EVE Online: The Worlds of Wealth and War

This article explores the distribution of player owned wealth in EVE Online. I apply standardized methods such as the Gini Coefficient, a statistical dispersion intended to represent the wealth distribution of a nation’s residents, to explore EVE Online’s wealth distribution. I also explore the relationship between a players’ time in game, and their wealth. Using these methods, I find that EVE Online’s wealth is highly concentrated, more so than the real-world economy. Additionally, I cast doubt on EVE Online having a first-mover advantage. Those players who started first have not gained a lasting competitive advantage by gaining control of resources. Instead, wealth is strongly correlated with a player’s time in game.

Monetising memory? MMOGs, anniversaries, and ownership of the past

Boundaries, Trust and Reputation in Virtual and Illicit Markets

The current narrative in criminology is that drawing behavioural parallels between groups observed in virtual markets and groups within illicit markets is hampered by the lack of legal frameworks to outline and describe criminal activities. Without a legal framework it is a struggle to distinguish normative behaviour from deviant behaviour. However, this paper argues that rather than lacking legal frameworks, virtual worlds have an extensive set of formal and informal social controls that approximate the legal and social regulations placed on illicit markets in the physical world. Both the virtual market and illicit markets are punctuated by their use of violence as a tool to resolve disputes, protect markets and enforce financial transactions in the ongoing absence of legal regulation. Therefore, that if the criminological narrative can be adapted to recognise the parallels between the two markets, then the opportunity exists to study the behavior of individuals and groups in a controlled and well observed setting contained in virtual markets. This will provide insights into the structures and relationships between illicit market groups in the physical world.

Public History, Game Communities and Historical Knowledge

In considering history and video games, great emphasis is placed on the ways in which historical information can be encoded in game content as a route to fostering an engagement with the past, and with historical narratives. This paper proposes that more attention should be paid to the communities which form around games, and to the historical activity which arises organically within those communities, particularly those which form around persistent massively multiplayer online games. The ideas of public history can be drawn upon to understand how this historical activity functions, and how it might be valued as a form of engagement not only with the past of those playing, but with the practices of history more generally, and with historical concepts such as truth, bias and authenticity.

“You don’t ever stop playing EVE Online, you just take a break”: Rethinking what it means to quit a Massively Multiplayer Online Game

Selling the Imperium: Changing Organisational Culture and History in EVE Online

This paper uses two different methodologies to look at the culture and identity of different organisations in the digital game EVE Online. First, it uses a critical historical perspective to look at how powerful individuals and groups in Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games attempt to construct active identities. Secondly, through ethnography and ethnomethodology, it looks at how the player base responds to modifications to this identity and how conflicts between leadership and membership are formed, perceived, and resolved. Looking specifically at two different events in EVE Online’s history, this paper finds that line members in the game have a lot of power in determining how the group identity forms, and if pushed sufficiently by leaders against their will, they will be able to stop changes from occurring. The lack of resistance, then, can be taken as implicit legitimacy for the actions from the leaders, in particular in the case of naming The Imperium.

EVE is Real

Used in a wide variety of contexts, a common colloquialism among EVE Online players is the phrase ‘EVE is real’. In this paper, we examine the various ways in which EVE is considered ‘real’ by its players, identifying a nuanced and powerful concept that goes significantly beyond real/virtual distinctions that have already been critiqued in game studies literature. We argue that, as a form of paratext, colloquialisms like this play an enormous role in shaping EVE Online’s informal rules (in particular towards treachery), constructing the identity of EVE Online players, communicating the seriousness of EVE Online play while in other cases, emphasizing the gameness of the MMOG.

Constructing the Ideal EVE Online Player

EVE Online, released in 2003 by CCP Games, is a space-themed Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG). This sandbox style MMOG has a reputation for being a difficult game with a punishing learning curve that is fairly impenetrable to new players. This has led to the widely held belief among the larger MMOG community that “EVE players are different”, as only a very particular type of player would be dedicated to learning how to play a game this challenging. Taking a critical approach to the claim that “EVE players are different”, this paper complicates the idea that only a certain type of player capable of playing the most hardcore of games will be attracted to this particular MMOG. Instead, we argue that EVE’s “exceptionalism” is actually the result of conscious design decisions on the part of CCP games, which in turn compel particular behaviours that are continually reinforced as the norm by the game’s relatively homogenous player community.