This is a segment from The Drop newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.
CCP’s Eve Frontier: Breaking the Crypto Game Mold
Eve Frontier, an upcoming MMO from Eve Online developer CCP Games, differentiates itself as an expansive survival space MMO with integrated blockchain rails. Players can effectively “mod” the game, creating personalized features and challenges, alongside an accompanying EVE token.
CCP CEO Hilmar Pétursson, with over 25 years building Eve Online (now active for 22 years and possessing a vast, complex player-driven economy), explained the game’s strategic approach: “The loop of creation to destruction is kind of the heart of the economy loop.”
Pétursson believes most games mishandle this core economy principle: “if things don’t leave the economy, then it’s, by definition, almost like a mathematical definition, an inflationary economy.”
In Eve Frontier, the game’s strategic design encourages player interaction. After establishing a foundation of conflict and destruction (“nature”), energy mechanics and smart contracts underpin the economy.
Demonstrating this, Pétursson described a player-created stargate requiring enemies’ corpses: “This is something that the player just programmed into the world without our permission. We needed to do nothing.”
Eve Frontier utilizes an EVM L2 chain, Redstone, for its blockchain components.
Though built by CCP, the studio maintaining Eve Online, collaboration is structured: Eve Frontier has distinct development teams, including one dedicated to crypto elements, separate from Eve Online’s finance. “CCP doesn’t use Eve Online money to pay Eve Frontier staff,” confirmed Community Manager Ben Sisson.
However, both games rely on CCP’s Carbon engine, which received essential upgrades last year primarily for Eve Frontier, anticipating these improvements would also benefit the established title.
Moreover, both games plan to generate revenue via subscription, a core tenet mirroring Eve Online.
