It wasn’t hard to find the VR doubters at EVE Fanfest. One high profile EVE Online player told me he had no interest in CCP’s VR games but would “rather they have new teams working on VR than moving people from EVE to something like World of Darkness, which was left in the corner like a rotten apple.”

Another said he was “glad that the VR side of the business will be there to support EVE Online financially.” For a while at least, I figure it’ll be the other way around. It might seem strange to see a free-to-play MMO as the financial foundation that a studio relies on, but then CCP are a strange company and to some people their dedication to VR might seem like their strangest move yet. I spoke to VR Brand Director Ryan Geddes and CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson to find out what the future might hold, and why they believe VR is an important part of that future.

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The EVE Fanfest a couple of weeks ago was, as the name suggests, dominated by EVE Online, but developers CCP have other eggs in other baskets. EVE Valkyrie, the dogfighting multiplayer space shooter, is the company’s flagship VR title, and though I’ve only played it at events rather than at home, it might well be my favourite goggle-game. It’s not the only egg in that particular basket though, and the virtual sport Sparc [official site], with its full body dodging and blocking, is even more impressive in its use of the hardware.

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“When I’m here, [my real self] is at home. I’m my character. But right now, I’m not my character, because my character hates that guy’s character. He fucked up my life in the game. But Alex [the person behind the character] is lovely, he’s always been good to me. So if I introduce you to him, don’t be a dick, because that’ll be on me then.”

I’m about to meet The Mittani. Or Alex. Maybe both. He’s a very small part of this story, but an important one.

“Do you play EVE?” He asks me, after establishing my credentials and showing a high-level of knowledge about RPS coverage of EVE in the past. When I admit that I don’t, he has an immediate response: “Then we have something in common. I don’t play EVE either.”

It’s the final day of Fanfest and even though I don’t have an EVE Online character, and whatever my reply to The Mittani might have been, I feel like I’ve been playing the game for a week now. Read the rest of this entry »