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EVE, however, goes a step further in allowing players to organise themselves and engage in projects of even greater scale. The sandbox becomes a sort of construction workshop, where players are given tools to deploy their real-life knowledge and skills to build ever more complicated structures. Furthermore, EVE's rules encourage trade and competition - key aspects that keep players engaged and spur them to build, plan, organise, act.
The more EVE comes to resemble Real Life, the more it turns into a reasonable alternative to the latter (and you can even earn real-world money from EVE). This is the ultimate immersion, and if it became possible one day to support yourself from playing EVE, I have no doubt people would start doing it.
Maybe one conclusion for entrepreneurs to draw is that the combination of freedom + tools + competition on web services helps evolve them into true platforms, in which people 1) invest their egos, 2) build social networks that keep them coming back, and 3) organise and engineer to far greater extents. APIs and open interfaces amplify the impact of platforms - a principle wisely perceived by Facebook and many other platforms. EVE is just another example of the same.
There are also lessons to be drawn directly from experiences running corporations in EVE. I've read posts by people who started and ran small corporations and also those who ran megacorps/alliances, and they describe experiences rich in management and strategic principles. Strategy underpins the success of all but the least amibitious corps. Everyone has to plan how to deal with their ever-shifting, aggressive neighbours and protect their own holdings and profits (or expand their turf). Further, corp leaders have to learn to work with their growing membership and build HR/resource-planning systems to support them.
Playing EVE as a corporation manager/founder is definitely an educational experience for young people who eventually intend to manage teams in the future.
