Published on: 12/04/2022
CCP CEO says no to NFTs in Eve Online despite ‘untapped potential’
The EVE Online community has been wondering whether CCP Games would embrace NFTs and blockchain technology as the game enters its third decade of operation.
CCP Games stated in December 2021 that NFTs will be heavily used in EVE Online’s Alliance Tournament XVII, as prizes, raffles, and more. The studio stated that the use of NFTs was solely a “measured bonus” for the yearly tournament and that it used a blockchain with “profoundly tiny energy usage,” yet despite those promises, the player base’s reaction was highly negative.
EVE Online has experimented with NFTs, although not in a way that has an impact on the primary game. Instead, the CCP Games team gathered killmails from the recent Alliance Tournament and minted them as NFTs for the players. For many capsuleers, it was the start of a downhill slope since they worried CCP Games would include them in the primary experience.
The backlash intensified when CCP announced a crossover between EVE Online and Doctor Who, fans were outraged at the tonal clash between the two properties. But in the eyes of some players, it began to make more sense, but not in a good way. When EVE fans discovered that Doctor Who already has an NFT-based CCG called Worlds Apart.
CCP CEO responding to the backlash
The issue was only heightened when a picture of CCP Games CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson attending a meeting with NFT teams at GDC began to circulate.
One of my favorite gdc moments was this private session with @HilmarVeigar to talk about @EveOnline with the @YieldGuild, @Delphi_Digital and @BitkraftVC teams. pic.twitter.com/6Eb4gi9a0k
— ED3N (@eden_holdings) March 29, 2022
Pétursson, on the other hand, addressed the community’s concerns by discussing the company’s viewpoint on NFTs and how it connects to the real EVE Online experience. According to the announcement, while NFT will not appear on Tranquility, the live EVE Online game server, and CCP will continue to study the potential of NFTs outside of the game.
“Many of us at CCP have been following the new frontier that has been developing around blockchains and cryptocurrencies for the past few years. We’ve read your feedback and we also see what you see—blockchain tech has both a lot of untapped potentials and a lot of work needed before being ready for EVE-scale games,” says Pétursson.
“On that note, we have no plans to add blockchain technology into EVE Online’s global server Tranquillity for the foreseeable future,” he added.
“For the coming years, development for Tranquility will focus on building exciting new opportunities on top of the robust foundation that has been laid over the past two decades. While we remain intrigued by the technology, for us, NFT stands for ‘Not for Tranquility’.”
The videogame industry and the NFT ambition
For a long time, NFTs have been a contentious issue in the videogame business. Electronic Arts, GSC Game World, Team 17, and Troy Baker, among others, have been pressed to slow down or abandon their NFT goals.
Plus, Ubisoft, the one major player that appears to be sticking with them so far, has recently pulled the plug on its first effort to introduce NFTs into a major game, leaving gamers with nothing but in-game trinkets with no value or utility to show for it.
Given all of this, as well as the current confusion surrounding the CCP’s intentions towards NFTs, it’s not surprising that Pétursson would wish to plainly and absolutely reject them, at least for the time being.
