Eve Online is a unique persistent world. It's the only successful' long term Science Fiction world. Science Fiction is hard. As our friends-in-spirit at 2d6 feet posited recently' it's harder because of the details. Fantasy worlds have extensive shorthand. Toss me into a quasi-medieval setting' tell me there are elves and magic' and I've got a whole library in my head to fill in the blanks. But in a science fiction world' you need to tell me a LOT more. Are there aliens? What do they look like? What's the technology do? What does a spaceship look like' and how does it work? What are the moral codes and motivations?
It's a real question. The two largest competing SF universes have radically different answers. Star Wars' Han Solo works for cash. We see him loading the Millennium Falcon with crates of the stuff. His world is filled with the crimes of acquisition. Star Trek's James. T Kirk lives in a universe that grew beyond the need for commerce. It's never explained in great detail' but some sort of vast communism or invisible spirit guides the known worlds of the Federation.
Eve takes the Star Wars route. Money isn't only important' it's everything. Piracy and scheming drive most of the Player-vs-Player (PVP) interactions' and PvP is what Eve is all about. Eve embraces capitalism in a way that goes far beyond the auction houses and crafting of World of Warcraft. Eve embeds the idea of a corporation into the roots of the game. A corporation' by definition' is an entity created to act like an individual person in a marketplace. Anywhere from one to an infinite number of biological individuals create a commune of ownership' and drive that new fictional individual towards a common goal.
In Eve' corporations are formed' engage in exploration' exploitation and extermination in the pursuit of wealth for their members. Thanks to the efforts of a dedicated community' corporations can create initial public offerings to grab new investors. Most often these public corporations are formed to pool the capital required to purchase the blueprints for the games most powerful ships. These blueprints can then be copied and sold' generating cash for dividends. Shares can be traded on the open market' portfolios managed' speculations made.
This user-controlled market is entirely unregulated. Eve is a pocket universe for students of unfettered capitalism. As one would expect' there are good actors and bad actors.
And it's the bad actors that are interesting. Financial scams have an easy time of it in Eve. Anything beyond a simple purchase involves a transfer of wealth between players. Someone has to give a real person in-game cash to buy something -- in this case shares in a corporation. And once that money's sitting in the corporate account' the CEO can just transfer that wealth to an alternate character' and disappear. There is no SEC to go after the bad guy. There is no court in which to make an accusation and seek recompense.
CCP is well aware that they have created a world where bad actors can thrive. Their own FAQ makes this clear:
"A scam is the act of obtaining goods from other players through misinformation' confusion' pressure or by taking advantage of basic trust. Players enter into business dealings with others at their own risk and are strongly urged to exercise good judgment and common sense when trading. Scams that relate to issues such as password scams or account theft scams are more serious and will result in an immediate ban."
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