Veteran Eve-Online war correspondent, Mark Wallace, is at the source of a wave of stories on the Interstellar Starbase Syndicate Operations (ISS). ISS is a player structure ("alliance") in the Eve-Online universe that apparently is going public with a 500B ISK (fn1) capitalization.
In an unusual twist, ISS claims:
(p)art of the company’s goal is to make the most dangerous regions of space ('0.0 space') more accessible to new players or those who do not belong to one of the major alliances, which control most such regions. To this end, ISS has already constructed six outposts that are open to anyone. This is in sharp contrast to other outposts, which are generally used as a base of operations for warring alliances, who offer docking rights only to their allies. ISS’s outposts are designed to be open to all, as a safe haven..."
Is this a new sort of player cooperative - one more harmonious and virtuous than the usual shades of greed-lust and piracy?
I'll leave it to you. If you don't buy the Hammerstein and Rodgers spin (fr. here):
The farmer and the cowman should be friends... One man likes to push a plough, the other likes to chase a cow, But that's no reason why they cain't be friends. Territory folks should stick together, Territory folks should all be pals. Cowboys dance with farmer's daughters, Farmers dance with the ranchers' gals...
Then, perhaps a place further East would do you.
----------------------------------------------------
(fn1.) ISKs - the in-game currency.
Gilbert and Sullivan are far more appropriate :)
Posted by: Cael | Dec 28, 2006 at 04:36
In EVE it has been shown time and time again, that organizations with an emphasis on building dont survive in the long run. PvP groups may even grant them some time to build an "empire" (in the case of EVE that means building player owned outposts and moon-stations). But that only means they are waiting until there are more juicy targets before the war juggernaut roles in.
These PvP groups then give out the conquered stations to "slave corporations" that pay rent and taxes and act as cannon fodder in case of counter invasions. They will act as speed bumps til the cavalry arrives.
The classic way of builder groups to overwhelm the PvP groups with numbers ("EVE blob strategy") does not work in EVE at the moment, because the servers cannot handle the stress and the nodes crash. It has worked in the past. Therefore the smaller, but better equipped and organized PvP groups (usually filled with carefully recruited older/"better" characters with more skill points ) dominate EVE at the moment, especially with capital ship fleets including Titans with their fleet killing doomsday weapons.
The balance may change in the future when the bulk of new players (that joined in 2006) reach the level where they also can use better equipment and ships.
What does this mean for ISS ? IMHO it means that some groups just waited til the fruit is ripe enough for harvesting. And there is no such thing as a "neutral" organization in EVE. ISS will come under serious attack in the future ... and it has already started.
Have fun
Erillion
Posted by: Erillion | Dec 28, 2006 at 05:16
Great story Mark!
If Mark’s sums are right and ISS’s IPO will be worth “US$75,000” then that’s some figure – I wonder if any the press (other than Mark) that we are getting our teeth into on other threads will pick up on this.
The notion of ISS radically changing the nature of the EvE – by making 0.0 and thus certain sources of resources, more available is an interesting prospect. And raises the old question of a the god’s right to choose (or an MMO creators artistic freedom to do what they will with a world). Will CCP feel the need to re-balance the game and nerf some of ISS’s options? High risk areas of the game do provide a game function, as a player 0.0 seems scary and dangerous and it impacts the very way I think about floating around in EvE space, if it’s tamed I wonder if I’d find EvE quite that alluring – if that had a knock on effect then CCP might want to do something about it.
And yes yes, I know MMOs are not perfect experimental laboratories, but the prospect of seeing yet another running through something very like a state-of-nature emergence as told by some political philosophers is a wonderful thing.
Thought experiment – it is possible, in theory, for a group of players to have an in-game thing (be it a set of assets, a corporation etc) that, in current market value, is worth more than the company that creates & runs the game – or is there some fundamental of economics that says that the ‘owner’ of the game is by definition worth more than the assets of game itself?
Posted by: Ren Reynolds | Dec 28, 2006 at 06:03
I've read through the documentation on this project, www.eve-iss.com/isso. Your theory is interesting, but this project doesn't depend on building empires. What they're selling here is essentially the capabilities of the management team, not any physical ingame property. Thus, there is nothing to attack for the pvp'ers, even if they wanted to :-)
And another note: I don't see the word 'neutral' anywhere in the documents? Do you? :-)
Posted by: Oryannis | Dec 28, 2006 at 06:07
@Erillion: While it's true that pvp groups in EVE do like knocking things down, it's also true that ISS has deep pockets and will buy mercenaries to protect itself. When it was threatened by IAC (the Interstellar Alcohol Conglomerate) recently, ISS hired several mercenary groups to protect itself and encouraged those hostile to IAC to join in the fight. As of this weekend, they control one of IAC's outposts and have protected their own next door.
I'm very impressed with ISS's IPO, and I think they will do very well for themselves in the years to come. I'm personally going to invest some of my capital into their venture, because I believe that this should succeed not just because it'll amke me money, but because it's a novel way to push the boundaries of virtual worlds.
Posted by: Gabriel | Dec 28, 2006 at 10:38
ISS has never been neutral, so they've changed their charter to read apolitical. That doesn't really capture them either. How do you describe gangsters? They play a mean game of market PvP.
CCP won't nerf ISS -- CCP wants people to get into "end game" space. Too many people clog up Empire playing the PvE game. EVE is almost 100% role play and the PvE elements don't contribute anything to the world.
I'm not sure ISS will be able to help many young corporations into 0.0 space. This service somewhat conflicts with the service of building and operating stations for established (and rich) alliances.
Posted by: Ken Fox | Dec 28, 2006 at 10:44
Ren, I don't think their intent is to completely revamp what goes on in 0.0, just to make it slightly (not radically) more accessible to the average player. Since this happens also to be one of CCP's goals, I doubt they'll patch ISS out of the game.
Thanks for the link! When will I see you guys in space?
Posted by: Mark Wallace | Dec 28, 2006 at 10:44
It's not exactly new -- it sounds a lot like what the player towns attempted to do in UO. Faced with a world where most of the landscape was kill-or-be-killed, they organized militias centered around towns, either the designer-built ones or new ones they established by just clumping buildings together (there were no "player towns" in the code in UO).
The eventual result, by the way, was that the militias grew exhausted and were overrun by the forces of barbarism. But they put up a very good fight for a long time. Governments formed, and so on.
Posted by: Raph | Dec 28, 2006 at 13:02
>>>>The eventual result, by the way, was that the militias grew exhausted and were overrun by the forces of barbarism. But they put up a very good fight for a long time.>>>>
Thats exactly what is happening in EVE too, with large PvP corps being the "barbarians".
About ISS using mercenaries: Even the largest merc groups (like MC / Mercenary Coalition or KIA ) are tiny compared to the large PvP corps (primarily BoB) and dont stand a chance in a real EVE war. The large merc groups even stated so in public (official EVE forum).
My suggestion : if you WANT to invest money in EVE, go for high value Blueprint originals - those have stayed in demand for years. Maybe wait til the "invention" part is added in one of the next patches, that may drive the prices down a bit , but BPOs (especially ships, ammo, tech 2 weaponry) will still be in demand.
There is nothing more fickle and easier to lose than real estate in lawless 0.0 EVE space.
Have fun
Erillion
Posted by: Erillion | Dec 29, 2006 at 03:14
The Big difference between ISS and other previous organizations in EVE is ISS has investors in 'high' places. The recent IAC development has shown that other PVP centric Corporations have not only disengaged their current conflicts but have brought to bear the big ships on ISS'es behalf(LV's Titan). Iss is protected by its very nature of being a publically traded company. When any of the Major Power's pockets are threatened you can expect those specific Alliances to respond with overwhelming force. This is ISS'es true genious.
Posted by: Jokerb | Dec 29, 2006 at 06:02
Great thread. I fly with Interstellar Alcohol Conglomerate (IAC) that Gabriel references as having recently attacked and lost an outpost to ISS, so I'm somewhat biased but have a greater than passing interest in the entire situation.
I've been studying the economics and dynamics of the current conflict, and in the context of a 500B IPO hope to share some flavor for Eve Online 0.0 land grabs. My post is very long and obviously way inside and therefore may not appeal to all.
Background: IAC is a relatively small alliance and was not, until recently, a pvp focused one. We have/(had until we lost the one) 3 outposts (to ISS's current 6 (/7)), and also allowed anyone most anyone come, dock, trade, use our facilities. People who shot at us were not allowed to dock, which is similar to ISS's policy. We're certainly not allowed to dock at their stations at the moment, for example. I personally have made a fortune buying desirable items in empire and jumping them to 0.0 and selling them to alliance members and neutrals at a markup. Our markets were generally better supplied and had better prices than the ISS stations which were one jump away. When we put up our outpost (the bottleshop) in F4, which is the currently contested system where we've since lost it, we were right next door to a couple of ISS stations. We provided unwanted competition.
Long story short, we decided to attack ISS. This was 3 weeks ago or so.
An emergent (to me) coalition formed to attack us back. One of the largest capital fleets ever assembled in the game descended on F4 to teach us a lesson. People who know better correct my numbers if I'm wrong (All figures in billions of isk) There was the aforementioned titan of which there are currently only three confirmed in the game with its feared doomsday device (100Bish/priceless), 30 dreadnoughts (6B isk fitted), 50 carriers (3-6ish B isk fitted), and countless battleships (.1-.2 Billion fitted). Most of these ships were not ISS. ISS hired the also aforementioned mercenary coalition (MC), and other large alliances (Lotka Voltera (LV), for example, who fielded the titan) that were presumably ISS shareholders or generally just hate us joined in. MC doesn't have transparent pricing but there is speculation that they cost about 10B a week to hire.
In the face of overwhelming odds, we hunkered down and they took F4. Now, three weeks later the coalition is dissolving/gone. LV went back to defend their own systems after a week or so which were being attacked by opportunistic enemies who knew a large portion of their fleet was in F4. It appears that MC is packing up and leaving as of yesterday. This doesn't bode well for ISS in the short term. Yesterday, MC was unanchoring their lone POS (player owned structure/starbase) in F4 which was supposed to be guarded by a small fleet of ISS Navy and replaced with and ISS POS. In 6 hours, ISS couldn't muster the necessary battleships, we swooped in, stole (the tower is ours now, we didn't blow it up which is the usual course of action) the starbase and put our own in place. We also started attacking the ISS starbases with our own (admittedly small) capital fleet. Once/if we have the majority of starbases covering moons in F4, the outpost in F4 will once again belong to IAC. POSs cost anywhere from 250M for a small bare bones one to 1-2B for a large one fitted with lots of defenses/manufacturing capability.
Needless to say, war has been horrible for the economy. I originally thought that we'd lose a lot of ships and people would need to replace them and the necessary modules, but since we were basically in lockdown for 3 weeks, the market has been dead. Modules are being replaced by the ones that we get from ISS coalition wrecks and people are either getting free ships from the alliance or have them stockpiled. No one can mine because of unfriendlies, yet mineral prices have crashed because no one is producing. No one is buying ships, mods, or minerals. Also, we're not allowing any neutrals into our space, so the overall market has shrunk. I don’t know if the market effects have been as bad for the ISS stations as ours.
The outcome of our little conflict is uncertain. The way I see it, either:
1. We take F4 and then come to terms with ISS, maintaining the previous status quo.
2. A huge capital fleet comes in and takes all of our outposts, we become homeless, vagabond pirates who spend all of our time griefing ISS and their customers/shareholders. This outcome strangely appeals to me, even though previously I've spent most of my time in game playing the markets. This appears to be Jokerb’s prediction.
3. We take F4 and continue to push into ISS systems and take and hold one or more of their outposts. This is the least likely scenario, given Jokerb's observation that we'd be taking assets from shareholders who would then be motivated to crush us (see #2 above). However, in a war of attrition where it is mainly ISS vs. IAC, we would likely win. I could see the shareholders forcing ISS to stop a conflict to prevent further losses, not to mention the negative effects that the war has on the markets and thus profit.
Losses are hard to calculate on either side because ISS/IAC killboards are private, and not perfect. MC, for example has a public killboard and provides a 5 Million isk bounty if you have a killmail which isn't posted, so it is very accurate.
Our killboards say we've lost almost 1200 ships at 32Billion (which is undoubtadly low since people don’t like to admit they got killed) and ISS has lost almost 1400 ships at 35Billion (which is probably fairly accurate because folks like to brag). We also lost 10 ish POS for between 7.5-10billion. The outpost we lost is worth 25Billion, but we’re hoping to get it back, obviously. Plus we stole an ISS dreadnought the other day for 6B. Ignore the fact that our killboards don't take into account ship insurance which would defray more of ISS's loss than ours because they field crappy tech1 fleets. Factor in the estimated 30 billion that they've spent on MC over the last three weeks, then you figure they've spent around 70Billion or 14% of their IPO amount to fund the war, again not factoring in that their stations profits are probably negatively impacted.
My numbers are obviously only estimates, but are probably in the ballpark (+-50% for sure). 70 billion iskies for a 3 week long, small, regional war with a medium sized, motivated opponent, where most of the ships ISS fielded didn't belong to ISS. Of course, at the same time they were making money in other regions, but it is certainly a material expense that shareholders will undoubtedly be curious about.
Also, I have to agree with Erillion that the best investments in eve are _not_ real estate. I ‘own’ 10 shares of the outpost formerly known as the bottleshop in F4, which I spent .5 Billion on which are, at the moment, basically worthless since we don’t control the outpost anymore. What eve really needs is a game-sanctioned stock/real estate market. If I could get an accurate price for my 10 IAC F4 outpost shares based on a liquid, transparent, regulated market then I think we would have an interesting market-based predictor of the progress and outcome of the current war. (i.e. if people think IAC will take the outpost back, the price would rise.).
Posted by: JohnK | Dec 29, 2006 at 08:37
An important thing to note, and something that comes up quite often, is that none of the IPO money was used to pay for the mercenary forces. They were payed out of pocket by a few very rich players. Public funds never entered in to the equation, and the war has had less of an impact to ISS stations/markets than people realise. IAC may have been a good customer, but there are many others who still come in droves to ISS stations, and the shareholders are still making their ISK hand over fist.
Posted by: Mike B | Dec 29, 2006 at 09:31
@JohnK:
This is one of the most insightful (and insomuch as possible, untainted) analyses of the current conflict. I find it a bit out of water in this venue, but appreciate the data, as one who is keenly interested in not only the outcome (end) of the conflict, but also the larger implications.
Regarding previous posters' comments about virtual asset investment, I see it as a stocks and bonds question. The "real-estate" in the form of stations and outposts represent astronomical levels of return (if ISS releases are to be believed), at higher levels of risk. Blueprint assets, in contrast, represent a longer-term, stable investment with a lower rate of return.
If CCP continues to evolve the economic tools available in-game (such as the recent addition of "contracts"), economic warfare and wealth may (may) have a chance at holding the barbarians at bay.
Posted by: Gerret Peters | Dec 29, 2006 at 11:39
I know how much MC got paid, and it was nowhere NEAR 30bn. It wasnt even double figures.
They do very good rates for ISS, in fact I think it was pretty much at cost + ISS supplied the stront.
Posted by: Mr Alt | Dec 29, 2006 at 13:25
Ren Reynolds, CCP have been trying to encourage players to enter 0.0 en-mass. ISS are the sole real success story of that.
Also, no, they're not "neutral" since about 3 months ago when they removed the word from the charter.
The really big powers don't WORRY about the ISS, because they are not and cannot be a threat. It's the smaller powers, the hungry wolves, who cannot build for themselves and try and smell blood and attack the ISS to try and get what they see as their rightful cut. (Tyrell corp's little war comes to mind)
Then there's IAC, and I think IAC were...hasty starting a war, but they're not really in the hungry wolf catagory.
JohnK, the coalition was specifically tasked to TAKE the station, not to hold it. I know, I made quite a bit of ISK supplying elements of it with bulk amo :)
But if IAC push again, there's nothing stopping its reformation.
Posted by: Andrew Crystall | Dec 29, 2006 at 14:04
First off, I would like to say that I have just discovered this website. This is the first place I have seen that discusses and analyzes EVE without the visor of eve-politics and biases.
Now, on to the meat of the topic.
If you want to invest in eve, your best investment is a tech 2 BPO. Some of these make little isk, but even a fairly average t2 BPO will make a fair profit. consider the numbers, lets take a 100mn mwd II blueprint orginal. THis is valued at around 5-10bil isk, if I had to guess. The cost of the BPO itself is not the point; the profit is. crunching the numbers
3,494,000 build cost
8.9 million on the local market.
you can build 3.5 per day. Works out to ~130 million a week in profit, assuming the demand = or > the supply.
While the benefits of t2 BPO are certain, two things must be considered.
A) The time spent overseeing the construction process, and selling the modules
B) the considerable in-game cost of a t2 print.
Those who have not considerable personal wealth to begin with can not purchase a good t2 bpo. They can, however, buy shares in ISS stock. These shares pay out monthly, with no work.
Of course, unless you have a huge amount of ISK invested, the dividends themselves make a tiny pittance compared to a t2 BPO.
---
to return to an earlier topic, I have no idea exactly what MC were paid for the war, but it was not much. FIX and LV (two alliances which came to the aide of ISS, and will return if need be) were paid nothing. However, the war cost ISS very little in all honesty. Insurance defringes their tech 1 losses to negligable amounts. Individual pilots wallets also helped defringe personal losses. According to an inside source, the war with the Interstellar Alchohol Syndicate cost ISS just under 1/10th of what they earn in a month. However, as the isk earned by their various IPO was not used to fund the war, I imagine a few rich investors and ISS members probably personally funded the conflict from their personal wallets.
Posted by: Nicholas Himebaugh | Dec 29, 2006 at 16:50
This is an excellent site, I would like to point out some things though. As has allready been stated the coalition tasked with taking Bottleshop succeded so there was no reason for its continued existence, infact the thread on the ISS forums about what should be done with ISS Kopernicus as it is now known would surprise anyone not in ISS.
I would also like to say as others have that this war cost the ISS coalition peanuts compared to their weekly profit.
Also Johnk what were you smoking when you came up with those prices for dreadnaughts and carriers!!! 6bil for a dread and 3-6bil for a carrier!!! You are being ripped off my friend, halve those amounts for a realistic price.
Posted by: Joachim Winter | Dec 29, 2006 at 17:51
I believe he was quoting the price for Buying and properly equipping it. WHile this may not exactly come out to 3-6b (possibly a bit less if you spend little on the fittings) the fuel would probably make up some of the rest of the cost. 4b per cap ship, and 25b per mothership, would be appropriate. As for the Titan cost, thats not priceless. a Titan costs little to build; but the Blueprints and component blueprints are expensive.
Posted by: Nicholas Himebaugh | Dec 30, 2006 at 00:33
Thank you to everyone who responded to my earlier post. I sincerely apologize if I've introduced too much of _my_ meta game into _our_ meta meta game. In any case it would appear that regardless of the accuracy of my figures, the cost of the current war to ISS IPO shareholders has been vastly exaggerated, since they aren't paying for it. (which does beg the question, who gets the spoils of war, i.e. the outpost, but I digress)
Setting aside for a moment the PVP/Piracy threat to ISS or any eve 0.0 enterprise, being a 'publicly' owned entity introduced other complexities which are worth mentioning. Indeed, even without considering shareholders, it would be interesting to understand how some of the player-based organizations are managed. (How does MC handle payroll/dividing the spoils/rating pilots/communicating contracts while maintaining secrecy, for example?).
Securities operations:
In RL corporations where I've worked, we've had entire departments who do nothing but track who bondholders are to ensure that they are known and receive their interest payments correctly. According to the ISS site, it looks like there are currently 302 investors with not quite half of the shares having been sold. I imagine distributing the money and tracking ownership will be a non-trivial task.
Shareholder relations:
Who handles the inquiry when Joe Sixpack (or more likely in this case J03 51xpaX0Rs) who has 4 shares isn't happy with the return/management/some other conflict. Perhaps no one cares, but one would imagine that shareholder relations would be important to a publicly owned entity.
Audit and Control:
This one would actually apply to any large enough entity either public or private. I am in no way suggesting that ISS is a criminal enterprise. They've clearly spent a long time building a reputation in-game and are attracting large amounts of investment isks as a result. With any sufficiently complex organization especially with this much money moving around, you have the opportunity for a lone or group of bad actors who put their own benefit above that of the organization. This happens in real life all the time, where there are stiff penalties (a la jail time), let alone in a virtual universe where the game's creator (ccp) encourages such behavior. The fact that ccp does encourage fraud doesn't bode well for a proliferation of publicly held/traded entities regardless of the success of ISS's IPO.
As someone noted previously, the newly introduced contract system will undoubtedly help with the management of these activities. However, Eve as a virtual world is certainly limited in the support of these complex corporate functions with much of it, I’m sure, occurring out of game. (I personally have a few industrial type spreadsheets to track my own enterprise which is a sole proprietorship and trivial in comparison.)
Posted by: JohnK | Dec 30, 2006 at 08:44
Lets not forget that EVE attracts both industrial minded MMORPG players as well as accomplished con artists. Damage to other players has already reached 100+ billion ISK (in game money) in some con schemes. And CCP does NOT remburse players for losing money to con schemes like in other games, as long as the con artist did not break CCP rules. If you think what this EVE money is worth on lets say ebay, then you understand that a con artist can make a RL living from "playing" EVE.
Anyone investing money in any EVE "project" better not put all his eggs into one basket.
Have fun
Erillion
Posted by: | Dec 30, 2006 at 09:17
Another data point to consider :
One of the premier merc groups (KIA) has just been hired to hunt ISS and their customers.
Not taking any stations, just guerilla warfare to disrupt trade.
So it seems that there are as many players privately paying for ISS to fail as there are players privately paying for ISS to suceed.
Posted by: | Dec 30, 2006 at 09:21
I can not offer commentary on most of the further questions posed by JohnK, but I can answer one of them.
The Mercenary Coalition actually does not divide income from contracts to individual members. Contractual income is only a microscopic amount compared to the income the MC make from their solid economic backbone. The ISK income from contracts is divided evenly between the four corporations which make up the MC. While I do not know for sure, I believe that most of these corporations put their share of the income toward improving the corp, rather than paying individual members.
Again, the actual amount is very little, and usually dosent do much more than negate losses suffered during the course of the contract (ships, equipment, fuel, ect). Entities such as the Mercenary Coalition, KIA, and Band of Brothers alliance (BOB) rely heavily on a strong industrial (t2 BPO's, capital ship production, ect) backbone to ensure they are equipped with the best equipment possible.
As ive seen, the mercenaries actual pay is not the reason they are mercenaries. they are mercs because they enjoy fighting, and being the best at what they do/and the best equipped while they do it. Mercenaries such as the MC seem to thrive on efficiency. The better the equipment, the more efficient they are, and the more they enjoy themselves.
of course, I have rambled a bit here, and gone off target, but I believe ive answered that part of your question.
Posted by: Nicholas Himebaugh | Dec 30, 2006 at 15:13
Hey guys.
Now obviously I am not neutral in the issue of ISS's war with IAC, the same as the IAC fellow a few posts above me isn't. I am on the ISS management team. I'd like to address a few issues with JohnK's comments on this story. It's just a few minor mistakes that have been made, which are understandable since he's only seeing this from one side of the fence. Before I start, I must say thank you for having the guts to talk honestly about the situation your alliance is in. It's refreshing to see things from the other point of view :).
- 1. -
Dreadnoughts, when fully siege-fitted, are valued at approximately 2.5 billion isk. They don't come close to 6 billion or even 4 billion, with well fitted ones (with expensive gear) coming close to 3b.
Carriers cost roughly 1.5b fitted and are generally not deployed on the front lines but rather sit safely inside a POS shield and assign remote controlled fighters to gangmates to control.
Additionally, losing a carrier or dreadnought does not cost the owner the amount above due to insurance. Even uninsured dreadnought losses are mitigated by a 40% default insurance payout of approximately 600-700 million.
- 2. -
The ISSO IPO isk has not and will not be used to pay for the war effort. This would violate the shareholder trust and break the agreements laid out in the IPO document detailing where the isk is going. Any alliance isk used to fund the war effort is coming from the alliance wallet. This includes mercenary corp payments.
- 3. -
Station profits for Marginis and Tycho would be down slightly due to IAC no longer trading there. Fortunately, ISS have been more active on the markets in these systems, making up for any loss. I have yet to see the official dividend figures for this month but they will be out shortly.
As part of the ISSO IPO, a shopping basket of Tech 2 goodies was placed on the market in ISS Marginis. This will further stimulate the market as the richer pvpers in the alliance will buy them.
Additionally, since war was declared against ISS (by IAC), the alliance switched from its usual lazy self into war mode, with ship production in the warring area skyrocketing and prices to alliance members dropping. Production has shot way up and people are even donating ships to the war effort for free. We can now buy pretty much any ship/module we want now while a month ago the market was very scarce indeed.
I believe this also covers your question about how the markets have been performing. For reference, a 1% commission on all market activity goes into the shareholder wallet.
- 4. -
ISS Shareholders have no managerial influence on the alliance. The shares are non-voting isk investments. The only people calling the shots at ISS are the management team, headed by director Count TaSessine, the big cheese who has the final say on everything in the alliance.
Later you went on to ask some questions about the ISSO IPO, which I am more than willing to attempt an answer at based on what I know:
- 1. - Securities operations
The isk splitting from shares is actually very easy to manage. It's all done automatically for the most part. I am not 100% sure of the details from this particular IPO but I am regional coordinator for Providence region so I know how the shares work for the Providence IPO.
The tough part is processing all of the applications for people purchasing shares, a task that Serenity Steele deserves full credit for and to be honest a medal too. There's a minimum number of shares purchasable at one time simply to throttle the number of share requests per day come in to a manageable level.
As with any IPO, once these shares are completely out, that's that job over. We've already outsold every other IPO in the game ever made, including popular ones that have been out for over many months, and it's only been a few weeks. If there's one thing ISS knows how to do, it's an IPO
The isk is managed by using a newly created corp specially for the purpose. You see, an alliance cannot issue shares. Instead, a new corp is made within the alliance (or a current corp is used, I'm not sure which we did) and the IPO shares are issued from that corp. All of the isk to be paid to shareholders is simply put into the corp wallet and a dividend is paid by clicking the appropriate button. No need for tracking who owns what shares, it's all done automatically :).
- 2. - Shareholder relations
This may strike you as odd but in the entire time I've been in ISS, I have not seen nor heard of a problem with dissatisfied shareholder. The simple fact of the matter is that if someone isn't happy with the share dividends, the shares are very easilly resellable through the EGSE stockmarket. The dividends are as good as can be expected and have shown a trend of steadilly increasing over time.
The only one unhappy customer I've heard of was someone who was asking why the EGSE trading price of the ISS outpost IPO shares had gone down with the release of the ISSO IPO. The basic reason behind that was simple supply and demand. People wanted to sell their old shares and buy new ISSO IPO shares which promised a higher dividend. This is not something ISS can control.
- 3. - Audit and Control
Now this is a very good point and one I can't answer. For information on how isk is being divided up and used, contact Serenity Steele. I'll just say one thing about it. Look at ISS's track record and what we'd have to lose by pulling a fast one on eve. The thought in my head is that if you can't trust ISS, you can't trust anyone.
If several of the management team went rogue and ripped off as much of the alliance assets as they could, the private alliance wallet would probably take the hit in order to protect the shareholder's investment. I personally have very deep pockets and would more than likely give a significant portion of it to the alliance if something like this happened.
ISS brings a certain brand of gameplay to eve that no other alliance does the same way, and it's something that has caught a lot of attention in the media. There are a great deal of people who very much appreciate the unique gameplay that ISS brings to eve and would be reluctant to let it go. I really can't imagine an Eve without ISS and I don't think it's a prospect that any of the older major alliances would like.
(Hope my alliance leader is okay with me posting here. I have only the best of intentions. It should be noted that while I am in ISS managment, I do not represent them in this message. official contact should be made with "Count TaSessine" regarding alliance matters and "Serenity Steele" regarding the IPO)
Posted by: Nyphur | Dec 31, 2006 at 04:07
The ISS thing, like all Eve concerns, quickly hit the "we're too bored being responsible" wall:
http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=451617&page=1
Accusations of bias, of mercenaries MC picking fights without any contract sponsor, and quoted postings revealing ISS management... ahem.. terminological innacuracies follow.
Posted by: Endie | Dec 31, 2006 at 20:26
Nice post Nyphur. and Im not IAC:)
Endie, lets keep eve-o's political forum flames to a minimum here, mate. However, as its already been brought in, I feel the need to respond. I will not respond again, to ensure the flames stay down.
the MC had a client. He is a good friend of mine. As for Count's word usage, he said nothing that was not, at least partially, true. For details, google "Machiavelli, The Prince, Mercenary Captain" and you will find the quote Count Tassessine refered to when "slandering" the MC mercenaries. As you can see by Machiavelli's words, Count Tassessine was telling the truth in his private message to Butter Dog. The MC themselves more or less agree with Machiavelli's description of a mercenary captain. Additionally, Seleene (The leader of the Mercenary Coalition) had/has no problems with the terminological word usage quoted in that thread.
anyway, moving away from eve politics.
From what I can see in the market history in the area of conflict, + what I see of Nyphurs post, it would appear that the IAC conflict may actually turn out beneficial to share dividends this month. Not only has the conflict created increased supply and demand among ISS members, but it has brought a large client base (temporarily) into the area. The various alliances which moved to support ISS against the IAC undoubtably based in the KDF/ZXIC stations, and given the sheer number of them, I imagine more than a few utilized ISS market services during the course of the campaign. I myself purchased two named nanofiber units from KDF station. Neither purchase would have been made if not for the conflict. I imagine 300+ other pilots, of the 800 or so involved in the conflict (who are iss/friendly to iss) would have made similar small purchases.
Posted by: Nicholas Himebaugh | Jan 02, 2007 at 04:00
Nicholas, I think you misunderstand my motivations. I posted that link just because it was relevant to the story here. Politically, i don't give a monkey: I've enver posted on the Eve-O in almost a year of playing. I don't have a dog in this fight, since my corp (F13) and I are piddly little, unallied insignificants.
Posted by: Endie | Jan 02, 2007 at 11:40
Posted by: Serenity Steele | Jan 04, 2007 at 22:24
ISS's days are numbered, it would be a very poor investment right now.
Posted by: Bjorn | Jan 05, 2007 at 16:04
Bjorn is very right. ISS just got wardecced by D2, for starters. Probably more declarations are coming, though as I stated above, I'm really not into the forum drama. The most likely extra dog on the pile is RAGOON. Fighting them is just plain demeaning. They are a large number of hilariously disturbing people.
Posted by: Endie | Jan 05, 2007 at 16:20
RAGOON? Thanks for the pointer. As follow-up to previous Eve-Online story (Dr Stangelove) and this one:
Posted - 2006.12.08 21:32:00 - [1]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edited by: Celero Incendium on 09/12/2006 01:34:05
Okay so LV has an Amarr Titan, Enslaver is piloting it, they used a suicide cyno pilot in a probe to drop the cyno on the RAGOON fleet on the GD gate in 1V, who did not warp out because they didn't realize LV had a titan yet, and then BOOM. 215+ kill mails confirmed. Lag was pretty bad afterwards, it took over three minutes for Enslaver to start getting killmails. The revelation of the titan has come as a surprise to almost as many LV as it did to RAGOON pilots.
The Doomsday Device has been fired a second time at least, and another fleet has felt it's effects.
Pics:
Doomsday Wreckage
Why hello there...
I see the light!
215 killmails...
from here
Posted by: nate combs | Jan 06, 2007 at 09:44
Bjorn, Endie and Nate Combs you are mistaken.
Re-read the post I made; The current IPO profitability is not related to control of the the conquerable station space assets.
ISS has now sold more shares in the New IPO than the value of all the 9 stations combined (4 of which are currently under assault).
Posted by: | Jan 06, 2007 at 12:11
^^ Post is from Serenity Steele.
Posted by: Serenity Steele | Jan 06, 2007 at 12:12
Brave sentiments, Serenity. But companies that suddenly lose massive assets (looks like an array of ISS's POSs just went offline; stations will be siezed etc) don't usually see hikes in profits.
I'm not the first to suspect that the Guiding Hand Social Club might yet turn out to have been involved. Those damned, elusive pimpernels.
Posted by: Endie | Jan 06, 2007 at 18:06
It's on the front page of TerraNova, but quickly overtaken by events. Such is Eve.
Massive IPO followed by massive war. Kiss that investment goodbye.
Posted by: Krumpit | Jan 07, 2007 at 02:14
"Brave sentiments, Serenity. But companies that suddenly lose massive assets (looks like an array of ISS's POSs just went offline; stations will be siezed etc) don't usually see hikes in profits."
Absolutely, The Company making the massive IPO mentioned in this article (ISSO), Is not the company that owns the POS, Stations etc being siezed and destroyed.
Ironically, the ISSO does however pay the costs for maintaining those stations, so .. the net effect of all the wars is:
No change in ISSO assets
Reduction in ISSO operating cost
= Increase in profits.
Posted by: Serenity Steele | Jan 07, 2007 at 16:42
Errmm, seems I have turned into a prophet lately :
>>>>>>>>
"2007.01.07 20:54
As of this weekend, ISS Cassini Outpost corporations only revenue generating asset - ISS Cassini Outpost in EC-P8R was seized by Dusk and Dawn Alliance
An overwhelming fleet Capital ships, Support Ships and D2's Titan participated in destroying the towers in Cassini - despite having over 48hrs stronium - due to identical timing of an assault by IAC/AAA/GoonFleet assault on the ISS Marginis station.
The Dusk and Dawn corporations and member pilots involved in the assault include the original owners of the outpost. The original owners previously received 20bn isk for the sales of the stations to the EvE Public through the original ISS Managed Cassini IPO.
The dividend accrued to date will be issued on 1st February. ISS have no immediate plans or capability to re-capture this station. An announcement will be made on the future of the ISSCA shares at that time."
>>>>>>
http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=456578
The "barbarians" did not wait long once the fruits where ripe enough.
Have fun
Erillion
Posted by: Erillion | Jan 08, 2007 at 08:35
ISS shares have been delisted for the moment, in order to prevent a right unholy price crash.
Those of us who, when invited to invest in an Eve-Online IPO, said "hehe, you're funny when you talk" sit around looking relieved.
Posted by: Endie | Jan 11, 2007 at 05:45
The outposts have fallen but ISS has put a reimbursement programme in place for investors our of their own pocket. Additionally, the ISSO IPO is performing as expected. People who had hoped this war would kill ISS are being sorely disappointed to find out that we don't function like the territorial alliances in the game and taking our "territory" doesn't destroy the alliance or severely dent the business plan. Shareholders in the ISSO IPO are finding that their investment wasn't affected by the loss of the stations.
We pioneered the first ever IPO in an MMO, we don't do them half-assed :).
Posted by: Nyphur | Jan 22, 2007 at 08:05
Yep, the IPO was, officially, a failure, and an expensive one for both the investors and the backers who are trying to refund a percentage of the invested cash.
As can be seen in the ISS official announcement, they've sold the stations for about half-price and are licking their wounds. Their basic problem seems not to have been their business model, but the close alignment to certain elements in the BoB/LV etc alliances. Nobody really believed that they were neutral, and when that came to blows, they were quickly punished.
Posted by: Endie | Feb 19, 2007 at 06:42