Team Fortress 2's shift from a paid game to a now-mainstream microtransaction model invited other developers to adopt the same scheme. In 2011, "going free-to-play" was an unusual move for any FPS, and for western-developed games especially. What if we released new items for characters that transformed the meta? What if we sold those items? What if anyone could make items, sell them in our game, and make money from it? Can we put an RPG-style crafting system in a multiplayer game? What happens if we use this item economy to promote the launch of dozens of other games on Steam? Steven Messner, Senior ReporterĬrawl the list of 684 updates (and counting), and you notice the escalating pokes, prods, and full-body transplants Valve performed on TF2.
No game other game has managed that-not at the same scale-and I'm terrified that no other game will manage it again. Therein lies EVE Online's lasting legacy, that uncanny ability to make a collective fiction feel real. Those tectonic shifts in EVE Online's landscape are felt through the first-hand experiences of the players themselves, personal stories of betrayal, discovery, and camaraderie that carry the same emotional gravity as if they happened in real life. Because every player inhabits the same universe, EVE Online has become an enormously diverse digital society with its own recorded histories and cultures that wax and wane as player-built empires rise and fall. What's really monumental, however, is the sheer scale of that collective fantasy. In EVE Online, the wrong move and undo years of work. The result is a player-driven world with a real economy and a tangible sense of consequence, which in turn gives every action a sense of weight and meaning rarely found in other games. Where other MMOs hem you in with authored narratives or limited player interactions, EVE Online's developers are remarkably willing to sit back and let players steer. But the point is that, unlike so many other of the best MMOs, EVE Online is the only one courageous enough to let players define their own experience-for the most part.
At this point it's less of a game and more like an alternate reality where players can become warlords, dictators, or just another scummy pirate blowing up poor space truckers for shits and giggles. (Image credit: CCP) EVE Online (2003-onward)ĮVE Online is the closest we've come to that sci-fi dream of living a second life in a virtual society.
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