CCP 'Sharpens its Focus' Said focus does not invovlve Vampires.

[Mrbloodworth]

Isn't dust going to be P2P?

[calapine]

Isn't dust going to be P2P?

F2P with micro-transactions for 'in-game items'. [1]

Cala

References
1. Dust 514 Free To Play, Supported By Microtransactions

External Links

• Eve Online
• Swotor

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[Mrbloodworth]

Sorry, that was a typo. F2P is what I meant.

[ajax34i]

Between Dust and WoD my guess is they picked Dust because it's closer to release than WoD.  Hilmar's blog mentions briefly that they've hired some professional management, so I guess that guy took a look at their finances and freaked out.  Their purchase of White Wolf was never financially sound.

Anyway, I guess we'll see.  I'm watching for signs that they're, what's the real estate word, staging EVE Online for sale, and if that happens then all bets are off.

[Ghambit]

I agree that WoD has/had a brighter future than Dust - only because I can't see Dust succeeding. But I don't know what game you think is going to compete with EVE. It's the antithesis of most games on the horizon.

You are correcter (more correct?) than Ghambit but Eve always had minor numbers of normal people among its playerbase as well. Insfor it is not totally shielded from outside developments...for example, I think it's a safe bet to predict the launch of SWOTOR will have a noticable effect on subscriber numbers, especially at a moment where player satisfation is at a lowpoint.

My fear is that CCP might falter simply due to not having enough 'fat reserves' to sit out drop in subscription numbers or the sunk cost from a failed development (DUST, WOD).

Cala

Between SWTOR, Secret World, the new Warhammer stuff (PvP-angled), EoN, PS2, Firefall, and a slew of other cool stuff, you can pretty much guarantee they're gonna lose a chunk of their playerbase over the next year.  EVE had its year of "there's nothing out there to play, so let's play EVE."  Next year they wont.

Aside from that simple fact, it's an old game based on a steadily decreasing niche playerbase.  Sure, they've got great concurrent numbers historically, but that's it.

So my guess those 'fat reserves' will not be enough unless they just plan on skeletonizing the game and cashing-out.
What they should've done is skeletonized it, got a new capital injection, and focused on WoD only.  At this point it's too late for that though so here's to hoping they sell the IP to someone who wants to run with it.

[MahrinSkel]

Between Dust and WoD my guess is they picked Dust because it's closer to release than WoD.  Hilmar's blog mentions briefly that they've hired some professional management, so I guess that guy took a look at their finances and freaked out.  Their purchase of White Wolf was never financially sound.

Anyway, I guess we'll see.  I'm watching for signs that they're, what's the real estate word, staging EVE Online for sale, and if that happens then all bets are off.

They wouldn't be de-emphasizing WoD if they were moving towards selling Eve, as there's no point in developing Dust if they no longer own Eve.  They'd be going the other way, dropping Dust and starving Eve even more.

--Dave

[Sheepherder]

I agree that WoD has/had a brighter future than Dust - only because I can't see Dust succeeding. But I don't know what game you think is going to compete with EVE. It's the antithesis of most games on the horizon.

As someone who only reads about EVE: a PC version of Dust which allowed you to fight boarding actions which bore out in EVE proper would have been fucking awesome.  The current form is much less awesome than vampires, werewolves, and hunters.

[Kageru]

They can't afford not to release Dust, they can't afford to finish WoD.

They did skeletonize Eve and it was a dumb call. They had a fairly steady, committed user base they could have kept milking for years with even a moderate size live-team. But then they said things like "18 months" and all the Eve content was assumed to be WoD testing. They worked pretty hard to drive Eve into the ditch. Of course it is much harder to rebuild numbers and enthusiasm because it remains a dated and niche game. Trying to do two other games simultaneously was hubris.

Dust  is micro-payments and digital download so I'm not sure if that counts as fully free to play. You have to make a relatively chunky investment in the cash-shop up-front to play. Having seen their approach to MT in Eve I look forward to some new comedy coming out of Dust.

[LC]

I found an image that sums up my Eve experience pretty well.


It would be a great game if that was a bit more balanced.

[Kageru]

Yep. It's more exciting in concept, potential and high-level view than the actual gameplay.

Of course there is the perverse element that tedious game-play can amplify the payoff when something good happens.

[eldaec]

Between Dust and WoD my guess is they picked Dust because it's closer to release than WoD.  Hilmar's blog mentions briefly that they've hired some professional management, so I guess that guy took a look at their finances and freaked out.  Their purchase of White Wolf was never financially sound.

Anyway, I guess we'll see.  I'm watching for signs that they're, what's the real estate word, staging EVE Online for sale, and if that happens then all bets are off.

More likely they are staging for a sale of CCP.

1 solid cash cow product with a few experienced guys working on it, and a development with IP and basic groundwork started, all in a company short of capital.

On paper ccp should be worth more as a unit than broken up. But not sure there are many obvious buyers out there. Too niche for someone like EA, too established and set in their ways for someone like valve to be interested, too disparate for some random VC to be keen. SOE might be interested, but because of their 'we buy anything' strategy.

Given all of that, sale of WW & WOD is more achievable. But it would be at a loss, given the running down of the brand, and with vampires being already a good way past the peak of the cool cycle.

[IainC]

Also who would be in the market for a TTG property except possibly WotC?

[Yoru]

Eurogamer interview has a bit more, but not much.

[Modern Angel]

Also who would be in the market for a TTG property except possibly WotC?

My hope is that a dude already in the TTG industry (or dudes) make a pitch for it when and if the time comes. I know for a fact that individual pieces like Trinity were bid on in an attempt to snag it away. There's actually a history here, when White Wolf sold off Ars Magica back in the mid-90s.

edit: And Ethan Skemp was let go. No line developers left. No authors. Just three guys, mostly web related. Trying to get any sort of discussion going on RPG first sites is ludicrously annoying, as the least mention of this maybe being an extremely Bad Thing long-term is shouted down with "NO THIS IS JUST HOW THE INDUSTRY IS NOW AND THEY'RE SECURING THE FUTURE OF THE LINES!" Which is arguably true for, like, a year. Then all bets are off. Plus, there's an obnoxious lack of recognition that White Wolf is playing by video game company rules now, not RPG publisher rules. And video game company rules say that everything eventually has to go because the whole shebang is run by fucking retards.

[Sparky]

Eurogamer interview has a bit more, but not much.

Some self flagellation & lots of onwards and upwards, pretty much what you'd expect.  Although this question was interesting:

Eurogamer: The Council of Stellar Management [CSM] has been increasingly vocal and rebellious in recent months. What's your relationship with them like at the moment - your personal feelings and those of the company as a whole?

Hilmar Pétursson: The CSM has been under constant evolution based on what's going on in the current environment, what's going on with CCP and Eve, who's on the Council and all that. The CSM has helped greatly through the years in getting feedback for aspects of the game.

But some of my concerns right now relate to whether the CSM is maybe focused on a particular aspect of the game and I'm starting to get feedback from players that they worry the CSM is too pre-occupied by a certain playstyle. That might mean we may need to change the structure, but definitely the CSM has worked as a feedback tool greatly throughout the years. We will have them over at the end of the year, after everything that's gone on, and we will have a chance to talk about that. We'll just see where we are and take it from there.

From my perspective it seems like the CSM was 100% focused on trying to make CCP understand they were going in a bad direction ignoring spaceships and being completely retarded with their communication - nullsec vs highsec didn't come into it at all.  I can only assume Hilmar didn't appreciate the CSM going public with concerns or speaking to the media to try and pressure CCP.  He'd prefer a pliable PR mouthpiece rather than well organised player advocates.

[LC]

Eurogamer interview has a bit more, but not much.

His answer to the second question is total bullshit. They just needed someone to take the blame. They were all well aware that the players were are not happy. They just choose to ignore community feedback. Maybe they think the problems will go away on their own?

[Reg]

Looks to me like he's trying to cook up the usual 0.0 vs Empire rivalry as a distraction.

[LC]

Looks to me like he's trying to cook up the usual 0.0 vs Empire rivalry as a distraction.

Only a small percentage of eve's population lives in nullsec. Each of them has 20 alts that are perfectly happy mining scordite in empire. I don't hear the thousands of isk farmers whining either.

[tgr]

Only a small percentage of eve's population lives in nullsec. Each of them has 20 alts that are perfectly happy mining scordite in empire. I don't hear the thousands of isk farmers whining either.

If you're trying to tell me I'm spending my "20 alts" in empire mining scordite, then Imma cut you.

I have 2 alts I use in 0.0 and 3 I use in empire. And I use the word "use" lightly, since 2 of them are just used to check the prices in various market hubs, and 1 is actively used  for market fuckery and, soon, light manufacturing.

[Kageru]

I would not be remotely surprised if the CSM is scaled down or removed entirely. They were a reasonably good PR move when Eve enjoyed being "indy" and having close interaction with the players. But now that they're a serious game company they're just an annoyance. And there's enough anti-goon sentiment on the forums to provide a good cover story.

[Sir T]

Also who would be in the market for a TTG property except possibly WotC?

White Wolf did have a card game called Vampire: The Eternal Struggle but it was discontinued last year.

[Evildrider]

Also who would be in the market for a TTG property except possibly WotC?

White Wolf did have a card game called Vampire: The Eternal Struggle but it was discontinued last year.

Yeah I played this for awhile when it first came out, but I was still shoveling money for MTG cards at the time.

[IainC]

Re: The WW history lesson. I know all of that, I still have my copy of Ars Magica that I bought and ran back when it was published by Lion Rampant (before they became White Wolf). My point is that none of the current crop of TTG publishers could afford to buy the IP with the exception of WotC who probably wouldn't want to.

[Modern Angel]

My point is that it doesn't have to be part of the current crop. The longer it goes, the less it's worth. Maybe nobody's interested but if I were a freelancer or former WW big from the glory days, still in the industry and wanting an established IP, I'd be looking for the price to bottom out once the WoD MMO finally get the official ax. And it will. I don't think it's worth a whole lot NOW. They're not even top five in sales anymore.

[MahrinSkel]

One of the conclusions I've come to is that it's a bad idea to be more than a one-game MMO company.  That's counter-intuitive to normal business logic, that says that you want to diversify and spread your risk, but it's that very spread of risk that seems to kill a company.  When you work for a company that has only one product (that may not even be released yet), you have no fallback plan, no room for an agenda that doesn't focus on making that one product as good as it can be.

As soon as you have 2 games you've got a competition for resources; money, talent, executive favor.  You've got people trying to get off the old projects and onto the new hotness.  You've got empire builders with no talent sabotaging and driving out the people with talent because they don't want the competition.  You've got people working on projects they don't believe in and don't give a shit about.  You've got games being warped by a desire not to compete with prior titles, or a misplaced desire to limit costs by re-using technology not suited to all the games it's being applied to.

The right way to develop a new title would seem to be making only one game per company, spinning off new companies for new titles, and making the old company a senior investor in the new one (who will get paid first out of the proceeds of the new game).  No more 500+ employee behemoths trying to run old games while simultaneously working on new ones.  It just doesn't *work*.

--Dave

[Amaron]

No. Don't even joke about EA.

Why?  CCP management is far worse.    EA would of made the same mistake with WiS.   The difference is EA would of gotten a buggy working version of it out the door in a quarter of the time.

[ajax34i]

From my perspective it seems like the CSM was 100% focused on trying to make CCP understand they were going in a bad direction ignoring spaceships and being completely retarded with their communication - nullsec vs highsec didn't come into it at all.  I can only assume Hilmar didn't appreciate the CSM going public with concerns or speaking to the media to try and pressure CCP.  He'd prefer a pliable PR mouthpiece rather than well organised player advocates.

It's probably also a bit of "We've declared we're moving on, we've promised features, now stfu and be positive" while the current reaction from CSM and the playerbase is "yeah yeah promises, let's see results, let's see things implemented."  To me it sounds like he's very much afraid that if he doesn't deliver in the winter expansion he'll be roasted alive for another 50k subscriptions lost, and he'd like the CSM to placate people rather than agitate them.

[Evildrider]

No. Don't even joke about EA.

Why?  CCP management is far worse.    EA would of made the same mistake with WiS.   The difference is EA would of gotten a buggy working version of it out the door in a quarter of the time.

I don't even think EA would bother to buy CCP.

[Kageru]

One of the conclusions I've come to is that it's a bad idea to be more than a one-game MMO company.  That's counter-intuitive to normal business logic, that says that you want to diversify and spread your risk, but it's that very spread of risk that seems to kill a company.  When you work for a company that has only one product (that may not even be released yet), you have no fallback plan, no room for an agenda that doesn't focus on making that one product as good as it can be.

I like the idea. And Fallen Earth was somewhat there in having a "engine" company and a "game" company as somewhat disconnected elements. But effectively I suspect CCP is in a massive cash and time crunch to get Dust out. So that it stops costing them a fortune and starts generating some revenue. Having that side of the business take 10 years due to not being able to spend most of Eve's revenue, go under while funding development, or not release to the deadline are all flavors of bad. So it was inevitable resources would be taken from Eve.

The mistake was over-ambition in terms of developing two new titles at once, being too agressive in draining Eve of resources (and doubly in telling the players you will not have meaningful resources to use for 18 months) to push those titles and CCP generally being bad / slow and Eve quite buggy. Maybe if Eve had been healthy going into it, a working faction war and null sec still vibrant they could have got away with it better.

[MahrinSkel]

Yeah, it's too late for such a radical re-org for CCP, they'll have to gut it out as they are.  The time to do it was back when they bought White Wolf, they should have told them "You're a separate company, we own you 100% but that doesn't mean we're going to keep fronting cash forever."  And make an all-new one for Dust.  There would not have been that constant desire to trim *just a few more* people from Eve to put onto the other projects.

Maybe take it a step further, spin Eve off into its own company, with its own management whose future is inextricably tied to Eve's success.  The way corporate politics work, it would have underlined the fact that Eve was the cash cow and needed to be maintained carefully if the overall complex wanted to keep milking it, EveCo's management, even though answerable to CCP as the owners, would be powerful advocates for not starving their game of resources.

Look at the way that major movies are made: Each one is an independant corporation, owned by the entities who have put money into it (and shares set aside to individuals for their value to the enterprise, such as the director and any major stars in the cast).  A Warner Brothers movie may be almost entirely owned by Time Warner, but it is possible for a half-finished movie that is running over budget to go to other sources for more cash.  Or Warner Bros. might fire the director (change management) and continue on their own.  But they don't actually *make* movies at WB, they make deals to form these single-purpose vehicles that will make the movies.

The vast majority of the people who make the movie are just doing a job, and have no incentive for any agenda that doesn't focus on doing their piece of the job *well*.  And the non-monetary rewards tie into that, it's not common for an otherwise crappy movie to get an Academy Award or Golden Globe for Best Special Effects, Best Music, and so on.

--Dave

[Stabs]

Can't you just do that by organising the company different? I don't see how Activision/Blizzard would become better by dumping all games that aren't WoW for instance.

Also betting everything on one game assumes the game will never decline or accepts that your company is a temporary thing.

Regarding nullsec v high sec, it rather depends which forums you read. On Kugu and Failheap defending mining and missioning against nullsec shennanigans just gets you laughed at. On Eve O there are tons of posts about nullsec dominance of the CSM and pro-nullsec anti-high sec changes. For example:
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=18519&find=unread

When CCP talks about the community what people here think they mean is Kugu/Failheap but what they actually mean is Eve O.  Half those guys at the bitter vets forums don't even subscribe any more and the rest never pay a penny.

[MahrinSkel]

Can't you just do that by organising the company different? I don't see how Activision/Blizzard would become better by dumping all games that aren't WoW for instance.

Also betting everything on one game assumes the game will never decline or accepts that your company is a temporary thing.

If you can't accept that your company is temporary, you're in the wrong business.  They don't hand out pink slips at launch parties...they usually wait until the next week.

The reality is that the way we've been doing business isn't working.  It isn't making good games, and it's not making for financial success.  And Activision/Blizzard hasn't tried to make another MMO yet, let's see how they're doing after pouring half a billion or so into World of Starcraft or whatever.

--Dave

[Margalis]

The problem with the old "video game production should be more like movie production" argument is that movie studios are often in financial trouble, plenty of movies go way over budget and most movies are bad.

There are parts of the model that work but I don't think movies are some sort of slam dunk. I bet there are plenty of people in movies saying "man, we should really be operating more like games!"

[MahrinSkel]

There's going to be failures.  It's a creative, "artistic" business and sometimes (often [usually]) projects are going to fail.  But as we do it now, those failures are dragging down games that went before them.  No matter how bad a movie sequel is, it doesn't usually damage the value of *previous* movies.  But when an MMO gets starved of resources in order to pour money down a rathole chasing the new hotness, it irrevocably compromises the revenue for that earlier game.  UO never recovered from the neglect caused by UWOO, EQ1 from EQ2, the list goes on and on, the list of "first games" that never recovered from the damage done by the loss of resources to them by their developer's decision to shift all resources to newer ones goes on and on and on.

And it's not like those later games have a great track record, on an ROI basis or just general "survived to launch" stats.

--Dave

[MahrinSkel]

There's going to be failures.  It's a creative, "artistic" business and sometimes (often [usually]) projects are going to fail.  But as we do it now, those failures are dragging down games that went before them.  No matter how bad a movie sequel is, it doesn't usually damage the value of *previous* movies.  But when an MMO gets starved of resources in order to pour money down a rathole chasing the new hotness, it irrevocably compromises the revenue for that earlier game.  UO never recovered from the neglect caused by UWOO, EQ1 from EQ2, the list goes on and on, the list of "first games" that never recovered from the damage done by the loss of resources to them by their developer's decision to shift all resources to newer ones goes on and on and on.

And it's not like those later games have a great track record, on an ROI basis or just general "survived to launch" stats.

--Dave

EDIT: Okay, forget movies, because those are discrete packages of content more similar to single-player games.  Take TV: This is like launching a spinoff series and trying to use common sets, actors, camera crews, directors, and writing staff for both of them.  Not only is the new one probably going to fail, but the original is going to get so fucked up that it won't survive either.