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EVE Online: CCP Celebrates 10 Year Anniversary
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.
History
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.
In 2002, CCP signed a deal with publishers Simon & Schuster. Again, that could have been the end of the story had Simon and Schuster not decided after the deal to leave video game publishing. Obviously, this left CCP in a bit of a bind. With S&S still holding the publishing rights, CCP had no way to distribute their game until 2004 when they re-acquired the publishing rights from S&S, allowing them to begin their own distribution which they accomplished through digital download.
;)
That brings us much closer to the modern day, and the big year that CCP had last year, both in launching EVE Online in China, and in the merger with White Wolf, one of the biggest names in pen and paper role playing with the World of Darkness series under their belts (Vampire: The Masquerade being their most famous product).
Today, CCP has around 210 employees between their three offices in Iceland, Shanghai and now, Atlanta and are continuing to grow, not only with EVE Online, but with a new project being developed (did I mention the number of t-shirts I saw that said "There are no such things as vampires?). As such, they are continually hiring (more on that later) and continuing to grow as a company.
Random Facts
- Between the game's launch and today, Hilmar estimates that over 3 million people have tried EVE Online.
- Last year, 30% of all exported software from Iceland was for EVE Online.
Philosophy
Hilmar told the gaggle of reporters in attendance that the key to the growth of EVE Online (a game which continues a visible curve of growth since launch) to the fact that they view their game as a service, and that they are constantly looking for ways to try to improve their service and "evolve it with the people who use it". That doesn't mean they always get it right the first time, but it does mean that they will try to address and fix a problem when one arises.
He went on to talk about the idea of Virtual World Societies, which Hilmar feels are an evolution of MMORPGs. He defined it like this:
"If you look at the events that have happened in EVE for the first weeks and years, it doesn't really look like the people that are a part of the game, experience it as a game. It feels real to them and they react to it and they talk about it and have feelings about it as if it was real. If you have 200,000 people being a part of something that they regard as real, it is real... There are real feelings, there are real friendships, and there are real enemies."
;)
That may be especially true of a game like EVE Online that fits so nicely into the category of MMORPG traditionally known as a "sandbox" game. Hilmar, however, threw out a slightly different analogy to describe the two categories of MMORPG.
The first kind of game is the "Theme Park" game. Theme parks are essentially organized fun zones. Patrons are told where to go, and what lines to stand in, in order to have a good time on all of the rides that have been specifically designed to produce a certain kind of fun.
"A theme park," says the CEO, "is a carefully constructed experience which is supposed to be fun, condensed, easy to access. It's entertainment, it's really well-defined. You always know what you're supposed to do."
Conversely, the playground approach is more free-form. Again, according to Hilmar, there are some toys scattered around, but usually fewer toys than there are people. People make their own fun.
;)
"Someone is trying to build a sandcastle," he explained, becoming quite animated in his analogy, "but the others are trying to mess it up all the time..."
The part though, that Hilmar seemed to be making was that at the playground, people tend to make friends. That's a big part of the point in going to a playground. At a theme park, that isn't as much a focus. People go, often with their own friends or families, but don't really talk to anyone else, even though there might be thousands of people doing them same things you are, right beside you.
In the playground, you need to make friends to enhance your fun and to help protect your sand castle from bullies. In the guided fun of the theme park, that isn't as important.
Both of these are wide categories, and no game falls specifically into one category or another, but EVE definitely looks more like a playground than a theme park.
Growth
Growth is a good word to use when describing CCP. EVE Online has continued to climb in both total user numbers and concurrent user numbers. CCP as a company is also continuing to grow, with the White Wolf merger, and the inevitable World of Darkness MMO.
;)
After a brief tour of the office (as made apparent by the pictures that line this article), I had a chance to sit down with Helgi Mar Thordarson, the Human Resources Manager for CCP and we talked about some of the opportunities that are coming up within CCP:
They are looking to add people in all development areas, from artists to engineers, to everything else in between. On the website currently, there are approximately 40 positions available, covering most development areas in China, Iceland and the US office in Atlanta.
I asked Helgi what it was like to work for CCP, and he told me that I should take a look at the white board that was located just inside the office's entrance. When I went back later to check it out, I found that it was full of people answering that exact same question. The answers ranged from totally nonsensical (which in and of itself says something about the morale of the people working there) to the glowing. One employee wrote that "CCP is a cmpany full of talented and very cool people." Someone else wrote that "I have the best job in the world". Clearly, those people who are currently working at CCP are happy in their jobs. The attitude seemed to prove itself in everyone that I talked to, to a person, they are enthusiastic about their jobs and talk passionately about the game.
Wrap-Up
Sure, CCP has come under some pretty heavy fire in the last month regarding their handling of an incident of accused cheating. Still, that issue has been discussed again and again on our forums and elsewhere. All that I can say on the subject is that the people who worked there (at least those who I spoke to) seemed to be genuinely hurt by the accusation that they would purposely cheat in the game, and that unlike the picture that some would paint of CCP employees, they are not sitting at their desks cooking up schemes and scams, but rather appeared to me to be people who were fully engaged with making their game as much fun for everyone as possible.
;)
Do CCP employees play their own game? Yes, and the game can only be better for it. Do CCP employees occasionally make friends with players? Yes, and in and of itself, there's nothing wrong with that. It is the perception that some individuals might take advantage of that situation that causes a problem.
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. Sure, mistakes can be (and have been) made, but they are learning from these mistakes and seem to be taking steps to assure that similar incidents don't crop up again.
It's like Hilmar told us: They see EVE Online as a service as well as a game, and they really are trying to "evolve it with the people who use it."
Interesting
And I didn't know that they where that old
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.
True that. To work on their game w/o pay demands some respect. It paid off in the end and CCP and its flagship game seem to be growing each year. I cant wait till the release some conceptual details about WoD.
Gratz CCP , they made it Gangsta Style yo
"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.
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).
If it's made known that the company was accepting funding from developers for travel, gifts, etc in exchange for coverage, that would seem like a serious conflict of interest and would seriously call this sites credibility into question. Most of your writers are volunteers, which suggests that this is not a big budget production (that doesn't mean it's not competent). The massive series on Chronicles of Spellborne got me wondering about that, and now this article.
I guess it really doesn't matter, but it does make me wonder.
/Hijack off
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
While interdictors are mostly use once and then go home to get a new one I wouldn't go so far as to call them ammo. And the thing most people are concerned about is the fact that the blueprints where kept in game for half a year after they been discovered by CCP and not removed until the players found out about them.
i havnt played eve in about 2 months but last i remember it wasnt few ammunition blueprints. from what i remember it was ship blueprints the crashing of server. system caps when ever my corp tryed going after bob. and even with the system caps the server drops when they are geting their asses kicked.
Congrats CCP on a decade well done!!!
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.
And if you got that out of the interviews you're a patented idiot.
I agree with the part about professionalism though. The first case was treated really badly, and they sorely need a proper PR department not some guy who contraddicts himself at every post he makes and only makes the drama worse.
"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.
You tire of it because it isn't muckraking. You tire of it because everyone who isn't tied to CCP has seen the evidence from Goon, Kugutsumen, et al, and it confirms what most everyone already knew.
I myself have played every MMOG I can get my hands on and EVE online is the only one that's still being played by me for over 2 and a half years. If these self-styled custodians of morality leave the game and/or convince others like them not to play it then I don't really see a problem here.
"You tire of it because it isn't muckraking. You tire of it because everyone who isn't tied to CCP has seen the evidence from Goon, Kugutsumen, et al, and it confirms what most everyone already knew."
I really have to laugh at ill-informed posters that use totally debunked sources like Kugutsumen or the goons. Basically just confirms your troll status as you offer nothing new to the topic, just repeat nonsense posted by others.
Funny how people trust a corporation based on causing suffering to others. And then also takes their opinion from a guy that steals information, constructs that information entirely out of context to get what he wants it to say, and then "leaks" it.
If you really play EvE instead of Forum Warrior'ing, you'd be too busy blowing up goonfleet, and getting chased around by enormous blobs in 0.0 or lowsec like I do. And wouldn't have time to worry about this. Of course, that only covers my side of EvE pvp... someone who does industrial/mission running will have to follow me up with their opinion ;).
I have played EVE Online for some time but only in a casual way as I never really had the time to be hard core with it. I wasn't too bothered by the allegations as I was more bothered by the institutionalized cheating that they had developed.
The idea that it is a cold cruel universe and to buyer beware is all fine and good but what do you do when CCP sets things up to make it easy for someone to scam another player but not provide any method of retribution? To simply say that a market is a buyer beware market isn't cutting it in my opinion. If someone puts up for sale something that isn't what they claim it to be then there should be a method to punish that indivdual. Possibly a rating system. Possibly hunt them down and kill them. Possibly a merchant enforcement squad. The current implementation means that a significant portion of contracts in EVE at the moment are designed not to simply make money but to defraud people. For me the result is that you have to wade through page after page of scams and if you fail to spot a problem in a contract then the only thing you can do is ignore future contracts from that indvidual.
If they want to introduce PvP to the capital markets then CCP needs to provide an avenue of retribution for those that scam. Otherwise they need to clean it up.
For me it was enough to have me cancel my accounts and to leave the game. Just got tired of all the bullshit in the game because of this attitude of CCP.
Also a slight comment on the number of people playing Eve Online. There might be 100,000 or even 200,000 accounts but the number of people playing the game actively is probably under 20,000. You seldom see more than 20,000-22,000 players online at any one time and many of these people are running multiple accounts. They have an account for PvPing, one for Empire space, possibly they have a miner and/or a hauler alternate. What it means is that for Eve Online the number of accounts definitely does not represent the number of people playing the game or the number that might be online. This is true of many RPGs but Eve easily has more players owning multiple accounts than any other game that I have played.
Note also that with 20,000 players online that in many regions the game becomes very fragile. Yes it's one big server but the game really can't handle that many people online and in the same area at the same time. If everyone online flew to Jita I suspect that the server would simply die. (And, yes I'm aware that the traffic control system would restrict the number of people that could jump into the system so this can't really be done).