CCP finished their two-week sweeping reform of the infamous “Loot Box” policy today, finally removing any and all traces of the system from Eve Online’s code.
Scanning over the developer’s Twitter shows no signs that such a thing was ever announced or even prevalent in the digital world which calls to question just how two major northern wars were even funded. Possibly thousands of digital soldiers spent nearly two months duking it out for sovereignty in the far-reaches of the northern 0.0 space, and in the end barely moved many markers at all; instead opting to declare a stalemate when it was discovered that both alliances had nearly unlimited funds from the rare items found exclusively within Eve Online’s loot crates.
I was sent out to interview those veterans of the two Lootbox Wars, only to find hushed whispers and refusals to even discuss the subject. Some went as far to claim their country’s laws prevented any association with gambling or the like. Perhaps these players are being paid to maintain their silence as loot box hush money had become a trending topic, at least in the northern nullsec part of Twitter (which shares sixteen different languages and covers a vast amount of topics the southern empires would probably never even consider, such as potato-based cooking recipes).
Facing uncertainty, it was back to Twitter to find the answers, only there were none to be found: CCP has apparently deleted the expansion’s release notes and there is simply no mention anywhere of September 2016’s “Vast Quantities” update. Even now, Google shows little when polled for results on the subject: Did the expansion even happen at all? Let it be said the Eve Onion always investigates deeper.
For September, the website itself merely lists minor changes to Citadels and some small PvP events. Much like the now-legendary Walking in Stations expansion and updates, more of Eve Online’s grand history has disappeared into the mists of time—the only difference being the perhaps dozens of people who actually purchased loot boxes and SKIN crates during the brief window it was available.
We had all known that CCP’s real-money-for-virtual-goods system was an underused and generally unliked addition to the game, but none had expected a system that was at least profitable to go by the wayside with the elusive Icelandic developer—perhaps the law was the breaking point after all.
Delving into Icelandic law reveals very little, as the entire law and order system of the country is written in a language that not many can understand in the first place. Should an English version make an appearance, we assure you that The Onion will be the first to break the story.
For now, we can merely move on with our digital lives and hope that CCP finds a new revenue stream to support the sprawling space opera without the passive income from psuedo-gambling.
