Eve Online partners with Microsoft Excel because of course

During the keynote this weekend EVE Fanfest convention in Reykjavik, Iceland. Eva Online creative director Bergur Finnbogason announced the upcoming collaboration between space MMO and Microsoft Excel spreadsheet program in front of a crowd of dedicated fans. They ate it.

Eva Online hardheaded often joke that a complex game is essentially “spreadsheets in space” due to the massive amounts of data that must be dealt with in order to be played seriously. So shWhen Finnbogason took the stage EVE Fanfest this morning and moved on to a slide talking about the CCP Games developer partnership with Microsoft Excel, official stream on twitch provoked reasonable laughter from the public.

But that laughter soon turned to applause when he showed them exactly what they had in store.

Reflecting the goals outlined elsewhere in the keynote, Finnbogason explained that his team is interested in bridging the gap in knowledge and budget between new players and those who have played Eva Online long enough to set corporations and alliances within its vast universe.

“Data is extremely important for many advanced gaming styles. EVEand by making it easier for everyone to access data, we will level the playing field when it comes to sandbox tools,” said Finnbogason. “Together with Microsoft, we are creating an extension that will allow gamers to capture and retrieve data directly in Excel.”

“This isn’t an April Fool’s joke,” Finnbogason added as a prototype demonstration played out behind him, just to make sure the crowd understood it wasn’t an elaborate prank. “This is real.”

The implications of this collaboration with Excel are enormous. While the built-in tool doesn’t suddenly become obsolete Eva Online players as experienced or knowledgeable as its most dedicated astronauts, being on equal footing when it comes to collating, manipulating and comparing data should go a long way to ensure newbies don’t burn out when the economic realities of the game start to pile up. .

Eva OnlineThe Excel extension is still in early development, but CCP Games plans to provide more this year.