CCP has announced that Eve Online has hit 500,000 subscribers. The game reaches the milestone just as it celebrates its 10th anniversary.
“This is a really big deal for us,” said CCP’s chief marketing officer David Reid. “This is a ten year old game that has continued to grow every single year of its existence. It’s very different from other games in the industry that we’ve all seen have had their peaks and have continued to decline, particularly in the subscription model.”
The success is in part attributed to the game’s eighteenth free expansion, Retribution, and the emergent gameplay moment that resulted in the Battle of Asakai. Reid also said that the game’s recent launch in China has gotten off to a very strong start.
Reid also commented on the recent PS4 announcement. “We saw what they announced, and of course we were part of the briefing for that,” said Reid. “We saw in particular what David Perry talked about with Gaikai and how Sony is exploring this and at this point we have nothing to add to what Sony announced. We’re excited about what they’re doing, we’re excited about our prospects on PlayStation 3 with over 70 million consoles out there now.”
CCP CEO Hilmar Veigar Petursson is confident in the future prospects of Eve Online‘s complimentary free-to-play shooter title for PS3, Dust 514. “If there’s anything we’ve learned over the past decade at CCP it’s about focus and execution,” explained Petursson. “Just seeing the early numbers and the reaction of the audience we now have in the open beta of Dust the opportunity is even bigger and more exciting than we ever thought. Now we’re closing in on 80 million PS3s all around the world and the product that we have, which is one of the first free-to-play experiences on the PlayStation 3, it seems like the best idea in the world to have a free product on a platform that’s about to transition.”