EVE Online: The Worlds of Wealth and War

This paper examines the distribution of player-owned wealth in EVE Online, a science fiction massively multiplayer game with a player-driven economy, and asks whether veteran players hold a lasting first-mover advantage. Drawing on a snapshot of server data collected on July 26, 2020, the author applies the Gini coefficient and decile analysis to measure concentration, and uses regression to test how wealth relates to logon time and account age. Players were grouped into two cohorts: all players who have ever played, and "activated" players with at least 20 hours of logged time. Player identities were approximated by linking accounts sharing an email address, and corporation wealth was analyzed separately.

The central findings are that wealth in EVE Online is extremely concentrated. The Gini coefficient is 0.97 for all players and 0.90 for activated players, with the top decile holding roughly 98% and 85% of wealth respectively, a degree of concentration exceeding that reported for real-world economies. Most of this wealth is held as in-game items rather than ISK, with items making up about 83% of total player wealth. Players hold the large majority of total assets, far outweighing corporation holdings. Regression analysis shows a strong positive relationship between logon minutes and wealth (R² of 0.80 and 0.69), while the relationship between account age and wealth is weak (R² of 0.15 and 0.002). The author concludes that early entry confers no durable advantage and that accumulated playtime is the dominant driver of wealth.

The study acknowledges several limitations. Valuation methods assign zero value to untradeable items and understate rare faction ships, likely making inequality appear smaller than it is. Loyalty points and extractable skill points are excluded, and the email-based player identification may both miscount accounts and merge distinct people. The author also cautions against direct comparisons with real-world economies, noting that virtual wealth does not decay, is not taxed, and operates without the banking or unemployment mechanisms that shape real economic inequality.