EVE Online passes 500,000 subscribers

Fantasy MMORPGs may come and go, but dear old EVE Online stands firm, offering something unique and (mostly) not throwing money away lusting after World of Warcraft's crown. Developer CCP today announced that its Internet spaceships MMO has passed 500,000 subscribers for the first time in its almost-ten-year history, making it pretty pleased as it heads into the second decade.

10

Fantasy MMORPGs may come and go, but dear old EVE Online stands firm, offering something unique and (mostly) not throwing money away lusting after World of Warcraft's crown. Developer CCP today announced that its Internet spaceships MMO has passed 500,000 subscribers for the first time in its almost-ten-year history, making it pretty pleased as it heads into the second decade.

"Ten years after release, it is incredibly inspiring that, through a lot of hard work from our EVE Online team, we are crossing the half-million subscriber mark," CCP CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson said in today's announcement. "For me, this is a true testament that EVE can live on forever, as long as we do right by her. We have not come to this point alone; millions of players have helped push us to this milestone. I now know in my mind what I previously only believed in my heart: that EVE will outlive us all."

While this is a remarkable accomplishment, it hasn't all been plain sailing. CCP sunk an awful lot of time and effort into the 'Incarna' tech, but few players were particularly interested in it and it fell far short of what was promised. Incarna granted previously-disembodied players avatars to stroll around space stations, socializing, gambling in bars, running stores, and whatnot. When it finally launched, though, players could only stroll around their cabin by themselves. And, of course, what EVE players really want is to fly spaceships.

Pétursson later apologised for the "estrangement" CCP had caused with Incarna and a microtransactions upset. It also cut resources from its World of Darkness MMO to focus on EVE. Working on the spaceships side of EVE, CCP started winning players back.

With a few really solid expansions--free as ever--and a relaunch in China, EVE has now finally broken the half-million mark. The next big thing on the EVE scene is Dust 514, the free-to-play PlayStation 3-exclusive FPS which connects to EVE. Dust players can win territory for EVE corporations, while spaceships in EVE can bombard battlefields in Dust. It's in open beta now, if you're curious.

Filed Under
From The Chatty
  • reply
    February 28, 2013 12:15 PM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, EVE Online passes 500,000 subscribers.

    Fantasy MMORPGs may come and go, but dear old EVE Online stands firm, offering something unique and (mostly) not throwing money away lusting after World of Warcraft's crown. Developer CCP today announced that its Internet spaceships MMO has passed 500,000 subscribers for the first time in its almost-ten-year history, making it pretty pleased as it heads into the second decade.

    • reply
      February 28, 2013 12:17 PM

      This is pretty awesome.

    • reply
      February 28, 2013 12:23 PM

      Really surprised that it's only 500K, after all this time.

      • reply
        February 28, 2013 12:35 PM

        Good for them to stay profitable. Seems like everyone else went balls out with their MMOs after WoW and lost tons of money because they didn't get WoW levels of subscribers.

        • reply
          February 28, 2013 5:41 PM

          I don't even remember the last time a MMORPG shut down entirely. City of Heroes, which I don't think was losing money, just not making enough to be worth running.

          • reply
            March 1, 2013 12:30 AM

            As a previous player of Auto Assault and Tabula Rasa, I remember all too well.

            • reply
              March 1, 2013 12:47 AM

              I'm still kind of sorry I missed out on Auto Assault.

      • reply
        February 28, 2013 12:38 PM

        Well it's not the most friendly and easy going kind of MMO.

      • reply
        February 28, 2013 2:28 PM

        [deleted]

        • reply
          February 28, 2013 5:42 PM

          I've heard this before, but how do you know this, and what is a "good chunk?" Are we talking like 20-30%? 50%?

          • reply
            March 1, 2013 12:42 AM

            It's probably around 35%, or at least it was back when I was playing.

            • reply
              March 1, 2013 12:43 AM

              It's prevalent enough that the devs offer special rates for alt accounts, let me put it that way.

      • reply
        February 28, 2013 3:02 PM

        I suspect that a lot of people only play EVE for a month or two at a time, when they get the bug. Their "free expansions" model makes that easy for a player to do and I bet it gets them a lot more paid months then they'd see otherwise.

      • reply
        February 28, 2013 3:06 PM

        before WoW recalibrated what everyone thought MMOs were capable of 500k would've been a fantastic base. That's some serious recurring revenue.

    • reply
      February 28, 2013 12:41 PM

      Good for them. I'm glad there's at least one MMO besides World Of Warcraft that succeeded on its own merits, instead of trying to copy WoW.

    • reply
      February 28, 2013 3:04 PM

      Good, then there will continue to be awesome stories from this game.

    • reply
      March 1, 2013 12:41 AM

      I suspect this is partly because their chinese server is back in business

Hello, Meet Lola