With the tournament over in December 2012 and Own3D’s promised prize money liquidated by early February, CCP seemed to take their time addressing the problem.

A Customer Service Challenge

Investigation of the EVE forums shows that, on the 1st March, CCP Dolan offered the following explanation for the ongoing delays:

EVE Online players can be notoriously guarded about their identities and often have multiple EVE accounts.

At least half of the invoices will be going out today, and if I don’t finish them all then the rest will go out on Monday.”

However, another two weeks passed and the forum enquiries about the payment whereabouts continued. The challenges of international banking seemed to have put paid to CCP Dolan’s best laid plans:

No Resolution

A month later and the forum thread continued to be filled with disgruntled and unpaid tournament participants. Even CCP staff involved with the tournament were starting to wring their hands, with EVE TV Director CCP Loxy weighing in:

Rest assured that everyone is going to receive their prizes. I will likely be doing a round of prizes with everyone who has given me information that is correct and is what was requested in their mails to me. I will then be sitting down to work through any special cases with everyone else (likely immediately after fanfest).” - CCP Dolan, 14th April 2013

CCP Loxy’s involvement lead to the revelation that “of ~75 people eligible for a share of the prize there are just a handful that have actually filled out the invoices properly.”

So it seemed that the problem largely laid with the prizewinners not providing the necessary details to deliver the prize money. Nevertheless, CCP Dolan and CCP Loxy persevered:

It was notable that some prizewinners seemed to be asking for some very particular methods of transfer, with one forum-goer being prepared to waive his prize money entirely if it could not be awarded as in-game currency. According to CCP Loxy, others had still not been in contact. A subsequent email with more explicit instructions was promised and CCP Loxy pledged to see that subsequently received invoices would be processed on a weekly basis.

However, despite redoubled efforts, a further month would pass before a resolution was found…

Next: What Can Be Learned From the EVE Online Prize Money Debacle? 

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