CCP – Page 2 – MMO Fallout

CCP's Latest Financial Report Shows Troubled Times

CCP Games has released their latest financial statement, and the results are a showcase on the company’s latest round of problems. Due to decreased revenue, CCP announced that they have shut down their San Francisco offices and laid off two key US executives: CFO Joe Gallo and CMO David Reid. The cancellation of World of Darkness, which we learned about earlier this year, reportedly brought about a substantial cost including the cost of terminating employees and writing off assets.

Revenue for the first half of 2014 amounted to $36.5 million, down slightly from $36.7 million last year, however EBITD (Earnings Before Interest, Tax, and Depreciation) was down to $4.5 million from $8.3 million last year.

(Source: Gamasutra)

CCP Shutting Down DUST 514 Oceania Servers

CCP has announced that the Oceania servers for DUST 514 will be shut down following regularly scheduled maintenance on Monday, July 28th. In a post on the forums, CCP Frame stated that a low population on the server led to players from other regions using it to set up rigged battles against one another.

Following the shutdown, players on the Oceania servers will be redirected toward either the Asia or North American servers, depending on their location and ISP.

(Source: DUST 514)

CCP Layoffs From Publishing Team

Eve Online developer CCP Games has confirmed to Gamasutra that a recent wave of layoffs has resulted in 49 employees being cut from the company. According to the report, teams from Eve Online, Eve: Valkyrie, Project Legion, and DUST 514 have not been affected by the layoffs.

“As part of our strategy to focus on the EVE Universe, today CCP conducted a restructuring that resulted in the layoff of 49 people in our publishing organisation,”

The developer has promised severance packages and job placement assistance to those affected.

(Source: Gamesindustry.biz)

World of Darkness Cancelled

CCP has officially announced that World of Darkness has been cancelled. Some of you may remember that, last month, CCP’s annual financial report stated that the company had written off a piece of software as no longer having any value. It looks like that property was World of Darkness. In his note accompanying the announcement, Hilmar Veigar Pétursson states that the team was unable to deliver the experience that they wanted, and as a result development has ceased and some 56 employees have been laid off.

The decision to end the World of Darkness MMO project is one of the hardest I’ve ever had to make. I have always loved and valued the idea of a sandbox experience set in that universe, and over the years I’ve watched the team passionately strive to make that possible. To our current and former employees and fans of World of Darkness, I am truly sorry that we could not deliver the experience that we aspired to make. We dreamed of a game that would transport you completely into the sweeping fantasy of World of Darkness, but had to admit that our efforts were falling regretfully short. One day I hope we will make it up to you.

To those of you keeping a magnifying glass on World of Darkness, this news should not come as a shock. Between multiple layoffs and comments that World of Darkness was very low priority for CCP, with nothing to show for so long, it was only a matter of time before CCP cut their losses and moved on.

(Source: CCP)

CCP Posts 2013 Financial Results

CCP has posted their 2013 financial results and the results are interesting, if not confusing. While the company posted an annual revenue of $76.7 million USD, net loss amounted to $21.3 million during the same period. 2013 saw multiple milestones reached, including the launch of PS3 shooter DUST 514 as well as Eve Online’s 10th anniversary and surpassing five hundred thousand subscribers. DUST 514 brought in a fair amount of revenue, although nowhere near Eve Online’s sales.

As for the net loss, our friend The Ancient Gaming Noob took some time to explain how it is due to assets being derecognized as a part of 2013’s restructuring.

Basically, the wrote some software that they felt added value to the company and called it an asset at some point, adding to the total value of the company. Now they have decided that the software in question does not have value, so they have to take it off the books. To the shareholders, the company effectively “lost” that much in its overall valuation, but no actual cash money disappeared or changed hands.

As for what those assets were, CCP isn’t saying. CCP also announced a partnership with Sony to bring their dogfighting game Valkyrie to the Playstation 4. You can check out the entire financial report at the link below.

(Source: CCP finances)

Eve Online Graphic Novel Released

CCP Games has announced that the first issue of Eve: True Stories is now available for download. The graphic novel series follows the real events of players in the game Eve Online, with the first issue in the series devoted to the fall of the Band of Brothers alliance. The novel is published by Dark Horse Digital, written by Daniel Way (Deadpool) and features the artwork of Tomm Coker (Daredevil Noir) and David Palumbo (Aliens).

Interested readers can nab the issue for free using the Dark Horse app. Three more issues are set to release over the course of March and into early April, with a hardcover edition coming in June. More information can be found at the link below.

(More Info: Eve Online)

Eve Online Bans Impersonating Your Own Alts

A recent change to Eve Online’s Terms of Service has prompted several inaccurate reports that CCP now disallows scamming, spying, and sabotage, and is actively banning players for said actions. The alteration, according to CCP, clarified an already in-place rule which made impersonation of another player a bannable offense. For example, pretending to be a representative of an organization to scam a player is considered a bannable offense. Pretending to be an alt of another character is also a bannable offense under this rule. One player (Abdiel Kavash) on the forums asked if impersonating one of your own alts to scam someone was against the rules:

CASE 2: I decide that I want to make some extra money off my past customers, without necessarily having to provide any extra services. I create a new character, Phill McScammer, on my account. I then go talk to a past customer of AbdielCorp and I claim that Phill McScammer is an alt of Abdiel Kavash. Customer falls for it, sends me their money and never sees it again.

Short answer: Yes. GM Karidor’s response:

Your character Phill McScammer impersonated Abdiel Kavash, the same way as Joe McScammer did, thus gets it from us the same way if reported. From our point of view, as well as from a victims, there is no technical difference between those two cases of a character impersonating another.

In fact, CCP views a player claiming affiliation with one of his alternate characters to be on the same level as one player claiming affiliation with another player entirely.

Both characters Phil and Joe used the name Abdiel Kavash to give of the impression they were somehow related to him. The cases are effectively identical.

So if you claim to be an alt of yourself, in CCP’s view you are still lying. In response to a wave of player feedback, CCP has opened a thread to gather further discussion on the newly clarified rules.

(Source: Eve Online)

Listen To Eve's Most Expensive Ship Blow Up

One time I accidentally broke a piece of equipment at my old job that was worth $200. I got yelled at by my boss. Factor that damage up to eight thousand dollars, and make the item rare to boot, and you’re going to have a very angry person on the other end. In the case of Eve Online, the object in question is a Revenant Supercarrier, a ship worth over $8,000 USD and so rare that only three are believed to exist in the game world. The ship was destroyed when the corporation Habitual Euthanasia took it out to respond to a distress call.

I may be oversimplifying the story, to which I will respond by simplifying it further: Big rare ship went boom. This isn’t the first time an event of this sort has happened in Eve Online and it certainly won’t be the worst, but have you ever sat back and wondered what was going on in the corporation’s chat in the aftermath?

Pretty much what you’d expect. A lot of blame to go around, a lot of strong language, and a lot of finger pointing. Check it out at the Soundcloud file above, if you think you can handle the raw anger. Then head down to the link below and read comments where people debate putting a real money value to ISK.

(Source: Gamebreaker.tv)

Listen To Eve’s Most Expensive Ship Blow Up

(Source: Gamebreaker.tv)

50,000 Skill Points Gifted By CCP Due To Downtime

So the issue of Eve Online’s servers being hit by a DDoS attack and brought offline for extended maintenance has been fixed, and players are once again flying through space and shooting each other to death. With the attacks behind them and security teams working on new methods to protect the servers, CCP has turned its attention to compensating players for the loss of June 2nd and 3rd. In an announcement on the official website, in lieu of granting accounts with extra days of access, CCP will be handing out fifty thousand unallocated skill points.

You can read more about the incident in this statement by our Chief Operating Officer, CCP Spielmann. A friendly reminder if you hear of someone doing or planning something bad, even if it’s your friend, we do have the PLEX for snitches program.

All active accounts are eligible, barring trial accounts, and the points have already been handed out. Check out the link below for the full announcement and guide on how to allocate said points. No word on whether DUST514 players will be compensated as they share the same server with Eve Online players.

(Source: Eve Online)

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