Coming Next Month: A Tale of Internet Spaceships - A Parable for the MMO Age

Elin films Petter's interview of Hilmar whilst the power of my frown forces another journalist to his knees.

It's been an exciting year (and a bit) for Swedish media students Petter Martensson, Philip Raivander and Elin Thedin. Since attending EVE Online's 10th anniversary celebration at the 2013 Fanfest convention in Reykjavik, Iceland, they've been hard at work reviewing and editing footage, capturing supporting material and adding polish in order to make their documentary, A Tale of Internet Spaceships.

Now they've announced they're almost ready to go public with their finished film, with an exclusive premiere on July 11 in Malmö, Sweden and subsequent general release on YouTube, Vimeo and other sources.

EVE Online is famous for its deep and involving virtual society and its record-shattering epic spaceship combat. The gaming media often reports on such occurrences. But what makes such phenomena occur and how has this community thrived for over a decade? What kind of people invest so much of their lives into 'internet spaceships' and why?

Petter, Philip and Elin, only one of whom has had any experience of EVE Online in the past, hoped to find out.


A Tale of Internet Spaceships was crowdfunded and independently made with no guidance from CCP, giving the film-makers the freedom to present the stories as they found them - and they found plenty.

The result is refreshing, honest and surprisingly powerful. It will almost certainly rattle a few cages and I hope it becomes a parable for the development of EVE (and indeed other MMOs) and community management in the future.

The documentary comprises an hour of passionate, entertaining and candid interviews and discussion with key CCP developers and leading players from the community. When I interviewed Petter on my podcast, Something, Something, Spaceships, we joked that most of the 36 hours of footage was of former CSM representative Hans Jagerblitzen, whose ability to talk without ever taking a breath or finishing a sentence is a thing to behold. But don't worry, there's also plenty of great material from CEO Hilmar Petursson and former CCP devs Kris 'CCP Soundwave' Touborg, Arnar 'CCP Zulu' Gylfason amongst others, as well as a number of leading journalists and EVE celebrities.

As a long-time member of the EVE community and someone who has had the opportunity to help the AToIS team throughout their investigative journey, I can say I am very proud to have played a part in this production and am glad that those Indiegogo backers saw value in the project. I'm certain they won't be disappointed, Petter and co. have done a fantastic job.

I can't wait for A Tale of Internet Spaceships to hit the interwebs next month.

[For further info, check out the press release or listen to Petter discuss AToIS on the Something, Something Spaceships podcast.]


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