James Cunningham hadn't slept. He'd been up all night "fighting for his life". The 27-year-old from Ware in Hertfordshire was trying to save a virtual empire from the brink of destruction - using a keyboard and mouse. James says he "didn't expect everything to go wrong", recalling the explosive conflict that broke out in June 2025. "But it did." He'd spent thousands of hours - up to 16 a day - and roughly £6,000 playing EVE Online, a game played by tens of thousands of people around the world.