EVE FRONTIER - IS IT EVE 2.0?

EVE FRONTIER – IS IT EVE ONLINE 2.0

Weighty topic here, so I have been a customer of CCP games for well over 20 years now, I have given them upwards of £10,000 GBP which is rather eye watering when you think about it. Having had over 20 accounts at my peak, I have easily maintained upwards of 15 accounts for almost the entire 20+ years (until recently but that’s another story)

So why does this irk me so?

I think EVE Frontiers is one of those games that just seems to be a logical next step for CCP Games, EVE Online is by all means creaking at the joints as a software, yes its incredibly feature rich but the truth of the matter is that it has been excessively over commercialised (from not playing for a while to come back to things like lotteries, plex for skill, plex your way into a titan etc etc) the game has lost a bit of its sparkle.

Its not just the commercialisation of it, the old guard have mostly all moved on also. My days in ASCN, Xetic and Goonswarm Federation were some of the best gaming communities and interactions I could ever had wished for. The humour of the Goons, the industriousness of ASCN, it all felt like….well….home.  Now the game has a different feel, as if a small guard of the old players decided to carve up the deep space map and just game the future of the software out until someone switches off the power button.

EVE Frontiers has a new feel to it that EVE Online had back in Beta, but that isn’t perhaps entirely a good thing, to use ‘memberberries’ as a concept is a dangerous one as nostalgia only takes you so far, playing Frontier made me happy, I played it for days, sometimes into the small hours, and then the content ran out….. I suddenly stopped playing, why?

EVE Online has a major problem in that its own success is perhaps the curse that will ultimately bring CCP Games to its knees, with rumour of the software house being sold by its parent company, the issue stems from the fact that CCP games hit gold once, and never again.

Dust 514, EVE Legion, EVE Valkyrie etc have all had a flash in the pan success and not led to the sort of commercial success a company like CCP Games needs, constant and continued financial turn over and this is perhaps why EVE Frontier now exists.

Born out of a ‘crypto deal’ (the term alone makes me want to puke) means the game already is off the starting blocks with a huge label around its neck that is putting a large percentage of CCP customers off. Add to this that the game is basically a reskinned EVE Online, just makes people highly suspicious however look beyond the hastily put together builds and you can see there is something innovate, unusual and interesting in the weeds here.

Conclusion

EVE Frontier is not going to be EVE Online 2.0, I suspect there will be a healthy group of players willing to seriously fund EVE Online for the next 10 years assuming the company wishes to continue keeping the servers afloat (remember Dust 514 was in the same position and was switched off due to ‘deals’ done with Sony that seemed to block any ability to continue)

The main problem I can see is that the average EVE player is not a child or early teens anymore, it feels as if they are aiming the entire franchise now at a certain demographic and a certain age bracket, this is perhaps the main risk they are taking, I wonder if the gamble will pay off.

We will continue to make EVE Frontier and EVE Online videos for as long as we can, if you have any questions or opinions on this articles topic please post below

Much love

CEO P