Playing EVE Online is more than just a game! These EVE skills translate easily into real life; they help you develop and hone your life skills, which you already use.
Let me elaborate on this statement and dive a bit deeper into the context. We do all play the same game and generally share the same overall game experience. But EVE is especially known for its unusual – kind of autistic – player base. We just do not play EVE simply; we are trying to min/max anything and everything to its fullest potential, never giving up, not letting loop holes or opportunities pass us by.
Call of Duty it ain’t
EVE is ruthless cause the players try hard as F*. There is much more to EVE than just the game itself; plenty of other activities and topics are evolving and developing around the game experience itself.
Let’s explore and talk about some of the most common and widely used activities/skills.
The spreadsheet magic
I believe anybody who does some sort of serious trading, or production, in EVE knows what I’m referencing. Just looking at production itself: from very simple ammunition to the most complex items like T3 stuff, if you want to make decent money and if you don’t have tons of experience, you had better get your Excel spreadsheet going. The same goes for trading. Whether you do arbitrage trading, combining your production with selling your stuff, or other forms of market trading, you probably have a few spreadsheets going, telling you all the important information you need to know to get ahead in the market.
In today’s EVE, more and more players step into the realm of using spreadsheets to get an edge, organize their alliance, or get stuff sorted in eve. Excel expertise has evolved into its own community of players, who share their knowledge of how to work and set up spreadsheets, improving or specializing tasks and much more. Why take a class in Excel when you can play EVE and work on mastering production?
I would love to put this question out there to all the spreadsheet wizards: Did you incorporate your real-life skills of working with spreadsheets into EVE, or did you get into spreadsheets because of EVE online? Either way, spreadsheets are a very powerful tool and and important skill to have offline. If you can master EVE spreadsheets, why not make use of these skills in real life and try your hand in actual commodity, stock or, cryptocurrency trading? If you are running a successful and calculated trading operation in EVE, you’ve got an understanding of how a market can react to certain inside and outside influences. You may well have more experience than some freshly graduated noob “investing” in the actual cryptocurrency market nowadays.
Web development and third-party applications
Another very popular and evolving field is the creation of third-party tools and the use of web development, web design, and similar skills. Pretty much everybody uses some sort of third party tools and the options are ever-growing. You wished there would be a tool/program to figure out how to set up your PI production or your would like to record and put together the new WH chain or perhaps get the best fittings for your next PvP excursion together? All these tools have existed already for ages and many are very tightly interwoven into the EVE game experience.
So some questions to all the developers out there:
- What will be the next big third party tool for EVE?
- Have you ever used these skills to create tools or apps for some RL experiences?
The creative realm
While I split them into the four broad categories (writing, artwork, music, video production), this whole topic is huge, multifaceted and just endless in possibilities. I could probably write an entirely separate article for each sub-area, but if any of my fellow writers want get started on that, feel free and go crazy on it!
Illustration / artwork
To use just one of many possible examples, recently CCP had a propaganda artwork contest going and plenty of players participated. Many very creative and elaborate pieces were submitted and that level of participation shows that a community hungry for visual art. If you look at the history of EVE, and all the wars and other similar events, propaganda is never far away. Whatever the story is, that tale gets combined with bold illustrations driving the narrative forward.
Writing
This one is probably the most obvious, if not the best, proof that EVE isn’t just a game. Have you heard of Empires of EVE? If you are reading INN articles (and obviously you do) or have read any blog or Reddit post, you know that writing is dominant thing within the EVE experience. Andrew Groen has very successfully demonstrated that you can actually make use of your real-life skills, implement them in the universe/community of EVE and then turn those skills transfer back into the real world to make both a statement and some cash. He showed that EVE, and gaming in general, can be much more than just a waste of time.
Video Production
CCP also had a contest for a short films, with really talented and innovative producers. Again, that contest showed the range of skills you can pick up or improve to create something which brings so much to the community. The biggest part in this sub-category would probably be the Youtuber and streamer, ranging from very informative to unbelievably entertaining.
Music
One of the rather smaller topics, but not any less interesting, is music production. The most famous and well-known participant in this field is the Band “Permaband” with some real bangers. While this whole category is probably still underdeveloped, it has decent potential.
Let me know if there are any other major categories that should be talked about. Please share your examples of skill implementation between EVE and real-life!
