As COVID-19 restrictions ease across most of the regions most heavily populated by EVE players, CCP struggles to deal with unanticipated consequences.
Accustomed to “working from home” while playing EVE full time, many EVE players have been forced to return to work in the office, reducing their available play time by an average of 60%. Many players are sublimating their disappointment with their work situation into rage against EVE Online and CCP. With less time to play, industry, incomes, and destruction all plummeted as a consequence of reduced play time, feeding Summer of Rage II. The Peak Concurrent User count steps backwards off the EVE learning cliff, feeding fears that when the Delta or Lambda variants of COVID-19 finally arrive and lockdowns resume, there will be only a skeleton crew of bots remaining in New Eden.
The rage is not constrained to the player base. CCP developers are also called back into work from the office. While CCP management celebrates the “opportunity” to return, and celebrates the “fun” they will have now that they are “all together again,” many developers are reportedly rather salty. “Oh, nice… we are locked in the house with nothing to do but play Among Us while dealing with months of dark, cold, and people asking if we’re safe from the volcanic activity, and now that Iceland’s beautiful summer is upon us we’re being dragged back into the office,” an anonymous developer complained. When asked about EVE play time, the developer responded awkwardly “Oh, no, there’s no point in doing that until… well, anyway, NDA, you know.”
CCP executive leadership offered this statement in response to discontent:
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