With Fanfest 2011 just a few short weeks away, CEO of CCP Hellmar has posted a CEO's letter to the website to talk to us all a bit about what Fanfest is, what goes into it, and why it's so important for so many EVE Online players.

It seems like just a session change ago that we first decided to truly test the mettle of EVE pilots and see if they would be equally as willing to venture to Iceland for a real life get together as they were to rampage around nullsec. Turns out they were—more so than our wildest dreams imagined. As developers who holed themselves up for dozens of hours at a time in a small office arguing over the philosophies of human behavior and how to harness it using game design while at the same time arm-wrestling the impossible technical hurdles we faced, it was truly an epiphany in every sense of the word to see the enthusiasm and share the experience with those attending the first Fanfest. Tears and beers galore.

Read more here.