EVE Online is not for everyone : Exceptionalism in online gaming cultures

ISSN: 1795-6889 www.humantechnology.jyu.fi Volume 15(3), November 2019, 304–325 304 EVE ONLINE IS NOT FOR EVERYONE: EXCEPTIONALISM IN ONLINE GAMING CULTURES Abstract: EVE Online is a space-themed massively multiplayer online game that has developed a reputation for being difficult and unwelcoming to new players. In this article, I explore how an emphasis on exceptionalism is present throughout discussions about EVE by its developer, the enthusiast gaming press, and survey responses of current players (N = 647). Taken together, information from these sources reinforces a public perception that EVE is a game that is of interest only to a very specific kind of player. In turn, these findings add further evidence to the long-argued position of feminist game scholars: Not all gaming communities are open to all players. Rather, who plays, what they play, when they play, and/or how often they play is shaped by the larger social context in which play occurs. Keywords: EVE Online, MMOGs, players, exceptionalism. ©2019 Kelly Bergstrom and the Open Science Centre, University of Jyväskylä DOI: https://doi.org/10.17011/ht/urn.201911265022 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Kelly Bergstrom School of Communications University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa USA Exceptionalism in Online Gaming Cultures 305 INTRODUCTION Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) represent a genre of digital games in which thousands of players participate simultaneously in a shared, persistent online world. Research to date has remained overwhelmingly focused on the activities, decision making, in-game behaviors, and interactions among players while they participate in the gameworld of a MMOG. Still underexplored are how players come to play particular games, and even less is known about why they leave. Although at any time hundreds of MMOGs are available to pick from, players tend to focus their attention on only one or two games, most typically following the pattern of quitting one game before moving on to a new title (Pearce & Artemsia, 2009). Due to the affordances and structures of most MMOGs, this makes sense: This genre of gaming tends to require a significant time investment by its players. Because of this time investment, participation in these gameworlds is not always continuous or consistent. Players also might stop and start playing the same MMOG multiple times, depending on external factors that constrain their available leisure time (Bergstrom, 2019b; Debeauvais, Nardi, Schiano, Ducheneaut, & Yee, 2011). In other circumstances, players may not want to stop playing but are forced to relocate to a different gameworld because the game is being shuttered by its developer, as was the case for the Faunasphere (Consalvo & Begy, 2015) and Uru (Pearce & Artemsia, 2009) communities. In this article, I add to the growing body of research being conducted to better understand why players leave MMOGs. I also add support to arguments made by feminist game scholars that the choice of whether or not to play a game is never truly unfettered. Specifically, I contribute evidence that the larger discourse surrounding a game, combined with how existing community members frame the game to outsiders, can serve as a barrier for some potential players becoming long-term participants in a particular gameworld. Using the space-themed MMOG EVE Online (EVE) as a case study, I demonstrate how an emphasis on exceptionalism is present in how this game is marketed, the type of coverage offered by the enthusiast gaming press, and how its existing player base describes the game to outsiders. Taken together, information from these sources reinforces a public perception that EVE is a game that is of interest only to a very particular kind of player. This in turn adds to the folklore that EVE is exceptionally difficult and/or unforgiving in its gameplay, which is indeed an attractive quality to some players (e.g., Bergstrom, Carter, Woodford, & Paul, 2013; Carter, 2015b) but may result also in potential players—who might otherwise enjoy the game—opting out before ever trying it for themselves. BARRIERS TO DIGITAL GAMEPLAY In order for an activity to be considered play, it must be entered into voluntarily. Yet this does not necessarily mean that all games are open to all potential players. In the case of a MMOG, certain conditions must be met before a potential player can enter the gameworld. These conditions typically include access to a computer capable of running the game’s software, access to high-speed Internet, and a credit card or other means to pay the game’s monthly subscription fee. Some games are geographically limited, meaning that computers located in certain regions of the world are unable to connect to a game’s server. These examples are some, but not all of the obstacles that must be overcome before a player can connect to a MMOG. Less easy to pinpoint are the more subtle social forces that may steer potential players toward some games Bergstrom 306 and not others, or away from games entirely. To address the gap whereby the barriers to gameplay remain underexplored, I draw on the history of feminist game scholarship that has long illustrated that, although games are frequently marketed in a way that assumes they are of more interest to young boys (Burrill, 2008; Chess, 2017; Cote, 2018), in reality girls often are socialized away from gaming from a young age (de Castell & Bryson, 1998; Harvey, 2015). Interventionist feminist research has shown that when the entry conditions are changed (e.g., the creation of groups where girls can learn to play games in a girls-only environment or in women-led community groups focusing on mentoring other women through designing their own game), girls and women become active players and/or create their own games (Fisher & Harvey, 2013; Fisher, Jenson, & de Castell, 2015; Harvey, 2014; Harvey & Shepherd, 2017; Jenson & de Castell, 2011; Kafai, 2008). Beyond intentional feminist interventions, games directly marketed toward girls and women tend to be collaborative as opposed to competitive (Cunningham, 2018; Flanagan, 2005; Juul, 2010) or productive in nature (e.g., cognitive improvement games such as BrainAge) rather than play for play’s sake (Chess, 2009, 2010, 2017). In this article, I continue my previous research that disrupts biological deterministic arguments surrounding who plays what games and for what reasons (Bergstrom, 2019a, 2019c). Throughout my work, I have argued that gendered assumptions about who plays digital games, what games they play, and for what reasons they play are complicated when feminist games scholarship is put into conversation with leisure scholarship. By turning to literature from leisure studies that investigate how the combination of intrapersonal (e.g., a personal belief about whether or not something is an appropriate leisure activity to undertake), interpersonal (e.g., family commitments that reduce one’s leisure time), or structural (e.g., a lack of disposable income) barriers can work to reduce an individual’s access to particular activities (Crawford & Godbey, 1987; Crawford, Jackson, & Godbey, 1991), I have argued that feminist game scholarship can better articulate the barriers that can prevent access to gameplay (Bergstrom, 2019c). Games, broadly conceived, suffer from a common-sense understanding that ignores the larger social context in which they are undertaken. Traditionally, the assumption has been that such activities are freely chosen (Stebbins, 2017, p. 11). However, unobstructed access to leisure activities is more myth than reality: Leisure scholars have long argued that “leisure activities are socially structured and shaped by the inequalities of society” (Juniu & Henderson, 2001, p. 8). Moreover, such inequalities are correspondingly present among digital gaming cultures, as evidenced by the work of Kishonna Gray (2011, 2012a, 2012b, 2014, 2018), who has painstakingly documented the racism and misogyny faced by black women who participate in online gaming communities. Rather than barriers being limited to a few specific games, feminist researchers have documented how games-related forums and websites also are less than welcoming to participants who fall outside the gamer stereotype. To be clear, the stereotype is not necessarily reflective of the reality of the diverse demographics that can be found playing digital games; rather, the stereotype that games are the domain of socially awkward teenage boys remains exceptionally sticky (Bergstrom, Fisher, & Jenson, 2016; Kowert, Griffiths, & Oldmeadow, 2012). Players who do not self-identify as being straight and/or white and/or male are generally are made to feel unwelcome or less-deserving to identify as part of a specific gaming community (Beyer, 2012; Braithwaite, 2014; Chess & Shaw, 2015; Kubrik, 2012; Salter & Blodgett, 2012; Vanderhoef, 2013). These studies of barriers to leisure and/or gaming communities serve as my framework to examine how a developer and/or existing player community can signal to potential players Exceptionalism in Online Gaming Cultures 307 whether or not a particular game is for them. EVE’s player population is exceptionally homogeneous, almost exclusively men. In my previous research about this MMOG, I discussed how players use the male-dominated EVE player community (Leray, 2013) as evidence that women are somehow inherently disinterested in space-themed games, such as EVE (Bergstrom, 2016). In this article, I continue to build on this work to illustrate how the ways a specific game is positioned in the larger MMOG landscape can act as a form of gatekeeping, which in turn works to maintain the homogenous demographic of its player community. To highlight evidence of this gatekeeping, I will begin by discussing some examples of how EVE is framed by its developer (CCP Games) and the enthusiast gaming press. Subsequently, I examine responses from a survey in which current players of EVE were asked to describe the game to someone who had never played it before. EVE is a sandbox-style game, meaning players are reasonably free to forge their own path and participate in activities that best suit their preferred play style and interests. Yet, these examples of how EVE is framed by its developer, the enthusiast press, and the existing player community will illustrate how a particular version of EVE has become the norm. Such framing inadvertently hails1 some players while pre-emptively excluding other potential players, which in turn works to complicate the idea that playing or not playing EVE is an activity that somehow is inherently more attractive to certain demographics over others. EVE ONLINE, BRIEFLY EVE, a space-themed MMOG released in 2003 by CCP Games, has wavered in popularity over the course of its lifespan. Peak subscriber numbers are estimated to be around 500,000, but this number has since decreased (Royce, 2016). Originally, a subscription was required to play, but the game has since moved to a free-to-play model. EVE breaks from conventions typically present in other popular MMOGs (e.g., World of Warcraft, EverQuest) in that it is not a fantasythemed game, player-to-player interaction does not happen via humanoid avatars, and CCP Games rarely intervenes to regulate play (Bergstrom & Carter, 2016). Instead, EVE players are free to undertake what CCP Games has described as forging their own path in the sandbox, that is, in the gameworld known as New Eden. EVE is played on a single-shard server, which means that players from almost everywhere in the world access the same game server. Exceptions to this single-shard community are the players with Chinese Internet Protocol addresses who must play on a separate server due to government regulations.2 Research about EVE was scant in the years immediately following the game’s release, but it has increased in popularity among researchers in recent years. Early investigations about the game include a collaboration by Wu-Chang Feng, David Brandt, and Debanjan Saha (2007), who examined the rate at which new players joined and existing players quit EVE. By tracking patterns of how often players connected to the game server, Feng et al. found that 70% of new players quit about a year after creating an account (p. 22). Other research about EVE published around this time used prominent in-game events as part of larger investigations about player interaction in virtual worlds. In large part due to EVE’s reputation as a lawless virtual world, in-game events sensational enough to warrant coverage in the gaming and/or popular press have served as a case study in articles that focused on morality (Craft, 2007), fraud (White, 2008), and virtual world governance (Blodgett, 2009; de Zwart, 2009; de Zwart & Humphreys, 2014). Bergstrom 308 In 2013, a noticeable shift in the academic games literature about EVE occurred. Rather than looking from the outside in, ethnographic investigations, such as Harald Warmelink’s (2014) landmark book Online Gaming and Playful Organizations, began to offer new interpretations of this gameworld. Despite Darryl Woodford (2013) cataloging the difficulties of conducting ethnographic work in a nonavatar environment such as EVE, articles and conference papers drawing on interviews with current players and/or participant observation of the EVE gameworld began to appear at this time. In some cases, such as publications stemming from Marcus Carter’s (2015c) dissertation research, this literature remained focused on the more ruthless elements of EVE play. Carter collected his data via in-game observation and by interviewing active players of the game (Carter, 2015b; Carter & Gibbs, 2013; Carter, Gibbs, & Harrop, 2012), rather than building an argument based on coverage of a notorious event in the popular press. Oskar Milik (2017) and Nick Webber and Milik (2018) added to this conversation by analyzing how the speeches made by leaders of in-game corporations (EVE’s name for guilds or other similar player organizations) were used to maintain order in a chaotic online world but also reinforced a culture of ruthlessness among the corporation’s membership. Catherine Goodfellow (2015) documented the xenophobia against Russian (or those perceive to be Russian) players. Goodfellow’s ability to conduct fieldwork in both Russian and English allowed for her cross-cultural comparison of this player community, adding a thick description of EVE to the game-specific literature while further serving as an important addition to the broader game studies literature that overwhelmingly focuses on English-speaking game communities. This new approach to EVE was most readily apparent in Internet Spaceships are Serious Business (Carter, Bergstrom, & Woodford, 2016), an edited collection about the game that featured empirical research as well as essays written by prominent and long-term players, adding nuance and complexity to the studies of this gameworld. Earlier academic work on this game seemed to rely heavily on third-party descriptions of controversial in-game events. This second wave of research, drawing on empirical research, complicates the perception that EVE play consisted entirely of lying, cheating, scamming, and assassinating other players. And yet, as my investigation will demonstrate, this continues to be one of the primary (and sometimes the sole) depictions of EVE by the enthusiast press and one of the major themes current players will draw upon when describing this game to someone who has not previously played it. Before moving on to this discussion of EVE in the enthusiast press, I now provide additional context for the game by providing a brief description of how EVE is marketed by its developer, CCP Games. FRAMING EVE ONLINE As part of a larger dissertation about EVE, I conducted two analyses of major sources of information that a potential player might turn to in learning more about this MMOG: the official EVE website and reporting on EVE by the enthusiast gaming press. I briefly summarize here the findings of both studies with the caveat that, due to the nature of the Internet that allows for continually updated content, these studies are now historical examples. I posit however that these examples are still useful because they capture how EVE was talked about online in the time leading up to when I conducted the survey detailed later in this article. Exceptionalism in Online Gaming Cultures 309 EVE Online’s Official Website A visitor to the official EVE website in September 2018 was greeted with a realistic rendering of space and spaceships, reflective of the game’s animation style. Written in bold, white text at the center of the screen is the message RECORD-BREAKING SPACE MMO3 JOIN GAMING’S GREATEST BATTLES Near the bottom of the page is a quote attributed to The OP4 that reads, “Best Open-World MMORPG5: EVE Online.” In June 2019, this message was updated to say THE #1 SPACE MMO NEW EXPANSION OUT NOW The quote attributed to The OP was later changed to one by Game Revolution6 that states, “EVE Online is the biggest game you could possibly hope to play.” In 2018 and now into 2019, the landing page indicates this is a website for a space-themed MMOG that has received praise. But this was not always the case. In May 2014, a visitor to the EVE landing page would have been greeted by a very different message (Figure 1). Clicking the text “one universe” loaded a star map of New Eden, the virtual universe of EVE. This map was not annotated in any meaningful way nor did it include an explanation of how gameplay on a single server adds to a unique gaming experience. In March 2015, the link to the star map was replaced with a new link that said “the universe.” Clicking on this link led to a page that detailed the backstory or lore of the game. In a larger exploration of Figure 1. Screenshot taken by author on May 16, 2014. This was the landing page of the official EVE Online website. Bergstrom 310 EVE’s marketing conducted as part of my dissertation research (Bergstrom, 2015), I argued that, when compared with official websites of other popular MMOGs (e.g., World of Warcraft), the official EVE website was and is presented in a way that assumes viewer familiarity with the game and its genre. To briefly summarize, my findings were that, although the World of Warcraft website included a comprehensive introduction to both the game and the MMOG genre generally, such information was missing from the EVE website. The 2014 World of Warcraft website included a link to a game guide on the main landing page. Clicking this link led to a comprehensive introduction to the game that began with an answer to “What is World of Warcraft?” The material not only explained the specifics of the game but also served as a general introduction to the typical features of the MMOG genre (Figure 2). I argue that having information presented in an accessible manner, especially when displayed alongside the EVE site, illustrates that the World of Warcraft website is far more accessible to potential new players. The World of Warcraft website has been designed to easily acclimatize a player unfamiliar with this particular game and/or with MMOGs. In contrast, the official EVE website assumes a degree of familiarity with both the game and genre. Instead of a game guide, the May 2014 version of the EVE website featured a prominent offer of a free trial. This would indeed offer new players a first-hand introduction to the game, but previous research has found that the EVE new-player tutorial was and remains incomplete (Paul, 2011, 2016). Only those who are able to find assistance (usually in the form of guidance from existing players) to help overcome the steep learning curve are likely to become long-term players of this game. Christopher Paul argued that this approach to learning the game enculturates and solidifies a tight-knit community of players. Extensions to this research contends the imagined EVE player is assumed similar in subcultural Figure 2. Screenshot taken by author on June 13, 2014, showing the Game Guide accessed via a link from the main World of Warcraft landing page. This page contained basic information about the game and also an introduction to MMOGs more generally. Exceptionalism in Online Gaming Cultures 311 knowledge and humor to that of existing players, as evidenced in an examination of playercreated newbie guides (Bergstrom, 2013), player-made propaganda (Carter, 2015a), and fieldwork conducted at fan conventions (Chia, 2018). My research adds further empirical evidence that the existing player base may not always be particularly apt at offering assistance to a diversity of new players. I will return to the existing player community in a subsequent section of this article, after I detail how the enthusiast gaming press reported on EVE during this study. EVE Online in the Enthusiast Press Unlike mainstream journalism, which has a history of being less than friendly in their coverage of gaming (Bergstrom et al., 2016; Dutton, Consalvo, & Harper, 2011), an enthusiast press “produces consumer-oriented publications that focus on publicizing specific categories of goods, often high-end technological products (such as video games, computers, or cars)” (Carlson, 2009, para. 4.1). For example, World of Warcraft was rarely covered by mainstream publications— except for large clusters of sensationalized coverage in the wake of two mass shootings (Bergstrom et al., 2016). The gaming enthusiast press is much more likely to offer both consistent and/or positive coverage of games. Knowing this, I posited in previous research (Bergstrom, 2015; Bergstrom et al., 2013) that potential players might be more likely to learn about EVE through these venues. Therefore, over a 1-year period, I captured all mentions of EVE in three online publications that would be considered part of the gaming enthusiast press, each representing a slightly different focal point to ensure a variety of coverage about the game. These online publications were as follows: a general gaming website that provides coverage of a wide variety of genres (Kotaku), a niche website that only covers MMOGs (Ten Ton Hammer), and the nested MMOG-specific site belonging to a more general games or technology network (Massively, part of the Joystiq network).7 Using the NCapture extension of Nvivo for Windows, I archived all articles tagged with the keyword EVE Online appearing on each of the three sites between May 2013 and May 2014, resulting in a dataset of 267 articles. Thematic coding (Saldaña, 2013) was used to generate a list of each article’s primary topic. The most frequently appearing topics, representing 75.6% of the articles captured for this dataset, are presented here. 1. Replication of CCP Games’ Press Releases (n = 93; 34.8%). These articles presented content that replicated information shared via press releases on the official EVE website and/or blog posts made by CCP Games’ employees, known colloquially as dev blogs. 2. Articles not actually about EVE Online (n = 37; 13.8%). These articles mentioned EVE Online as a keyword tag in the header of the article but did not actually mention EVE anywhere in the body of the article. EVE was likely included as a keyword to assist with search engine optimization. 3. Articles that were actually about other games produced by CCP Games (n = 28; 10.5%). These articles used EVE Online as a keyword tag but the primary subject was another game previously, currently, or projected to be developed by CCP Games. These games were EVE Valkyrie (n = 16), Dust 514 (n = 9), World of Darkness (n = 2), and Project Legion (n = 1). Bergstrom 312 4. Articles focused on the player versus player (PVP) elements of EVE Online (n = 26; 9.7%). These articles actually covered EVE-related content, but focused solely on one element of gameplay (i.e., large-scale PVP battles). 5. Articles focused on player conventions and meetups (n = 18; 6.7%). CCP Games hosts two annual EVE-themed player conventions, Fanfest in Reykjavik, Iceland, and EVE Vegas in Las Vegas, USA. The articles in this category ranged from informational announcements that the events were occurring to more editorial-style pieces that relayed the authors’ experiences at one or both events. This coverage of EVE—discussed in detail in Bergstrom (2015)—is relevant to my current investigation in that it paints a picture of EVE that is limited at best. Missing from the year’s worth of coverage were any discussions of the less visible parts of the game that might be of interest to potential players, specifically the game’s robust player versus environment (PVE) mode, the mining and manufacturing activities to amass in-game wealth, and the rich role-play communities found within New Eden (Taylor, Bergstrom, Jenson, & de Castell, 2015) or the decidedly less ruthless play observed on the Chinese EVE server (Page, 2018). By relying heavily on the press releases or dev blogs released via official CCP Games’ channels, much of the actual enthusiast press coverage of this game focused on announcing new expansions or forthcoming in-game changes. These topics would likely be of little interest to nonplayers and may be inaccessible to those unfamiliar with the game’s mechanics and/or structure. In addition to coding the articles by topic, I also made note of particular characterizations of EVE by the enthusiast press, including specific descriptions of the game being hard, boring, or different from other games. In some cases, the headline helped reinforce the ruthlessness of EVE, such as Jason Schreier’s (2014) “A look at the insane history of EVE Online” that appeared on Kotaku and detailed Andrew Groen’s (a freelance reporter who had written previously about EVE) kickstarter campaign to fund his research and subsequent book about the oral history of the game. The text of Schreier’s article mentioned giant space battles, virtual warfare, and politicking but made no mention of any of the PVE activities that one can undertake in EVE (e.g., mining, manufacturing). Similarly, the headline for another article on Kotaku—covering the release of the Darkhorse Comics and CCP Games’ collaborative project based on actual events that have happened within the EVE universe—invoked a similar sentiment about people who play this game: “A comic that perfectly captures the evil genius of EVE Online players” (Narcisse, 2014). The coverage on Kotaku between May 2013 and May 2014 tended to focus on the more sensational aspects of EVE, which I have argued previously is the most easily understood and accessible for non- or novice players (Bergstrom et al., 2013). EVE players doing horrible things to each other makes for exciting headlines, and such coverage requires little knowledge of the ingame affordances or rule structures other than a loose grasp of the idea that EVE is a lawless space. By consistently presenting EVE in such a manner, Kotaku maintained the idea that EVE is a game for players who are interested in ruthless play and thus encourages such players to investigate this game further. Potential players who would prefer a more collaborative gameplay experience will likely self-select out of EVE long before they would consider downloading the free trial and playing through the EVE tutorial. Despite EVE being marketed as a sandbox game offering an immersive and self-directed play experience, the coverage on Kotaku did not present it as such. Exceptionalism in Online Gaming Cultures 319 influence who plays, what they play, how often they play, and when they play. This serves as a reminder that extremely large datasets collected from MMOGs are not actually representative of a larger population. For a deeper discussion of this implication, I would like to draw the reader’s attention to Eszter Hargittai’s (2015) important argument that datasets drawn from a single MMOG player population, from a particular social networking site, or from a single site of any kind, is limited in its generalizability, no matter how big the dataset. Rather than advocating for increased diversity among EVE players, my goal has been to provide further evidence to the long-argued position of feminist game scholars: Not all gaming communities are open to all players. The realities of who plays, what they play, when they play, and how often they play it is shaped by the larger social context in which play occurs. MMOGs offer the opportunity to meet new people from all over the world, increasing a player’s exposure to new cultures and potentially leading to increased empathy among players. These games also provide space to collaborate with friends and strangers by means of coordinating and completing complex tasks in both small and large groups. MMOGs (and other digital games) also offer up an environment where failure to complete a particular task is not necessarily a disaster. Rather than actual lives or currency being on the line, the stakes are much lower in a virtual world. Game scholars have long argued that MMOGs can serve as a space where both bonding and bridging social capital can be cultivated; playing together can strengthen existing ties and also lead to new connections. In sum, there are many benefits to playing a game like EVE beyond enjoying one’s leisure time. In conclusion, I must emphasize that the argument of feminist game scholarship has never been that every game should be all things to all people. EVE is never going to be a game that appeals to all players; very few games ever occupy a universally beloved position. Rather, my aim in this article has been to foreground the ways that play is shaped and constrained by outside forces. Using EVE Online as an exemplar, I provide evidence that an overemphasis on exceptionalism by its developer, the enthusiast press, and the existing player community may have locked out potential players who fall outside the assumed demographic of EVE. As a result, potential and novice players are not given the opportunity to participate on their own terms and make their own decision about whether or not they would like to stay. IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH, APPLICATION, OR POLICY MMOGs offer a compelling site for certain types of research in that they offer up large populations through which to study computer-mediated communication. However, they cannot be viewed as a proxy for society writ large as they do not act as an actual mirror of offline populations. By examining how the ways journalists, the game’s developer, and current players describe EVE, I have provided evidence to explain why this particular game has a reputation for exceptionalism and how gatekeeping occurs on multiple levels. When this research is put into conversation with other work about former and non-players, it demonstrates that how a game is publically discussed is just as important as the gameplay mechanics when seeking to understand who will play it (and who is much less likely to do so). By starting with a game that has a reputation of being at the very edge of its genre, this article highlights both the need for future research about barriers to MMOGs, but also provides a point of comparison for how games with a more welcoming reputation (e.g., World of Warcraft) are discussed by journalists, developers, and players. Bergstrom 320 Game designers will be able to apply this research to their own gameworlds to cultivate a sense of accessibility or exclusivity, depending on their desired outcome. Public discussions about their game (by players and/or journalists) can be harnessed to create deep engagement with a narrow population, or to foster a reputation for welcoming and inclusiveness. Company promotional materials can either supplement or disavow the reputation of their game—but only if they are aware of this reputation. ENDNOTES 1. For the information of readers from other fields who may not be familiar with the use of hail in this manner, I draw on Louis Althusser’s (1971) concept of interpellation. Hailing in this case is used like a call, specifically where ideology calls to an individual to conform to a certain subject position and its associated assumptions, beliefs, and worldviews. 2. For a detailed discussion about the Chinese server and its very different play style than the server utilized by the rest of the world, see Richard J. Page’s (2018) contribution to the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research’s special issue about EVE. 3. MMO is typically understood as an alternative way to shorten Massively Multiplayer Online Game. 4. During the time of writing this article, the quote attributed to The OP appeared on the page where premium EVE accounts could be purchased (https://secure.eveonline.com/buy/). However, that placement did not provide link to a specific website or review; my subsequent attempts to find the review were unsuccessful. 5. A MMORPG, Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, is a type of MMO. The use of MMORPG has fallen out of fashion in recent years, with MMOG being used to refer to Massively Multiplayer Online Games, whether or not they contain a role-play element. 6. Game Revolution (https://www.gamerevolution.com) is a website devoted to gaming related news and reviews of recent games. 7. After data collection was completed, Joystiq and its nested sites (including Massively) were shuttered as part of downsizing by AOL, its parent company (Wawro, 2015). Since that time, the site has returned as Massively Overpowered, a Patreon-funded website. 8. This heavy reliance on the term sandbox to describe EVE is present in commercials or trailers produced by CCP Games to advertise this MMOG. An example of the heavy use of sandbox can be seen in The Butterfly Effect (CCP Games, 2009) a trailer that uses chaos theory to explain how the actions of a single EVE player can have far reaching consequences in a single-shard gameworld. 9. The respondent numbers here were assigned in chronological order as unique anonymized identifiers by the survey software used (LimeSurvey). 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