For years it was affectionately referred to as “spreadsheets in space.” Now the joke has finally come true, as a hardcore massively multiplayer space game Eva online becomes the first video game ever to feature an official Microsoft Excel add-in.
Icelandic developer CCP announced the release of the Excel add-in with a typical mix of triumphalism and soft self-mockery. A video shows the intuitive process of importing your Eve data in Excel, and the far-from-intuitive walls of numbers and charts that flow from it, proclaim under captions that you can now use Excel to “calculate your production profits!” and “analyze the distribution of your skill points!”
Eve is a famously cerebral game with a stark interface and an intimidating learning curve, though for devotees it offers an endless, persistent universe of battle, industry, and politics. But the nickname “spreadsheets in space” has long been more than a dig at the dryness of the game. Many players already use custom or third-party integrations to get their data into Excel, and some claim to spend more time analyzing spreadsheets from their space empires than actually playing the game. So a slick, official Excel integration will be a meaningful quality of life improvement for Eva online players.
CCP said the add-in was co-developed with Microsoft’s Excel team, “including some internal cappers” — in other words, Eve players. The data it can access includes the player’s assets, market orders, item market prices, portfolio transactions, skills, and their company’s finances (read: capitalist spacing guild).
“We are excited to see how EVE Online players of all skill levels can use Excel to streamline data management and take their in-game experience to new heights,” said Microsoft’s Catherine Pidgeon, lead product for Excel.
Then Google Sheets, please. Or better yet, an Excel integration Diablo 4 theory building…