CCP Games economist speaks about EVE's pure capitalist market

The player-driven economy of EVE Online is large and complex, mirroring some of the intricacies of real-world economics. As the player base and the collective scope of their activities in-game expanded, CCP Games sought out an economist to monitor and, if need be, regulate New Eden's economy. CCP's Lead Economist, Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson, recently spoke at the Edinburgh International Festival about how who he is and what he does at CCP Games.

His talk in Edinburgh dealt with how EVE's economy has evolved from a system dependent upon NPCs, as is the case with most other MMOs, to "a pure capitalist market" driven by players. Much of the economy's evolution is predicated on CCP's single-server approach, where all players interact in the same space. Thus, commerce remains more dynamic and linked to large scale player activities, rather than being based off of a collection of NPC-seeded goods iterated across various duplicate shards. Check out Gamasutra's coverage of Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson's talk during his session at the Edinburgh International Festival for the full scoop on the economics of EVE Online.