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CCP Games, the Icelandic company behind the famous MMORPG EVE Online announced today it has raised $40 million in an a16z-led round for the creation of a new AAA title. The new game will be set in the EVE Universe and will be built using blockchain technology. Recent months have seen multiple major studios and creators from the gaming industry foray into web3.
CCP Games Announced New AAA Web3 Game
On March 21st, CCP Games revealed its plans to create a new AAA title set in the same universe as its flagship MMORPG EVE Online. In an a16z-led round, the firm raised $40 million for the project which will be built using blockchain technology. CCP’s CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson characterized the project as a continuation of the company’s vision “to create virtual worlds more meaningful than real life”
He also stated that the use of blockchain technology will enable the game-maker to fully leverage its “expertise in player agency and autonomy”. Indeed. CCP’s flagship video game, EVE Online, is well-known for its high degree of player autonomy and agency that has spawned multiple events unprecedented in gaming—from galaxy-spaning in-game player-run corporations to the largest player guilds ever seen in MMORPGs to several record-holding space battles most famous being the so-called “Bloodbath of B-R5RB” which is estimated to have wiped the equivalent of $300,000 of real-world money through lost player materiel.
CCP’s CEO also thanked the company’s partners in the project and stated he is humbled by their confidence. Jonathan Lai, a16z General Partner praised the Icelanding video game company for their impressive 25-year-long track record of “creating living sandboxes with unparalleled depth”.
EVE Online community on Reddit, however, showed itself to be rather skeptical about the new web3 title. The prevailing sentiment, at least to the original announcement, was that the project amounted to “wasting it (the $40 million) on “blockchain” technology,” as one user put it. Another Redditor joked that the game should be “’EVE: Exchange’ where players act as speculators on the eve:online economy without needing to actually fly a space ship.”
Will 2023 Be the Year of Web3 Gaming?
The closing months of the previous year, as well as the first quarter of 2023, brought numerous web3-gaming announcements. Particularly notable among these came from various major companies in the industry demonstrating that some of the largest AAA studios are willing to put their faith in blockchain technology. For example, a team of industry veterans teamed up with Immutable to build what they termed to be web3’s first flagship-quality video game.
In early January, before the month’s digital asset rally alleviated some of the concerns stemming from 2022’s “crypto winter”, the president of Square Enix—a company well-known for household names like the “Deus Ex” series—reaffirmed its commitment to focusing on blockchain-based games. This year also featured important revelations concerning web3 gaming from other major legacy companies with Amazon, for example, reportedly planning to unveil its own initiative in April.
Despite the recent developments, the notion of web3 gaming hasn’t been universally welcomed. The community proved borderline hostile to the idea of bringing NFTs to the industry frustrating previous efforts from companies to do so. Gamers’ skepticism toward web3 gaming isn’t particularly surprising considering the fact that various firms already made multiple attempts to disguise predatory business practices as innovations with the most notorious example coming in the form of the reviled loot boxes.
Are you excited about or opposed to the idea of web3 gaming? Tell us why in the comments below.