My Game Craze Portal

VIRUAL BAIL OUT? ~ SITUATION UPDATE

DATELINE: Reykjavík, Iceland: GPS indicates a disturbance of virtual and real world forces, location planet Earth, 520 miles from Scotland, 2,600 miles from New York City. Are whiskey and money colliding? No this is the location of a real country with a population of about 320,169, which has a central Bank which is struggling and in the middle of taking massive loans from the Russkie's, who never have the best weapons in the games I play!

The collision is one of forces of economies! No more grey market, EULA supported Virtual currency EVE iskies (ISK) are connecting to real world currency, Icelandic Króna (ISK)!

So this brings me to the VIRTUAL world of EVE-online, with only 300 real world employees, Eve has 250,000 players and a booming virtual economy. Well now were talking games; with space ships, Pilots and Pirates, my kind of folks, maybe we can siege Reykjavik and takeover this wasted little Ice Island. Just kidding.

The EVE-Online: Quantum Rise expansion creates a new link between the thriving eve economy’s currency and real world currency. The new in-game item called the “30 Day Pilot’s License” can be bought and sold within the virtual eve marketplaces and can be created by conversion from the real world subscription “EVE Time Code” The Eve Time Codes can be purchased for real currency through many online sales sites. This is an intriguing step on the part of CCP to support the growth of the games already strong following.

One might quip that this could be CCP’s bail out effort for the banking crisis in Iceland, or an attempt to shore up the Real World Icelandic ISK with Eve’s virtual ISK. But CCP didn’t get here by being dummies; you can only buy EVE currency with real world currency, not the other way around.

This, the ninth free expansion for EVE Online will allow the EVE population to grow more, Quantum Rise delivers several performance-enhancing improvements, including StacklessIO and EVE64 initiatives. This will allow single combat situations to include over 1,000 participants with tolerable lag dimensions. The features added include many new ship attributes, mineral production applications and a new class of empire based Capital Industrial ship which will be enjoyed by many capitalist EVE players.

Now for the new capital industrial ship, they have called it the ORCA, now I mentioned CCP aren’t dummies, but I seem to remember a ship by that name, a scurvy skipper by the name of Captain Quint, a fish with big Jaws and the boat ending up at Davey Jones locker.

Well CCP CEO Hilmar Pétursson, may find an Orca or two at the bottom of the Ocean, but the ship features are sound, the player demand should be high, and the supply of building couldn't have come at a better time for the country's economy. Oh virtual builders, hmmm, seems to me, with an ever growing game based around the strongest virtual economy in existence, no-one will go hungry in Iceland in the near future, they can all be employed in server maintenance, development and as ship captains at CCP. Have you ever seen the size of a real EVE-Raven?

Maybe the Corporations of EVE should run Iceland’s Central Bank? Watch out for the pirate alliances, privateers haven’t always been good to customers. UFA rules!

And, NOW the ratings:

For Iceland: For bank-nationalization, money borrowing from their Russkie brothers, however, for failing to let me make enough communist jokes and coldness, Iceland scores only 9 trust funds out of 10.

For The Expansion pack from CCP; for providing the opportunity to us “skilled but poor kid” EVE players to soak the feeble but rich old ones, for it's connection to everyone's favorite man-eating amphibian and a rad red log in look, they score 10 pew pews out of 10.

Until I write again,

~ Prince Python