I've been in the Eve blogging community for seven years, podcasting for over two, on twitter, and paying attention to Eve during that whole time and not ONCE do I remember hearing of this guy.
EveTimeCode.com, however, has been visible in the community practically during that whole time and Diana Dial has supported podcasts frequently. Battleclinic has widely recognized loadout section, forums, killboards, hosts EFT and supports the community as well as selling Game time codes for Eve. So I'm not sure how I missed Markee Dragon.
I think it was a poor move on CCP's part to choose to highlight one authorized reseller as a "community spotlight" while ignoring all others that have also contributed to the community in arguably equal or superior ways.
Am I the only one?
Markee Dragon was the baron of RMT in Ultima Online, a man hated (or loved) by many. He gets serious coverage in Julian Dibbell's book "Play Money," which was about trying to make money in RMT.
ReplyDeleteOf course, that is all pretty much ancient history at this point, so maybe CCP was just engaging in the journalistic slow-news-day practice of "Where are they now?"
(I wrote the above before actually looking at what CCP said about him. Having read it, I feel confirmed in my position. He got in because he has a history.)
Their rules for community spotlight are weird. When we (I won't say who) were contacted about being on community spotlight, we were sent a list of questions. They were typcial softball interview questions. We sent our responses to one person who kind of wrangled them into a single document. I was surprised to see that CCP didn't do a whole lot of editing before posting it. It was all very strange. If you look back at all the different spotlights, there is no obvious pattern to their choices. Some of them are relatively new to the game, some not. There all sorts of ancient groups in this game that have gotten no attention and it's not clear why.
ReplyDeleteHe's the only GTC selling through SOMER Blink right now, which is why I know about him. From there I saw his 30day challenge and watched a twitch or so, but I've stopped following him since he seems to be done with Eve again. Perhaps it's the delay of the time needed to get the spotlight going, but it would be kinda odd if he appears there just as he quits playing Eve again.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the mention. We use the proceeds from our ETC sales to improve and extend BattleClinic's tools (like EVEMon and the other stuff you note). It's how we keep everything free. Everyone who runs or works for the site is a long-time EVE player too, so BC truly is 'by the players for the players.'
ReplyDeleteCCP has contacted us about a spotlight, and we've asked that we hold off until the fall, because we'll be unveiling some much-requested improvements to the killboards. So, they are reaching out to a variety of fansites, but in what order we don't know. It does seem a bit odd that they'd profile a pure reseller who only indirectly supports the EVE player community, but it's certainly their interrogative.
Auto-correct 4TL - "prerogative" :-)
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