EVE is just a 19th-century speculative colonial venture.

Investors pour capital into territorial claims that evaporate, while brokers profit regardless. They hired a central bank economist because it is not a game in any classical sense. It’s an extraction economy with a UX that undermines human resistance to being defrauded.

Go resets. Chess resets. Risk resets.

EVE is a dopamine attachment to manufacture performance from feelings of permanent loss and longing (social engineering), and thus by design never resets.

Assets persist under enforced scarcity where destruction carries forward, so every battle means sunk cost, forever. It captures players’ sense of purpose/home and monetizes illness. Tribal destruction is turned into Lord of the Flies as a recurring revenue business model, instead of a warning of how not to be and what to prevent. The catastrophe is reported as profit.

The overall destruction, paired with the collapse of a major alliance, made 2025 a defining year for the game. Fenris Creations reports that November and December of that year were the two highest-revenue months in the game’s 23-year history. James says the fall of Pandemic Horde, which cost him his virtual job and home, still hurts.