How Eve Online is adapting to higher demand and complicated game development during the pandemic

Posted byby Dean Takahashi
March 26, 2020
Updated June 20, 2025
10 min

Hilmar Veigar Petursson, CEO of Iceland’s CCP Games, sees both hardship and opportunity in the coronavirus. Demand for the company’s flagship game, Eve Online, has risen in recent weeks, with the number of people signing in at about double the number a year ago.

But his whole staff of 300 people also has to work from home. That’s not easy for game developers, but CCP has to adapt just like every other game company in the world. Online connectivity and Zoom meetings enable the company to function as normal and to serve as a lifeline for isolated players who are navigating the vast spaces of Eve Online in solitude.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.