I am here in San Francisco for the Game Developer’s Conference. Believe it or not, I’ve had over 45 meetings so far and it’s only four days into the event. I’m so tired that I could barely even refuse when my friends at CCP Games in Iceland invited me to their little party tonight after dinner. Little did I know *what* kind of party it would be.

I show up, and it turns out that I am suddenly in this goth-vampire club in SOMA and the CCP guys have called in the cavalry of SF goth girls, vampiric wraiths, suicide girls, and the kind of people that sleep on leather sheets. I honestly don’t know where they found these people or where they were able to purchase insurance for this event.

The party was to celebrate Eve Online and its amazing success with over 180,000 players. They are also making a new announcement soon about something new they are doing (did they announce it somewhere)? Hilmar could have just thrown a little party in his hotel room and we could have ordered room service and had pillow fights, but he went with Reynir’s suggestion and decided to get whipped by women with a lot of iron in their blood.

I did not stay for too long because I started seeing strange things that can only be described properly with grunts and wild gesticulations. It shocks me how much these Nordic types can drink. The drinks were free, so it was like a non-stop Italian soccer match around the bar. None of them understood why I just ordered a Sprite. They looked at me like I didn’t like rotten shark.

Below you can see Reynir, the founder and visionary of Eve, with the dark hair. You can also see Hilmar, the CEO of CCP, with the sadistic faces and shock of red hair.

Below you can see Hilmar taking out years of frustration on Reynir. It was all in good fun until he sucker-punched him in the kidneys.

You may think that the face below is of Hilmar in pain, but this is how Hilmar usually looks. This is my payback to Hilmar for forcing me to eat Rotten Shark and Lamb Heart in Iceland.

All of this reminds me of my time in Iceland (other Iceland pics here), where I had a great time visiting their studio and the city. I think I know where they get their unique vision; everything there is so isolated from the self-replicating creative patterns in the rest of the world. Plus, they are surrounded by unique Eve-like architecture like the building below. How can you not want to make cool games when you have stuff like this you see every day?