Strategy Informer: Is there anything you can add to the current economic model? Any other ways of getting in-game revenue?
Dr. Gudmundsson: Well, the players themselves have actually created a lot of extra services, which allow them to earn income through ‘in-direct’ game mechanics. We have players who specialise in logistics – they move goods from one place to another for a fee. There are player-run banks that are being established, who provide financial services – people can even live off of the capital that these services earn. There is nothing official that supports these things in-game – the players themselves figure out how to make it work. So you see all the basic functions of a modern economy in the game – people are always looking for new ways to earn money.
Strategy Informer: Do you think CCP will ever legitimise these extra services? For example, by creating official banks?
Dr. Gudmundsson: That’s an interesting question, and one that I have no concrete answer to. Up till now our philosophy has been that these ideas are user-generated and therefore it should be user credited. We would rather see some sort of ‘trust’ system evolve among the players themselves, because as soon as you put an official stamp on it, you have to start putting in regulations and rules and restrictions and some kind of accountability, and that’s not really the EVE spirit. The EVE spirit is about the individual being able to try something new, and have the free spirit to just go ahead and have no-one stop them in their goals.
