Recently, Managing Editor Jon Wood traveled to Iceland to visit the sutdios of CCP, and attend a party to celebrate the company's 10 year anniversary. While there, he learned some interesting facts about CCP that many people might not know.

On June 3rd, Crowd Control Productions, better known as CCP, turned 10 years old, and my-oh-my how they've grown. In honor of the anniversary, I wanted to write something about the history behind CCP, and how they got from where they started to where they are today with over 200,000 subscribers worldwide.

The company was founded in 1997 by Reynir Harðarson, who wanted to make what would eventually be EVE Online. Unfortunately, as most of us know, the idea of making an MMORPG and the reality are two very separate things. The story though, of how EVE came to be is actually an interesting one, and one that should be noted in an article about the company's anniversary:

In order to help to finance the game to come, CCP, in its first three years, developed a board game. Available only in Iceland, the game was described fondly by Hilmar Petursson, CCP's CEO as a "PvP" game that could cause fights on family vacations.

By 2001, the company had raised 1.6 million dollars toward making their game, but still needed more. By the end of that same year, the team had worked two thirds of the way through the game, but were totally out of money. In the case of most companies, that would likely have been the end, however, the team stayed on - without a paycheck - for three months in an attempt to get the game done and the gamble paid off.

Read the whole article here.

By the end of that same year, the team had worked two thirds of the way through the game, but were totally out of money. In the case of most companies, that would likely have been the end, however, the team stayed on - without a paycheck - for three months in an attempt to get the game done and the gamble paid off.

Last year, 30% of all exported software from Iceland was for EVE Online.

Despite relatively minor gripes I have with this game this game is like wine - it gets better with age.

This game is the most innovative game I've ever played and I've played a lot.  Cudos to CCP.

Originally posted by Phoenixs

By the end of that same year, the team had worked two thirds of the way through the game, but were totally out of money. In the case of most companies, that would likely have been the end, however, the team stayed on - without a paycheck - for three months in an attempt to get the game done and the gamble paid off.

Wow, I didn't know that. That I must say, really impressed me. Respect.

Last year, 30% of all exported software from Iceland was for EVE Online.

Interesting

And I didn't know that they where that old , anyway gratz CCP!

"Available only in Iceland, the game was described fondly by Hilmar Petursson, CCP's CEO as a "PvP" game that could cause fights on family vacations. "

That says it all right there.

A couple of things are of interest, in the last interview the head of CCP quoted the numbers at 170k accounts and 30k trials but I have seen other reviews that quote as high as 210k. It would be interesting to see an actual breakdown of players, accounts and trials. 

The interview also glossed over the problems that arose while CCP was concentrating on getting back the rights from S&S, the whole changing of the guards’ issue where a lot of the PVE developers left for greener pastures and the current we need to funnel the players down to us in 0.0 joined. Back in 2002 CCP looked at EVE and realized that a pure PVP game would never work so they hired a few great developers to concentrate on PVE which brought to EVE such things as Mining, Missions, The Sec Rate scheme, and trade/mfg. See when the interviewer says that CCP had 75% of the game in early 2002, it had none of these ideas just flying around going Pew Pew Pew. Those that saw the first beta remember how deferent that EVE was from the Gold version, which is also almost that much difference from today’s version. Not to take anything away from what they accomplished just to clarify that it was not 75% of the released version much less today’s version.      

Which brings up an interesting point, that of divergence, had CCP not had the problems right after launch with obtaining the *rights back from S&S and thus had kept a few of the key developers (not hired the replacements) and thus had not taken the fork in the road, would EVE be as popular, more popular or less? 

*EVE very nearly closed that first year, when S&S decided to get out they had pulled the plug on the game. CCP raced over to S&S’s offices and after a long and hard negotiation bought back the rights to EVE. (Though, I hear that their first born sons are indentured to S&S for the next 30 years).

i'm sure they were sincerely hurt that anyone dared to believe they had the right to complain about the cheating.

it's not AN incident, it's a HUGE laundry list of document cheating, much of which has been admitted to and ccp staff has blown it off because it's THEIR game.

EvE is the prime example of a truly interesting concept, one which I'd bet a paycheck on came from a single inspired developer, that was mortally wounded by the "unrestricted PvP" lunacy.

EvE is the epitomy of all that is wrong with PvP.  It is the "before" picture, the poster boy for PvP suckage.  If it weren't for the Euro fanboi cult that celebrates all things non-American, EvE would be a minor footnote in the history of MMORPG.

Originally posted by Carufin

EvE is the prime example of a truly interesting concept, one which I'd bet a paycheck on came from a single inspired developer, that was mortally wounded by the "unrestricted PvP" lunacy.

EvE is the epitomy of all that is wrong with PvP.  It is the "before" picture, the poster boy for PvP suckage.  If it weren't for the Euro fanboi cult that celebrates all things non-American, EvE would be a minor footnote in the history of MMORPG.

Um...riiiight.  You do know that something like 40% of EVE's playerbase comes from the U.S., right? (Per a dev post a while back onf the EVE-O forums.)  Hell, I and most of my corp are U.S.-based.

As for EVE being everything that's wrong with PvP, no offense, but it sounds like you're someone who doesn't want to lose anything when you die in PvP.  This is fine...in other games.  PvP in EVE was designed to be harsh; the penalty for losing gives EVE PvP greater meaning than you will see in any other MMO out there.  A PvP loss is a LOSS, not just another "respawn and go again".

Again, EVE PvP may be wrong for you, but that doesn't make it universally wrong (if it was, the game wouldn't have 200,000 subscriptions).

They feel hurt?

Oh boo hoo.

Maybe if they handled the orignal scandal with open transparency it woudn't have turned into a huge $hiT storm for them.

I don't feel sorry for them.

They dug their grave with how they handled things... now they can deal with peoples reaction to it.

I can't believe people are still going on so harshly over a few ammunition blueprints that were wrongly given out by a single employee and later discovered and retrieved.  Obviously nothing more than a vocal minority, but still anoying to see that minority incessively roaming on about it.

Regardless, EVE Online still has just as many subscriptions as ever and are still steadily growing.  Congrats to CCP on their birthday.  An obvious bunch of passionate and dedicated developers as I ever saw.

The game sure is one of the kind

You dont need to sit around the game all the time to level up your skills

Get some friends make af crop. / join a crop. and you can look forward to some awesome space battles

The perfect adult Online game

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Originally posted by kjemper
I can't believe people are still going on so harshly over a few ammunition blueprints that were wrongly given out by a single employee and later discovered and retrieved.

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Originally posted by kjemper

I can't believe people are still going on so harshly over a few ammunition blueprints that were wrongly given out by a single employee and later discovered and retrieved.  Obviously nothing more than a vocal minority, but still anoying to see that minority incessively roaming on about it.

 

Regardless, EVE Online still has just as many subscriptions as ever and are still steadily growing.  Congrats to CCP on their birthday.  An obvious bunch of passionate and dedicated developers as I ever saw.

Congrats CCP on a decade well done!!!

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Originally posted by Amathe
CCP already admitted some one of their employees misused their position, aka cheating, and they did not fire those employees that employee. That to me is all I will ever need to know about this game. When those employees are that employee is sent packing, I may consider this one.

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You are fully justified in that opinion, though at least get the established facts right from the mud thats been slung around.

As this interview makes clear, as well as the Ten Ton Hammer interview, CCP clearly produces this game so they can have fun with it.

The ideal is for line subscribers to have fun with it; but if choices have to be made between CCP having fun, and we subscribers having fun, then present circumstances only verify that the line subscribers are just going to have to suffer so CCP and CCP friends can have fun at the expense of the line subscriber.

Don't tell me that having this greyshard development atmosphere is good for the game.  Recent events prove how harmful an unprofessional attitude can be in a P2P service.  This dumb philosophy of developer participation is going to continue getting in the way of making EVE enjoyable.  It's hanging like a shadow over the game, and I don't think it will ever go away until CCP starts to act like real professional distributors of an online service.  Knowing how stubborn CCP is though, I'd imagine they'd sooner close EVE then compromise for the good of the service for the people who pay.  It's a shame too, because EVE is too good of a game to suffer because of amaturish policies.

Originally posted by Beatnik59

As this interview makes clear, as well as the Ten Ton Hammer interview, CCP clearly produces this game so they can have fun with it.

The ideal is for line subscribers to have fun with it; but if choices have to be made between CCP having fun, and we subscribers having fun, then present circumstances only verify that the line subscribers are just going to have to suffer so CCP and CCP friends can have fun at the expense of the line subscriber.

Don't tell me that having this greyshard development atmosphere is good for the game.  Recent events prove how harmful an unprofessional attitude can be in a P2P service.  This dumb philosophy of developer participation is going to continue getting in the way of making EVE enjoyable.  It's hanging like a shadow over the game, and I don't think it will ever go away until CCP starts to act like real professional distributors of an online service.  Knowing how stubborn CCP is though, I'd imagine they'd sooner close EVE then compromise for the good of the service for the people who pay.  It's a shame too, because EVE is too good of a game to suffer because of amaturish policies.

"My experience at their offices has suggested to me (and I would pass it on to you to do with what you will) that the folks behind CCP and EVE Online are genuinely trying to make the game as much fun for its players as possible."

See the problem with that statement is which players are they committed to?  The players who are devs and dev friends, or the anonymous rank and file players like you and I?  You don't have a problem answering this question when there is a wall of separation between devs and players.

This is from the Ten Ton Hammer interview:

"Finally, we never felt that we were a corporation trying to sell a game. CCP was just a company that wanted to create a game that they wanted to play with the gamers."

As far as people taking the game too seriously, there is proof that five paid and non-paid staff of CCP are engaged in improprieties against the subscribers.  That's alright though, because as Magnus says, they aren't trying to sell a game to subscribers.  They just want to create a game they can play with people they consider "gamers."

All I know though is that the allegations are far more plausable then saying that there is an international conspiracy trying to undermine the game the conspirators play and pay for.  That's basically CCP's version in a nutshell, and it's no wonder why they are so paranoid.  Gamers, for reasons CCP will apparently never understand, want CCP to sell them a game, and quit trying so hard to influence the game in ways that consumers should be doing.

Quite obvious that the OP is not very familiar with  this game at all.   Nothing like spewing complete nonsense in a thread.

They had one incident last summer and nothing since.   Sorry you can make up all the conspiracy theories you want.  Seems the popular thing to do.   The problem is if you actually played the game, you would realize that all these made up theories are exactly that, made up nonsense.  Not one shred of proof has been presented by anyone.

Then you had to post this drival:

"As far as people taking the game too seriously, there is proof that five paid and non-paid staff of CCP are engaged in improprieties against the subscribers."

There is NO proof any where of anything such.  I get tired of refutting this muckraking, especially when no one can provide even the existance of the smoking gun.

So slander CCP if you must, but you are just another in a long line of whiners with no leg to stand on.