EVE Online studio CCP Games has announced that it is working on a new triple-A game set in the EVE universe, and I am very sorry to say that it is a blockchain game.
“Since its inception, CCP Games’ vision has been to create virtual worlds that are more meaningful than real life,” CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson told projectawakening.io (opens in a new tab). “Now, with advances made in blockchain, we can forge a new universe deeply imbued with our expertise in player agency and autonomy, empowering players to engage in new ways.”
The announcement is really about the funding of the project, rather than the game itself: CCP received $40 million in development funding from Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm founded by Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen. However, CCP said the project will “leverage smart-contract blockchain technology, focusing on persistence, composability and truly open third-party development to create a new relationship between virtual worlds and players.”
I’m honestly not sure what that’s supposed to mean, and unfortunately the Andreessen Horowitz announcement (opens in a new tab) is not more informative.
“This new AAA title will combine CCP’s 25 years of game design experience with the latest in blockchain technology to enable a new frontier in player agency and autonomy, and will also be set in the EVE universe,” it said.
“Together, we share the belief that player ownership and governance within an open platform can be a key source of fun that serves to reinforce great gameplay and captivating game design.”
That’s an interesting note there: Andreessen Horowitz said that CCP “has already made great strides in product development and we’ve been very impressed with the playtests so far.” It’s more than just empty promises and other people’s money being thrown around, in other words.
Still, I have questions. Despite announcements like this, blockchain-based game development seems stagnant, perhaps because so few developers are actually interested in it. GDC’s annual developer survey (opens in a new tab) found that only 12% of respondents were in favor of using blockchain technology in games, compared to 56% who were opposed. Worse, I’ve never seen anyone explain what a blockchain-based game is going to accomplish for players that conventional technology can’t. And there’s been real backlash against blockchain and NFTs in video games, even though I’m starting to think about our declaration that they’ve been bullied out of mainstream gaming (opens in a new tab) may have been a little too early.
The reaction to Pétursson’s tweet from crypto enthusiasts and blockchain developers is predictably positive, but it is somewhat more mixed from other quarters:
Speaking for myself, I don’t see the point in throwing around pointless buzzwords to hype a game that for all intents and purposes does not exist beyond a funding announcement. But that’s how it always seems to be with blockchain game announcements: We hear about the money, but not the games. Of course, there’s no guarantee that this project will ever see the light of day anyway, as CCP seems to have trouble making anything that isn’t EVE Online.
Pétursson has previously expressed some enthusiasm for the “untapped potential” of blockchain technology, but also acknowledged that there is “a lot of work needed” before it is ready to be used in games like EVE Online. He explicitly stated in 2022 that “we have no plans to add blockchain technology to EVE Online’s global server Tranquility in the foreseeable future,” adding that “to us, NFT stands for ‘Not for Tranquility’ (opens in a new tab).”
