Since CCP announced that their intent to produce a new EVE-like game called EVE Frontier which would incorporate blockchain technology, the landscape has been littered with the worst and most half-baked takes possible. From a complete misunderstanding of their intent to outright misrepresentations of what the game actually is, it's been incredible to watch the community break their collective arm patting themselves on the back for being repulsed by something most people can't even seem to explain.
Three days ago, the illustrious game journalism outfit IGN released what might be the most embarrassing take on the game yet:
As a bit of a preamble, I'd like to state a few things for the record:
- NFTs and crypto speculation are nonsense
- Bitcoin is not crypto
- A blockchain is just a data structure and has existed since the 1980s source
- There is a gulf of difference between applications and infrastructure
Now that those are out of the way, let's get into it.
The Reviewer's Obvious Bias
It's very clear to the viewer that IGN's reviewer is very strongly biased against EVE Frontier's blockchain integration. The entire review is soaked with disdain and dismissive loathing for the blockchain aspect of the game, passed off as some kind of fair skepticism which is intellectually lazy at best and dishonest at worst. For instance, he says the following:
...and employing blockchain to, so the devs say, give even more control to players
What do you mean "so the devs say"? It's clearly articulated in the EVE Frontier whitepaper how it does exactly that. It's not a mystery-- there's no ambiguity in how it does so. This is the first glaring example of bias on the part of the reviewer. CCP has been exceptionally transparent in how the Ethereum blockchain plays a role in core gameplay mechanics and has even held hackathons for players to do exactly this, which they then went on to demo at Fanfest 2025. Again, this is either intellectual laziness or dishonesty.
Let me get this out of the way first. Frontier is, yes, a blockchain game
What does that even mean? EVE Frontier uses a blockchain, but just in the way that EVE Online uses a database, you wouldn't call it a "database game". This turn of phrase is a petty reductionist tactic commonly used in the gaming world to immediately discredit any sort of project that uses blockchain technology under the hood by simply burdening it with a label people immediately assume to be derogatory. It's a shortcut that signals to the audience that they've been instructed to dismiss the project and that understanding it is not a requisite for that dismissal.
EVE Online has had the ability to buy its subscription token 'Plex' with real money and sell it for ingame money for a while now, so that specific aspect isn't new.
I'll actually applaud the reviewer on this point as it's one that's seemingly lost on the majority of Frontier skeptics. This is a concept which is no different from EVE Online, aside from the infrastructual differences of how value is remitted.
I am highly skeptical, personally, of these kinds of rotating Silicon Valley hype words, and nothing CCP has said to me so far has made me less so as a rule.
What exactly makes "blockchain" a "rotating Silicon Valley hype word"? As cited in the beginning of this article, the concept of blockchains have been around for over 40 years, but let's take that out of the equation and consider that he likely means within the context of modern digital assets. Even so, this is a terrible take. Bitcoin was introduced in 2009 and is 15 years old as of the time of this writing. EVE Online itself is only 5 years older. How long must something exist before it's no longer considered a "buzzword"? Additonally, neither "buzzword" nor "hype word" are acceptable stand-in terms for something you don't understand simply because you don't understand it.
Their faith in this tech might be misplaced in my opinion
The reviewer's opinion is worthless in this regard because he goes on to demonstrate a complete lack of competence in this area. We'll touch on that next.
On the topic of environmental concerns, I was assured repeatedly that using proof-of-stake verification, it was possible to run Frontier's blockchain elements using about the same amount of energy as the traditional EVE Online servers that have been up for years.
This reviewer clearly is totally ignorant of the most basic aspects of what he simply calls "blockchain."
Firstly, proof-of-stake is not a "verification" system, it is the consensus mechanism by which transactions are validated and added to the blockchain. This is counter to Bitcoin's proof-of-work consensus mechanism which is much more energy-intensive. There's a very good reason for being so, and it opens a totally different debate as to whether anyone has the moral authority to judge any use of energy as being more or less valid than any other. For instance, I have yet to see the critics of proof-of-work criticize indoor skiing facilities in Dubai with the same degree of fervor.
Secondly, does this person not know how to do a Google search? Was it really too much of a burden to simply Google "proof-of-stake vs proof-of-work energy consumption"? Here. I've now done more prep work for this review than the reviewer.
EVE Frontier's blockchain features run on something called Redstone, a layer-2 system that runs on top of Ethereum.
I don't know enough about the tech to independently verify this, but it's what I was told.
This is apparently journalism? The only thing separating this reviewer from good journalism and bleak ignorance is a simple Google search as I've outlined above.
The reviewer then moves onto actually talking about gameplay mechanics, and I don't take any issue with the rest of the review.
Takeaways
As someone who is very involved in the digital asset space as well as a longtime EVE player and general fan of CCP, I find it incredibly sad how eager some people are to criticize this project, despite perhaps being the least knowledgeable people in the room on the topic. I understand the base level reaction of hearing that CCP is making something blockchain-oriented, but if you're like me and have enjoyed the last 20 years of EVE Online, then perhaps you could cut CCP just enough slack to simply Google your questions about it before vomiting out this sort of nonsense review.
As an EVE Online player,I'm extremely bullish on EVE Frontier. Its game play is snappy and responsive, the general art style of the game is compelling, and the galaxy is unbelievably large. As a developer, I can't overstate how excited I am to be able to extend the game in creative ways.
I'm open to the idea of Frontier failing, and if it does so, it will be a tragedy to lament, not something to celebrate.