EVE General Discussion

*Snip* Removed reply to deleted posts. ISD Ezwal.

Any how, this post is in regard to the start of this thread.

First off, I want to say I am in no way writing this in a back of or support of what has happened. I am simply putting this here to clarify my thoughts in regards to the situation CCP has brought about.

It is a real shame that all of this had to happen, it really is. It really did come down to a short sighted choice for CCP to take over White Wolf and the World of Darkness project. These two projects although under the same company, should never have been in contact with each other yet alone in the same working space. That aside, from a business end point they did what had to be done to keep EVE alive. They took on to much debt with that project and furthered the debt with R&D being sunk into Valkyrie and other new/current projects. I see a lot of slinging of speculation about the future and finance of CCP... How about doing what I did and using google for 10 minutes to be informed instead of guessing. A look at the CCP financial statement for time ending 31st Dec 2013 will show you what happened and why they made this choice. They technically went into the red last year due to $40,063,223 increase in R&D cost. Now given they had by this point dropped WoD, this in my opinion is down to them trying to find other avenues besides EVE for expansion. This brought about the Valkyrie project. I think CCP direction to spreading the EVE world into new avenues is smart move, unfortunately anyone not directly involved or ear marked for work on this needs to go. They have to payout 7% interest to there stakeholders on a semiannual bases. Along with their requirements to these stakeholders, if they drop cash flow in certain areas they can find themselves in some serious trouble. This does not mean the company is going to fold, just that they need to make sure they are in the black till the have higher cash flow coming in to put back into finishing current projects not generating cash. This in turn brought on the hiring of someone to increase cash driven sections to existing content, thus the NEX store and other services. You must remember, they need to finish what they have started but need that cash upfront. With WoD dropped, why would they keep the staff. Again, it sucks it happened but it needed to happen with the current business model.

Any way, like I said, this is just from what I have done with a little bit of research. I was worried that things where going slow for CCP and the media that does cover this stuff seems to like pointing readers in the wrong direction on speculation as well. Stop guessing and start reading. Stay informed and make decisions on that information, not the speculation of snippet information or others random flying comments.

Page 6
CCP Games Financial Statement Dec 31 2013

Page 43 in reference to obligation to stakeholders
update September 2013

Did I say that? No. Are you trying to put words into my mouth? Yes.

*Snip* Please refrain from personal attacks. ISD Ezwal.

It' was not so much that as they're being overly optimistic about income growth. I suspect that they thought they'ed get more out of licensing to Tian City.

The problem is that all of this data explains the layoffs that had happened early in the year, logically losing enough people that predicted income would be greater than outlays. Since they suddenly let go a bunch right near the end of the 6 months, I suspect that income again fell short, possibly caused by a decline in subs. The last is just my theory, and we won't know for certain until the 6 month comes out.


*Snip* Removed reply to a deleted post. ISD Ezwal.

I have removed some rule breaking posts and those quoting them. As always I let some edge cases stay.
Please people, keep it on topic and above all civil!

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On topic: A big thank you to those that lost their job for the time and energy you put into the job to make EvE a better game.
I feel sad to see you go and sincerely hope you find new rewarding jobs real soon. May your future be bright and wonderful!


Thread reopened.

Im a little worried now. Not so much as to the layoff's but CCP having to start counting the subs on the chinese eve server to show an increase in subs.

Is eve dying?

No, they are doing what every other company does and that is use every method they can to boost subs numbers.

As for the "Is Eve Dying" well it depends on your point of view.

If you take a look at http://eve-offline.net/ and look how the PCU is doing then some might say yes, other will say no, both sides giving many different reasons.

CCP sudden silence on how subs are doing might be taken as another indication all is not well, yet you could say that most companies do not give subs numbers so again no really information.

You could use your own judgement based on what you see in game, again this will differ from person to person.

My own view is that Eve is not dying but it is in a period of stagnation and that the loss of a lot of great devs can only harm the game.

It seems to me that CCPs problem - besides a couple of Mr Psssshhh clueless higher ups making decisions - is that they're being extremely scatterbrained. They get an idea, start pursuing it, but don't give it the time, effort and resources it really needs. If they want to try and make another cool game and not just be solely devoted to EVE, that's great, they should totally try and do that. But they need to do it smart.

Plan on making one new game, not two, or three, simultaneously. Put a lot of attention and resources and effort into this Other Game, and focus. Even now, after all these repeat failures, all the layoffs, etc, they're still splitting themselves in many other directions - valkyrie AND legion, as well the obvious continued EVE development. And it's going to end in tears. They simply don't have the resources, or the experience, to work on both those projects (and continue EVE) simultaneously and have them both be as good as they could be. One, or both of them, will flop, because the same mistakes are clearly being made yet again - pulling themselves in many different directions at once.

I'm concerned that other mistakes, which they've made in the past and are mentioned in the article, are likely going to be repeated too, such as chopping and changing teams, abruptly reducing the teams by pulling them back onto eve things, or in other directions, or Mr Pssshhhs standing there making it impossible for those new projects to even know what they're supposed to be doing.

Will any of us be surprised if valkyrie AND legion both end up as failures in one way or another? Will CCP, and will they learn from it?

Still, that's the first time I've seen him acknowledge just how bad nullsec is atm. I think attrition rates are higher there than people realise (a lot of corps are bloated beyond belief with unsubbed players). I'm cautiously optimistic that the development plan will address it but a bit worried it might be too late. Maybe they do need to add back in some 'jesus' features to spark periodic sub revivals, but if there are severe corporate problems I'm not sure how that can be done successfully.

Can't agree that Crius will cause a highsec apocalypse though, and all joking aside I'm not sure why anyone would genuinely want that demographic to go berserk and start quitting. The serious industrialists will adapt to the changes, that's why there's something like 500 pages of feedback on the Dev blog proposals. Smaller scale players who dabble in indy weren't that focused on profit/effiiciency in the first place. Making it slightly more difficult/less profitable isn't going to hurt them that much.

Hello? Are we even playing the same game here?

Let's start with the two most basic reasons that the majority would list

1. tears
2. lulz

The founding principal of Goonswarm in it's earliest days. Fortunately, most of them realized that, properly maintained, Eve is a source of infinite amounts of those.