EVE Online turns 6 today, announces over 300k subscribers
by James Egan 
May 6th 2009 at 3:00PM
Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, MMO industry, News items
EVE Online is the first massively multiplayer online title from CCP Games, one that's redefined what we can expect from a sandbox game. They created the gritty far-future setting of New Eden, a place where EVE's players can do as they choose in a vast galaxy comprised of thousands of solar systems, both mapped and unexplored. Today CCP Games celebrates EVE Online's sixth birthday. They state, "A 6 year persistent history. A living history where truly brilliant strategies have unfolded. Truly terrible betrayals unveiled. We are excited to see what will happen next."
CCP also announced their new subscriber milestone: EVE now has over 300,000 active subscriptions (not including trial accounts), up 22% over the past five months alone. Their peak concurrent user record has also climbed to 53,850 players interacting in the same space, a record we've noticed they seem to shatter with increasing frequency. "That is exponential growth," CCP says. "We couldn't think of a better birthday present than having more people play EVE Online than ever before. It is another sweet reminder of EVE's boundless potential."
Congratulations to CCP Games from the team at Massively, and here's looking to the next six years.
[Via Warp Drive Active]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
alan.mccahon said on 3:19PM 5-06-2009
Here's to another 6 glorious years of war, betrayal, destruction and piracy.
Reply
Halldorr said on 3:37PM 5-06-2009
I've just started the 21 day trial of this to check it out and wow it is very overwhelming to start. Sure is a big switch from how WoW is these days where everything is done for you. I can definitely see the intrigue to EVE though and the visuals out in space are simply amazing.
Reply
Jack said on 4:16PM 5-06-2009
300,000 active subscriptions is that a lot??!! Not sounds like a lot if you think how big the space in Eve really is they need a lot more to fill it so sign up all!!
Its not my bag of three however!
Reply
Brendan Drain said on 4:34PM 5-06-2009
300,000 subscribers is a nice feat. Only about 20,000 more to go and EVE will have more active subscribers than the country of Iceland has citizens.
Reply
Venekor said on 4:47PM 5-06-2009
Whats even more amazing is 200,000 of them are all ALTS.
Reply
Dirame said on 6:09PM 5-07-2009
Alts or not dude they are still active and that's saying something.
Pedro said on 6:00PM 5-06-2009
Uau! Congratulations to EVE for breaking that milestone. I guess the last expansion helped them to achieve these numbers. It's even more impressive they achieved these numbers after 6 years of being launched.
Lets see if they will keep those numbers when Jumpgate, STO and SW:TOR and Black Prophecy get released.
Reply
Brendan Drain said on 11:52PM 5-06-2009
The previous times EVE has had serious competition (Earth & Beyond and Star Wars Galaxy), development stepped up their game and EVE wasn't harmed by them. In fact, when Earth & Beyond closed, EVE ended up getting a subscriber boost from their players. And Star Wars Galaxy drew a lot of people into the Sci-fi MMO market niche due to the star wars IP being very popular, which in turn led more people to EVE Online. Having a much higher player retention rate than the average MMO and a game experience that other MMOs simply do not offer, EVE did very well in that climate.
Generally, anything which leads more people into the sci-fi MMO market is a good thing for EVE. Black Prophecy and Star Trek Online look like some tough competition so it'll be interesting to see what happens. My prediction is that EVE will actually see a small but noticeable boost in subscribers about 2-4 months after the launch of STO, SW:TOR and BP. It'll be interesting to see what actually happens though, I'll be watching this closely.
Pedro said on 5:43AM 5-07-2009
Ouch! It seems you thing Jumpgate will fail since you didn't mention them. :P
I am really rooting that EVE reachs the 500k mark. It's great to see a game with so many subs as EVE.
Brendan Drain said on 7:41AM 5-07-2009
Don't read too much into it, I just forgot about JGE :)
Moron said on 5:13AM 5-07-2009
Errm so can anyone please explain to me why Massively keeps talking about this shitty game with 300k subscribers in every 3rd post? Its not like Gunbound for example has 3 times more subscribers liek this one...
oh wait
Reply
W. Graves said on 1:48PM 5-07-2009
Just cause you cant hack it doesn't make it shitty. I don't go to the WoW forums to troll, please use the same courtesy.
Dirame said on 6:15PM 5-07-2009
I think the subscriber base increase will be more significant when ambulation is released which is a nice set-up since some of the sci-fi MMOs like JGE will be out this year and when that happens we'll really be able to see what Eve can do.
Reply