The possible shadow of a crypto and NFT Damocles continues to hang over EVE Online. We’ve previously reported on this year’s GDC conference being all-in on cryptobabble, but a worrying development for EVE fans is a tweeted image from a self-described “web3 entrepreneur and metaverse asset accumulator” who expressed his excitement at a “private session with [CCP Games CEO Hilmar Petursson] to talk about EVE Online” with various other crypto and NFT company heads at the GDC conference.
Fellow blogger Wilhelm Arcturus of The Ancient Gaming Noob took some time to collect information of the companies tagged in the tweet, highlighting each company’s Twitter profile and its association with crypto, web3, and NFTs, and noting that the original tweet was retweeted by EVE Online’s official game account. Perhaps more disconcerting is the fact that the game’s Twitter has apparently since redacted that retweeting.
Regardless, the game’s community is already in an uproar over the meeting, with a combination of calls for Petursson to leave, pushback against NFT integration into the space sandbox, and predictions that this year’s EVE Fanfest will be particularly interesting, with worries that some play-to-earn scheme or blockchain connection will be announced during the event.
Readers will note that EVE has already been testing the waters of NFT integration previously, handing out NFTs as prizes during a recent esports tournament, while Petursson was also on the record last December that he supports blockchain tech but isn’t looking to integrate it into EVE currently. Meanwhile, publisher Pearl Abyss said in a Q4 2021 report that it continues to “explore” adding blockchain systems into its games; when we pressed the company about what this means for EVE, the company declined to answer follow-up questions.
