EVE Online, a notoriously complicated video game that is still going strong over 20 years after its 2003 launch, is one of the most daunting video games in a genre of daunting video games. MMOs are complex living worlds that are not for the faint of heart. I have never seen a screenshot of EVE Online that I could decipher, so I have only viewed it from afar, but now I’m watching a cow play the game on Twitch and wonder if perhaps I gave up too quickly. If a bovine with nothing but kindness in her heart and milk in her udders can play EVE Online, is it so beyond me to learn the complexities of Fenris Creations’ game? Actually, yes, it is, because I’m watching the game and still have no idea what’s going on.
Fenris Creations has set up a stream with a series of cameras pointed at a small enclosure containing a cow, which the team is calling FC CapitalCowPilot, with buttons spread around the area that she steps on as she moves around. Sometimes she’s just vibing in one spot for extended periods of time so nothing happens on-screen, and at one point now the team has had to wake the monitors up to accommodate for her time spent idly standing around. If you play EVE Online, you’ll have to tell me if she’s doing well, because I literally do not have a clue what is happening on screen. I think she’s mining?
© Twitch / Kotaku
I don’t know what CapitalCowPilot’s goals are in this play session, but I’m rooting for her. The team is commentating over the whole thing, and is even regaling chat with cow facts. I appreciate that they’re raising awareness about the secret lives of cows while she plays their game. We’ll see if she actually makes any real progress, as animals playing games by chilling in their living spaces tend to either go spectacularly well or, in the worst cases, end in a fish committing credit card fraud.