The conclusion of my interview with David Reid, Chief Marketing Officer of CCP Games, who delves into the ties between each game in the EVE Universe.

When I was asking people for questions to ask when I was here, two of the examples that I got were "Why does the MOA look so bad?" and "How do you put up with all of us whiny nerds?"

*laughs* It's funny because on one hand, you could get to a place where you're like "Geez, is there anything the community gets happy about?" On the other hand, it's the old proverb: "The opposite of love isn't hate, it is indifference." Right? I would rather have people passionate and vocal and articulating what their concerns are than not saying anything at all. Ya know, to me, that suggests a game that...yeah, you always have some people who love you and hate you, but the spirit of that discussion around EVE just tells us it's a far more passionate and involved audience. That has lead to some really interesting things, like the Counsel of Stellar Management, and having this democratically-elected body of players that petition CCP as the official liaison...this is pretty cool stuff, and I'll take a bunch of "whiny nerds" any day over a bunch of quiet petunias who aren't involved in what they're doing. EVE is the kind of game where you want spirited people who are making things happen. It's okay to just watch things happen sometimes, but there has to be that nucleus of people who care, and we owe a lot of the success of CCP to those players.
 

One random question from the community: any update on YouTube monetization?

Ooh! Okay, I don't know specifics, but I know this is being looked at. I've had this discussion with our general counsel in Atlanta, and I know this is in-progress, but I don't have an update.
 

With the upcoming Twitch integration, I figure this might come in around the same time.

Hmm, I don't know. I know Twitch integration ships with Rubicon, in terms of the actual ability to just stream directly from the client and such...but I don't have an answer for you on that one. We could get one! Somebody knows what the details on that are.
 

These last two are a little cliché. If you had to sum up EVE in one sentence, what would that be?

...the most dangerous, complicated and rewarding journey in video games.

Best answer so far!

Good! I would hope I could do well on that one, yeah! *laughs*
 

Second one, last for the day, and I guess it fits perfectly for you in particular: how would you convince someone to play EVE?

Yeah! I think it starts with a couple things, right? It depends on who you're convincing, but let's assume we're talking to gamers here. I think the first thing we talk about is just the science fiction setting that, at its core...EVE is a very gritty sci-fi story about humanity 20,000 years in the future, and there is a very dark reflection of things that you see here...capitalism taken to the extreme, technology taken to the extreme at the expense of humanity...what does it mean to be a Capsuleer who can live forever and for whom death doesn't mean anything? How do I feel about normal humans in this world? It has a lot of really powerful sci-fi ideas baked into it.

But beyond that, what EVE is really about...is about a universe that is driven by its players, it is a...ya know, again, some of this is the fact that it is a single shard game...but at some level it's also about the sandbox style...the butterfly effect idea, the idea that every time I leave a footprint in the sandbox, it is influencing everything that everybody else ever does. Every transaction on the market, every alliance I am part of, or every alliance I break. Every action I take in the game really does impact everybody else. If you've enjoyed games that give you what I will call "the illusion of choice" – I'm a big Fallout fan, but really at the end of the day, what am I doing? I'm picking from multiple choices from a designer's ideas of quests. And I would use the same analogy for Mass Effect or for Fable or games like that...if you have enjoyed what choice means in a single player game, there's really only one place where choice is taken to an extreme in multiplayer games. If you've ever been in a single player game, and you've been frustrated by "All right, there's a door here, and I can't get through it, and there's really no good reason why, I mean, I've got a freaking gun bigger than...*trails off*...I should be able to blow this open and walk to the next room, but I can't," right? Your ability to "go off the path that a designer wrote for me" in EVE just isn't found anywhere else.

If that is even remotely appealing to you as a gamer, you have to give EVE a try.

It's not going to be easy...but it is very rewarding.
 

Once again, cheers to David Reid for such a great discussion.
 

Colt "ShdwFlm" Casey
Deputy Editor