Friday, November 1, 2013

Blink, It's Gone!

So, I’ve been following a lot of the SOMER stuff with some amusement. I thought about writing my own opinions on the whole RMT/gambling/etc thing, but decided my time would be better spent blowing up the Amarr.

Now, I’ve never been one to make predictions, but I have to wonder…


You have this guy with a corp. He spends a lot of time and effort maintaining a website upon which he makes a lot of ISK, and a lot of real $$. However, it costs real $$ to pay for the hosting, servers, what have you. Not to mention all the personal time involved in keeping it all up.

All of a sudden, the real $$ stream is pulled out from under him. However, the catch is that he has a certain amount of time to ‘comply.’

Now, at this point, I have to ask myself, what would I do? Explore other $$ options, to be sure. But, it would probably not look pretty compared to the income I’ve grown accustomed to. There’s always selling advertising, but that will not amount to more than a small fraction of the GTC income.

To hell with it. Let’s throw the biggest promotional in history!

Which, is exactly what SOMER has done. You can now get 2.5X the amount of Blink Credit you used to get, for purchasing game codes through their affiliate. But only until their compliance deadline is met…so hurry, hurry, hurry! Get your time codes now!

Now, the purpose is obvious, right? Make as much $$ as you can before the deadline. It’s a predictable move.

But, there’s more to it than that.

How many Time codes do you suppose they are selling? Enough for one of the biggest ETC re-sellers to RUN OUT. How much Blink Credit is that, at a Billion+ a pop? We’re probably talking in terms of Hundreds of Billions, to Trillions of Blink Credit.

Now, that Credit is either coming out of the profits that SOMER has made, or they are simply ‘printing’ credit. (IE: creating it out of thin air, similar to how the government might print more money, etc.)

This sets off all sorts of warning bells and red flags in my mind. It smells vaguely (to my trader mind) like a twisted sort of firesale—the quick selling of items and goods that the seller deems will soon either be worthless, or inaccessible.

SOMER wrote something really interesting on his website, alongside the ‘promotional’ on the time codes. He says:

"The bonus will go away after the 7th, so we'll be investigating other options to cover the server expense after the GTC money runs out :)"

Now, we’re all smart people, right? Do we really believe that SOMER is going to create a huge pool of real $$ and then slowly burn through it to maintain this website until he can find alternative means of income? A website which is bleeding/diluting it’s blink credit ‘profits’ at an unprecedented rate?

And furthermore, why would he WANT people to think this?


In my mind, everything SOMER is doing points toward one outcome: he’s planning to go out with a bang.

He’s going to throw as much Blink Credit out there to generate as much real $$ as he can –because ultimately, Blink Credit isn’t going to be worth anything soon. It might not even ‘exist.’ Not if he pulls the plug.

And then, he’s going to take the money and run. The real $$, the ISK, all of it.

Enough real $$ to live comfortably for years. Enough ISK profits saved up to do anything he wants in-game.

All the ISK that so many trusting people have deposited over the last week or two to satiate their gambling addiction and/or curiosity.

And the fame of being the mastermind behind the biggest theft in gaming history.

Blink.
It’s gone!

10 comments:

  1. All over New Eden, people are spitting coffee onto keyboards. This may be my favorite Susan blog post ever!

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  2. $135k over three years, plus whatever is made from this. Wouldn't call that enough to live comfortably for years.

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  3. I'm amazed anyone leaves Blink Credit sitting on deposit. This is a game where you can't even trust player banks, yet here we have people trusting a casino that is closing down in 6 days??

    On the other hand, as with real world ponzi schemes if you cash out early you do fine. Someone buying a GTC today and using the credits within the hour might be ok depending if and when Somer pulls the plug. If your suspicions are correct first he'll clear out all his stock, legitimately contracting ships to winners, then he'll offer a wave a too-good-to-be-true blinks which will last until stories about "contract delays" make it too obvious they're never going to be given to the winners. He can spin it out longer of course if he rigs the winners.

    Should be an entertaining week, it's hilarious that SOMER is still top story today as BL and the Russians declare war on N3 starting another huge war.

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    Replies
    1. There will always be one war or the other - but this SOMER.blink affair is very likely a one-time event.

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  4. You make it sound like hosting a website is very expensive.

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  5. Kinda impossible to tell without knowing how many people are actually playing by depositing ISK into blink versus the GTC folks. Also, retailers frequently have run out of GTCs in the past, this proves nothing and is only anecdotal evidence.

    What I do know is that Somer's a smart guy or gal. With his/her financial leverage in-game expanding from "Ponzi scheme trolololol" to leaving a mark on Eve (market) which burns shouldn't be too hard. Make it so. I love me some drama. :)

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  6. There is zero risk really. The only risk is that SOMER might not pay out blink rewards.
    Instead of buying 8 month subscription time through CCP you buy 8 months subscription time through Markee and then get a bonus as well.

    Do you believe that after getting an endorsement from CCP as trustworthy Somer will turn around to scamming players?

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