Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
CCP layoffs affect 20% of worldwide staff, company focusing on EVE
popinjay
Member Posts: 6,539
CCP layoffs affect 20% of worldwide staff, company focusing on EVE
Read it and weep.. literally. World of Darkness took a hit. It'll probably still come out but just add another six month to a year now.
"Manifest says that EVE expansions, DUST, and WoD have stretched CCP's resources too thin, and the company will now "sharpen our focus." In the short term, this means more attention for EVE Online and DUST 514, while World of Darkness will "continue development with a significantly reduced team."
Comments
I don't understand why they cut WoD instead of Dust514.
Dust514, is a really cool idea, but I just don't see it having any market power and really ever being anything more than just a really cool idea.
I think Wurm Online has alot of really cool ideas. But, that doesn't mean I play it.
Basiclaly this confirms what many of us have been complaining about. The cash show gets slaughtered to pay for upcoming projects. The whole cash shop debacle stems from CCP's desperate need for cash to pay for OTHER games. When you pay a sub fee, it seems, that the developers aren't even using your money to invest in the game you're even playing. Blizzard is funding Titan, Trion is funding Defiance (etc). Plus, your sub money isn't even enough to pay the bill...they must further raise capital though the cash shop. Everybody is trying to make a bigger and better game and needs copious amounts of cash to do it. When the cash doesn't come (i.e., EVE) ... suddenly the devs talk about focusing on the cash cow again.
For once I'd love to know that the game I'm playing has the full attention of the devs instead of taking my money and pumping it into games I'm not even playing.
Oh dear ...
*trots off to get some popcorn*
My brand new bloggity blog.
Actually IMO Dust514 is a horrible idea atm as too many ppl have unsubbed to Eve Online. I would rather them focus on MMOs rather than a 1 console platform game that IMO will have average sales at best. IMO Plex didnt help either. Just make everyone pay a sub fee instead of being able to purchase time with ingame isk.
***Raving Rabbid feels horrible for the layoffs at CCP.***
All my opinions are just that..opinions. If you like my opinions..coolness.If you dont like my opinion....I really dont care.
Playing: ESO, WOT, Smite, and Marvel Heroes
Since when should a company focus your sub money on the game you are paying for? while infact you are paying for the game ur playing it does make it their money and they can do with it as they like. You are not paying a sub fee to support the game ur playing your paying it to support the company with all its employees behind it and they do with it as they please.
As I said before. WOD MMO is vaporeware. It will probably never come out.
Most likely they tested numbers of ideas that sounded good on paper. But couldnt really bring them to life.
As is evident by never comming out Incarna - btw.
But there is a good news burried here. CCP re-focusing on EVE.
Probably sacking all their crazy ideas of cash shop monetizing, etc.
Sticking to what works.
= EVE
This is really bad news to me, in that World of Darkness Online is the game that I'm looking forward to the most by far. Of all the games in development, I think it has the best chance of providing a truly different type of play.
Game companies must continually look toward the future. Their current games might be successful right now, but most will start to fall off after a certain period of time. Without new products to offer, a game company will simply whither and die as their current game or games decline.
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.
Once your sub money appears in their account, the devs can spend it on whatever they like, you have no more claim to it. It is in the company's best interest however to continue to support the game as if they don't they lose subs which results in less money to work on everything.
As for why they reduced the WoD development instead of Dust 514, two reasons. First Dust is farther along in development, they are less than a year from release whereas WoD is still in pre-productions. Secondly Dust ties into EVE significantly and has the potential to increase EVE's visibility a hundredfold.
As to those who don't think Dust has the potential to be successfull on consoles, I dissagree. Every article I've read about dust has a comments section full of PS3 players who are either extremely intrigued or excited about the possibilities that Dust presents. I think once the closed beta starts this winter and we start to see some actual details and gameplay examples emerge the intrest will spike significantly.
In short, DUST 514 is a better focus for CCP RIGHT NOW than WoD and once it is out the door CCP will have a second revenue stream with which to fund WoD development while hopefully still having resources to continue work on both EVE and Dust in the future.
Makes sense really, I think CCP was really over-extending themselves by trying to fund 2 new titles with the revenues generated from their EVE player base, particularly when neither of the new titles would likely garner a ton of support from many of the current player base.
EVE's a rare bird, an MMO that continually was able to increase subs year over year, and while I don't think that's been the case this past year, had they remained focused on their core customer base they's have continued to propser because no one is developing anything remotely close in terms of competition to EVE (as far as its design).
I might come back to EVE one day, but CCP has to add some content that would encourage me to do so. The recent content has been so anemic I just can't find enough fun in it to maintain my 4 subs.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Of course, nobody can tell a compnay to do with their money. They will have to use those dollars in any way they see fit, but imho neglecting the game that is generating the income is foolish. That's the point I was trying to make.
Im not in a panic just yet. They have'nt said they arent working on WOD anymore so I'll take it as a delayed game more or less.
***Raving Rabbid wait patiently for WOD!***
All my opinions are just that..opinions. If you like my opinions..coolness.If you dont like my opinion....I really dont care.
Playing: ESO, WOT, Smite, and Marvel Heroes
Ah i was looking forward to WOD...
I hope they dont cut corners with it and turn it into a coookie cutter theme park wow clone LOL..
I've only been barely following this game since it is so far from even a formal announcement, but this is discouraging. I was looking forward to how CCP would do a WoD MMO. Hopefully this doesn't push it so far back that it never comes out.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
That is sad to hear. I am looking forward to trying World of Darkness someday.
I didn't realize EVE was apparently losing so many subs. Why is that? I thought the game had a huge and very healthy fanbase?
EVE is stagnant, and no one is even remotely interested in any of the other projects that they are working on. Sure people say that they are looking forward to WOD, but the buzz behind that is extremely low. DUST is a flat-out stupid idea right from the start. They are literally doing NOTHING to protect their fan base that is paying the bills.
Maybe after this gut-check they will get back to work on the only thing that anyone cares about, and that is EVE.
Any time a company has to have layoffs, it is not a good thing. Looks like "monocle-gate" cost more than they initially thought.
I want a mmorpg where people have gone through misery, have gone through school stuff and actually have had sex even. -sagil
Wow... I want to say "I told you!!!" so bad, but I don't know who to say it to.
I never understood why CCP thought they had enough resources to maintain/progress EVE, while still developing a brand new MMO, as well as DUST 514 -- just seemed so unrealistic, and I suppose this is the proof of that.
On another note, I agree with the above statement that DUST 514 might have been the wrong choice in terms of "what we ditch and what we keep" -- Console only title that's dependant on the activity of EVE players? Yeah.... that's a super dice roll.
On yet another note, I don't think we should be too too bummed about WoD. That game was not going to see the light of day anytime soon, and it appears now that CCP finally accepted this and simply decided to announce it. If they completely ditched DUST 514, I would feel more faithful about WoD actually hitting the real production table.
Same old company games. Oh well, at least the vaporware looked nice.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
This. It seems like a lot of people are quick to jump on this as the company spiraling downwards, but I see this as a product of the complaints by their playerbase. It isn't a 'dark sign'. It is a positive. They realized that the income they needed in order to fund such a large undertaking such as WoD wasn't going to come how they originally intended it. Cash shops were going to be a major source of income for the company, and were going to help fund WoD and their other project. However, they realized that it hurt their income more by harming their playerbase, and decided against it.
Thus, they didn't have the projected income to continue development on WoD at the moment. Instead, they are refocusing the company on EVE, and DUST 514.
Now, since people seem to be on this hate-train for DUST, it's important to note that there are already a ton of features in EVE that DUST will incorporate, and they are still adding more and more in patches. It makes sense for them to focus on DUST instead of WoD, because DUST relies on resources they've already spent developing things in EVE. They have probably spent more time developing DUST so far than they remotely came close to with WoD.
DUST also has a much larger potential playerbase than the World of Darkness MMO. Consoles are a huge market to tap into, and pulling console players into the universe of EVE has more positives for EVE itself than WoD ever would have for the company on a whole.
CCP have said, judge us by our actions not our words. They've had a history of talking big and not delivering. How many things are they going to do before people start seeing these actions as a result of their words, instead of just doom-saying everything CCP does?
To me, this seems like a very drastic and necessary change of company direction. It is a reaction to an angry playerbase.
I know they're not cancelling WoD but it's dissapointing none the less. A lot of people are interested in that game. Especially, with the concepts the developers are tossing around as a direction they want to go with the game.
They said they're still working on it, I'll remain hopefull that it means they'll eventually refocus on WoD again some day soon.
We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.
WOD being scaled back might not be a bad thing. Given the outside box stuff they want to do with it a smaller team focusing on a core might provide a stronger game in the long run. Mechanic wise it seems a lot of stuff Salem is doing or haven and hearth is more WOD ally.
As for dust, they really need to release it on PC also. There is just no overlap where they seem to think their is. Eve players and former eve players who want some more casual and mixed up are a bigger market then console players.
Nooooooooooo, this is not cool...I have been bragging everywhere about this game!
Incognito
www.incognito-gaming.us
"You're either with us or against us"
Was World of Darkness going to be a sandbox game ? Pity would have helped the current crop. I wonder how games that don't charge subs will fare in the future becuase Eve was a sub game.
Yea, its a hardcore sandbox...they are still making it...just not going to be as soon as we thought, i'm thinkint 2013 now.
Incognito
www.incognito-gaming.us
"You're either with us or against us"
2015 at best, we are talking about CCP here, and speedy development is not something they're famous for.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon