Blink is shutting down. Somer posted the following announcement:
Hey friends,
Thanks for all the years of Blink that we’ve spent together. It’s been a long four years– some of it longer than others! Unfortunately, as of today, Blink is going to go on extended– perhaps indefinite– hiatus. CCP has gone back on everything they said several months ago, and the resulting environment is so hostile that it’s not one we want to try to operate in, if CCP throws us under the bus.
If you have prizes waiting, they will be fulfilled. You can claim prizes as normal. Bonk tickets have been refunded to your account balance. We will begin refunding all account balances of people that have played in the last 6 months, starting with balances over 10 million ISK. As always, we’re not in the business of stealing your money. It’s been an absolute pleasure to meet many of you, through Blink, Eve, and our lotteries channel. Thank you for the experience.
Although this announcement may seem sudden, a lot has been going on behind the scenes, and this kind of controversy is not new for Somer. Somer recently landed in hot water in the community at large for finding a way to profit out of PLEX purchased through Markee Dragon, a popular timecard and game code website. As of this moment, CCP has not commented on Blink shutting down, but CCP Falcon did post on the EVE-O forums yesterday regarding the situation :
Based on Somer’s announcement today, there are three possibilities: the investigation did not return a favorable result for Somer and Blink is shutting down as a result, CCP dropped the hammer on Somer for this and past questionable activities and ended their association, or Somer decided to leave before the situation escalated.
If the water currently wasn’t muddy enough though, Somer leaked a supposed email between himself and Lisa Bell-Cabrera, VP of Global Sales, at CCP HQ. In the email chain, it would appear as though tacit permission was given to Somer to proceed with his most recent promotion; however, this is currently unverifiable, and should be taken with a grain of salt.
Update: CCP Falcon responded to the news of the Blink shutdown.
Hey guys,
We’re aware that SOMER Blink has posted a message to state that their services are shutting down.
We’re also well aware that a lot of members of the community have enjoyed playing SOMER Blink over the course of the last four years, and it’s very unfortunate and saddening to see a source of enjoyment for our players closing its doors.
In the same respect however, we believe that the promotion that caused this issue was not representative of the original proposal that was brought to CCP.
Given that we’re unable to provide reimbursements as per section 1.3 of our reimbursement policy, it’s good to see that SOMER Blink is shutting down in a controlled and stable manner, and that players will be able to withdraw their ISK and / or assets.
While we will be monitoring this closely, we have no intention of interfering with this process, as we feel that allowing players to be able to have their assets and / or ISK returned by SOMER Blink of their own free will is an important part of bringing this situation to a solid resolution.
We’ll have more information for you guys tomorrow, once myself and CCP Leeloo get back into the office and speak to the relevant people, including the CSM.
This remains a top priority for the community team, those involved in other parts of CCP, and the CSM.
Thanks for your patience while we work on bringing this to a close.
[EDITORS NOTE: This was first published on TheMittani.com by Kimsemus]
