The layoffs were the entire VR team, they weren’t working on EVE itself just a spinoff game
Yeah, that isn’t true. Some might have said that, but the way I remember it, nearly everyone was excited to see what VR from CCP would be like.
The problem with Valk seems to have been that CCP gambled more than they could afford. Now they are cutting staff, which is something that should alarm everyone. When you cut staff you are cutting your own throat. It is the staff who make the business what it is. You cut waste, not costs. Thus, when a business is laying off whole offices, don’t be fooled. They are not doing it as commercial strategy, they are doing it from commercial desperation.
When they were launching the title, CCP borrowed a huge amount of money to promote the game. At the time I thought this was super weird, and risky, because the game could not succeed if the Rift did not succeed, and there were a lot of very significant problems with the Rift (mostly price, also time to market).
Not long ago CCP was promoted for sale, and no buyer was found that we know about.
All of this evidence points to a crisis of the bottom line at CCP. It is hard to know what remedies are available for the community and staff, very little is transparent about how this Icelandic corporation is structured.
One thing I think we can all agree upon, however, is that the current owners do not have their hearts in the project. They have put the firm up for sale, they are laying off a lot of staff, they are making large gambles in search of money, risking their legacy in the gaming world.
All of these things suggest that it would be best for everyone if the staff and community negotiated a sensible deal to take over ownership of CCP under fair and reasonable terms.
If I were commercial counsel for either the owners or the staff, I would be sitting down with the Icelandic government and seeking a zero interest loan for a staff consortium, so that it may buy out the owners. Iceland does not need this firm to disappear because the original owners got bored and neglected it into oblivion.
The firm is already for sale, market forces and hard headed negotiation will ultimately ensure the price is fair. To that end, it would be useful for pressure to be applied to the owners in order to incentivize a sale.
The staff are going to have to do something. They are the game, it’s past and its future, and they have so far been content to allow the owners to wear the crown of leadership. The irony is that they have to do something no matter what happens. Even doing nothing will ultimately become what they decided to do.
Time to buy the job, guys.
Opensource Eve Online in its totality, and make it maintained by volunteers around the world and the players community. Or, create a spin-off entirely, financially dedicated to Eve online and run by the right people having the same vision as the original creators. Definitively more transparent about what they do and not located in Iceland.
Things to work on…perhaps your resume? I am sure the smart ones are.
Yeah, that isn’t true. Some might have said that, but the way I remember it, nearly everyone was excited to see what VR from CCP would be like.
The problem with Valk seems to have been that CCP gambled more than they could afford. [/quote]
I said that. When it was first announced, on the first page on the forums. I can’t find the post but I still remember the gist of what I said. “VR exclusive? It’s like they learned nothing from DUST.” And then I watched for thread fill up with posts expressing similar sentiments.
Then when the skeptics were done pointing out the problems, the thread gradually got taken over by VR fanboys and us skeptics pretty much just went, “lol, you spend your money on whatever you want, it’s really not my problem,” and went back to enjoying the money we saved by not spending it on the flavour of the week.
I also remember saying something along the lines of, “I really wanted to play this game, then I found out it was VR only. Just so that CCP are aware, I’m not spending money on VR. You can’t have my money if it’s VR only”. And they didn’t get my money. I’m just one person, though, but once again, it was another one of those shared sentiments.
Do you know how many people I play Elite with who also play EVE? It’s a fair few. Every last one of them would have bought Valkyrie as well if it’d had a PC launch, and I can’t imagine they’d be the only ones who felt the same way. There actually were a LOT of people, not a few, pointing out this was all just another DUST 514. You were there? Nah. You showed up after the pointing out was done.
As for another point you brought up, CCP weren’t looking for someone to buy the company. Someone made them an offer. I don’t know where you’re getting your news.
Yeah, to fix Eve the core tenants DO have to change. No more unfettered griefing, no more catering to the null sec cartels. New players HAVE to be protected, and HAVE to be able to earn a decent living in the game outside of being a farmhand in null sec. The fact that the sub rate has declined year over year, and the alpha player gambit failed, proves that new players don’t enjoy Eve. Time for management to do a 180, and listen to the casual player base, which used to be their cash cow.
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This is hilarious…everyone here is an absolutely amazing arm chair quarter back. You all could have won the last 5 super bowls if you:
- New exactly how the game was going to go.
- And the other team simply did not adapt to your strategy.
Exactly how many of you are heading up the next multi-billion dollar Silicon Valley start up? None? Wow…I’m shocked! Shocked I say!
Edit:
To be clear, my point is that if this had worked out for CCP you’d all be here patting them on the back about what visionaries they are. But pretty much all of you are so bad at spotting the next Big Thing™ that you’ll all be like me. Working until you can afford to retire. Nobody here is investing in Crazy Ass Ideas™. Things like Apple, Google, Amazon, and the like were all bat ■■■■ crazy ideas. Especially once the tech bubble burst. Who here would have invested in Uber, AirBnB or the like when they needed their first round of venture capital? Answer: none of us. If somebody pitched AirBnB to us we’d all have said pretty much what was said about VR and Valkyrie, “What a stupid idea; this will never work. Better save your money.” According to an article last year in Fortune AirBnB is now worth something like $30 billion.
My point is it is easy to spot the bad innovations. Most innovations are bad. But when they aren’t bad they make you a crap ton of money.
CCP took a gamble and tried to be a big innovator. They failed…like most innovators.
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Whenever ■■■■ hits the fan you get thrown in front of the angry mob to calm them down and i’ve seen this same lame excuse over the years since I got a decade of activity in this game.
People here and in other places told them how to make it work. It is not like we didn’t do our part and advised CCP for free how to make a better experience for both omega and alpha.
Side note: Why would you invest in Uber or AirBNB? Those are failing companies that only function because of exploitation and undermining or outright disregarding for laws and policies to earn shortterm profits. Wait until AirBNB gets regulated properly as a housing company as it should be, or more cities ban Uber because of their illegal activities. Then you see how much they are really worth. All of these “amazing” companies that you listed are exhilaratingly overvalued. Twitter’s stockvalue plummeted as expected after its overvaluation before the IPO and it will never recover because it has no reliable business model. Snapchat is the same. And Uber? This company is kept alive by investors, not because it is a functioning company. Also: Please do not call companies like Uber or AirBNB “innovators”. They do nothing innovative. The first is a taxi company which managed to circumvent the regulations of the sector, and AirBNB is a hotel or housing company, depending on how you look at it, that also managed to circumvent the regulations for these sectors. In fact, the only innovative things are the flagrant avoidance of regulation and furthering of voluntary exploitation of users and workforce.
Innovators do not need to fail. This is not necessary these days because we have so much data to base our evaluation on. The reason for failing innovators these days is the focus on profit over user friendliness and usefulness.
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Uber and Airbnb are good examples of Malcanis law IRL: what serves a humble guy to earn a buck by bypassing regulations with his car or home, becomes a crushing force when is used by the guys owning a fleet of cars or several apartments buildings. Airbnb is specially nefarious with the associated gentrification of boroughs were live precisely the humble guys who were the excuse to start the service…
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These news leave open a lot of questions.
30 employees fired in Reykjavic ? Why if there is no impact on Eve Online ?
Logibro, Phantom, Leeloo, Manifest out ? When you have to release actors of propaganda, what state is propaganda in ? What about russian community support ?
VR is not future ? But it seems to be easy to sell a VR Studio, doesn’t it ? VR headset are less and less expensive. Big AAA titles offer VR now. The real problem seems to be CCP Finance much more than VR. Half of the community news are now :“please, buy skins”.
We would like to feel reassured at this point.
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CCP Leeloo is out too? Where have you read that?
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It wasn’t just the VR team…
Apparently the whole community team went as well, apart from Falcon and Guard? If there were ticket issues before, I dread to think what the wait time will be now.
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I have to disagree 100%. The only people who wouldn’t have known better not to support valk would be people who aren’t remotely familiar with CCP and dust/wod and old broken promises/unfinished features.
I believe it would be applicable here to say fool me twice shame on you, fool me thrice shame on me. There was really no indication this would end well based on track record alone and this is from someone still openly waiting for walking in station and a dust port to ps4 since it’s clear Nova has nothing dust players wanted and is undoubtedly now vaporware as well.
Reddit, her twitter and … personal facebook should i say.
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o7 and Fly Save!
Look, there were some folks predicting the VR fail, for sure. Just not everybody. It was only a few.
My issue is not that they took a bet, it was that they bet the whole farm. They did not need to raise so much capital for marketing. It was a greedy play. They could have ring fenced Eve and kept it untouched and viable, even if the Valk project failed.
The fact that our subscriptions were being used to promote that title was more than a bit arrogant of CCP. I guess they see our subscriptions as their entitlement or something.
Let’s see how it shapes up with the owners. Regarding where I heard about them trying to sell the company, that was in the british press. I don’t buy that they were made an offer but didn’t want to sell. I could have been so, but it wasn’t reported that way.
It was at the time when the Valk writing was on the wall (just past peak sales, decline setting in), so I believe it was them trying to sell.
The smart move may be for all the subscribers to strike and cancel subs, and then come back when the owners have been replaced.
What?
Our subs go to paying their wages and funding whatever CCP wants to spend it on, do you think EA only spends money made from fifa on fifa? 
This is standard business practice or do you think blizzard funded OW using only love and empty promises, hell no they used money from WoW subs and other games to fund it
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The difference between other innovations and VR, is that VR has been a failed concept since the 1980s.
The worst part of all this is that in 5 to 10 years time you VR fanbois will be back yet again and we will have to tolerate again listening to how “finally now is the time for VR, the tech is finally here, mass adoption is around the corner” only to have it fail again
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