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

[IainC]

Link

As we reexamine our outward relations, we are also taking time to reevaluate our internal goals. In doing so, we have come to the conclusion that we are attempting too many things for a company our size. Developing EVE expansions, DUST 514 and World of Darkness has stretched our resources too thin.

Rather than allowing this to persist, we have made the decision to sharpen our focus. Sadly, this means reducing our staff. We estimate that around twenty percent of global positions will be affected by this process. These will be predominantly in our Atlanta, GA office, although select positions in our Reykjavik, Iceland office will be affected.

[...]

Following this reorganization, we must do a better job by focusing on these priorities:

For the immediate future, our mission is to enrich the vast EVE Universe by strengthening the continuous development of EVE Online while preparing to bring DUST 514 to market on the PS3. We do this in order to realize our ambitious and challenging plan of joining the two in a cross-platform, truly massive online world.

World of Darkness will continue development with a significantly reduced team. This team will continue to iterate and expand on the gameplay and systems they have designed. We will also redeploy creative teams in Atlanta to support the launch of DUST 514.

[...]

Second, World of Darkness lives on. Its concepts are revolutionary. CCP continues to believe that it will alter the landscape of the MMO as significantly as EVE has done but we need more time to continue to develop them before dedicating the substantial resources required to bring this experience to market.

So yeah. Not cancelled but certainly not something I'd expect to see come to market.

[Flatfoot]

Does this mean that Mittens has now podded 114 CCP staffers?

[Merusk]

Damnit, beat to the joke.

 

[Engels]

As unpopular as this was to think, I always though the WoD game was vaporware :(

[sinij]

This is sane thing to do, too bad other companies (Blizzard, I am looking at you) are not doing the same thing and neglect their core product while chasing new releases.

[Kageru]

Trying to maintain your single revenue generating game and generate two entirely new titles at the same time was pretty dumb / ambitious. And CCP are not fast, I shudder to think how much money the attempt has cost them.

[LC]

I don't think any amount of refocusing is going to fix eve at this point. At least for me and the people I played eve with. You should realize that something is wrong when your game becomes more fun to read about than it is to play.

[Stormwaltz]

You should realize that something is wrong when your game becomes more fun to read about than it is to play.

Um, that's always been true about EVE.

[tazelbain]

Actually that's enough for some people.

[LC]

You should realize that something is wrong when your game becomes more fun to read about than it is to play.

Um, that's always been true about EVE.

Maybe so, but I do remember having a limited amount of fun before they introduced POS warfare. It was all downhill from there.

[Dren]

You should realize that something is wrong when your game becomes more fun to read about than it is to play.

Um, that's always been true about EVE.

Missed revenue opportunity:  news feed on the exciting happenings within EVE!  Sign up now for one low monthly price of $4.99!  You no longer have to play to enjoy all EVE provides in gaming entertainment.

[LC]

Missed revenue opportunity:  news feed on the exciting happenings within EVE!  Sign up now for one low monthly price of $4.99!  You no longer have to play to enjoy all EVE provides in gaming entertainment.

What happens when everyone is reading the news feed instead of grinding through the boring game play eve offers? I guess they could just start making shit up and fire all the programmers and artists.

[Fordel]

EVE's gameplay could probably be delivered through a facebook game.

[Sir T]

Yeah, but they would probably screw up the storytelling too.

Hell I played an Ascii game that had all of Eves gameplay

[Merusk]

Eve isn't an ASCII game?

All those + and [] sure fooled me!

[Modern Angel]

I give a fuck only as much as this affects the venerable pen and paper WoD stuff, and they've been running on fumes for a few years now. It doesn't look like it's affected but there is zero chance the WoD MMO comes out now. That shit is never going to see the light of day now. And, since CCP is in the hole and the MMO is never going to come out, I wonder how long it takes before they sell of the IP.

[Mazakiel]

When they say their Atlanta, GA office, do they mean White Wolf?  Or did they have non-RPG stuff going on there as well? 

[Ingmar]

When they say their Atlanta, GA office, do they mean White Wolf?  Or did they have non-RPG stuff going on there as well? 

I've heard Brian Glass is gone, and Eddy Webb and Rich Thomas are still there. Beyond that no idea, but most PNP RPG work is done by freelancers at most places these days, not in-house designers.

[Modern Angel]

What Ingmar said. All indications are that Atlanta was just another big CCP hub, with the RPG operations taking up only a small section of things. You could check their job listings for Atlanta and it was pretty standard video game company fare.

Since CCP bought White Wolf specifically to get the IP for the MMO, and a skeleton crew of 20 guys working on a major MMO means that said major MMO is never going to come out, I figure someone sane in about six months has to figure out that the IP is worthless to them if they just sit on it. I'm sure there would be a buyer.

Really, I find the story of White Wolf and how it ended up kind of sad. I don't the guys still working IN White Wolf find it especially sad, mind you, but it seems like a cautionary tale, both as a corporate merger tale and as a signal of just how far RPG licenses (aside from D&D) have fallen in terms of moneymaking bang. Even the D&D license isn't what it once was, with Pathfinder increasingly stealing their thunder.

White Wolf ran a tight second to D&D for the better part of two decades. Now, the urban fantasy gaming thunder was stolen by games like Dresden Files while they slowly wilted, most of the core group of writers and developers who made the company what it was are long gone, and the thing they were cannibalized for probably won't ever actually exist. If it does exist, who gives a fuck? Every passing month means fewer people who even know what World of Darkness means, since CCP invested in an IP and then made sure that the only market penetration to SELL the IP was destroyed in a move to print on demand.

God, what a disaster.

[palmer_eldritch]

I don't think any amount of refocusing is going to fix eve at this point. At least for me and the people I played eve with. You should realize that something is wrong when your game becomes more fun to read about than it is to play.

Eve is more fun to read about than almost any game is to play. I'd rather read about the latest Eve drama than play WoW.

(but yeah it does also need to be fun to play)

[Stabs]

Very sorry to hear about the layoffs and best wishes to those affected.

As for Eve I do find it fun to play and I think most Eve players do. I think there is a small core of veteran nullsec players who are very out of touch with the majority of Eve, very influential and not necessarily healthy for the game.

[Kageru]

Sadly for you Mittani probably deserves some credit for pushing CCP into realising they were drastically over-committed and their dereliction of Eve was leading to an inevitable decline.

[Mazakiel]

What Ingmar said. All indications are that Atlanta was just another big CCP hub, with the RPG operations taking up only a small section of things. You could check their job listings for Atlanta and it was pretty standard video game company fare.

Since CCP bought White Wolf specifically to get the IP for the MMO, and a skeleton crew of 20 guys working on a major MMO means that said major MMO is never going to come out, I figure someone sane in about six months has to figure out that the IP is worthless to them if they just sit on it. I'm sure there would be a buyer.

Really, I find the story of White Wolf and how it ended up kind of sad. I don't the guys still working IN White Wolf find it especially sad, mind you, but it seems like a cautionary tale, both as a corporate merger tale and as a signal of just how far RPG licenses (aside from D&D) have fallen in terms of moneymaking bang. Even the D&D license isn't what it once was, with Pathfinder increasingly stealing their thunder.

White Wolf ran a tight second to D&D for the better part of two decades. Now, the urban fantasy gaming thunder was stolen by games like Dresden Files while they slowly wilted, most of the core group of writers and developers who made the company what it was are long gone, and the thing they were cannibalized for probably won't ever actually exist. If it does exist, who gives a fuck? Every passing month means fewer people who even know what World of Darkness means, since CCP invested in an IP and then made sure that the only market penetration to SELL the IP was destroyed in a move to print on demand.

God, what a disaster.

I find the whole thing pretty sad myself.  I was a big fan of the WoD, both varieties, and never got to play in the settings anywhere near as much as I would have liked.  At least I can fire up Bloodlines again, I suppose. 

[Modern Angel]

The thing that gets my goat the most is that CCP was ramping up the WoD MMO budget at the same time the printing arm was shriveling. Some of that's the market at work, since RPGs are a different (and smaller) business than they were back in the glory days. But goddamn, if you're sinking 100mil into a game in the expectation of a payoff *you don't pull your best advertising out of stores.* It was insane. Take the hit in order to keep Vampire on store shelves. The visibility counts. If people don't see the books, they don't exist. It's one of the most gloriously mismanaged sure things I've seen since Warhammer flubbed it.

The thing is that I got my fill of WoD in the 90s and early 00s. It was MY game but it's a product of its time and I'm not certain it's aged well. It just makes me mad because it was the hotbed of freelance talent out there with a ton of high quality stuff. It could be, still, even if it's not my thing anymore. Despite the rosy cheeriness of the few left behind, there's no way to make this look good.

[Stabs]

Sadly for you Mittani probably deserves some credit for pushing CCP into realising they were drastically over-committed and their dereliction of Eve was leading to an inevitable decline.

Yes you're quite right. The existence of senior management hubris however doesn't negate the existence of a toxic community of bitter vets (of which Mittani is not one).

[Stabs]

The thing that gets my goat the most is that CCP was ramping up the WoD MMO budget at the same time the printing arm was shriveling. Some of that's the market at work, since RPGs are a different (and smaller) business than they were back in the glory days. But goddamn, if you're sinking 100mil into a game in the expectation of a payoff *you don't pull your best advertising out of stores.* It was insane. Take the hit in order to keep Vampire on store shelves. The visibility counts. If people don't see the books, they don't exist. It's one of the most gloriously mismanaged sure things I've seen since Warhammer flubbed it.

The thing is that I got my fill of WoD in the 90s and early 00s. It was MY game but it's a product of its time and I'm not certain it's aged well. It just makes me mad because it was the hotbed of freelance talent out there with a ton of high quality stuff. It could be, still, even if it's not my thing anymore. Despite the rosy cheeriness of the few left behind, there's no way to make this look good.

I think perhaps that the real difference between Vampire RPGs in the 90s and now is Twilight. It would be hard now to play a Vampire RPG without some dick occasionally going "Oh Edward!" and ruining the manly noir immersion.

[Margalis]

Wait...I just realized that World of Darkness and The Secret World are two different games. Am I the only one who mentally slotted them into the same game?

[Kageru]

The game wasn't going to come out in any sort of time-scale to take advantage of the RPG or Twilight. It was still in pretty early development, MMO's are massive under-takings and CCP are pretty resource constrained.

There's an interesting suggestion on an Eve forum that the "WoD cut" is really a smoke-screen for more general cuts in CCP forced by their financial situation.

[Evildrider]

I think WoD would have made them more money then the continuation of Eve will.  Even if WoD in itself isn't as hot anymore, it's still vampires, werewolves, etc.  As we've seen from Twilight that sill makes money.

[Kageru]

It doesn't matter. CCP would have gone bankrupt before anyone would have found out. They need to cut costs now, and can always rebuild a WoD team once Eve stabilizes and Dust is a huge success.

The forums are discovering that large sections of the community team have been sacked, which should do wonders for CCP's ability to communicate. There's also enthusiasm to see if the cash shop developers got axed. I liked this one on the official forums:

This is not a refocus on Eve, this is a "we are going down, we are out of ballast so we need to throw some crew out of the dirrigible to survive!" moment. And oh, "don't touch our favorite part of our anvil collection! That stays in the blimp!".

[Fordel]

I think WoD would have made them more money then the continuation of Eve will.  Even if WoD in itself isn't as hot anymore, it's still vampires, werewolves, etc.  As we've seen from Twilight that sill makes money.

It's not the vampires and werewolves that makes Twilight money.

[UnSub]

It doesn't matter. CCP would have gone bankrupt before anyone would have found out. They need to cut costs now, and can always rebuild a WoD team once Eve stabilizes and Dust is a huge success.

I can't really see Dust being a huge success though. An FPS on the PS3? That's a title at the back of a long line.

Out of the two projects I see that WoD had the higher potential to make money than Dust.

This is a problem with MMO companies - they are (generally) completely dependent on one game for their revenue. That's not a great place to be for long-term survival.

Your other assumption here is that Eve stablises, which it may not regardless of what changes are made to the FIS component.

So: which publisher do you think CCP will sell out to? EA, or a cash-rich Chinese publisher looking to buy into the Western market?

[Ingmar]

Funcom, they need to keep the Norse insanity alive.

[Kageru]

Eve stabilizing is a safe assumption because, if they don't, then all other discussion is largely irrelevant :)

[Stabs]

I think WoD would have made them more money then the continuation of Eve will.  Even if WoD in itself isn't as hot anymore, it's still vampires, werewolves, etc.  As we've seen from Twilight that sill makes money.

It's not the vampires and werewolves that makes Twilight money.

It kind of is. At least part of the forbidden thrill for young ladies is, I imagine, the brutality and aggressiveness of the boys. If they weren't vampires they would be wife-beaters and the books would be much less romantic.