I’ve been thinking a lot about corp shares lately…
EVE already has corporation shares, but outside of a few niche uses they don’t really function like meaningful financial assets.
They can be transferred, used for voting, and tied to dividends, but there isn’t much of a real investment system around them.
I think CCP could do a lot more with this without turning EVE into a safe or heavily regulated stock-market simulator.
The idea would be to make shares something players might genuinely want to own, trade, speculate on, and build businesses around.
The main problem right now shares mix together several different things:
Corporate control
Voting
CEO mechanics
Dividends
Investment
Internal governance
That makes outside investment feel awkward to me. If I buy shares in an industrial corporation because I think it’s profitable, that doesn’t necessarily mean I should be able to interfere with its CEO or internal operations. Likewise, corporations shouldn’t have to risk losing control just because they want to raise ISK from investors. So I’d start by separating economic ownership from corporate control.
1. Share Classes
Allow corporations to create different classes of shares.
For example:
Class A — Governance Shares
- Voting rights
- CEO election rights
- Usually held by founders/leadership
Class B — Common Shares
- Tradable
- Eligible for dividends
- Limited shareholder voting
- No CEO takeover rights
Preferred Shares
- Priority dividends or other special terms
- Usually no corporate-control rights
A corporation could still use the existing simple one-share-class system if it wanted. This would just give larger or more investment-focused corporations more options.
2. Give Shares Clear Terms
When a corporation issues shares, there should be an in-game charter explaining exactly what those shares do. Something like:
Example Industrial Holdings — Class B Common Shares
Eligible for normal dividends
No CEO election rights
Additional issuance requires shareholder approval
Shareholder reserve enabled
Once shares are sold, management shouldn’t be able to quietly change those conditions without a shareholder vote. This shouldn’t make investing safe.
Corporations should still be able to fail, lie about future plans, make bad decisions, get robbed, or get destroyed. That’s EVE. The game should just clearly tell you what the actual item you’re buying does.
3. Better Dividends
Dividends should be expanded into a proper corporation feature.
Corporations could choose things like:
Manual dividends
Fixed ISK distributions
Monthly/quarterly dividends
Profit-sharing distributions
Preferred dividends
No-dividend growth model
For example:
A corporation has 400,000 public shares and declares a 20 billion ISK dividend.
That’s:
50,000 ISK per share
If you own 10,000 shares, you receive:
500 million ISK
The wallet should clearly identify the corporation, number of shares, dividend per share, and total payout. That gives shares actual cash-flow value.
4. An SCC Securities Market
This is probably the biggest part. Corporations should be able to voluntarily list eligible shares through an SCC securities exchange.
Basically the normal market interface, but for corporation equity.
You could see:
Buy orders
Sell orders
Last trade
Price history
Volume
Shares outstanding
Market capitalization
Dividend history
Example:
Example Industrial Holdings [EIH]
Last Price: 1.27M ISK
Buy: 1.26M
Sell: 1.28M
Shares Outstanding: 400,000
Market Cap: 510B ISK
Last Dividend: 50K/share
The SCC could take transaction fees just like other market activity. I wouldn’t add short selling, options, futures, leverage, or anything crazy at first. Just make normal shares work properly.
5. Make Dilution Understandable
The game should clearly distinguish between:
Authorized shares
Issued shares
Treasury shares
Outstanding shares
And if a corporation wants to create more shares, show exactly what will happen.
For example:
Current Outstanding Shares: 600,000
Proposed New Shares: 100,000
New Total: 700,000
Existing Shareholder Dilution: 14.29%
You could also optionally allow existing shareholders to buy part of a new issue first so they can maintain their ownership percentage.
6. Corporate Share Buybacks
Corporations should be able to buy their own shares back.
Those shares could either:
Become treasury shares
Be sold again later
Be permanently retired
So if a successful corporation believes its own stock is undervalued, it can buy shares from the market. That also gives corporations another way to return value to shareholders besides dividends.
7. SCC-Verified Financial Information
This could be one of the coolest parts. CCP already knows a lot about what a corporation owns and earns. Corporations could voluntarily publish aggregated financial information without exposing sensitive locations.
For example:
Assets
ISK
Market inventory
Industrial inventory
Structures
Other assets
Liabilities
Debt
Outstanding obligations
Shareholder Equity
Approximate NAV per share
Nobody needs to know that Corp X has 50B in minerals sitting in a specific structure in a specific system. Just show aggregate numbers. Corporations could decide how transparent they want to be. More transparency might increase investor confidence. Less transparency might preserve operational security but make investors more cautious. That seems very EVE.
8. Shareholder Reserve
I’d also like to see an optional protected shareholder reserve. A corporation could place ISK into a special reserve that normal Directors can’t simply withdraw.
Changing or removing that reserve could require shareholder approval.
Example:
100B ISK in reserve
400,000 eligible shares
That’s effectively:
250,000 ISK in reserve backing per share
It doesn’t guarantee that the shares are worth 250K. It just gives investors something tangible behind them. If the corporation voluntarily liquidates, that reserve could be distributed among eligible shareholders.
9. Separate CEO Votes From Investment Shares
Public investment shares should not automatically give someone the ability to initiate a CEO takeover. Only governance shares should count for that. CEO votes should also probably require an actual majority of outstanding governance shares rather than simply relying on low voter turnout. Corporate control should be difficult to take. Investment shouldn’t automatically mean control.
10. Shareholder Benefits
Shares could even have optional non-financial uses. Corporations could attach benefits to ownership thresholds.
For example:
100 shares:
Basic shareholder status
1,000 shares:
Reduced manufacturing/reprocessing fees
10,000 shares:
Access to special contracts or services
This could potentially integrate with ACLs.
Something like:
Allow shareholders of Example Industrial Holdings
Minimum holding: 1,000 shares
That would give shares utility in addition to dividends and resale value.
Keep EVE Dangerous
I don’t want CCP guaranteeing investments.
If a corporation makes terrible decisions, investors should lose ISK.
If its structures get destroyed, its stock might collapse.
If leadership steals everything that isn’t protected, that’s EVE.
If somebody invests billions into an obviously questionable operation because the CEO promised 40% monthly returns, that’s their problem.
Scams, speculation, corporate warfare, espionage and failure should absolutely remain part of the system.
The difference is that players should understand what the actual shares themselves represent.
Why Bother?
Because this could create an entirely new type of EVE gameplay.
Imagine people actually saying:
“Their shares are trading at 900K, NAV is around 1.3M and the dividend yield is good. I’m buying.”
And someone else responding:
“Half their assets are tied up in structures that are currently at war. I’m selling.”
And somebody else:
“Fine. I’ll buy the dip.”
That’s the kind of player-created story EVE is good at. Industrial corporations could raise capital. Traders could become investors. Corporations could run IPOs. Players could create investment funds. Wars could affect share prices. Corporations could build long-term financial reputations. Scammers would absolutely find ways to abuse it.
And eventually you could expand the system into things like:
Corporate bonds
IPOs
Secondary offerings
Mergers and acquisitions
Corporate debt
Investment funds
Bankruptcy/liquidation
Alliance investment vehicles
But shares should come first.
EVE already has corporations, shares, dividends, markets, contracts, industry, wars, espionage, theft and one of the most player-driven economies in gaming.
The foundations are already there. I just think corporation shares deserve another pass.
Make them actual assets that players have a reason to buy, hold and trade.
Curious what people think. What would you add, remove or change?