EVE Online producer CCP Games announced Project Awakening (opens in a new tab) yesterday, a new game set in the EVE universe that threatens to “combine CCP’s 25 years of game design experience with the latest in blockchain technology.” And while the reaction from various crypto experts and people with “.eth” in their Twitter usernames was predictably bullish, parts of the EVE Online community have responded with, well, derision. Just pure, unbridled mockery.
EVE Online subreddit (opens in a new tab) is currently a wasteland of memes, rants and anger about the project. Much of the uproar revolves around blockchain as a concept: Gamers have flooded the community with a series of posts with titles like “The shitposts will continue until the CCP stops handling crypto (opens in a new tab)” and “Eve Online fraud takes the next step with Blockchain (opens in a new tab)“. Others sarcastically recall the time the CCP dismissed NFTs as “Not For Tranquility (opens in a new tab)” (Ro is the name of EVE Online’s solitary game server).
“NFT stands for “Not for Tranquility” – Hilmar Veigar Pétursson 2022 from r/Eve
Meanwhile, responses to the CCP’s tweet announcing the project are split between people who say things like (opens in a new tab) “Speaking for the entire web3 community: we can’t wait!” and EVE players calling these people clowns. A Twitter user named Cannon fodder (opens in a new tab) summed up the reaction that “People who have never played a single hour or Eve Online think this is a W,” predicting failure for Project Awakening and perhaps even CCP as a whole unless “blockchain technology is completely invisible to the average player .”
But players are also outraged by what they see as CCP’s long history of pursuing boondoggles at the expense of EVE Online’s development, reserving current CEO Hilmar Pétursson for particular ire. Many memes poke fun at the CCP’s long library of canceled and closed games (opens in a new tab)— such as World of Darkness Online and Dust 514 — and accuses Pétursson of repeatedly chasing fashionable golden geese instead of focusing on fixing EVE Online’s problems.
Many feel that the $40 million CCP has raised for Project Awakening would have been better spent tweaking EVE: “Funny how much money they don’t put into what made them their money,” said user mtgsyko82 (opens in a new tab).
“If at first you don’t succeed” from r/Eve
I’ve reached out to CCP to ask for comment on the EVE community’s reaction to Project Awakening, and I’ll update this piece if I hear back.
The EVE forums themselves are a bit more subdued, but every thread about the new game posted so far has been distinctly negative in tone. One, simply called “Blockchain Folly (opens in a new tab)“, is aimed directly at Pétursson: “This obsession of yours persists beyond anyone else in the world and realizes that things unnecessarily tied to the blockchain are almost universally unreliable at best,” it says, adding “Hopefully you fail to destroy EVE further with this latest bug.”
So I don’t think CCP can count on many EVE players to make the transition to Project Awakening unless it manages to put out a really thought provoking trailer that makes us all eat humble pie about this “blockchain” thing at some point down the line the road. Still, I doubt the game’s failure (or even success) will determine whether EVE as a whole sinks or swims. On the other hand, eroding the confidence and enthusiasm of EVE fans could prove fatal in the long run.
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