“EVE Online is the first and only video game to have developed an Excel add-in leveraging this type of data integration.”
EVE players called it “Spreadsheets in Space” as a joke. CCP and Microsoft took it as a product spec and built a free Excel add-in that pulls assets, market orders, wallet transactions and corporation finances. The pitch is fairness, meaning players no longer need player-built third-party tools. Microsoft gets a gaming community trained on Excel, and CCP gets to own the tooling its fans used to build.