Eve Online developer and publisher CCP Games officially announced its upcoming massively multiplayer online survival game, Eve Frontier, on Sep. 12.
The game will feature a unique blockchain integration allowing players to create their own self-contained economies in the game with a built-in digital-to-fiat bridge.
This, according to a recent interview with CCP executives, means players will be free to roll their own cryptocurrencies, trade digital assets for real-world commodities and vice-versa.
Community-driven economy
CCP Games revealed details about the game and its “community-driven and dynamic economy” in a recent blog post.
According to the company, players can “create custom currencies, establish markets, and trade assets, services, and reputation in a truly open environment.”
Per CCP Games CEO Hilmar Pétursson:
“EVE Frontier redefines the survival genre by fusing intense space survival gameplay with the limitless emergent potential of a player-driven, persistent sandbox universe. From exploiting space itself to shaping entire economies, every decision ripples across this dark and uncompromising expanse.”
Players will have access to their own spaces where, through internal coding, they’ll be able to establish their own rules. This extends to what currencies are accepted in these zones and what services are available to players.
As the core gameplay loop appears to revolve around the tried-and-true formula of obtaining resources with which to build and expand individual player empires, Eve Frontier’s most distinguishing feature may be its player-controlled economy.
Blockchain-enabled
As Cointelegraph previously reported, the game was intentionally designed to be a blockchain-capable game. Until now, however, the company has been reticent to explain exactly what that meant.
Even in its most recent communication, CCP Games doesn’t refer to the underlying blockchain technology allowing server-side player augmentations to the gaming world.
Arguably, however, allowing players to dictate how currency is created, valued, and earned in an economy-driven sandbox could become a valuable social experiment.
Eve Online, the original title in the “Eve universe” in which Eve Frontier is based, has a long and storied history of large-scale player coordinated events occurring such as years-long wars involving tens of thousands of players.
Expanding the idea of a player-driven economy from the game world itself to the outside world, via blockchain, could result in the proliferation of game-coins with real world value tied directly to their in-game worth.
