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Why CCP isn't going to care about current CSM tactics

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Louis deGuerre
The Dark Tribe
Minmatar Fleet Alliance
#101 - 2011-09-09 10:06:10 UTC
Barricade Dark wrote:
I'm not sure that you should be happy about it?


I am not happy about it but I can respect a good play by CCP. CSM has allowed themselves to be put in a terrible position (as whipping boy).

Now I might critizise them a lot but I believe CSM members really care about the game and do their best to achieve their goals (personality flaws and all). However, a class politics 101 would not be a bad idea P
Saerathus
Vocatio Ad Virtutem
#102 - 2011-09-09 10:10:15 UTC
Florestan Bronstein wrote:

Pointing out that I can't read.


I wonder how I skimmed over that. You're right, I'm an idiot. However, all things considered when you're dealing with corporate finances, there are a lot of ways to offset sudden payments. Moreso, even if CCP were unable to pay that loan, a lien was placed as collateral so the likelihood of them going out of business abruptly would be very low - the lienholder would probably be annoyed, though.

Florestan Bronstein wrote:

(and personally I don't think it is too outlandish to suspect that the recent NeX and PLEX promotions might be attempts to make the books look a little nicer and shave a few points off the interest rate when it comes to rolling over that loan).


Quite possible.
Montmazar
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#103 - 2011-09-09 10:11:31 UTC
Saerathus wrote:
Does anyone here that knows how corporations work really think that CCP would embark on -two- CapEx projects simultaneously without being able to afford it?
(cont)



A small video game studio making bad business decisions? Never happened before!
Ciar Meara
PIE Inc.
Khimi Harar
#104 - 2011-09-09 11:08:17 UTC
White Tree wrote:
The difference being that I am legally bound to not provide proof, he is not.


Wow, what a load of Bullshit

- [img]http://go-dl1.eve-files.com/media/corp/janus/ceosig.jpg[/img] [yellow]English only please. Zymurgist[/yellow]
Barricade Dark
#105 - 2011-09-09 11:25:15 UTC
Louis deGuerre wrote:
Another thing people don't seem to understand:

There is no such thing as negative publicity !

There is only publicity. Everytime community drama manages to gets EVE or CCP's named on a gaming site Hilmar is dancing a little jig of joy in his office.

You can't buy publicity like that, that shows the players care enough about a game to go all mental about it.
People will read it and google some videos and think "oooooo spaceships" and some will end up with a subscription.
So the whole, let's create as much negative publicity as possible, plan just plays right in CCP hands.

As op says, if you really want to hurt them, unsub and never look back.


Really?

So how about Enron.. want to invest your money in them? They got plenty of media coverage.

This is a very long standing myth that is perpetuated itself for years and is simply not true, its just somethinh people hear and than repeat without much thought, sort of an accepted clice. Bad media coverage might make you famous, might get people to pay attention to you, but being made into a spectacle like the Star Wars kid doesn't exactly do a whole lot to benefit you in anyway. You just become "that guy". Sure if its funny, or a little ridiculous you might be able to ride that train, look at Pee Wee Herman. But being an Enron executive isn't going to some how magically make you into a A list celebritity. There are literally millions of examples where negative media coverage have utterly destroyed companies and peoples lives. Negative media coverage is probably one of the most unpredictable and often destructive things that a person or company can endure and the funny thing is that it doesn't even have to be true.

The trick to negative publicity is that you want it to be short lived and you need it to be on the line between "just a news story" and "Wow those guys are some real assholes". Once it gets into the mainstream that CCP is an evil corporation that hates everyone and steals candy from babies, you will definitily feel it in your bottom line. And that kind of mainstream acceptance of an idea can't be undone.

So ya the negative media attention might work out in their favor, or it might turn them into SOE where you can't get people to log into your games if you give them away for free.
Mara Rinn
Cosmic Goo Convertor
#106 - 2011-09-09 11:45:18 UTC
Saerathus wrote:
Furthermore, if it's true that DUST is entering beta in 2012 then it stands to reason that the primary work on Carbon is nearly complete and that a bulk of the capital costs for that project have been concluded - thus, lower expenditures for 2011.


The work on DUST is only just begun if the game is entering Beta. Beta is when you find the gameplay bugs. Alpha is where you find the obvious glitches (graphics don't mesh, this function doesn't work), Beta is where people who previously haven't touched the game get into the world. They don't know that you're not supposed to run over that terrain while wearing this armour and firing that weapon - this means poring over the code trying to find those corner cases and fixing them before you can ship the retail product. It's the 80/20 rule: 80% of the effort goes into the last 20% of the product. Of course CCP's history has shown that they prefer eschewing the 20% of the product and just leaving things unfinished for the indefinite future - so you may have a point there.

But IMHO, the expenditure for next year will be greater, not less. Budgets never survive contact with the customer.

At some point they'll want to get started on their actual WoD game, now that a lot of the graphics framework has been done in EVE. That means they'll have to employ more artists - a consistent statement from CCP has been that art is always the bottleneck.

Saerathus wrote:
And don't forget that they'll have a "bumper crop" of income this year because of the NeX launch.


This assumes that the income from NeX is going to make up for the lost subscriptions. Sure, they sold a few thousand monocles - that's equivalent to a few hundred yearly subscriptions. How many people quit over the NeX and related issues? How well will NeX be selling when there's no audience for people to show off their fancy boots and pants to? Monocles get you bragging rights on the forum since they can be visible on your avatar. Virtual item customers will want the multiplayer elements of Incarna sooner rather than later.

Then what happens when multiplayer Incarna elements arrive, and we find that you can only have twelve people on screen at once before the game client melts down and the server has a hernia?

Saerathus wrote:
Or is this just going to be yet another episode of a forum poster being more interested in proving someone wrong than contributing to a discussion?


The top shareholders in CCP (you can go tell FHC folks how wrong they are): http://failheap-challenge.com/showthread.php?3534-Status-of-emergency-summit-minutes&p=203772&viewfull=1#post203772 - lots of broke Icelanders wondering where next month's rent is coming from.

Saerathus wrote:
I don't understand why not knowing about The Mittani and his antics somehow disqualify me from pointing out that he's acting like a clown when it comes to things that affect more than just him, and the statement that this behaviour of his is somehow "content" is probably one of the most overblown exaggerations I've heard since someone told me that they thought Carrot Top was funny.


Not knowing about The Mittani calls into question your knowledge of the political environment in and around the game and the media that commentates on the game. It's like making statements about how USA's foreign policy is crap, then stating that you don't know who George W. Bush or Barack Obama are, and wow, they talk tough, but can they walk the walk?

I, too, question whether any amount of saying nasty things is going to impact on CCP's management. Now if all the Goons and all the Russians were to mass-unsubscribe, leaving notes along the lines of, "sort out the direction of your company so we can have confidence in the future of this game", that might achieve something.

How many monocles do you need to sell in order to compensate for one lost PLEX-paid subscription? If CCP can gain two steady customers for every one that quits the game, more power to them. For those of us who end up quitting the game, it will be no consolation to see that EVE Online is the world's favourite virtual items catwalk game.

Day 0 Advice for New Players
Mara Rinn
Cosmic Goo Convertor
#107 - 2011-09-09 12:08:12 UTC
… and it's not entirely related to the topic, but here are the reasons I have not quit the game yet:

  1. My alt is this far from flying a Gila
  2. I am this far from Logistics 5
  3. I am hanging out for Nebulas (no, really)
  4. I am hoping beyond hope that "farms and fields" null sec comes to fruition, giving small gangs of hisec care bears like myself a way of interacting meaningfully with null sec alliances
  5. I really believe that if the "Future Vision" gameplay becomes reality, this game will take off, and I want to be a part of that universe


You'll see me gushing all "CCP fanboi"-like every time CCP do something right. Then I'll cruise on the emotional high for a while, then my patience will run out and I'll be back in these threads, trying to figure out why exactly do I keep paying these Icelandic bastards for the pleasure of wasting 20 hours a week playing their terrible game.

If CCP can release enough gush-worthy items at frequent enough intervals, I won't come off the emotional high. I can be bought quite cheaply: nebulas (great idea), null sec treaties, fixing FW bunkers, increasing the PvP in FW, using FW for farms-and-fields, providing better options for industry in null sec, moving to dynamic sovereignty for NPC empires, allowing players to ally with NPC empires rather than hisec empires, dynamic system security, territorial warfare between Empires, NPC empires enlisting PC mercenaries to claim space, materiel logistics that can be disrupted, line of sight in space combat.

It's not much that I'm asking.

Day 0 Advice for New Players
Caius Sivaris
Dark Nexxus
S0ns Of Anarchy
#108 - 2011-09-09 12:12:52 UTC
Saerathus wrote:
Does anyone here that knows how corporations work really think that CCP would embark on -two- CapEx projects simultaneously without being able to afford it? Do these people think that they were just spending every dollar that came in over the last 8 years?


http://dl.eve-files.com/media/corp/Herschel/CCP_Financial_Statements_2010.pdf

Read it, show it to someone understanding IFRS then talk again.
Barricade Dark
#109 - 2011-09-09 12:13:00 UTC
Mara Rinn wrote:
… and it's not entirely related to the topic, but here are the reasons I have not quit the game yet:

  1. My alt is this far from flying a Gila
  2. I am this far from Logistics 5
  3. I am hanging out for Nebulas (no, really)
  4. I am hoping beyond hope that "farms and fields" null sec comes to fruition, giving small gangs of hisec care bears like myself a way of interacting meaningfully with null sec alliances
  5. I really believe that if the "Future Vision" gameplay becomes reality, this game will take off, and I want to be a part of that universe


You'll see me gushing all "CCP fanboi"-like every time CCP do something right. Then I'll cruise on the emotional high for a while, then my patience will run out and I'll be back in these threads, trying to figure out why exactly do I keep paying these Icelandic bastards for the pleasure of wasting 20 hours a week playing their terrible game.

If CCP can release enough gush-worthy items at frequent enough intervals, I won't come off the emotional high. I can be bought quite cheaply: nebulas (great idea), null sec treaties, fixing FW bunkers, increasing the PvP in FW, using FW for farms-and-fields, providing better options for industry in null sec, moving to dynamic sovereignty for NPC empires, allowing players to ally with NPC empires rather than hisec empires, dynamic system security, territorial warfare between Empires, NPC empires enlisting PC mercenaries to claim space, materiel logistics that can be disrupted, line of sight in space combat.

It's not much that I'm asking.


Ya I'm in the same boat. Personally I can overlook everything that has happened if CCP simply starts contributing a bit of new fun stuff to the game periodically. Its been too long since anything worthwhile has happened. The last cool thing for me was the Noctis, that openned up a few new op ideas for me. I would like to see more stuff in that category. New ships that open doors to new activities has a nice ring to it.
Cipher Jones
The Thomas Edwards Taco Tuesday All Stars
#110 - 2011-09-09 12:14:57 UTC
ThisIsntMyMain wrote:
Well your first arguments about WoD and DUST are clearly wrong so forgive me if I didn't bother reading the rest of your post.

Incarna demonstrates that WoD is nowhere near ready for release as a game. More worryingly, the inability to move Incarna beyond a single room let alone four individual single player rooms despite missing multiple deadlines shows that as a development platform it is still deeply flawed. Hence, there is still likely a large amount of money required to complete the project and unfortunately a real possibility of failure.

DUST shows significantly more promise. Its very close to release in limited beta, its generating a really good buzz in the games media and potentially its a real winner for CCP. Unfortunately, it relies absolutely on the unique feature of linking to a real time established MMO. Other than that its a run-of-the-mill first person shooter with nothing much to stand out of the crowd of HALO clones.

So basically, without EvE, CCP is screwed. And the customer message they should be getting loud and clear right now is we want more SPACESHIP content, better balance and something new to do IN SPACE. The predominantly male ( and typically older than the average WoW player) does not want dress up-dolls unless we can walk up to them and shoot them in the face.

Please CCP, give us our old game back. Because right now lots of us are very close to giving up and finding something better to do with our time.




On one hand we ***** not enough resources are going into FiS, on the other hand WoD isnt being developed either.




hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Something ain't right.

internet spaceships

are serious business sir.

and don't forget it
Louis deGuerre
The Dark Tribe
Minmatar Fleet Alliance
#111 - 2011-09-09 12:22:11 UTC
Barricade Dark wrote:
Really?

So how about Enron.. want to invest your money in them? They got plenty of media coverage.

This is a very long standing myth that is perpetuated itself for years and is simply not true, its just somethinh people hear and than repeat without much thought, sort of an accepted clice. Bad media coverage might make you famous, might get people to pay attention to you, but being made into a spectacle like the Star Wars kid doesn't exactly do a whole lot to benefit you in anyway. You just become "that guy". Sure if its funny, or a little ridiculous you might be able to ride that train, look at Pee Wee Herman. But being an Enron executive isn't going to some how magically make you into a A list celebritity. There are literally millions of examples where negative media coverage have utterly destroyed companies and peoples lives. Negative media coverage is probably one of the most unpredictable and often destructive things that a person or company can endure and the funny thing is that it doesn't even have to be true.

The trick to negative publicity is that you want it to be short lived and you need it to be on the line between "just a news story" and "Wow those guys are some real assholes". Once it gets into the mainstream that CCP is an evil corporation that hates everyone and steals candy from babies, you will definitily feel it in your bottom line. And that kind of mainstream acceptance of an idea can't be undone.

So ya the negative media attention might work out in their favor, or it might turn them into SOE where you can't get people to log into your games if you give them away for free.


You can take an anology a bit too far. There is a huge gap between causing ecological disaster on a scale unheard of in modern history and cutting back on development of an internet spaceship game.

The negative publicity people will hear about CCP are fairly obscure and technical issues which non-EVE players will not understand or not care about. But those screenshots look pretty sexy, let's give it a try. Trial is free, right ? Bear

I'll just concede the point that some publicity you never want.
Officer Spawn
Perkone
Caldari State
#112 - 2011-09-09 12:26:58 UTC  |  Edited by: Officer Spawn
In the end the CCP management has only one responsibility: to make money for their shareholders. They have (probably correctly) decided the best way to spend their money to make more money is on new products. People look at the online users charts way too much, this number is far less important then subscriber count. If a new expansion results in not a single new customer but 10.000 existing players logging in 7 times a week instead of 2 the chart will show a huge success while it is in fact a massive failure.
Caius Sivaris
Dark Nexxus
S0ns Of Anarchy
#113 - 2011-09-09 12:28:11 UTC  |  Edited by: Caius Sivaris
Saerathus wrote:

Sure. Beyond common sense? The financials someone linked me earlier were pretty useful in that regard.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=2G7AMIAW

DUST and WoD were not funded by loans, they were funded by equity financing. While there do appear to be loans on the book there is nothing on said books that indicate that there was a larger payment coming up for 2011. Someone in the thread said there was, but if that's true then it's not apparent in the yearly financials (it turns out that it is and that I can't read).


You can't read, now what about you shut up?

CCP 2010 Annual report wrote:

19.1
(i) Secured with a pledge of collateral in certain bank accounts and a secured lien on the receivables from the Company’s
principal billing partner. The loan is in the original principal amount of ISK 1.35 billion with interest payments only until
maturity on October 28, 2011. The terms of such bank loan provide that the Company will not secure its property with
respect to additional financial debt, other than permitted exceptions outlined in the agreement.


CCP must repay 11.5 million dollars by October 28, money they can't possibly have.

That means a new round of VC investment (pretty unlikely) or a new loan, which may be hard to secure at a decent rate for an Icelandic company that never solved its burn rate issue in ten years and have obvious difficulties to execute.
Barricade Dark
#114 - 2011-09-09 12:31:49 UTC
Quote:
You can take an anology a bit too far. There is a huge gap between causing ecological disaster on a scale unheard of in modern history and cutting back on development of an internet spaceship game.

The negative publicity people will hear about CCP are fairly obscure and technical issues which non-EVE players will not understand or not care about. But those screenshots look pretty sexy, let's give it a try. Trial is free, right ?

I'll just concede the point that some publicity you never want.


I think you are underestimating the gaming community here. Gamers are gamers, being a "non-eve" gamer doesn't make you an imbecale that will spend 20 bucks on a game because they saw a screenshot.

Most gamers will take a moment before pulling out the credit card and read up on a game, their are a lot of lemons out their and it won't take them long to discover some of the media coverage.

I mean do you do that? See a screenshot and rush out to slide your credit card? Of course not. You do the trial, read some reviews, read some guides and eventually go over some forum passage. It won't take the average gamer long to discover the shape of a game. More importantly the in game outrage is even worse and it won't take them long to discover a fairly angry public in game either.

All I'm saying is if you do a search on Eve Online and find nothing but negative articles... you are going to seriously consider pulling out that credit card.

But besides that the media coverage is less for the non-eve players and more for the eve players. A lot of current eve players are being exposed to all the negativity and that is having a far greater impact on the number of people logging in than outsiders lookig in.
Lens Thirring
#115 - 2011-09-09 12:33:02 UTC  |  Edited by: Lens Thirring
The Mittani wrote:
There's always someone who will attempt to feign superior wisdom by prostrating themselves in front of authority, declaring the status quo unchangeable.

Those are a lot of big words -- could you explain to us what you mean about prostrating in front of authority. Does it look something like this? (from the May CSM Minutes):
Quote:

New members of the CSM opened by expressing the opinion that, after seeing first-hand some of the resource constraints CCP operates under, it would be unfair to simply shake fists and complain about feature abandonment; regarding issues like the infamous "18 months" incident (Zulu: "I pissed a lot of people off with that"), a lot of the concern was created by bad messaging, something CSM could perhaps help with. ...
One CSM suggested that perhaps the pace of development could be slowed down a bit in order to permit more transparency.
Meryl SinGarda
Belligerent Underpaid Tactical Team
#116 - 2011-09-09 12:34:04 UTC
Barricade Dark wrote:
[quote]

But besides that the media coverage is less for the non-eve players and more for the eve players. A lot of current eve players are being exposed to all the negativity and that is having a far greater impact on the number of people logging in than outsiders lookig in.


I'm looking at you through the glass, don't know how much time has passed, all I know is that it feeeeeeeels like foreverrr
Barricade Dark
#117 - 2011-09-09 12:34:11 UTC
Quote:
CCP must repay 11.5 million dollars by October 28, money they can't possibly have.

That means a new round of VC investment (pretty unlikely) or a new loan, which may be hard to secure at a decent rate for an Icelandic company that never solved its burn rate issue in ten years and have obvious difficulties to execute.


Well thats not entirely true, according to the report they have 11 million of the 11.5 million they need to pay back and that report is fairly out of date now so its feasable that they have managed to scrounge up that extra 500k.
Gregor Palter
#118 - 2011-09-09 12:35:21 UTC  |  Edited by: Gregor Palter
For someone who only played a little bit in 2008 and recently made use of the 5 day "please come back" thingy, the OP sure seem to know a lot about EVE and its problems...

Excuses are the refuge of the weak.

Saerathus
Vocatio Ad Virtutem
#119 - 2011-09-09 12:37:06 UTC
Mara Rinn wrote:
things


I had all my quotes sectioned off and everything but the forum software ate it for the second time, so I'll be more brief.

I'm not arguing to be an *******, but your interpretation of the Pareto principle (80/20 rule) is off. When referring to temporal things or projects, it's not "80% done in the last 20%" it's just "80% done in 20% of the time". It's not always the last 20%, and usually with games more work overall is done at around the middle to two-thirds mark (art assets). In just code, that is usually done in the last 20% doing bugfixes.

As for beta.. beta is bugfixing true, but a lot of the money (content creators) has already been spent in development. I did some research a little while ago and it looks like DUST is using the Unreal 3 engine and not Carbon for graphics rendering specifically, but I don't know enough about Carbon to know if/where/how it integrates with the two products. In that case, there may be a lot more money to be spent in the pipe for WoD. Time will tell

My main point with that section in the OP and reading the 2010 report confirmed that in terms of money and just money CCP would probably continue to develop without a problem through the end of 2011 if less than 30% of it's total current transactions disappeared overnight. It would put them in a tight spot for sure, but they would "live" long enough to put DUST out. The whole reason I even mentioned finances as a non-issue in the OP was simply because I was reading someone whose name I don't recall basically saying repeatedly that CCP could not afford to lose even like a thousand subscriptions so they would have to deal with the CSM.. and they are not that fragile.

As for the link you supplied, I'm not really interested in proving people wrong, I'm more interested in not BEING wrong when I open my mouth - so I appreciate your taking the time to educate me.

And as for The Mittani - I think that's a fair assessment to make, but in my defense I made sure to stipulate that I didn't know who he was prior to the whole emergency summit thing (I started reading about all this 2 months ago or so), and that I was trying to make my position from either an outsider's perception or the average player. I'm sure that there are players that think, perhaps rightly so, that what The Mittani and the rest of CSM are purportedly doing are THE right thing to do, but the CSM has done a really poor job of making that apparent to or convincing those of us that don't invest a huge amount of time in monitoring the politics of the game - and if people like me don't know wtf is going on, it's just going to diminish the effect of whatever efforts he and the CSM put forward in trying to get people outside of the Eve-O microcosm to care about what's happening here.
Azelor Delaria
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#120 - 2011-09-09 12:40:46 UTC
Louis deGuerre wrote:
Another thing people don't seem to understand:

There is no such thing as negative publicity !

There is only publicity. Everytime community drama manages to gets EVE or CCP's named on a gaming site Hilmar is dancing a little jig of joy in his office.

You can't buy publicity like that, that shows the players care enough about a game to go all mental about it.
People will read it and google some videos and think "oooooo spaceships" and some will end up with a subscription.
So the whole, let's create as much negative publicity as possible, plan just plays right in CCP hands.

As op says, if you really want to hurt them, unsub and never look back.


There is such thing as "negative" publicity. Case-in-point: Canadian webcomic author Ryan Sohmer of Blind Ferret Entertainment has been in a spat in recent months with Canadian broadcaster Teletoon over claims the broadcaster took his premise and his artist's work and made a (******) cartoon called The Dating Guy. Teletoon has been doing everything it can to keep this from coming to light.

And if negative publicity didn't matter, why do we have such things as court-sanctioned "gag orders" and non-disclosure agreements?