Recently, the representatives of the Council of Stellar Management of the space MMO EVE Online were elected – there were allegations of vote buying and election fraud – which is, however, legal in EVE Online.
Vote Buying in EVE Online? Whatever.
What is the Council of Stellar Management? The CSM is made up of elected players who work closely with the developers of the MMORPG and communicate directly with them. They convey the wishes and concerns of the players to the developers.
Purchased votes drive players crazy. About 50 players ran for a spot in the player council and campaigned via Twitter, podcasts, Reddit, forums, or even live in the game. A total of votes from 29,417 active accounts were cast. However, things were not quite right here. There were allegations that some of these votes were bought with in-game credits.
- A screenshot was posted on Twitter showing how the already controversial player “The Judge” offered 50 million ISK for each vote to others.
- Players expressed their outrage, leading to arguments.
Buying votes is allowed. In EVE Online, there is no regulation prohibiting the purchase of votes for such elections. CCP Games provided a small statement. Employee CCP Guard explained: “Buying votes is not a good way to secure a place in the CSM. Because it can backfire, as many dislike this practice.”
A Disqualification Causes Upheaval
There was a disqualification. Shortly before the election, a disqualification occurred as one of the candidates made racist remarks. CCP Games announced that they generally do not interfere in such elections, but in this case, action had to be taken. Reactions from players were mixed:
- Some players felt that the logs on which the disqualification was based were too far in the past and that the player had significantly improved since then
- Others supported CCP Games in their decision
- Others believed that the logs were intentionally forwarded to CCP Games to eliminate the candidate from the election
- Some players believe that The Judge has something to do with it, as he would have actually landed in eleventh place and thus not been elected to the council, which consists of ten people. It was only because the other player was disqualified that The Judge could get into the CSM
However, all of this does not change the result. The ten members of the CSM for EVE Online have been determined, as the election was declared valid.
