The most epic space battle in video game history cost players more than $200,000 dollars of real money Tuesday in the game’s biggest conflict in 10 years.
EVE Online is a massive multiplayer online sci-fi space game with some serious in-depth role-playing mechanics. Trade, politics, economics and of course, space ships are all involved.
The game lets players pay for their monthly subscription with either real money or “ISK,” the game’s own form of currency. The exchange rate of real-to-game currency determines the actual dollar value of ships.
Among the ships were more than 70 Titans — the largest and most-expensive ships in the game — controlled by some 2,200 players engaged in an all-out assault after an alliance of players failed to pay rent on an important space station, prompting their aligned-adversaries to attempt a forced takeover.
The result was a World War I-style escalation of force, as each side’s allies agreed to enter the fray to back up their friends. Though game developer CCP is still calculating the damage toll, 75 Titans — with an average worth of $3,000 per ship — were obliterated, the most expensive of which cost about $5,500.
“It dwarfs any other online PVP (player versus player) fight in terms of scale and sheer destruction,”CCP spokesman Ned Coker told Eurogamer.
EVE Online’s economy is feeling the toll of the battle, with valuable ship-building resources rising in price as users race to rebuild and rearm.
“This sort of conflict is what science fiction warned us about,” Coker said. “A massive space conflict made of thousands of people around the globe fighting in pitched battle for hours in desperate attempts to destroy each other while tens of thousands of people watch on from afar because the outcome truly means something to them.”
