Slightly Different Blog

I’m a big PC gaming fan, but that doesn’t make me a bad person. It’s a complete departure from work, and allows me to focus on doing something totally different to what I do in the office, so I suppose it could loosely be called a hobby, even though it’s still computer related.

So, for a few hours a week, you’ll find me piloting a heavily armoured battleship through space in the Eve Online universe, going head to head with other players in sometimes alarmingly swift battles where one of us will be left floating in space in our escape pods, with the victor collecting the spoils.

This is the world of MMORPGs, which stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. In English that means an internet based world where people use a character to interact with the environment either by doing predetermined missions (e.g. go to yonder hill and slay the dragon) or by trading goods with other people, making things that can then subsequently be sold, or just generally interacting with other real people who are also playing the game.

Still dismissive? Don’t be – this is big business. Eve Online, for example, has 300,000 active players. The average age of the Eve Online player is 27 (making me one of the veteran players) and while the demographic is predominantly male, there are around 20,000 women playing the game.

This is all nothing compared to the behemoth that is the fantasy based World of Warcraft. This game has 11 million active players – yes, that’s right, 11 million. It is by far the biggest virtual world of them all (and there are many) and stands head and shoulders over Eve Online, the second largest virtual world in the … world. Ahem.

When you consider that each player pays between £10-£15 per month to play, that’s a lot of money, and whether gaming is your thing or not, there’s definitely gold in them thar hills, as these companies accounts will testify. Activision Blizzard, the company behind World of Warcraft, had revenues topping $1.34bn last year, and gaming is an industry that, a bit like the Mario character of old, is leaping to new heights.

This article, entitled ‘Virtual World Is A Real Money Spinner’ was published in the Telegraph last year, and may be of interest. In it, it talks about the economies behind the online gaming industry and, with many game development budgets now rivalling those of Hollywood movies, it might raise a few eyebrows amongst our readership.

Oh, and the award in the title I was referring to was that Eve Online recently picked up the Ten Ton Hammer Best Online Community Award for 2009, and OK, so I didn’t win the award myself for an individual effort, and it’s nothing to do with Slightly Different, but as a member of any community it’s always nice to get some recognition.

And if anyone is interested in signing up for an EVE Online account to see what the fuss is all about, let me know and I can get you a 21 day free trial period.

See you in space.