Eyjolfur “Eyjo” Guðmundsson, an academic, a gaming buff, and an in-house economist for CCP Games, describes his job as being just like “a research scientist for a central bank.” Except his bank and its currency don’t exist in the real world.

Eyjolfur “Eyjo” Guðmundsson

Guðmundsson oversees the function of InterStellar Kredit (ISK), the in-game money for EVE Online, a science fiction-themed game world whose average player spends three hours a day online. Approximately 500,000 users worldwide use the platform to constantly plot, scheme, and attack each other in ways that would make the NSA and CIA proud. The game’s creators, Iceland-based CCP Games, built an online environment so complicated it requires a real-life security squad and even official, in-game economists–like Guðmundsson. They watch and learn tactics of the biggest rascals so they can take that knowledge into the broader virtual world. While the CIA was worrying about World of Warcraft being used for money laundering, EVE players were busy committing virtual currency fraud to defeat their online rivals.

Part of EVE‘s appeal is its immense complexity and offering a sandbox where players can behave completely awfully to other players. While Warcraft and other massive multiplayer games such as Starcraft II are designed to be intuitive and draw a player into a world whose complexity and subtlety matches the time investments they put into a game, EVE throws players into the deep end of the pool. CCP representatives told me a significant percentage of the game’s players work in IT, and it shows: The company makes a game API available for developers to build on, and EVE‘s player base has largely moved beyond traditional mods to make amazingly complicated add-on tools.

When there have been cases of DDoS attacks in the real world, CCP will assist relevant law enforcement. But spying and infiltrating is okay.

The world CCP presides over would seem daunting to outsiders. Alongside the core product of EVE Online, there is also a shooter game called named Dust 514 whose players’ actions affect EVE‘s in-game economy, and a separate game server named Serenity aimed at CCP’s large Chinese market. Players in EVE are divided up into guilds called “Corporations,” which are free to fight and scam each other in endless libertarian abandon. In the gaming community, EVE‘s players have become famous for elaborate virtual Ponzi schemes, like one 2011 scam which fleeced approximately 8,000 players of their in-game earnings, and for elaborate intelligence schemes where spies infiltrate rival corporations for secrets.

The economy that supports EVE is all founded on in-game currency InterStellar Kredit (ISK) and currency-like Pilot License Extensions (PLEXes); PLEXes can be purchased through real-life currency as well. That’s where the economist Guðmundsson comes in. Alongside standard research scientist fare such as writing internal reports, he has to occasionally intervene to prevent inflation and unintended market consequences. Because PLEXes are tangentially related to the actual, real-life global economy, he helps CCP build protocols for when real life intrudes into the virtual game economy.

Guðmundsson explained how his work as a traditional economist translates to the gaming world, especially in terms of PLEXes. While CCP tries to keep as hands-off as possible in terms of PLEXes, they are obtained through electronic time codes which can be purchased from Amazon, Steam, and a variety of smaller retailers that accept any real-life currency imaginable. Because the electronic time codes are purchased with actual currency, he has to occasionally use the same kind of measures central bankers use to keep things going. If a bubble forms due to broken code or game mechanics abuse, Guðmundsson and CCP will intervene; the company will sell PLEXes in-game, for in-game currency, from their own reserve stock to stabilize prices, but “only if we know the reasons and the results of our actions,” as Guðmundsson puts it. Then there are the ISKs. Guðmundsson adds:

EVE, as a platform, is an economic sandbox. When I joined the company, CCP wanted an economist because of the sheer complexity of the market in a player-driven system. Once the game had over 100,000 participants, it was hard to understand exactly what’s going on. Our in-game economic system is very lassiez faire and we don’t intervene in player actions unless it’s due to a broken system. Players can behave however they want in the in-game world, but we intervene over things like producing something out of nothing because the [backend] code is broken.

Because of EVE‘s hyper-libertarian online economy, things actually happen that would give real-world central bankers nightmares … or cause massive lawsuits. Back in 2011, one four-member corporation called Phaser Inc. promised investors Bernie Madoff-like returns on their ISK investments. Over 8,000 players invested their in-game earnings with them; in a recounting of their project, Phaser’s Mordor Exuel and Eddie Lampert described how they felt “a Ponzi Scheme would be the best way to gain a lot of ISK” and went about spamming the game’s communication channels to attract eager investors, while running a slick public relations operation that included hiring a copywriter and developing a website. While investors suffered no real-world losses, their standing in EVE‘s virtual world suffered thanks to their virtual currency disappearing in the Ponzi scheme.