The Fight for the Soul of Video Games

In the 2000s, an ideological battle played out across the fictional cosmos of EVE Online. The MMORPG, which is set 21,000 years in the future, lets its players, alongside their friends and enemies across the Internet, explore a galaxy called New Eden. It is, at times, a tedious game, one premised on mining and trading in order to accrue capital and power, but players can circumvent all that by using real-world money to get ahead of their rivals. With little interference from its makers, the game became a site of fierce political debate and intrigue. Allegiances formed; factions rose and, inevitably, fell—Game of Thrones on a cosmic scale, involving tens of thousands of players at any one time.