Eve - Invades Finland

My strange, naked weekend with EVE ONLINE’s developers and a dozen Finnish players.

- Steven Messner

You don’t really know EVE Online until you’re crammed into a hot tub full of drunk, naked Finnish players and two developers chatting excitedly about chaos and wormholes. I’ve traveled thousands of miles to end up here, in a stranger’s house on an island called Kemiönsaari, the boondocks of Finland. My journey to this county of some 6,000 Swedes and Finns isn’t just for pleasure, however. I’m here to cover a historic event in PC gaming—EVE Online’s first-ever Fanfest to be held inside of one lucky player’s house.

Normally these events are held in developer CCP Games’ home of Reykjavík, Iceland, and thousands of players from all over the world fly to party with the developers and learn about what’s next for EVE Online. Last year, though, CCP Games decided to take the show on the road and also solicit invitations from players to host a Fanfest from their very own home.

Fanfest Kemiönsaari (or Fanfest Home) is a surreal combination of a traditional gaming convention and a house party—keynote speeches and Q&A sessions spliced with barbecue burgers and vodka shots. When I told my parents about this trip, they were convinced it was an elaborate murder plot that would end with me flayed in a torture den somewhere. They did not predict the pale parade of nude, drunk EVE players shuffling to and from the sauna and hot tub. It’s a fitting opening ceremony for this next chapter of EVE Online, one that its developers promise will bring mayhem to its hundreds of thousands of players and their precious empires.