One story, above all, illustrates this power. At 5am on 18 April 2005, a character known as Mirial, the CEO of Ubiqua Seraph, one of the largest corporations in the game, warped into the Haras solar system, flanked by her most trusted lieutenant. It was a moment for which the members of the Guiding Hand Social Club, a corporation of spies founded by Istvaan Shogaatsu, had long been waiting. A code word went out across the ShogaatsuGÇÖs chat channels: GÇ£NicoleGÇ¥. Within an hour Mirial was dead.

Ten months earlier, Shogaatsu had agreed to take on this contract killing for an anonymous client. The fee was one billion ISK GÇô EveGÇÖs virtual currency, named after the Icelandic kr+¦na. It was, at the time, equivalent to about -ú320. (While it is illegal to sell ISK for cash, CCP sells an in-game currency for real money, so it is possible to calculate an exchange rate.) Throughout the intervening period, Shogaatsu and his agents performed a thorough infiltration operation, orchestrated in private chat channels and on secretive forums. They took on jobs within Ubiqua Seraph and, week by week, ingratiated themselves with other corporation members. Soon the mercenaries had operatives in every level of the organisation.

When the code word went out, the spy network was poised to strike. MirialGÇÖs prize ship was destroyed, along with her escape pod and, finally, her vacuum-frozen body was delivered to the Guiding Hand Social ClubGÇÖs client. ShogaatsuGÇÖs spies looted the companyGÇÖs hangars and vaults. The combined cost of the ambush and theft totalled more than 30bn ISK, an estimated -ú10,600 of assets lost through robbery or destruction. It was, at the time, the largest theft of virtual assets in any video game.

While the ensuing news reports brought Eve to the attention of players around the world, some feared it might destroy the universe too. GÇ£It was a pivotal moment,GÇ¥ said Hilmar P+¬tursson, who worked at CCP from the beginning, and who took over as the companyGÇÖs CEO in 2004, shortly before the incident. GÇ£People wanted CCP to interfere. They felt betrayed and outraged. But we looked at what had happened and could see no rules that had been broken. Only trust had been broken. ItGÇÖs not our job to guarantee trust.GÇ¥

When CCP released a statement to this effect there was an outcry from both players and staff calling for the decision to be reversed. For many, a line between play and reality had been crossed. Overnight, 500 people cancelled their subscriptions to the game. For a few days, New Eden teetered on the brink of destruction.

Many players exited the game in disgust but, soon afterwards, a British video game magazine published a story about the incident. Five thousand intrigued readers joined. If EveGÇÖs world had been on the verge of collapse, it was now saved and, moreover, its custodians had established critical laws with which to govern the virtual world. It was a close call, but a crucial one. As long as no real-world laws were broken, players now knew that they were free to play the game however they chose; an act of extraordinary cunning or betrayal might even make them famous.