You can’t escape the blockchain in some capacity, from the looks of things. EVE Online’s developers, CCP Games, look to be moving in that direction. Earlier today, the team released a statement detailing how the recent investment worth $40 million in financing will be used. CCP Games CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson says the following in their announcement:
Since its inception, CCP Games’ vision has been to create virtual worlds more meaningful than real life. Now, with advancements made within blockchain, we can forge a new universe deeply imbued with our expertise in player agency and autonomy, empowering players to engage in new ways. This financing has marked an exciting frontier in our studio history as we begin our third decade of virtual world operations. We are humbled by the confidence from our partners in the development of this new title.
The $40 million marker that CCP managed to acquire comes from several companies that, include a16z (with a specific credit to Andreessen Horowitz), Hashed, Kingsway Captial, and more. The announcement also mentions that the project will leverage “smart-contract blockchain technology”, which only makes things sound more sided toward the “investment” side of the blockchain technology.
Unfortunately, CCP Games has a very steep hill to climb on while trying to avoid disaster, especially given Square Enix’s constant attempts to push blockchain gaming as the next big thing. Recently, the company replaced its president and revealed Symbiogenesis, which got rightfully ripped apart due to its blockchain and NFT nature by outlets like Kotaku.
And Square Enix isn’t the only one that recently got negative attention about NFTs and the blockchain. No, The Pokemon Company also got itself involved in this industry and actively sought out people with blockchain knowledge. This, sadly, comes with the notion that Pokemon on the blockchain may very well be a reality unless the company backpedals and says, “no, we’re going to cancel that,” but that isn’t known right now.
As EVE Online heads into its 20th year, the company continues developing its features. The statement closes out by mentioning that the blockchain project that CCP is working on will be a completely separate endeavor from EVE Online. At least players can take solace in that. We’ll continue to update as more information on CCP Games and EVE Online is released. EVE Online is playable on Windows and Mac computers.
