From the official forums

Last week CCP Games published an EVE Evolved dev blog about a new addition to an old friend: Aura. Aura is a toned-down AI (according to the lore) voiced by the entertainer and poetry translator Excena Foer. To players, Aura is the first (somewhat) friendly voice heard when a player first starts playing the game. Our friendly AI received an upgrade in 2016 with the introduction of the Inception new player experience. Aura became more than just a tool tip narrator, the AI persona was given "a powerful triple guidance system of voice, text and highlighting" to help players begin the game. And now, nine years later, CCP is experimenting with putting a low-level AI into Aura.

But why introduce the world to the idea of putting AI into EVE? Large segments of the gaming public don't like the idea of AI slop in their video games. Why not just give it a different description? Here's the description given in the dev blog.

Why Aura Guidance?

EVE already has strong guides, tutorials, and documentation. They are accurate, valuable, and not going anywhere. However, every time a new player alt-tabs to read a guide, there’s a real chance they won’t come back.

We want to keep players in the game. When a question gets answered within the client with links to ships and items, players see things they did not know existed. A new player asking about mining might discover a ship they want to fly right away.

If an answer mentions the fitting window, clicking it highlights it in the client. Rather than just explaining in text, Aura Guidance can guide you through the UI directly. That inspires curiosity, which is a hook, and it only works if the answer shows up where they are already playing.

EVE knowledge is situational. Understanding depends on where you are, what you are flying, and the current situation. Every additional login makes a player more likely to discover the wonders of EVE. We want to help people get to that point.

Let's be honest. For those who don't hate AI's, turning Aura into an actual, if limited, AI is pretty cool. Back when EVE was in development one of the most iconic artificial intelligences, Cortana, was released with Halo back in 2001. Going back in history, Cortana, like Aura, was created to guide players through the game.

[Bungie’s lead writer Joseph] Staten also said that originally, Cortana was originally due to be just a simple guide in helping get Chief from A to B among some things. But as it turned out later on, Cortana would show a more human side to Chief.

“We needed a character who could consistently guide the player through the game, and an onboard A.I. was something that could always credibly accompany the player (i.e., another soldier might get lost, wounded etc),” Staten said.

“Over time, Cortana became a fully realized character—a friend and companion to the Chief, not to mention the only person to poke revealing holes in his tough-guy exterior.

Cortana, though, was a character in the story. I personally think CCP Games enhancing Aura's ability to serve as a player‑support AI designed to answer questions, reduce friction, and help new players navigate EVE’s complexity 25 years later would make Aura more amazing that the AI's actual capabilities.

One of the big problems with Large Language Models is many companies use rather suspect ways of getting the information to train their AIs. According to the EVE devs the LLM used by Aura uses information retrieved from Rookie Help chat. The way the AI works also hopefully will minimize the occurrence of hallucinations. 

When a player asks a question through Aura Guidance, we embed their question and match it against this bank. We find the questions closest to player questions with existing answers, from real players and ISD volunteers. Those Q&A pairs are pulled, and a response is synthesized from the retrieved content, enriched with the player’s current context: their location, ship, recent deaths, whether they are docked, and so on.

The player’s actual question is never sent to a language model in its raw form. This is deliberate. It does not stop players from trying to break the system with toxic inputs or prompt injection, but it does make those attempts a lot less effective. We look up similar questions instead and build from those answers.

When the system cannot find a confident match, it does not answer. It redirects players to Rookie Help. This is a feature, and it happens often.

I will say I do like the prior experience of the team working on Aura's AI.

The team’s roots are in healthcare AI, with experience diagnosing diseases from biometric data. Getting those answers wrong has life-altering consequences.

That mindset carries over into this work: be careful, be honest about what you don’t know, and don’t guess.

The damage that a hallucination can do is immense, which is one reason I'm a bit wary of the concept. But the restrictions on the advice coming from Aura Guidance does ease my mind a bit.

Let’s be clear about some things that Aura Guidance intentionally does NOT do: it does not give fleet advice, market strategies, or detailed fitting optimization. It does not help you win fights or earn ISK faster. It does not replace the depth of knowledge you get from experienced players, mentors, or specialized communities. Those limitations are by design.

And another statement about the output from Aura I liked.

All responses are built from the vetted Q&A bank. No open-ended generation. No detailed tactical advice. No guaranteed outcomes that could mislead players. And if the system detects questions about exploits or hacks, it doesn’t even attempt to answer.

One final concern I'll address in this post involves the environmental impact of the system.

A Note on Environmental Impact

We take the environmental cost of running AI systems seriously. Our architecture is designed to minimize it from the ground up.

Aura Guidance is retrieval-first. There is no open-ended generation, no reasoning chains, or self-reflection loops. Each question gets a single, short answer. We only run small language model variants, and we evaluate new models with energy cost as a factor.

To put the footprint into perspective, even under generous assumptions where every active player sends a question every day, Aura Guidance's annual energy usage would be comparable to running a single small European household for a year. That is a rounding error next to the energy consumed by the game servers themselves.

Aura Guidance is currently undergoing A/B testing on new accounts on Tranquility. The determination if the program sticks around is the success of keeping new accounts playing. If the system fails, CCP goes on and tries something else. But for the cool factor I hope the testing succeeds.

FFXIV Cosmic Exploration - An Oizys Update And Token Grind

Over in Final Fantasy XIV I'm hearing speculation on whether patch 7.45 for Dawntrail will launch on 3 March or 10 March. Time to look around at the progress players have made building up Oizys as a base.

Aether is far ahead of the other logical data centers

For this segment of cosmic exploration North America is far ahead, with three worlds already finishing building the base on Oizys and three more close to doing so. The only world outside North America close to finishing is Tonberry over on Elemental. 

The spread of progress is really wild, with worlds on the newer logical data centers like Dynamis (North America) and Materia (Oceania) still on level 12 of the 28 step journey. I think the shorter cosmic tool grind on Oizys has had a greater impact than before. But as patch 7.45 is still 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 weeks away all worlds are still on track to finish the third segment of cosmic exploration by the time patch 7.51 rolls around this summer.

On a personal note, I've only managed to get 36 of the 60 Oizys Token Booklets needed to get the Cosmic Armored Weapon mount. One of the rare mounts that hides the rider, I like the idea of running around in a mechanical spider. But that's for outside cosmic exploration. Inside the content I still like my Cosmoboard.

In the token booklet grind I learned something about how to do two time-restricted missions, EX+: Survey of Rare Aetheric Flora for botanists and EX+: Survey of Rare Aetheric Minerals for miners. Each requires collecting 100 items. Each mission has 3 groups of 2 nodes, one with a duration of 5 and one with a duration of 6. I've learned to do the three 6 duration nodes first because the mission action Greater Reach is guaranteed to proc at least once, returning 200 gathering points per proc. Before gathering from these nodes I either activate Blessed Harvest II (botany) or  King's Yield II (mining). That way I only spend 300 GP at each of the nodes. If I don't have the 100 items gathered yet the next node usually gets me to the mission's goal.

I also learned to do two weather restricted missions that grant token books. The EX+: Rare Alchemical Reductions (botanist) and EX+: Crucial Initiative Reductions (mining) require gathering collectables and reducing them to 45 items. I use the Collector's Stellar Standard mission action as the first action for the first two collectables. I usually have enough GP to use Scrutiny twice on the third collectable and once on the fourth collectable. Usually by this time I have between 10-12 collectables gathered. I then reduce the items and, depending on the random number generator, I usually succeed with a Silver result. Eating Nasi Goreng gives the most GP, which is the stat I most look for now that I have all my cosmic tools up to iLevel 775 and my gear fully pentamelded.

Flying Solo In EVE: A New AI

A new week, another look back at last week in EVE Online. As usual, I'll start with the average number of concurrent users (ACU) logged in last week.

From EVE-offline.net

In what I consider a good sign Eve-offline.net still showed the ACU at 25,000 +/- 500 accounts. Yesterday's federal holiday in the U.S. might keep the ACU at that level one more week. But after that I expect the line to tick down another 1000.

PLEX continues its downward trend

A factor in my belief in a lowering ACU is the continued decline in the average price of PLEX. Between 9 February and 15 February the average price of PLEX fell 3.6% down to 4,252,000 ISK on an average of 1,470,000 PLEX traded daily. I track the amount of PLEX for sale on the global PLEX market and the amount increased by 13% last week.

2026 stats by week

Overall, the amount of PLEX traded last week increased by 4.7%. Reflecting the declining price of PLEX, the amount of ISK players spent acquiring PLEX only increased by 2.3% last week. Imagine that! A lower price of PLEX resulted in increased sales. In all seriousness I spent enough time working with the price of consumer packaged goods to expect that result. Of course, sales help as well and the latest one ended at downtime today.

As a veteran player I often skip past a lot of content meant for newer players. One of those features was the AIR Career Program. I didn't start paying attention until I started to train up one of my PI alts. I reached some goal and received a Catalyst and a SKIN. But the delivery was kind of cute.

Introduction to IRIS

I met a new AI, IRIS. I guess AI assistant technology has come a long way since Aura was first introduced back in 2003. I have to say, I liked the interplay between the two, so kudos to the writer. I'm now looking to trigger another AIR Career reward just to see if the interaction is different.

Discord, Age Verification, And The UK's Online Safety Act

The last time I wrote about the U.K.'s Online Safety Act was went the legislation went into effect back in July 2025. At the time I posted about some of the law's milestones.

January 2025 – July 2025: Focus on children’s safety duties. Ofcom issued guidance on age assurance for pornography and on conducting “children’s access assessments” (to determine if a service is likely accessed by children). By April 2025, services had to assess if their platform is likely used by under-18s. Child protection codes of practice were laid in Parliament in April, and by 24 July 2025, any service deemed likely accessed by kids must have completed a detailed child risk assessment. Summer 2025 marks the point at which the child safety regime is in effect, with requirements like age verification for adult content kicking in.

Late 2025 – 2026: Ofcom will publish the register of which services fall into Category 1, 2A, 2B (expected in late 2025) and develop further codes for those additional Category 1 duties. By early 2026, we expect new rules on transparency reports and adult user empowerment tools to become operational for the largest platforms. Enforcement activity will ramp up accordingly as all phases of the Act come into play.

Apparently that time is coming close and we now have an example to look at what implementing the new law looks like in practice: Discord.

We first see how Discord first attempted to follow the Online Safety Act in an article posted on 21 July 2025.

The United Kingdom's Online Safety Act (“OSA”) introduces new responsibilities for online platforms to reduce safety risks and provide age-appropriate experiences for users, especially teens. As this legislation comes into effect, we want to outline the changes that all UK users will see across Discord starting today.

While the UK Online Safety Act calls for new requirements specifically for UK users, these changes build on our existing safety architecture and represent our ongoing commitment to age-appropriate experiences worldwide.

Starting today, all UK users will experience new default settings designed to create a teen-appropriate experience by default while preserving Discord's community magic. These defaults include automatic content filtering (which is already on for teens everywhere) as well as privacy settings that can help limit exposure to potentially harmful materials and interactions. UK users who wish to access content flagged by our filters or customize certain settings can do so by completing a one-time age verification process to confirm they are 18 or older. Our new privacy-forward age verification experience is required in specific scenarios that meet the OSA’s requirements (more details below), while building on our commitment to fostering genuine connections and a positive online experience.

Apparently U.K. users chose the obvious path to avoidance and the Starmer government initiated a rather unique response.

The first week of implementation for the U.K.'s Online Safety Act (OSA) has been anything but smooth. Upon going into effect on July 25, popular online services ranging from X to Discord and even Spotify, requiring users to show ID before engaging with content on their platforms. Users turned in droves to downloading virtual private network (VPN) apps to avoid the requirements of the law and browse with their privacy intact. It's a very American response to the imposition of the British government's age verification rules, and it led the U.K.'s Secretary for Science and Technology Peter Kyle to suggest on live TV that every time an adult uses a VPN, it leads to the harm of a child online. U.S. advocates of similar digital regulations should take notice of how badly this is going.

I found the claim so extraordinary I decided to post the video below. 

Every time you use a VPN

A child dies pic.twitter.com/9wfJMPxbnF

— Callum (@AkkadSecretary) July 29, 2025

Of course, the regulators are not going to standby and let a bunch of people with little disregard for children get away with just going out and buying a VPN program to avoid an unpopular law.  Discord must prove its system works accuracy, with low bypass rates and consistent enforcement. Did I mention the sources I've seen agree the requirement must be in place sometime this summer?

Oh, and did I mention the penalties for violating the Online Safety Act?

• Financial penalties – Companies can face fines of up to £18 million or 10% of their annual global turnover, whichever is higher. For the largest tech companies, this could amount to billions of pounds.
  
  
• Service restrictions – Ofcom has the power to block access to non-compliant platforms and services in the UK, effectively cutting them off from the British market.
  
  
• Criminal liability – In the most serious cases, senior managers and executives may face criminal charges if they repeatedly and willfully fail to comply with the law.

Needless to say, the news that Discord was making the age restriction changes global should have been half-way expected. What apparently came as a surprise was Discord's solution of choice: Persona.

I'm not sure exactly how shocking the choice of Persona truly was. After all, Persona is used for age and user verification by platforms such as Door Dash,  OpenAI, Roblox, and Reddit. Instead, what raised eyebrows was the company's connections to noted Trump supporter Peter Thiel.

Thiel is the co-founder of Founders Fund, a venture capital fund founded back in 2005. Following Thiel's disillusionment with social media companies, the Founders Fund turned into "a primary backer of hard tech and defense technology." Founders Fund was a primary contributor to Persona's third and fourth rounds of venture capital funding. I know a lot of people like to make the issue specific to issues of the day. Personally, I think the link to Thiel doing something nefarious is a bit of a stretch. I think the link is made in the hopes of throwing enough mud that some of it sticks and makes Discord change its mind about adding age verification as a requirement to use all of the application's services.

But while the move to make age verification global currently is voluntary, for how much longer will that remain true? Complying with the Online Safety Act will probably also satisfy the age verification requirements in the EU's Digital Services Act (I'll hold off on the digital wallet regulations coming up in the future. In December, Discord extended age verification to users in Australia to head off calls to require the app to be in full compliance with the Social Media Minimum Age requirements. 

In the United States on 1 January 2027 Discord will need to comply with California's Digital Age Assurance Act (AB1043). From reading the text I believe Discord putting in age verification at least for California users is prudent. Over 20 U.S. states require some sort of age verification, usually for sites featuring adult content. I'm not sure how many of those laws would apply to an app like Discord.

One only needs to watch and read the storm of criticism Discord is receiving to understand not everyone thinks the company is doing the correct thing. Some, like the Electronic Freedom Foundation, want the company to fight.

Discord reports over 200 million monthly active users, and is one of the largest platforms used by gamers to chat. The video game industry is larger than movies, TV, and music combined, and Discord represents an almost-default option for gamers looking to host communities.

Many communities, including open-source projects, sports teams, fandoms, friend groups, and families, use Discord to stay connected. If communities or individuals are wrongly flagged as minors, or asked to complete the age verification process, they may face a difficult choice: submit to facial scans or ID checks, or accept a more restricted “teen” experience. For those who decline to go through the process, the result can mean reduced functionality, limited communication tools, and the chilling effects that follow. 

Most importantly, Discord did not have to “comply in advance” by requiring age verification for all users, whether or not they live in a jurisdiction that mandates it. Other social media platforms and their trade groups have fought back against more than a dozen age verification laws in the U.S., and Reddit has now taken the legal fight internationally. For a platform with as much market power as Discord, voluntarily imposing age verification is unacceptable. 

Two years ago I could have ended the post here. But we are living in interesting times. Online laws and regulations out of Europe are a major source of friction between the current U.S. administration, the European Union, and the United Kingdom. Tensions may have peaked in December with the State Department announcing the banning of 5 Europeans who the U.S. says "[led] efforts to pressure U.S. tech firms to censor or suppress American viewpoints." A December article in The Week expounded on the situation.

The barred Europeans, all of whom have been involved in organizations promoting digital rights and countering disinformation, are “part of a Trump administration campaign against foreign influence over online speech” that focuses on “immigration law rather than platform regulations or sanctions,” said The Associated Press. The move is the “latest in a series of warning shots volleyed by the U.S. at allies” for what the administration has deemed “unfair efforts to regulate American social media and tech giants,” said Politico.

European tech regulation, including the EU’s Digital Services Act and the U.K.’s Online Safety Act, has hit MAGA figures hard in two respects, said The Guardian: the “economic interests of Silicon Valley,” as well as their “view of free speech.” Already this month, X owner and onetime Trump administration official Elon Musk faces a $140 million fine for breaching the DSA in one of the “prime examples” of what Republicans in the U.S. view as an “anti-free speech culture on the other side of the Atlantic.” Under President Donald Trump, the “America First foreign policy rejects violations of American sovereignty,” said Rubio in a State Department press release. “Extraterritorial overreach by foreign censors targeting American speech is no exception.”

The mercurial Trump, known for holding grudges, may not let the issues fall away. One of the impacted Europeans is Thierry Breton, a former EU commissioner who was responsible for supervising social media rules. Breton warned Musk of a possible “amplification of harmful content” under the DSA by broadcasting his livestream interview with Trump in August 2024 when he was running for president.

So with the presence of geopolitics in the air, I get to conclude this post with words from a French diplomat.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said France condemns the visa restrictions on Breton and the four others. Also posting on X, he said the DSA was adopted to ensure that “what is illegal offline is also illegal online.” He said it “has absolutely no extraterritorial reach and in no way concerns the United States.”

I don't believe what Barrot says is true about any online law coming out of the European Union or U.K. Especially if a U.S. tech company takes the path of least resistance and complies with the laws ahead of time.

A Different Look At EVE Online's Monthly Economic Report For January 2026

Earlier this week CCP Games released the first monthly economic report for EVE Online for 2026. The developers in Reykjavik have to be on a high following Thursday's Pearl Abyss earnings call in which we learned the game had its highest quarterly revenue total since the pandemic lockdown years some 5 years ago. Overall, CCP Games had its highest revenue quarterly total and yearly revenue total in 2025 since Pearl Abyss acquired the Icelandic game studio back in October 2018.

Before diving into the subject, let's look at what the developers thought was important in January.

Economic Trends:

• Mining activity increased following changes introduced in the Catalyst expansion.
• Ice mining volume increased during the Winter Nexus event period.
• The Ship Price Index continues to decline, with an approximate 20% decline over the last year.
• The Mineral Price Index continues to decline, with an approximate 50% decline over the last year.

I look at the monthly economic reports a bit differently than I did back when they were first released some 10 years ago. Now I look at the reports as an indication of the health of the game. I started playing in August 2009 and Hilmar isn't only one who dreams of an EVE Forever. However, in my case I'd settle for another 13 years so I can own an account for 30 years. By that time I'll be 75 and probably ready to retire to playing online chess.

These monthly looks won't just use the MER as the reports don't hold all the stats I want to use. Of course I need to look at the average concurrent user charts provided by Jester.

Jester's Daily ACU graph, Feb 2025 - Feb 2026

The 7-day rolling ACU line shows the big decrease in activity following the end of the Winter Nexus event, with the figure dropping down 10-12% to approximately 25,000 accounts logged in at any one time the last week of January. This drop in activity should influence the numbers and analysis. 

But as the developers pointed out in the dev blog for January, New Eden having approximately 15% more accounts logged in didn't result in higher prices. Instead the Ship Price Index fell 20% year-over-year and the Mineral Price Index falling approximately 50%. The Pearl Abyss C-Suite presenters on this week's earnings call did point out to a higher than expected return of players to EVE. Would an industrial and exploration based expansion like Catalyst have brought those types of players disproportionally back? The answer seemed obvious halfway through typing out the question.

Did I mention that EVE Online itself, not just the IP, had its best quarterly revenue performance since 2020?

Yearly average concurrent users

As someone rooting for EVE to do even better this year I am adding another of Jester's graphs. While I doubt the game will maintain the ACU recorded in January for the entire year, I am rooting for the numbers to exceed those posted in the pandemic year of 2020. Doing so would return discussions comparing the game to the near peak year of 2014 instead of discussions of 2006.

The global PLEX market through 2 February 2026

PLEX is a rather important virtual currency in New Eden. The game describes PLEX as:

PLEX is an item that can be traded between players on the market. PLEX can also be used in the New Eden Store to upgrade your account to Omega Clone State, purchase virtual goods, and activate other account services.

But except for a reference on the Velocity of ISK graph, PLEX doesn't show up in the data files or graphs that make up the MER. So I have to come up with my own figures using my rusty Python coding skills. In January, 175.1 trillion ISK was traded for approximately 38.2 million PLEX. While PLEX is now used for more than game time, the usual PLEX to game time conversion of 500:1 reveals players exchanged enough PLEX to fund 76,370 Omega accounts for one month. To put that number into perspective, that's enough game time to fund one account back to the days when the hot new meta was domesticated goats.

I did want to check up on a newer feature, player-made SKINs. I knew I wouldn't be able to check on the finished products, but I was hoping to see the component parts. After all, if skill extractors are part of the Secondary Producer Price Index, why not sequencers? Alas, I couldn't find any of the items needed to make SKINs in the data files. So no graphs or charts since apparently all the Paragon items are available for PLEX in the New Eden Store.

But while I don't have visibility into Paragon, PLEX-related items such as skill injectors, skill extractors and body resculpt certificates are in the files. Labeled as "Accessories" I can do a couple of fun things. First, four of the items, Daily Alpha Injectors, Large Skill Injectors, Small Skill Injector, and Pilot's Body Resculpt Certificates fall under the Consumer Price Index in the charts. Players spent 493.8 trillion ISK on items that fall within the index basket, with 19.8% of those sales involving the injectors and resculpt certificates. But perhaps the biggest impact is felt in the Secondary Producer Price Index. Skill extractors made up 37.7% of sales in the 94.9 trillion ISK bucket.

Comparing RMT token and regular game item spending

One subject I've always wondered about is how much of the New Eden game economy is spent on actual in game items and how much on items related to the cash shop. Trying to figure that out was usually a pain because I needed to search the markets in 60 regions for PLEX sales. With the global PLEX market I can now figure that out fairly easily. The breakdown goes:

• PLEX sales: 175.1 trillion ISK
• Accessories (PLEX-related items): 132.5 trillion ISK
• Regular game play items: 533.2 trillion ISK

Honestly, players spending 63.4% total market spending on non-cash shop related items is a whole lot better than I expected. I did this exercise a few years ago and the proportion was 51%/49%.

Finally I do have one more metric I want to track. Namely, the ratio of ISK spent on purchasing PLEX vs the ISK faucets into the economy. In January that figure was 86%, with ISK faucets of 203.6 trillion outpacing the amount of ISK spent on PLEX by 28.7 trillion ISK.

Pearl Abyss Q4 2025 Earnings Call

On Thursday morning in Seoul Pearl Abyss held its latest earnings call discussing both Q4 2025 and full year financial results. For the final three months of 2025 the South Korean game maker recorded ₩95.5 billion ($65.9 million) in operating revenue, basically flat year-over-year revenue compared to the ₩95.7 billion ($69.8 million) recorded in the final quarter of 2024. For the year, Pearl Abyss recorded ₩365.6 billion ($257.5 million), a 6.8% increase over 2024's revenue of ₩342.4 billion ($251.0 million).

From the Q4 2025 Pearl Abyss Earnings Call

Not everything went well for Pearl Abyss in 2025. The fourth quarter resulted in the third quarterly operating loss and second net loss of the year. For 2025 Pearl Abyss racked up ₩14.8 billion ($10.4 million) in operating losses and a net loss of ₩7.6 billion ($4.9 million). Last year was the third consecutive year Pearl Abyss experienced an operating loss.

From the Q4 2025 Pearl Abyss Earnings Call

Before diving into the performance of the game IPs, looking at the performance of the Pearl Abyss' financial subsidiary is in order. For the fourth quarter non-game revenue accounted for 5.4% or ₩5.2 billion, of the company's total revenue. Unlike on previous calls with a large amount of non-game revenue, an explanation behind the income was not provided.

On the call the presenters made a point of mentioning the age of Pearl Abyss' two main games. For Black Desert Online, the game is in its 11th year of operation. The 10th anniversary was in Q3 and the revenue shows the extent of the celebrations. Quarter-over-quarter, Black Desert revenue dropped 20.8% back down to ₩63.0 billion ($43.5 million) for the quarter. The third quarter surge did result in Black Desert revenue increasing by 4.2% to ₩260.4 billion ($183.4 million) for the year. The South Korean won was weak against the U.S. dollar for most of the year, explaining why Black Desert revenue only rose by $200 thousand when the amount is converted to U.S. dollars.

The EVE IP, on the other hand, had a very successful year in terms of revenue in 2025. The final 3 months of the year resulted in revenue of ₩27.3 billion. On the call the presenters indicated the fourth quarter was EVE Online's highest revenue quarter since the pandemic lockdown years. And yes, while benefiting from foreign exchange effects, the $18.8 million recorded in Q4 was CCP Games' highest revenue quarter since the Icelandic studio was acquired by Pearl Abyss in October 2018.

CCP's success wasn't just confined to one quarter. With ₩92.8 billion ($65.2 million) in revenue for 2025, revenue in South Korean won increased year-over-year by 13% and 8.5% in U.S. currency. Both totals are records for CCP Games since the acquisition by Pearl Abyss.

A big event is coming up for Pearl Abyss: the launch of Crimson Desert. First announced in 2019, the launch is confirmed for 19 March 2026. Talk already has begun about Pearl Abyss' next game, DokeV. The presenters blamed part of the delay in releasing Crimson Desert on the need to develop the Black Space engine in parallel with the game. Investors were told that with the development of the engine complete new games will release faster. The company will release a date for the planned release of DokeV later in 2026.

Finally, anticipate progress reports on EVE Frontier to feature prominently on future earnings calls. While games utilizing blockchain technology may no longer be the flavor of the month anymore, I have the feeling investors are still interested in crypto. With crypto games dropping as fast as crowdfunded and AAA games have lately, CCP may not face much competition in the field for the next few years.

Flying Solo In EVE: PvP Fest 2026

Before turning to the topic of the day, let's look at the average concurrent users numbers from Chribba's EVE-Offline.net.

ACU the week of Feb 2-8, 2026

Two good developments occurred last week. The first is the ACU line stayed at 25,000 accounts logged in for last week. The line has a variance of +/- 500, meaning the average number of players logged in stayed at least 24,500, meaning my prediction of over 24,000 for the entire year is still looking good. The second was less periods of interruption on Tranquility last week. I did get kicked out of the game twice on Sunday, meaning some instability is still present.

Selected stats so far in 2026

For the week, the peak (PCU) only reached 36,408 on Sunday, which I partially attribute to the server instability as something was happening before the peak was reached.

History of the global PLEX market

The average price of PLEX fell last week by 1.6%, from 4,475,000 PLEX down to 4,403,000 ISK. But the volumes sold increased as the amount of PLEX expressed as gametime exchanged on the global PLEX market increased by 17.2%. The amount of ISK traded increased by 3.1% up to 43.8 trillion ISK. And if anyone wondered, CCP did hold a PLEX sale. Starting on 6 February the company is holding a 20% off sale on select packages of PLEX. Along with the discount on all packages of 1000 PLEX and above CCP is also offering historic Gallente SKINs until 17 February.

And finally, for all the solo PvP crowd, CCP is offering PvP Fest. From downtime 9 February to 17 February CCP Games is holding a competition. The rules are designed to hopefully cut down on cheating.

This event gives you an opportunity to flex your PvP muscles in a new and fun way. The goal is to score as many kills as you can, provided they fulfill the following criteria:

• Solo: Defined with the same consistency as zKillboard – scoring a solo kill (with NPCs or sentry guns on the killmail is acceptable.)
  
  
• Uniquely Piloted: Meaning that if you kill “player A” in a ship once, more kills against Player A will not count as additional kills.
  
  
• Individual Ship Kills: Meaning that destroying a specific ship type in a given area of space counts once toward your kill count. For example, if you destroy a Rifter in lowsec, more Rifters in lowsec won’t count. However, if you destroy a Rifter in a different area, such as nullsec, that does count as a new kill. The same applies to all ship types across different areas of space.

Each kill is counted the same way. Meaning a shuttle and a freighter count as 1 kill each.

The unofficial leaderboards for the event are available on zKillboard.

A Lazy PvE Ishkur Fit For EVE Online

I'm in the process of skilling up one of my planetary industry alts in EVE Online. While I want to upgrade to flying a Deluge, in order to take full advantage of the monthly opportunities track I really need something a little less fancy to kill low level NPCs in high sec. I keep Jaguars, the Minmatar assault frigate, around for my main characters to buzz around in. But as my alt is Gallente I decided to choose to fly a new ship for me, the Ishkur.

I also did something interesting. I let an AI pick out the fit. I turned to CoPilot, but I'm not sure the AI program really knew the difference between an Ishkur and an Ishtar. Also, Copilot's knowledge was a little out of date as it thought the ship still had 4 low slots and 3 mid slots. The numbers were flipped back in the Uprising expansion in 2022. I had to tell the AI about the change.

The mix-up with the slot layout wasn't the only reason for some extensive interaction with the program. When I typed in I wanted a PvE fit Ishkur, I was asked if I would like a shield-fit passive regen Ishkur. Copilot described the fit this way:

The passive‑shield Ishkur is one of those “this shouldn’t work but it actually does” fits — and when you understand why it works, it becomes a surprisingly fun, lazy PvE frigate for certain content.

If anyone wants I can make a post with Copilot's explanation. All I know is that I was taught that if a ship has more mid slots than low slots I can shield tank the ship. I was set up for shield tanking because I shield tank all my mining ships and until now my alt had only flown shield tanked ships.

Fit by an AI

With my skills I only have my certificate of mastery for the Ishkur up to level 2. But for an alt I like the ship. Paper DPS of 160 counting both blasters firing T1 ammo and Tech 2 drones, the ship has a passive regen tank of 32 DPS. I told Copilot I just wanted to run 1/10 to 3/10 sites in Minmatar space so the AI didn't bother trying to plug the EM hole in the shield tank. I also like the align time of 3.96 seconds. If anything under 3.99 seconds is a waste, the AI didn't waste very much.

Below is the actual fit of the ship, including drones and ammo:

[Ishkur, Lazy Boy]

Shield Power Relay II

Shield Power Relay II

Drone Damage Amplifier II

1MN Y-S8 Compact Afterburner

Medium F-S9 Regolith Compact Shield Extender

M51 Benefactor Compact Shield Recharger

M51 Benefactor Compact Shield Recharger

Drone Link Augmentor I

Regulated Light Ion Phase Cannon I

Regulated Light Ion Phase Cannon I

Small Core Defense Field Purger I

Small Core Defense Field Purger I

Hobgoblin II x5

Acolyte II x5

Iridium Charge S x500

Plutonium Charge S x1000

Antimatter Charge S x2000

I should add I let Copilot pick out almost everything except the type of guns. Copilot wanted to use autocannon but my alt didn't have autocannon skills so we went with hybrids instead. I did let Copilot pick out which guns. The AI didn't seem familiar with all the meta modules so I went ahead and picked the ones in the fit based on the description. I also went ahead and fit meta shield rechargers due to fitting reasons and didn't ask Copilot. I was getting a little tired of the back and forth.

I even received advice on how to fly the ship.

How to Fly It (Lazy Mode)

• Turn on AB and leave it on
• Orbit something at 20–30 km
• Launch drones
• Let the passive regen handle everything
• If you get neuted, nothing changes
• If drones get shot, recall → relaunch

This is as close to “hands‑off” as an Assault Frigate gets.

Honestly I still don't fully trust the AI. If I can make the fit totally tech 2 these are the stats Copilot thinks I should achieve.

Max skills?

But what I plan to do is use my AI-fit assault frigate to help with the skill point track and get 500K extra skill points a month. I'll keep track of how I do and report back on the success of the fit next month.

FFXIV Cosmic Exploration: A Fishing Hyperrod Delayed

The title of the post might be a little misleading when looked at a certain way. I felt like I really started flying through the grind of leveling each of my cosmic tools once I received the 150% progress bonus for having upgraded 5 tools. Going into last night I definitely felt I could complete upgrading my last two tools, the Cross-pein Hyperhammer for blacksmiths and the Fishing Hyperrod. Of course something had to come up to delay those plans. That's right, server maintenance. 

The maintenance began at 9pm Pacific/midnight Eastern time. That's right, right in the middle of prime time for those who live west of the Mississippi (and some of use who live east of the river as well). But unlike the 5-10 minutes of downtime the poor EVE players in Australia have to put up with, these updates usually take hours. While annoying, an EVE-style shortage today gives me time to go downstairs and fill up my drinks. With Final Fantasy XIV updates I just go to bed (or log into EVE).

I really can't complain too much because a couple of issues with Cosmic Explorations were fixed. The first one is an annoyance and hasn't affected me let on Oizys: the screen would fail to fade out during the cutscene after completing Cosmic Exploration Projects. I haven't been online to see that bug in patch 7.4.1 but I have another 13 opportunities to do so.

The second bug is a lot more serious, I think. Cosmic Exploration Projects and Red Alerts would occur simultaneously. Yikes! Failing to finish off the exploration project would delay progress for the whole server. I'm not sure for how long, but usually its harder to get everyone back together for a second try, especially for the smaller population worlds. At least, that's what I've heard.

As for my progress last night? I finished off upgrading the blacksmith cosmic tool. As for the Fishing Hyperrod? I'm two Class A fishing missions away from completing the set of Hypertools. I should have that completed tonight. Then on to grinding for the mechanical spider.

Flying Solo In EVE: The 2026 Roadmap

I always start these posts with a look at the weekly average number of concurrent users based on the data from Chribba's EVE-Offline.net. 

The average concurrent user count for the week ending 1 Feb 2026

The average line dropped by 1000 users last week. Yes, some technical difficulties resulted in service interruptions on both Thursday and Saturday but I don't think by enough to drop the number by itself. 

The PLEX market thru 2 February 2026

The price of PLEX remained steady lastweek, only dropping 1% in price during the week. The sales in the cash shop concentrated on mastery packs and remastered value packs. One interesting detail to observe in the near future is whether the first week of the month results in higher PLEX sales.

The reason for wanting to highlight the above information is the leadership of EVE's development seem pretty pleased with themselves with the state of the game.  I'll drop the video into the post below.

The video is part of the introduction of the roadmap for EVE Online for 2026. 

The roadmap is pretty basic and gives a 30,000 foot view (10,000 meters?) of what players can expect over the next 11 months. First, we get two expansions in the now familiar second and fourth quarters of the year. The word is the expansions will concentrate on factional warfare, meaning the Q1 entry for the Gallente election will probably impact at least the summer expansion.

In addition to the two expansions, expect four other major content drops in 2026. The first two will appear in the next few weeks. The EVE Evolved initiative is usually used to update the code base and functions of this game that will celebrate its 23rd year of operating in May. The last EVE Evolved in August of last year concentrated on updating the ESI as well as Upscaling & Ray-traced Shadows as well as an initiative from the art team titled Smoke, Fire & Smart Lights.

In addition to one in March will be another set of updated planned in the third quarter ahead of the winter expansion. The developers are only planning one major mid-expansion patch, this one for the Catalyst expansion, coming up in the next few weeks.

In addition to EVE Online, 2026 is the year EVE Vanguard enters Alpha. The roadmap shows a major event occurring in Q3 while Steam lists the same time period as the release of CCP's new first-person-shooter on the platform. The roadmap lists Vanguard as beginning a playtest on Steam in the final three months of the year.

Finally players will see the usual events such as Capsuleer Day celebrating the anniversary of the launch of the game, the Crimson Harvest and the Winter Nexus.

The post and video had more information but I just wanted to provide a quick road map. We'll probably see more details as time goes on.