Selling the Imperium: Changing Organisational Culture and History in EVE Online

Webber and Milik's study examines how organisational identity and cultural change were pursued within EVE Online, centred on the 2015 renaming of the Clusterfuck Coalition (CFC) as "The Imperium." The authors argue that the rebranding drew on imperial and Western historical symbolism, including the Black Eagle emblem, the Maximilian pledge image, and viceroyalty structures, to construct a "usable past" that conferred legitimacy and an impression of maturity. Drawing on critical history, ethnography, and ethnomethodology, they compare this dynastic project to the medieval Norman model, interpreting the largely muted community response to the name change as a form of implicit acceptance of leadership's direction.

The study's central empirical case is the crowdfunded Fountain War history book, which failed on Kickstarter amid widespread community distrust of The Mittani's motives. Players feared that the project would serve as propaganda or revisionism, and many viewed its commercialisation, along with perceived real-money trading, as eroding the alliance's historic community identity. The authors find that these reactions were shaped less by the content of the book itself than by perceptions of who controlled the group's story and for whose benefit.

Comparative analysis of the TEST and BRAVE alliances, which attempted to merge within the HERO coalition, supports the broader argument. Clashing cultures and the autonomy of player power undermined cohesion there, and the coalition eventually dissolved, contrasting sharply with the Imperium's more successful transformation. The authors conclude that resistance to cultural change, both internal and external, depends heavily on members' perceptions of group identity. The Imperium's continued cohesion indicates that its cultural continuity was sufficiently preserved for most members, even as its leadership reshaped the alliance's history and image.

The study covers the Imperium's rebranding and its related controversies around 2015 within the EVE Online player community, and its sources include player-run media, Kickstarter-funded publications, and alliance announcements, complemented by academic literature on digital labour, identity, and online communities.