Introducing the HyperNet Relay

It’s hard to comprehend the waste of intellectual power and time on the relative merits of a raffle in a Video game where the very game itself runs on the investment of real money for entertainment. Any sensible debate is blown away by outlandish grandstanding be it about the sudden death of the game or a undisclosed closet group of recovering gamblers suddenly able to relapse. I bought a ticket for the raffle knowing what I was spending and what I might win and I lost. Nothing to see here…

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“Don’t use this feature, it’s broken and useless” is a problem for CCP. The solution is to remove the ability to post links in chat, impose chat bans for spamming similar messages too frequently, etc.

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But of course Its not you who are to decide. People are voting every day with their ability to play or not play. Its their ability to spend money or hold sub. It will be decided ultimately in this way. And players are not listening to you or me or anyone. They have their own opinion that was already expressed and CCP will have to deal with facts that are effects of their own decisions.

Time will tell.

Of course it’s for me to decide. I’m the decider.

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You may be a bit funny, thats all. :slightly_smiling_face:

The UI could use a calculation of (number of tickets * ticket price) right under the estimated value of the item.

And chat should have an “auto-hide messages with links” option.

I won a chimera.
with 1 ticket, cost me 2 mil.
hypernet HYPPPEEEEEEE

For the love of Bob, please block all HyperNet Relay, contract, market etc. links from local chat - put it in a separate Market channel.

Local chat was broken before, but it’s now completely unusable with all the spamming.

Thank you.

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Ok, not being the slightest bit sarcastic I swear: People actually use Jita chat to chat? I’m based more around Amarr and even there the channel is mostly white noise. If you want to chat with a specific person can’t you still do that privately?

As far as the gambling, @Brisc_Rubal, you feel confident saying this is 100% not gambling? I’m definitely on the other side of the fence with regard to the characterization, but I would agree that gambling or not, it’s what I would call “legally ambiguous” at this point in time. CCP is taking a calculated risk (with, I assume, the advice of their or PA’s general counsel) that the countries in which it markets will not force through legislation/regulations limiting this type of mechanism. I’m also a licensed attorney (US), but am by no means an expert in gambling law, so I’m curious about your opinion.

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I’m confident saying that I find it very unlikely that a court or regulatory agency, at least in the United States, would view this as gambling.

The most relevant caselaw I can find is from the 4th Circuit, in which I practice, in 2017. https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-4th-circuit/1853092.html

In that case, a woman who had lost gambling in a virtual casino inside a mobile game sued under Maryland’s Loss Recovery Statute. Most states that have outlawed gambling have a loss recovery statute that allows people who have lost money to recover their losses from the winners, as a deterrent to illegal gambling. The statute required that you lose “money” in order to recover.

The Court held that the virtual chips that were bought with virtual gold that could be purchased for real money was not “money” in either the legal sense or the general sense, particularly because there was no way to redeem the chips for real money, even on a secondary market. And the company barred exchanging in-game items for cash under the EULA and while there was a secondary market for selling accounts, it wasn’t sufficient to call the virtual items money. Finally, they also noted that the company wasn’t the “winner” because regardless of whether someone won or lost on their virtual wheel in their virtual casino, the company had gotten the player’s real life money in another transaction.

Here, the whole thing is even more tenuous. The Hypernet is basically a raffle service that lets players sell items to other players - CCP isn’t putting up the items or making the sales. The Hypercores, which they are selling, are used to set up the raffles, but that’s it - it’s the real life analog to a situation where I own a ballroom, and I let somebody use the ballroom for a raffle, but I require that they pay for the room and I get to sell them the tickets they use for the raffle, but everything else is on raffle hoster. But since there’s no actual money changing hands, the things being traded via the Hypernet are not transferable back to cash - it’s all virtual items - it seems extremely unlikely that any gambling commission or legislature is going to take notice of it.

It’s not a lottery or direct gambling, and I’m confident that CCP’s in house counsel and their outside counsel in a variety of locations have reviewed this to make sure it doesn’t run afoul of any existing laws. And while there’s been a lot of noise in certain places about regulating loot boxes and other forms of “predatory” video game practices, there hasn’t been a lot of action on all that.

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Some people are addicted to arguing. They don’t care if they make any sense or come up with any real facts. They think they are right and you cant help them understand. We all get a good laugh at their expense. :laughing:

Some people come here to argue because it’s a hobby or a time killer while in a boring fleet. :wink:

Either way, I get an education on the game or a good laugh at how stupid/naive some kids can be. :popcorn:

That case is extremely on point–nice!

That being said, it doesn’t seem the court said the activity wasn’t gambling, just that appellant didn’t have a cognizable claim under the Loss Recovery Statute. I also think the court left it a bit open as to the impact of selling game assets on the secondary market.

Nonetheless, that’s a tough case to argue against. Thanks for sharing!

Also, sorry for the delayed edit!

Just read the news article. It’s one thing if players spend their time in developing stuff for this kind of crap. But CCP? Really…

Isn’t hypernet a game of chance?
We understood that all games of chance were banned and now this?
Will you now allow Bling and IWI back?
What is the difference?

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One of them is not a third party RMT scheme.
One of them is managed and controlled by CCP.

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One of them gives CCP revenue from the F2P cash shop. The other is a player-made system that doesn’t give CCP any direct revenue. It’s pretty obvious why one is legal and the other isn’t.

You know why that verdict? Because law in US is crap :poop:. :joy:

the 1990 Cooper S standard configuration was £7150 OTR. In 2018 money that would be well shy of 16 grand.

Or maybe your country’s law is crap. Why should a company be able to be sued by someone for losing valueless play money in a video game? LOL.