After announcing the Carbon platform behind Eve Online will go open source earlier this year, the CEO of CCP Games, the company behind the game and its engine, has spoken up about why—and it’s about the future of games and technology.
In an interview with GamesIndustry.Biz about the decision, CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson said it boiled down to making Eve and its technology live the longest life possible at the hands of the people who adore it.
“I know from [experience] when you give tools to people in a community, they will make awesome things,” he tells GIB This is the story of human life, and they will outdo your creativity way more than you think. Every time you try to put a lid on it, you curb the potential. Make it open, and the sky is the limit.”
Opening the code also eases collaboration opportunities in business and academia, allowing game jams at university and full-on contributions with fewer legal ramifications.
While the platform also technically includes entirely optional “blockchain technology” components, Pétursson explains that Eve has technically run on the same fundamentals all along as “the first database game ever made. It's based on SQL server from Microsoft. I had to debate people 20 years ago on whether you should use a database to build a virtual world.”
"I believe you can use this database to build something unique, but I'm not here to bless the technology, per se. Tech is just tech. You can use whatever tech to good and bad means."
Making its own platform open source is a big step for any development studio; as GI.Biz points out, a lot of studios are moving in the opposite direction by using third-party platform. Even Eve Vanguard taps into Unreal Engine 5, given it’s a shooter game, as Pétursson justifies. However, such games are built for playerbases with lower capacity, whereas engines like CCP can handle thousands of players in a single instance and wars spanning months, if not years.
The full interview also talks about the roles of community and game developers in defining the game experience, plus a bit on death and destiny in how Eve players relate to each other.
