Eve Online Council chairman may resign over harassment of suicidal player

The newly re-elected chairman of the Eve Online Council of Stellar Management Alexander Gianturco - AKA The Mittani - has apologised for his behaviour during a session at this year's Eve Fanfest in Reykjavik, and announced his intention to resign.

As we reported yesterday, Gianturco had used the Alliance presentation session to mock a player who appeared to be suffering from depression and suicidal thoughts. Later in the presentation, he named the player concerned and urged those watching to continue harassing him.

"Incidentally, if you want to make the guy kill himself, his name is [REDACTED]", said a drunken Gianturco.

"He has his own Corp. Find him."

Developer CCP quickly announced an investigation into the matter, while the chairman took to Twitter yesterday evening to announce his intention to resign.

"Just landed. Step one, apologize profusely. Step two, resign. Step three, send all my isk to the victim. Entirely my fault and unacceptable."

The full apology was made on the official Eve Online forums shortly afterwards. While not confirming his resignation, a later post confirmed that the action was still being considered, pending discussions with other members of the Council.

His original statement to the community is provided in full below:

"This has been hanging over my head since Thursday when I stumbled away from the Alliance Panel with a vague sense that I had done something horrible. I didn't know the extent of how much of a shitheel I had been until today, when footage of the presentation went up. As many of you now know, I gave out the in-game character name of a Mackinaw miner if anyone had wanted to blow him up - except that I was so smashed that I didn't recall exactly what I said (as anyone who was there can tell you). When I came to the forums the other day and saw threads complaining about my behavior - not remembering what I'd said - I assumed that I was enduring the usual anti-Goonswarm trolls, and posted something like "deal with it~" in my usual 'The Mittani' way.

"Then I landed, and saw the article listing my actual quote.

"Christ.

"I feel absolutely ashamed of my behavior at the Alliance Panel. It's one thing to play a villain in an online roleplaying game - when I post on these forums or on twitter, I usually do so as 'The Mittani', and do my level best to convince everyone that I'm an unrepentant space villain, as that kind of facade provides an in-game advantage to me and my alliance. But I am not that character in real life, as anyone who has met me can attest. I went way, way, /way/ past the line on Thursday night by mocking the Mackinaw miner at a real-life event. I, as a person, am not the entity that I play in EVE; I am not actually a sociopath or a sadist, and I certainly don't want people to kill themselves in real life over an internet spaceship game, no matter what I may say or do within the game itself. CCP may say 'EVE is Real', but EVE is not real - and the line between the game and reality should not be overstepped.

"I'm relieved to discover that the Mackinaw miner is doing fine and mining away, despite being blown up by Goonswarm in-game. He deserves, and he has, my heartfelt apologies - here in public as well as a private apology. There's no excuse for what I did - while some might try to use my inebriation as a mitigating factor, I put myself in that compromised mental state, and the guilt of that is entirely mine.

"If I could go back in time and not have included the slide mentioning the miner, I would do so. While the Eve Online character "The Mittani" would never apologize for any sort of villany in game, I myself, as Alex Gianturco, feel utterly ashamed and sickened by my behavior."

You can see footage of the Alliance presentation below, with Gianturco's controversial comments appearing at around 1 hour 12 minutes. This video contains strong language.