We’ve previously covered CCP Games’ Hilmar Petersson’s comments on not giving up after all EVE Online’s unsuccessful spinoffs, including most recently Project Nova. But it’s starting to seem likely that CCP isn’t too concerned specifically because it thinks EVE itself is about to explode overseas.
Speaking with GIbiz at Reboot Develop Blue last week, Petersson suggests that Pearl Abyss’ acquisition of CCP has boosted the Korean playerbase and that its foray into the Chinese market is also about to blow up, partly because of a burgeoning regional interest in sci-fi.
“A big part of our plan going forward had to do with Asia overall. […] The reason why we’re pushing on it now is that, historically, science fiction has not been a big topic in Korea and China. But ever since China set its eyes on space, building a massive space programme… And then there was a pretty profound moment with the novel The Three Body Problem — an amazing science fiction book written by a Chinese author [Liu Cixin] — when you read that book it’s like, yes, that is relevant to our times right now. That has turned sci-fi more and more popular in China.”
