Eve Online fans literally cheer Microsoft Excel features at annual Fanfest

There aren't many games for which built-in integration with Microsoft excel would be a major feature. Eve Online showed itself to be the exception when it was announced that it would have an integration with excel.

Through an official partnership with Microsoft,CCP said it is creating a JavascriptAPI that will allow players to easily export data from Eve Online into a popular spreadsheet program. The company said in a press release that it will help players access and calculate everything from profit margins to battle strategy, making day-to-day Eve operations easier to execute.

Eve Online Creative Director Bergur Finnbogason said on the Fan Fest stage that it was not April fools, but actually reached.

Spreadsheets in space!

Joking references to Eve Online's reputation as a sheet in a space simulation date back over a decade. Finnbogason joked that a data-filled presentation on the game's economy by a data scientist would make Eve sound like spreadsheets.

Finnbogason acknowledged that data is important to many advanced playstyles in Eve, and that many individual players and in-game corporations use external tools and spreadsheets to track their resource production and destruction. Data tracking can be used to maximize in-game currency, which can be traded for additional game subscription time on the open market.

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Finnbogason noted that the initial cost of setting up these data- tracking systems can be difficult for small groups.

Whether satisfying your curiosity or maximizing your industrial enterprise or managing your frontline warfare, it is in your hands to create the tools for your advancement.

CCP already helps data-obsessed players with graph-filled monthly reports on everything from resource-mining production to regional NPC bounties. It's all part of the company's ongoing and surprisingly successful two-decade effort to actively manage its complex in-game economy. The goal, as CCP Larrikin put it on stage at Fanfest, is to create an "equitable distribution of resources" that will lead to more player satisfaction and a better game. While a short demo of Eve Online's Excel integration drew legitimate cheers from the Fanfest audience, Finnbogason said the API tools were still in the "early phase" and that the company will be "sharing more later in the year." That said, Finnbogason added that "this is pretty wild stuff," and we have to agree.

If Nintendo created a similar spreadsheet tool, we could track our burgeoning Animal Crossing bell businesses.