Santa plans his attack in EVE Online's Holiday Celebration Trailer. (All rights reserved - CCP Games)

EVE Online might be a serious sci-fi space trading sim; its mischevious "Holiday Celebration Trailer" is anything but.

Five of the 13 Icelandic 'Jólasveinar' are profiled -- Sausage-Swiper, Door-Slammer, Meat-Hook, Doorway-Sniffer and Window-Peeper -- after the pranksters make toast of good old Father Christmas.

But Santa isn't having any of it and, from the comfort of his bristling interstellar space ship, gives the naughty boys an explosive early Christmas present.

In comparison to other online games, EVE Online's subscriber base of 400,000 players may be considered on the small side. World of Warcraft, for example, can count 10 million subscribers; Guild Wars 2 reached 2 million sales in two weeks. 

Part of EVE Online's differential lies not only in its outer space setting, but its approach to player involvement; pilots can make and break alliances as they please, conquering vast swathes of the universe as part of huge mega-corporations or surviving as adventurous buccaneers -- sentiments which appear to have struck a chord with the developers of ambitious 2014 title Star Citizen.

EVE Online - "Holiday Celebration Trailer": youtu.be/fiweuNBtvEQ