Eve Online (officially capitalized EVE Online) is a video game by CCP Games. It is a player-driven persistent-world massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) set in a science fiction space setting. Players pilot customizable ships through a universe comprising over 7,500 star systems. Most star systems are connected to one or more other star systems by means of stargates. The star systems can contain several phenomena including, but not limited to: moons, planets, stations, wormholes, asteroid belts and complexes. Players of Eve Online are able to participate in a number of in-game professions and activities, including mining, piracy, manufacturing, trade, exploration and combat (both player versus environment and player versus player). The range of activities available to the player is facilitated by a character advancement system based upon training skills in real time, even while not logged into the game. Eve Online was first released in North America and Europe in May 2003, it was published from May to December 2003 by Simon & Schuster Interactive, after which CCP purchased the rights back and began to self-publish via a digital distribution scheme. On January 22, 2008 it was announced that Eve Online would be distributed via Steam. The current version of Eve Online is dubbed Tyrannis, which was released on May 26, 2010. On March 10, 2009 the game was again made available in boxed form in stores, released by Atari. Source: Wikipedia, Eve online , available under the CC-BY-SA License.