With EVE Online celebrating its 17th anniversary, it would stand to reason that CCP Games’ CEO Hilmar Petursson would have a few things to say. Sure enough, there was a substantial letter to the community posted today, remarking on some of the community’s charitable efforts and talking about where the game itself has gone and where it’s headed next.
On the subject of community philanthropy, Petursson notes that the current PLEX for GOOD campaign to help with COVID-19 relief has raised over $100,000 USD. The campaign will run until June — the longest such campaign EVE has held — and players who donate will be getting some Virtual Masks as rewards. Donations can also be diverted to the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security if players want.
PLEX for GOOD isn’t the only player-driven initiative, of course. There’s also Project Discovery, a citizen science initiative run by the folks at Massively Multiplayer Online Science; readers will recall that this was used to help with the Human Protein Atlas project and join in the hunt for exoplanets. The third phase of this project will involve fighting against COVID-19, with details to come soon.
As for EVE Online itself, Petursson noted the long-term plans for the title in order to see it “outlive us all”:
“We are setting EVE up to flourish in its third decade. That means investments in improving the early experience for new players, putting foundational and sometimes challenging work into the EVE ecosystem, investing in the technological infrastructure of EVE and continuously challenging our core with updates, delivered through the new Quadrant plan.”
As for the game’s current state, Petursson says “is going through a steep upward trend right now” that has undoubtedly been helped by the pandemic, though he says it began in August of 2019. EVE Online fans will recall last summer’s worryingly low playerbase following CCP’s attempt to sow chaos with a comms blackout. According to EVE Offline’s login data, the game had recovered by November, chiefly a result of its launch in South Korea; the pandemic-influenced increases are seen beginning in March of this year. Revenue and subscription data, of course, could be another story, a story we expect to hear next week when CCP boss Pearl Abyss launches its quarterly investor call.
Join us today in celebrating EVE Online's 17th birthday at https://t.co/1MItCkOcFM!
CCP Helmar, @CCPGames CEO, will discuss the state of EVE and upcoming updates with @CCP_Convict & @EliseRandolph – followed by an Q&A, so bring your questions 🎆🚀
Happy birthday Capsuleers o7 pic.twitter.com/FZnJMCjwv6
— EVE Online (@EveOnline) May 6, 2020
