How EVE Online Still Thrives, 10 Years Later

[[RC]Hunter]

"How the hell does something like EVE Online survive and thrive for a decade?" The questions rattled around in my brain as I sat inside the Harpa – the symphony hall in Reykjavik, Iceland – watching nearly 1,400 players of EVE Online and Dust 514 converse for Fanfest, the annual show dedicated to all things CCP Games.

It doesn't make sense, really. There's no reason that a 10-year-old space game should still have as strong of a following as it does, let alone one that's growing at such an astronomical rate.


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Corporations and a sense of belonging keep players coming back to EVE where typical MMO guilds just wouldn't cut it. It isn't just about meeting up and taking down a raid boss, it's about controlling territory, competing against other corporations, and creating something that will continue to operate with or without you.

EVE's economy is so rich that CCP actually employs five full-time economists to keep things in balance and make sure that nothing is being done to abuse the systems set in place. This system relies on a series of closely monitored and guarded set of principles that keep everything inside the EVE economy running smoothly and in balance.

In a single year, EVE Online went from 400,000 subscribers to 500,000. Before that, the numbers were much, much smaller; yet, somehow, it persevered.

Throughout the show, I asked players, "What makes EVE different?" and their responses were all roughly the same: "EVE is whatever you want it to be." EVE isn't about what's already there for the player to explore, it's all about what the players want to do and how they can create their own stories that change the game drastically for not only themselves, but for everyone.


Renewed Sense of Exploration

EVE also isn't about following a set path. Sure, there are quests and missions that you could do, but that's not what makes EVE, EVE.

In fact, that probably has very little to do with it.

EVE is about going your own way, in your own time, for your own reasons. EVE isn't great because of the preset story, it's the player-made tales that set it apart.

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To that end, there's a renewed sense of exploration around every corner. "The second you think you know what's going to happen, that's when things go horribly wrong," said one EVE player attending Fanfest. And that holds true throughout all facets of EVE. Things change and you can never be complacent, because the second you are, you're dead.

For instance, there was a recent, spur-of-the-moment event where a Titan pilot (the most expensive ship class in the game) accidentally clicked wrong and warped through space prematurely, before the rest of his corporation could jump with him. By the time the mistake was realized, he was in low-sec space (low security, meaning not much policing is done by in-game police) and vulnerable to attack. Multiple alliances jumped at the chance and by the end of the weekend, 3,161 players had entered the battle, with 222 ships biting the dust. This ended up costing players a combined total of 470 billion ISK (in-game currency, not Icelandic ISK).

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Not only is there a high monetary investment to creating a Titan-class ship in EVE, but there's also a significant time investment to building any kind of ship. Crafting a Titan can take months of real-world time and yet, it can be gone in a weekend due to one wrong button press.

Something like that could only happen in EVE.

Corporations and the Economy

If you've heard anything about EVE in the last few years, it's probably because some in-game corporation did something outlandish that ended up causing a chain reaction of events culminating in an all-out space war. That happens often in EVE.

Take alliances like the Goonswarm federation, which spawned from the Something Awful community. If you play EVE, you either love them or hate them. As one member of Goonswarm explained it, "We aren't out to ruin the game, we're out to ruin *your* game." With a motto like "every ship counts," that doesn't sound too far off.


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