EVE General Discussion

Here's the thing. A couple of weeks ago CCP Hillmar released a letter to the Eve community where he took personal responsibility for the mistakes and mismanagement that have led to the alienation of large sections of the community and dropping subscriptions. He accepted the burden of blame for the bad decisions, for the poor investments, for the underfunding and scant resourcing core Eve Online has received over the :18 months: to Incarna period and apologized to this community.

Fine.

But then 20% of ordinary employees and working staff have just paid for that apology.
Senior management made the errors. Working people take the hit.

Thats not fine.

Now I think we can all understand that these job-cuts were a neccessary part of a refinancing deal forced upon CCP by their investors and due loan payments. World of Darkness was a financial disaster, Dust 514 is a millstone. The intrusion of MT/NeX into Eve advocated by games industry sheep and the credulous greed-is-good executives at the cost of honest subs, a fiasco of epic proportions.

Hillmar's hands are definitely tied. He has been ordered to make these cuts as a the price of CCP's continued existence. But an honourable man might well consider falling on his sword at this point.

At some stage leaders must take responsibility for the fate of their followers and the CEO of a company is where the buck stops. A significant problem with the global economy in general at the moment is a generation of suits and money men who evade and wriggle and squirm to remove themselves from any consequence for the disasters they cause with their greed and delusionary lack of foresight and I have to admit I kind of hoped for more backbone from the leader of a Viking company.

So do we think Hillmar should resign?
Hillmar do you think you should resign?

For the good of Eve Online, your employees, the community, the game itself and the vision I hope you still believe in. Would it be for the best if you did take the ultimate responsibility for the mistakes you freely admit and shoulder the burden of failure by passing the torch for Eve's renewal to somebody else untainted by recent fiascos and scandals?

Does CCP need new leadership from the ranks so we can have a little genuine faith that the company will listen to and value its subscriber base more in the future?

Hillmar screwed up, he owned up for it. He promised to deliver changes and to listen to the community.

Now is the chance for him to keep to his word and make things right. If he fails to deliver then yeah ... time to start making noise for him to step down.

Until then, his future as CEO rests on his soldiers and his actions over the next 6-12 months.

Unfortunately, this is how the world works.

If Hilmar left, we'd almost certainly get someone who had a hand in ruining Sony or Cryptic running the show. Or CCP Soundwave.

At least Hilmar knows how Eve works, and I have a suspicion that at least some of the decisions that were officially made by him were actually the result of pressure from investors.

at least two-thirds.

Here's an old post of mine breaking down the numbers

http://failheap-challenge.com/showthread.php?3534-Status-of-emergency-summit-minutes&p=203772&viewfull=1#post203772

IP ownership is apparently spread between several persons, I dimly recall some fhc posts on that matter (probably a discussion on whether it is possible to get rid off Noah or not) - maybe search there.

As far as I know CCP is a privately owned company so it basically doesn't matter what we think or say it's up to the people who actually own the company which could be part owned by Hilmar himself you never know.

You/we are customers if you're not happy then vote with your wallet.

I have a funny feeling that because CCP in the past have let us have some sort of emotional attachment and slight insider access to this "product" we seem to feel we have a right to say how a privately owned company is run?

Tomorrow in Iceland a syndicate of CCP employees could win their version of a lottery and all of the staff could walk out to enjoy their winnings of 6 cows 4 sheep 200 crates of lager and a tour round Bjork's flat in downtown Rek or the owners could just plull th e plug on the whole thing and say it's finished.

we do know.

Even private companies (usually only those above a certain size) have to submit yearly financial statements (which we have access to [1]) due to government regulations and CCP did release much more comprehensive information when they issued bonds in 2008 [2].

Hilmar did own 2.82% of CCP in 2008, today that's probably closer to 2.5% (but we don't know for sure).


[1] http://dl.eve-files.com/media/corp/Herschel/CCP_Financial_Statements_2010.pdf
[2] http://archiwum.polygamia.pl/files/CCP_registration_2.pdf

I thought this game was about internet spaceships? Not about staff being laid off?

1. Stop posting you are bad at it.
2. You didn't se Bill gates step down after they released Vista did you ?

To be honest EVE doesn't really have anything different from any other MMO, it trades on its past of being a a small friendly customer based game, but since the big boys have shown up which direction has EVE gone up or down? from the amount of constant complaints and moaning I'd say down.

That's not to say the game isn't great because for me personally it's a fantastic game and I love it but I'm not going to get sucked into the years old belief that when it comes to cold hard cash I'm going to matter to CCP.

Like in every company bottom line affects change, as customers we only affect change by hurting the bottom line of the company.

Should he go, depends on the path eve now takes, my worst fears now maybe the only way that eve gets saved. If we understand that business is more important than the way we feel about eve then really Hillmar now has to push for his vision.

That vision is a massive dumbing down of the sandbox, Nex store to be fully implemented and possibly move to a free to play model. Dumb down PVP (except maybe 0.0) to consensual and work heavily on pve content to get the new players in. This will mean a rethink about the skill systems.

Of course what we have left is not eve, but it might make financial sense.


its not a vison i like but its one i can see hapening, and it may even turn the game around..