Latest / THE DAILY BRIEF / How gamers lost 400,000 fighting a huge virtual space war

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How gamers lost 400,000 fighting a huge virtual space war · THE DAILY BRIEF

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  Speaker 1: And my peak it was sixteen hours a day every day.
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  Speaker 1: Nowadays it's day to day. It could be an hour,
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  Speaker 1: it could be nothing at all because nothing's happening that day,
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  Speaker 1: but it can still be eighteen hours, sixteen eighteen hours
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  Speaker 1: because something big is kicked off and I've got to
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  Speaker 1: ring into work and be like, I can't come in
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  Speaker 1: to where I've not slept.
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  Speaker 2: Eve Online is an mm RPG that launched twenty three
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  Speaker 2: years ago. Players have complete freedom. The PvP is a
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  Speaker 2: big draw, but some enjoy the game's immersive virtual economy,
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  Speaker 2: starting businesses or focusing on trading. Gameplayer can be slow
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  Speaker 2: and strategic. Some players refer to Eve Online as the
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  Speaker 2: spreadsheet simulator, but because players can compete to control territory,
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  Speaker 2: things can and do kick off, and it gets dramatic.
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  Speaker 1: Whenever any of the big wars have kicked off, I've
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  Speaker 1: been more stressed about the war than anything going on
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  Speaker 1: in my real life. I've had nights where I've just
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  Speaker 1: like not been able to sleep properly.
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  Speaker 2: And the sticks can be fairly high because in Eve Online,
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  Speaker 2: if your spaceship gets destroyed in battle, that's permanent. Real
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  Speaker 2: money can be converted into digital currency given these assets
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  Speaker 2: like spaceship's tangible value. Let me give you an example.
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  Speaker 2: A Titan class ship is worth about seven hundred and
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  Speaker 2: forty quid. Give us an idea of how much you've
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  Speaker 2: spent on.
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  Speaker 1: Online somewhere in the region of five to six thousand pounds.
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  Speaker 1: I haven't spent much on micro transactions, thankfully, wealthy enough
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  Speaker 1: in game to just pay for all in game. But
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  Speaker 1: I've got friends that I asked him went up to
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  Speaker 1: thirty thousand pounds. Is what you spent in something like
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  Speaker 1: six months of starting the game.
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  Speaker 2: The world of Eve Online is full of player made organizations, corporations,
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  Speaker 2: and alliances that carry out military and industrial operations.
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  Speaker 3: So everything in Eve is made by someone, so nothing
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  Speaker 3: comes out of thin here. So every ship, every gun,
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  Speaker 3: every bullet, you need to gather resources, you need to
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  Speaker 3: manufacture eats item, and then you can sell it on
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  Speaker 3: the market and for others to buy.
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  Speaker 2: The game's financial systems are so complicated that in twenty
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  Speaker 2: twenty five, the developers hired a former economist from the
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  Speaker 2: Central Bank of Iceland to oversee evon lines evolving virtual economy.
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  Speaker 1: You know, you can make decent money in game if
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  Speaker 1: you grind for it, but also a lot of people
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  Speaker 1: do just kind of coast stuff of you know, spending
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  Speaker 1: fifty pounds here and there.
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  Speaker 2: There's constant drama between these player run organizations, and conflict
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  Speaker 2: is pretty common. But last year, twenty seven year old
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  Speaker 2: James found himself on the losing side of a war
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  Speaker 2: that left the community stunned.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, it's essentially like a city in the game
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  Speaker 1: disappearing overnight.
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  Speaker 2: BBC your Voice was contacted by a player who wanted
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  Speaker 2: to see coverage of the events of twenty twenty five
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  Speaker 2: because despite being virtual, he says they've impacted thousands upon
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  Speaker 2: thousands of people. James started playing in twenty seventeen and
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  Speaker 2: had risen through the ranks to become a military leader
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  Speaker 2: in Pandemic Cord, one of evon Line's most powerful player organizeations.
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  Speaker 2: But as twenty twenty six ruled in, Pandemic Cord was
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  Speaker 2: no more.
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  Speaker 1: A coalition of that was led by Pandemic Cord, which
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  Speaker 1: I would guess is about twenty thousand people with another
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  Speaker 1: twenty thousand additional people, and all the other parts of
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  Speaker 1: the coalition splintered overnight. This, you know, the coalition was
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  Speaker 1: no more. All of their homes were essentially, you know,
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  Speaker 1: written off. It's like, if the coalition's gone, we can't
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  Speaker 1: defend this. A lot of the people who are part
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  Speaker 1: of that coalition will just quit the game because you know,
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  Speaker 1: they've lost all their stuff. You know, they've gone bankrupt.
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  Speaker 1: What's the pointing keep playing? But anyone who does keep
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  Speaker 1: playing trying to shoot, and probably most people did have
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  Speaker 1: to find a new home. They have to find new
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  Speaker 1: assets in that new home, and they've got to figure out,
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  Speaker 1: you know, everything in their life has kind of been uprooted.
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  Speaker 2: James says this conflict actually started brewing years ago. In
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  Speaker 2: twenty twenty, rival groups clashed in a few that some
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  Speaker 2: believe was down to personal vendettas between alliance leaders. James
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  Speaker 2: was part of one of this conflict's most infamous battles,
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  Speaker 2: the Massacre M two x FE, five thousand players fighting
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  Speaker 2: it out for fourteen hours straight. It was awarded a
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  Speaker 2: Guinness World Record for most costly video game battle. It's
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  Speaker 2: more than two hundred and seventy thousand pounds of assets
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  Speaker 2: were destroyed. This conflict set the scene for years long
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  Speaker 2: Cold War, as the game's major alliances began rebuilding their
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  Speaker 2: forces and planning revenge.
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  Speaker 3: Of course, there is you know, there's Deep Cannon, and
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  Speaker 3: there's backstory, and there's you know, law and origin stories
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  Speaker 3: of our universe. But those, I mean, they are important,
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  Speaker 3: but they they always end up taking kind of, you know,
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  Speaker 3: the backseat when it comes to the epic drama, the
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  Speaker 3: epic stories that their players have have created, and these
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  Speaker 3: can be anything from you know, very local stories, something
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  Speaker 3: that's very important for you know, an individual, two very
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  Speaker 3: kind of world shaping events.
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  Speaker 2: In twenty twenty four, pandemic hords historic enemies moved closer,
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  Speaker 2: transporting million of pounds worth of assets across space. In
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  Speaker 2: twenty twenty five, war broke out and it was brutal.
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  Speaker 2: Horde was defeated and pushed back.
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  Speaker 1: Towards the start, I was very helpful, unsurprisingly. I was like, Okay,
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  Speaker 1: we've got a plan for this. I know what we're
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  Speaker 1: going to do. Towards the end, obviously a little bit
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  Speaker 1: less so hopeful. I'm like, I don't know what I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to date it.
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  Speaker 3: That's fine.
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  Speaker 1: I didn't think. We didn't, you know, we didn't really
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  Speaker 1: expect everything to go wrong that inevitably it did.
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  Speaker 2: A few months later, the player that actually founded Pandemic
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  Speaker 2: Cord and had led it for more than a decade.
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  Speaker 2: Said he was quitting the game and the alliance would
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  Speaker 2: be leaving its home in search of a fresh start.
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  Speaker 2: But this move didn't go well. Pandemic cords enemies pounced,
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  Speaker 2: bombarding them for up to twenty four hours a day
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  Speaker 2: as members tried to protect themselves and their belongings. The
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  Speaker 2: destruction of assets has been valued in the hundreds of
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  Speaker 2: thousands of pounds, but estimates vary.
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  Speaker 3: The leader decided to quit a gay and basically kind
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  Speaker 3: of imploded the whole the wholes and all of a sudden,
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  Speaker 3: like you know, all forty thousand people were just without
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  Speaker 3: the home they didn't have, you know, they didn't have
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  Speaker 3: proper leadership, and things started breaking apart.
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  Speaker 2: James says his escape was successful. He only lost two
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  Speaker 2: hundred pounds of assets. Others, he says, were not and
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  Speaker 2: lost the equivalent of thousands.
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  Speaker 1: There was a little bit of relief when it was
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  Speaker 1: finally all over, like I don't have to deal with
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  Speaker 1: the stress anymore. But in the moment, it's very, very
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  Speaker 1: stressful because ultimately I'm responsible for I would guess up
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  Speaker 1: to twenty thousand people's fun in any given moment, and
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  Speaker 1: you know they're not all going to be online at
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  Speaker 1: any given time, but you know that at a given time,
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  Speaker 1: and there could be one thousand people who are like
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  Speaker 1: all right, now what and I'm just like, no, no,
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  Speaker 1: now what.
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  Speaker 2: James says. The part that hurts the most is the
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  Speaker 2: loss of a social scene. These Alliance members had spent
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  Speaker 2: years working and gaming together. James says, many have lost
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  Speaker 2: contact as players scatter across the map in search of
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  Speaker 2: new adventure.
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  Speaker 3: And we saw November twenty twenty five and December twenty
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  Speaker 3: twenty five actually being the two highest revenue months in
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  Speaker 3: the history of Eve Online. It tells a really great story,
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  Speaker 3: Like it tells a story about activity, It tells a
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  Speaker 3: story about engagement, It tells a story about willingness to
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  Speaker 3: go out and fight. It tells a story about you know,
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  Speaker 3: creation and destruction. And you know, this space used to
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  Speaker 3: be occupied by this group, and now there's a lot
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  Speaker 3: of tiny groups taking over space and and you know
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  Speaker 3: a lot of people claiming space. And it's in a way,
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  Speaker 3: it's in a way a reset. You know, it's an opportunity,
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  Speaker 3: it's a it's an opportunity for people to make their mark,
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  Speaker 3: you know, build the next empire of Eve, you know.
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  Speaker 3: And I have no idea how this story will play out.
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  Speaker 3: There's plenty of speculations how this story will play out,
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  Speaker 3: but it's it's a new era. It's a new it's
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  Speaker 3: a start of a new saga in New Eten and
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  Speaker 3: that creates a lot of interest and people are paying attention.