The owners of EVE Online developers CCP Games are looking to sell them off, according to a report from Korean finance website MTN. Apparently, parent company Pearl Abyss are sounding out interest from a bunch of games publishers, though no names have been named for the moment.

Pearl Abyss – a South Korean outfit otherwise known for Black Desert Online and the forthcoming Crimson Desert – scooped up all of CCP’s shares in 2019 for about 250 billion won, according to the exchange rate of the time. That translates to about $181,139,200 or £134,752,675 in today’s money, which is, you know, a fair dollop. You would be pretty chuffed if you found that tucked behind your sofa cushions.

Naturally, Pearl Abyss have been keen to make their money back. According to MTN’s sources, CCP and their affiliates have been incurring sizeable losses instead. They released a mobile game, EVE Echoes, via NetEase shortly after the acquisition, but this has apparently fallen short of expectations, and CCP are now focusing rather heavily on “web3” games fuelled by blockchain bullshit. They are also still trying to make an EVE Online FPS, despite screwing this up three times in a row.

Amidst all this, the storied and genuinely majestic EVE Online continues to truck along with a fiercely dedicated community, who are all playing a vicious meta-game of their own devising I like to call “Backstabbery Betwixt the Space Balkans”.

One of the MMO’s biggest player alliances, the Imperium, are in the middle of a gigantic operation called The War of the Ruses. During the recent Battle of Lantorn, 3,808 players teamed up to lay 306 dreadnoughts to waste. These are the kinds of losses you enjoy reading about. The ones that emerge from quarterly earnings calls, less so.

While I can only scratch my head at some of CCP’s recent doings, I have an enduring fondness for EVE, and am hopeful that its makers will find a way to prosper – whether in the hands of Pearl Abyss or elsewhere. I’ve reached out to PR representatives for comment on the MTN story. More to follow.

Update: CCP Games have declined to comment on the story.

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