CCP Engages Veteran Economist to Enhance Credibility of EVE Frontier’s In-Game Economy
By EVE Online creator CCP Video Games has appointed Icelandic economist Stefán Þórarinsson to serve as its new head of economy.
Þórarinsson will assist the studio in “refining and legitimizing” in-game player economies for its space survival title, EVE Frontier, and ensure the system “operates with the same rigor and analysis applied to real-world economies.”
“His appointment furthers our objective of creating a genuinely open economy within a digital universe,” stated CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson. “By eliminating currency restrictions and encouraging emergent value systems, EVE Frontier will transform virtual nation-building, offering perspectives on both digital and actual economies.”
“Virtual economies are dynamic, evolving financial systems that require thorough examination,” noted Þórarinsson. “We aim not just to replicate a wide array of business activities, but to question, refine, and verify how virtual economies function at scale; EVE Frontier will set the standard for how these systems can be structured, regulated, and understood.”
EVE Online’s economy has primarily been player-driven and operates on supply and demand. In 2007, CCP employed economist Eyjólfur Guðmundsson to manage the game’s economy, a groundbreaking move for the industry. Following his departure in 2014, CCP is hopeful that Frontier and Þórarinsson can continue the original game’s “groundbreaking work” in this domain and aid its overall mission of “offering valuable insight into digital finance and decentralized economic systems.”
Alongside Þórarinsson’s appointment, Frontier is receiving a series of economy-related updates, the first of which focuses on monetary inflation, data collection on players’ decision-making, and financial adaptation. Future updates will be rolled out via CCP’s Founder membership tier, providing a “fully controlled environment to model, predict, and optimize how virtual economies function under different scenarios.”
These outcomes, as noted by CCP, will “reveal both the progress of EVE Frontier and the broader conversation regarding how digital economies can be examined, structured, and sustained in the long term.”
About the Author
Contributing Editor, GameDeveloper.com
Hailing from Kansas City, MO, Justin Carter has contributed to various publications including IGN, Polygon, and SyFy Wire. In addition to Game Developer, his articles can also be found on io9 over on Gizmodo. Don’t ask him about how much gum he’s consumed, as the answer will likely be more than he is willing to confess.