EVE Online: Griefing In The Anarchic Metaverse
Introduction
As Castronova (2004) argued, “Everyone has a need to play games” (Castronova, 2004, as cited in Lehdonvirta, 2010). In the past few decades, video game technology and related fields have flourished. Generally speaking, video games tend to have features such as virtuality, relaxation, and ease of use. However, among many games, the MMO game EVE Online (2003, still updating), known for its steep learning curve, dark game environment and the harsh death penalty, stands out as an exception. In this game, players assume a Capsuleer role and pilot their ships across the vast New Eden universe. EVE Online offers a plethora of gameplays and modes for players to choose from, ranging from mining, signal scanning, manufacturing, and PVE to piracy, scamming, alliance sovereignty war, and everything in between. Moreover, the game also provides a closed and realistic game environment, including a severe death penalty, a closed market economy system, and an anarchic and ruleless social environment. Players can choose to be a friendly mentor, an honest producer, a ruthless organization leader, a dreaded pirate, or a despised scammer. In the game, there is a group of players who take PVP gameplay to the extreme. They hunt and kill other players everywhere and set traps at the star gates to intercept passing ships. For these players, killing seems to be the only gameplay. This article will focus on this peculiar group of “malicious players” in the game, explore the significance of these unconventional gameplays, and explain the motivations behind these behaviours in the context of EVE Online’s ruleless metaverse.
Virtuality is a projection of reality
When people talk about video games, they often use the term virtual world to describe the environment and background settings in the game. The word “virtual” simply draws a clear boundary between the game world and the real world, and the two worlds are independent of each other, and some rules and common sense will no longer apply. In academia, this boundary is called the “magic circle.” (Lehdonvirta, 2010). According to Lin and Sun (2007):
the magic circle view entails treating the game as “a world independent of the everyday real world.” The best play experience is achieved when the game is “insulated from or opposite to the utilitarian characteristics of the physical world.” (p. 336)
However, the metagame concept of EVE Online challenges this definition. In the context of EVE Online, “the term metagame is referring to the use of tactics which involve knowledge or (typically social) practices that occur outside of the battle arena” (Carter et al., 2015). It is common in the game to have situations where battles are conducted simultaneously in reality and in the game. In EVE Online’s largest war in history, which also broke the most expensive video game battle (CCP, 2021a), the largest multiplayer video game PVP battle (CCP, 2021b), and the most simultaneous players (CCP, 2021b) in a multiplayer game three Guinness World Records, WORLD WAR BEE 2, there was a tactic of having a large number of players from one’s own alliance log in at the same time, overload the game operator’s server, and ultimately cause data anomalies in the enemy’s ships. Although, this seems to violate CCP’s requirement not to exploit technical loopholes (CCP Games, n.d.). However, in the end, the CCP did not take any action on this. In non-large-scale war periods, major alliances also engage in propaganda wars on various platforms and forums. And even gave birth to a profession called “Political Worker”. Their task is to carry out ideological propaganda in the internal channels and external forums of the alliance to strengthen the trust and sense of belonging of the alliance members to the alliance. At the same time, smear and expose the hostile alliance. In order to help one’s own alliance win the public opinion advantage. (Miao Miao Jiang Si, 2015)
While the game world and the real world are interconnected, there is also a similar view on the relationship between players and game avatars. “The underlying idea is that people have two identities, one for the real world and one for the virtual world” (Lehdonvirta, 2010). However, as the most hardcore players will also discuss recent events with their teammates in the game, these two identities will never be detached. “Identity also flows in the other direction: identity-forming experiences in an online game can shape one’s character in other contexts” (Fung, 2006, as cited in Lehdonvirta, 2010). In the ruleless and metaverse environment of EVE Online, this influence is amplified in one direction. It makes the players’ behaviour in the game look more extreme than in reality. At the same time, it also reveals to us the possible behaviours that people would do in an environment without rules and legal constraints.
Unlike most games, EVE does not provide players with a fixed list of tasks or a to-do list. It provides rich gameplay and multiple game domains for players to delve into. These domains eventually develop into different professions. Although EVE Online has a high degree of affordance as a sandbox game, players still need to set their own goals in order to perceive their progress. At this point, the player’s personality, personal history, cultural background and values will greatly influence the player’s choice of gameplay. This personality trait is magnified in EVE Online’s special unconstrained environment and reflected in the behaviour of the game avatar. For example, players who work hard and like to accumulate wealth may choose mining, manufacturing or PVE as their profession. Players who are willing to communicate and lead others will tend to enter the management level of the corporation and alliance. Players who are willing to take risks and travel will wander around the universe while looking for location signals to scan. Page (2018) mentioned in his interview with Chinese EVE players:
Chinese players on the Euro server say players on the Chinese server are too focused on making risk, farming rats or botting. They say the lack of conflict on the Chinese server is dull. Players on the European server attribute this to the legions of players who ignore the PvP game in favor of ‘farming’ NPC pirates or mining, which is also called being a “carebear”. (Page, 2018)
The “farming” mentality rooted in the hearts of Chinese players influenced their decision-making in the game, prompting them to use more peaceful ways to accumulate game wealth. In fact, in most games, the player’s personality will determine their behaviour in the game to some extent. But in EVE Online’s special unconstrained environment, this influence becomes more special.
Malicious behaviour is also part of the gameplay
Unlike other online games, EVE Online’s developers explicitly state that:
As long as the game process does not involve the exploitation of technical loopholes, deception or theft and other behaviors are considered “legitimate game cheating”, rather than being regulated by the user license agreement (EULA) or code of conduct. (CCP Games, n.d., as cited in Carter et al., 2015)
In EVE Online’s unique disorderly environment, some players’ wildness and malice are magnified and reflected in their game behaviour. However, since the player’s behaviour is usually the result of a series of complex decisions, it is not advisable to simply classify them by using a binary method based on the player’s behaviour.
For any EVE Online player, “if you’re going to undock with it you’ve already decided that you’re willing to lose it” has become an axiom that must be understood and accepted (Bergstrom, 2020). In the disorderly metaverse social environment of EVE Online, there is a group of players who are keen on PVP. Due to the special rules and gameplay of the game, players are allowed to attack other players without being punished. Therefore, there is a lot of “non-consensual PVP” in the New Eden universe. The main victims of these attacks are usually miners, couriers, PVE players, and novices who are unwilling to participate in PVP or have poor PVP skills. Although the game itself allows players to attack each other, most players will also participate in PVP activities more or less. But these special attackers’ behaviour is different from the regular PVP activities: they will even attack the victims in the game’s high-security zone. In the past, these areas were generally considered to be safe because any non-consensual PVP that occurred in these areas would be stopped by the NPC police CONCORD within a few seconds. And the attacker’s ship has no chance of escape. (Bergstrom, 2020, p.3) But even so, there are still some PVP players who enjoy this kind of suicidal attack (EVE University, 2023). It is also for this reason that “throughout the history of academic writing about EVE, there has been a consensus that this is not a gameworld for the faint of heart” (Bergstrom, 2020).
Malicious behaviour is not necessarily malicious
For this kind of malicious behaviour, Bergstrom (2020) advocates introducing the concept of “deviant leisure” to explain them from a perspective that is detached from the traditional “evil behaviour”. As a relatively new addition to the field of leisure studies, DJ Williams (2009, as cited in Bergstrom, 2020) explains: “Deviant leisure is usually seen as behavior that violates criminal and non-criminal moral norms” (p. 208). Bergstrom (2020) believes that “deviant leisure has within it an embedded critique of the social order.” Because EVE Online has a closed economic system, all the ships and weapons needed for PVP need to be mined, manufactured and finally sold on the market by players. “It makes clear that the relations of production and exploitation are built right into the games that are, apparently, meant to be a leisurely break from our labor” (Bergstrom, 2020). Viewing the game as a productive activity goes against the original intention of the game as a leisure entertainment activity. Players no longer enjoy the game itself but work for greater benefits. For example, miners often set their ships to mine ore automatically. Then, they deal with other things during the mining process. This is obviously a behaviour of pursuing benefits rather than enjoying the game. From this perspective, Bergstrom (2020) argued that:
At least part of what is happening in EVE is a rejection of games being coopted by society into something productive, and instead, via the lens of deviant leisure, we can see it as a Sisyphean struggle for gameplay to return to leisure for leisure’s sake.
On the other hand, Lehdonvirta (2010) discussed the motivations of malicious players, or toxic behaviour, in his article. According to Mulligan & Patrovsky’s (2003) definition, a griefer is “a player who derives his/ her enjoyment not from playing the game, but from performing actions that detract from the enjoyment of the game by other players” (p.475, as cited in Lehdonvirta, 2010). “[This] definitions highlight three key elements constituting a definition of toxicity based on the observation of griefing: (1) intent, (2) decreased pleasure for the victim and (3) increased pleasure for the instigator” (Lehdonvirta, 2010). Obviously, the attackers and their behaviour conform to the definition of malicious players and toxic behaviour, although there is no such concept in EVE Online’s rules. The attackers’ pleasure comes from the excitement of combat and the sense of accomplishment of destroying the victim’s ship. EVE Online’s realistic and harsh death penalty often causes huge damage to the victims, and this damage is transformed into the attackers’ pleasure.
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Through continuous research on these behaviours, Lehdonvirta proposes some possible motives for their occurrence. First, “ our [his] research findings reveal that players may define victory in different and ambiguous ways. …[And] victory conditions shape players’ expectations and game style” (Lehdonvirta, 2010). Due to the vague goal setting in EVE Online, different players’ gameplay differs greatly due to their different goals. For PVE players, defeating stronger robots is a victory. Ordinary PVP players define victory as destroying the opponent’s ship. Because players are not clear about the quality of the opponent’s equipment in the game, every battle is accompanied by great risk, providing sufficient stimulation for the player. For the attackers, simply killing players can no longer be called a winning condition; their goal may be to destroy multiple ships in a row or to kill other players under great difficulty to be called victory. These different goals determine the different behaviour patterns of players. The attackers’ goal makes them have to continuously kill other players under high difficulty to get pleasure in the game.
In the article, Lehdonvirta (2010) also mentions that:
We identified another potential intensifying factor for toxicity: the fact that tasks are repetitive. After spending many hours playing the game, players come to master its main dynamics, and subvert their meaning in order to develop new tactics that may become toxic.
When players play EVE Online for a long time, they hone their PVP skills and gradually delve into this profession. The PVP content that most casual players find difficult will become too simple for them. In order to maintain the same intensity of stimulation and pleasure:
[These] players thus reinvent their own ways of playing. … This becomes a “game inside of the game,” as experienced gamers refine what they deem too simple and add new objectives that may lead to toxic behaviour. (Lehdonvirta, 2010)
And the result is the birth of this deviant leisure way of killing other players for fun.
Conclusion
This article discusses the massacre behaviour in EVE Online. Apart from the clear definition of “malice” in other games, these behaviours that are disliked and feared by ordinary players are actually resistance to transforming the game into a productive activity from another perspective. Or rather, it is an attempt to return the game to its origin: the game should not be a mechanical and repetitive productive labour, not a boring process of watching the numbers gradually increase; players should focus on the fun that the game itself brings. And in PVP games, this fun is the confrontation between players. But, due to the special environment of EVE Online, this activity that should be experienced for the fun of the game is magnified and radicalized under the game’s harsh punishment mechanism and involuntary combat rules. While destroying productive behaviour, it also kills a large number of inexperienced novice players. It eventually evolves into an “evil behaviour” that frightens other players.
On the other hand, this article also discusses the motives of these “evil players”. Due to the vague goal setting of EVE Online, different players’ gameplay differs greatly due to their different goals. But, the game puts these players in the same world, resulting in fierce conflicts between different types of players. In addition, after playing the game for a long time, the stimulation and freshness of the original content drops sharply. The original difficult game activities also become less challenging. In order to continue to maintain interest in the game, some experienced players choose to set themselves goals that go beyond what the game designers envisioned. In PVP games, these goals eventually evolve into killing other players, satisfying their own need for stimulation and challenge by forcing others into combat.
As one of the players interviewed in Bergstrom’s (2020) article said:
EVE is a game where involuntary PVP exists, and the only truly safe place is inside the station. The sooner you learn and accept this, the more EVE will become the most amazing sandbox game you have ever played. (Bergstrom, 2020)
In EVE Online, these behaviours that are considered immoral in other games have become part of the gameplay of EVE Online. When players choose to enter the game, they represent that they have accepted all the gameplay under the game rules. But this does not mean that discussing these non-malicious “malicious players” behaviour is meaningless. Analyzing these behaviours in EVE Online helps researchers and developers understand the behavioural logic behind malicious players and toxic behaviour in other games and thus better constrain and reduce the occurrence of such behaviour. Furthermore, since players’ personalities in the game and in reality are mutually influential, studying these immoral behaviours can help the academic community have a clearer understanding of the logic behind the immoral behaviours that occur in reality.
References
Bergstrom, K. (2020). Destruction as deviant leisure in eve online. Journal For Virtual Worlds Research, 13(1). https://doi.org/10.4101/jvwr.v13i1.7403
Carter, M., Gibbs, M., & Arnold, M. (2015). The Demarcation Problem in Multiplayer Games: Boundary-Work in EVE Online’s eSport. Game Studies. https://gamestudies.org/1501/articles/carter
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CCP CONVICT. (2021b, May 11). Two Guinness World Records titles broken!. EVE Online. https://www.eveonline.com/news/view/two-guinness-world-records-titles-broken
Deslauriers, P., St-Martin, L. I. L., & Bonenfant, M. (2020, December). Assessing Toxic Behaviour in Dead by Daylight : Perceptions and Factors of Toxicity According to the Game’s Official Subreddit Contributors. Game Studies. https://gamestudies.org/2004/articles/deslauriers_iseutlafrancestmartin_bonenfant
EVE University. (2023, June 6). Suicide ganking. EVE University Wiki. https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Suicide_ganking
Lehdonvirta, V. (2010, April). Virtual Worlds Don’t Exist: Questioning the Dichotomous Approach in MMO Studies. Game Studies. https://gamestudies.org/1001/articles/lehdonvirta
Lin, H., & Sun, C.-T. (2007). Cash Trade Within the Magic Circle: Free-to-Play Game Challenges and Massively Multiplayer Online Game Player Responses . http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/07312.38207.pdf
Miao Miao Jiang Si. (n.d.). How to be a qualified political worker. Baidu Tieba. https://tieba.baidu.com/p/3611875335
Page, R. (2018). To win at Life: Tradition and Chinese modernities in eve online. Journal For Virtual Worlds Research, 10(3). https://doi.org/10.4101/jvwr.v10i3.7279
Acknowledgement
This article was co-written by the author and Bing Chat. When writing, Bing Chat’s main task was to translate Chinese into English. Because I am not good at English, writing a 2000-word essay is even more of a challenge for me. Therefore, in order to shorten the writing time, I used Bing Chat, which is based on GPT-4, as an auxiliary writing tool. Bing Chat (Creative), as well as GPT-4 and large language models behind it, have been proven to perform excellently in many aspects. In terms of translation, it also shows unprecedented power. The emergence of large language models successfully solved many problems that traditional algorithm-based translation software could not solve, such as long and difficult sentence translation errors, paragraph translation inaccuracies, context-based polysemy analysis, idioms and slang translation, etc., making its translation accuracy unprecedentedly accurate. Bing Chat’s online function enables it to quickly update and correct translation errors in its vocabulary. In the past, due to the linguistic and cultural differences between Chinese and English, traditional translation software was far less accurate in translating Chinese into English than English into Chinese. And the large language model trained by multiple languages solved this problem very well. In addition, Bing Chat can also give multiple translations for the same meaning that match different tones or usage scenarios, which is very friendly to English learners. Finally, the command-accepting feature of Bing Chat and GPT-4 makes their degree of personalization reach an unprecedented level. This is also something that traditional translation software cannot do. From indicating the part of speech that needs to be translated to giving specific usage scenarios, the large language model’s excellent language understanding ability and personalization level make it completely surpass all previous translation software.
