There is no game like EVE Online. The long-running space MMO has been creating its own sub-communities and economies for over two decades, and it’s continually breaking the boundaries of what an MMO can do.
EVE Online is also deeply PC, although hardcore fans will remember the console spin-off Dust 514 which was actually connected to the PC game, and there’s a reason why the MMO is so closely tethered to the platform.
Speaking to PC Gamer, CCP Games CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson explained that the majority of innovative game ideas happen on PC due to the freedom of the platform.
“I think most of the innovation in gaming has happened on PC, to some extent on mobile, just because of sheer volume,” the CEO said. “But I don’t think we’re observing a lot of innovation in mobile right now. I think we’re observing a lot of refinement and execution and formula, kind of hardening. On PC, we still see a lot of experimentation.”
He’s not wrong. While the biggest RPGs today are undoubtedly the Pokemon games, they have their basis in Dragon Quest which was inspired by the PC RPGs Ultima and Wizardry. While the biggest FPS games may be Call of Duty, that franchise doesn’t exist without the innovation of Wolfenstein 3D.
The EVE Online boss explains that “the death certificate [for PC gaming] has been signed several times”, but the lack of gatekeeping on the platform is what keeps the platform evolving. While there are some boundaries that devs need to cross—such as the $100 dollar fee to get their game on Steam—the freedom of the platform means “success comes out of very random places”.
Pétursson said that “PC seems to be an environment where a lot of these kind of things just come alive”, pointing to the development of Cuphead which started as a PC game inspired by Super Meat Boy before being snatched up ID@Xbox.
“When I love a game, it’s so deeply PC,” Pétursson continued. “Like Cuphead, who would think of making Cuphead? Of course it could happen somewhere else, but it just feels so ‘PC games.’ And of course, you could play that game on a console, but there’s just something about the sort of open ended innovation, the no gatekeepers: You can just make a game.”
Additionally, the EVE Online boss pointed to modding, something that now exists on console but will always be more experimental and viable on PC. For example, Baldur’s Gate 3 is a game that supports mods on console, but its biggest modding projects like the custom campaign Path to Menzoberranzan simply aren’t ever going to be available on Xbox or PlayStation.
That’s not to say that innovation can’t happen on consoles. The 3D platformer was largely innovated by Rare and Nintendo, although there are examples of earlier (albeit bad) 3D platformers on PC, and Nintendo’s motion controls of the Wii were emphatically console-coded. However, the majority of gaming’s innovation—from new genres to hardware like VR—will usually be found on PC.
