EVE Online has had a troubling few months. The Incarna microtransaction controversy sparked a massive player backlash that escalated to player corporations threatening to blackball anyone found purchasing the new microtransaction items, in-game protests in Jita and an emergency summit of the game’s player-elected Council of Stellar Management. Eventually CCP CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson apologized to the EVE Online community and promised big changes to the space game.

Today a new dev blog brought both good and bad news. In the blog, CCP admits that it was trying to do too many things at once and stretched their resources too thin.  The good news is that CCP is refocusing their efforts to further develop the EVE universe through EVE Online and the upcoming Playstation 3 shooter tie-in, DUST 514. The bad news is that in order to do that the upcoming World of Darkness MMOG will have its development team significantly reduced and roughly 20% of CCP’s staff will be laid off.

CCP clarified two in the blog's conclusion questions that they feel will be perceived in the industry relating to the move and the future of World of Darkness.

First, EVE Online is in good health. Our subscriber numbers are higher today than they were a year ago. Unlike many other MMO's on the market, we have continued to grow year-on-year since launch in 2003. However, over the past two months, our subscribers have gone down from their peak this summer. We attribute this to our own mistakes and poor communications with our players. We are correcting that now.

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.

A majority of the impacted CCP jobs will be from their office in Atlanta, Georgia with a few select positions in the Reykjavik, Iceland office also affected. As always, our best wishes go out to those that will be affected by the layoffs.

Source: CCP Focuses on the EVE Universe - A CCP Announcement


To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our EVE Online Game Page.

Last Updated: Mar 14, 2016

About The Author

Stacy "Martuk" Jones was a long-time news editor and community manager for many of our previous game sites, such as Age of Conan. Stacy has since moved on to become a masked super hero, battling demons in another dimension.

Comments