park, a modern housing development to rival Potter’s overpriced slums.

On Christmas Eve, George’s Uncle Billy loses the business’s $8,000 while intending to deposit it in the bank. Potter finds the misplaced money realises that it belongs to the Building and Loan bank and hides it. This act coincides with the arrival of the bank examiner who is doing an inspection to make sure that the books are in order.

When the bank examiner discovers the shortage, George realizes that he will be held responsible and sent to jail and the company will collapse, finally allowing Potter to take over the town.

He approaches Potter to seek a loan but Potter rebuffs him, instead offering George $20,000 a year to be his assistant. Realising that Potter’s true intention is to shut down the Building and Loan, George rebuffs and rebukes him.

Thinking of his wife, their young children, and others he loves will be better off with him dead, he contemplates suicide. When George wishes he had never been born, Clarence (an angel sent to Earth to ‘earn’ his wings) shows him a timeline in which he never existed.

Bedford Falls is now Pottersville, an unsavory town occupied by sleazy entertainment venues, crime, and amoral people. The lives George touched are vastly different. The druggist, Mr. Gower, was imprisoned for manslaughter since George was not around to prevent him from poisoning the pills. George’s mother doesn’t know him. She reveals that Billy was institutionalized after the Building and Loan failed. Bailey Park is a cemetery, where George discovers young Harry’s grave. Since George did not save Harry, Harry was not there to save the soldiers on the transport ship. George finds that Mary is a spinster librarian. When he claims to be her husband, she screams for the police and George runs away.

Convinced by the vision Clarence presented, George races back to the bridge and begs for his life back. George finds he is back in his life as it was, but now he is full of gratitude for that life. He then rushes home. Mary and Billy arrive at the home after rallying George’s supporters, who donate more than enough to cover the missing $8,000, culminating in a massive advance an offer of $25,000 supplied by George’s wealthy industrialist friend, Sam Wainwright. Seeing this, the sheriff tears up the arrest warrant. Harry arrives and toasts George as “the richest man in town”.

:mouse:

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6

Whilst I’d accept that this is a reality, I don’t think that it’s the only reality.

Trust happens all over EVE.

It’s entirely true to say that there are loads of people who do lie, cheat and gleefully stab others in the back, and what’s also true is that there are also some of us who play the game in a slightly different way.

:mouse:

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7

Can always trust Australian’s to live up to their heritage.

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8

Ah gotcha, though I feel as a fictional banker he is permitted a volume of morality not normally associated with the profession :wink:

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9

I think there are some really scummy and unscrupulous bankers out there, this is an undeniable truth.

Having said this, the world is full of good people and some of them also just happen to be bankers, and we shouldn’t lose sight of that.

:mouse:

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10

This is impossible to do in EVE, because the game lacks the enforcement mechanisms that are available in real life. For example, in real life, bank employees (usually) can’t just enter the vault and take everything out of it, or go into a digital account and transfer everything somewhere else; there are systems in place to prevent that. Governments can freeze money. People can also take other people to court. Bankers can even hire mercenaries to drop down from helicopters onto your house, and torture your family until you give them what they want.

In EVE, you can simply extract your skill points, make a new character, transfer everything over, and live a new life like nothing happened. Hell, you don’t even need to do that. If I stole your money from an EVE bank, and you started threatening to “get back at me” in the game, I’d enjoy it.

11

In real life where does trust come from if you don’t know the other party your dealing with? Pretty much from the government. Nothing is stopping a bank in real life from running off with your money except the threat of jail time or possibly an angry victim taking things into their own hands. You might ask “what about damage to reputation hurting future ventures”? That is a valid question but we see scammers every day who are caught/ revealed only to scam again.

In Eve there is no threat of jail time and no threat of perma death. You can reset your reputation by simply making and injecting a new character. Thus trust only goes as far as you can gauge a person’s morality. And maybe that is the true test of character - what someone does when there is no threat of punishment.

Back to the subject of banking… because of what I described above there is no possible way of creating a completely failsafe player made bank in Eve. After all someone has to have access to the funds in order to do “banking” right? That person has to be trusted without any threat of punishment if they decide to violate that trust.

12

Ever since phaser inc fiasco no one will ever trust anyone again.

13

I bought a power inverter (Giandel brand), so far so good as this product is living up to it’s reputation.

14

Even “trust is earned” doesn’t apply to EVE.

15

I prefer a banker over a lawyer.

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16

I prefer both over a politician.

At least lawyers and bankers admit they are in it for the monies.

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17

Yea but I noticed that a lot of politicians are also lawyers.

18

Funny that, isnt it.

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19

I stopped voting altogether when I dug deeper and found that out for myself.
Suddenly, the joke “What’s 100 lawyers chained to the bottom of the sea?” lost its comedic effect.

20

Oh no you cant stop voting

Its the only way to troll them.

At least vote for your local Dude Who Wears a Darth Vader Mask, or Lord Buckethead or something

Besides, if you think its worthless, they’ll never buy it off you

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