An Open Letter to the Players of EVE Online

Heya guys,

Many of you know me as CCP Fallout, but to most people IGÇÖm just plain old Mist. If you are reading this, there is a good chance you already know that CCP has laid off approximately 20% of its workforce. I am one of the 20%.

For the last three years, I have been the associate community manager for EVE Online. I have had both the honor and the privilege to not only work with an absolutely amazing team, but extremely talented and passionate designers, programmers, QA, customer support and others who have brought, and continue to bring, EVE Online to life. My co-workers have, and I hope will continue to, inspire, educate, amuse, and drive me bat **** crazy. These people are extremely passionate about their work, and each of them is tremendously talented. It has always bugged me that players never truly got to see this side of EVE OnlineGÇÖs devs unless they went to Fanfest. When you speak face-to-face with someone at CCP about EVE Online, thatGÇÖs not just some mask they are wearing for three daysGǪ EVE Online is something we love, something we want to grow, and something we are proud of. In this respect, EVE OnlineGÇÖs devs really are not that much different from players, even if I know you might not believe me when I say it.

And of course, none of this would happen without you, the players, the most amazingly insane bunch of space assholes (1, 2) ever to play an MMO ever. I have been so incredibly blessed to have had the privilege and honor of working for you all these years, and thank you for allowing me into your universe. Not a day has gone by where I wasnGÇÖt either amused or shocked by some of the crazy things you guys would come up with. Every day was an adventure; every day was an experience that I canGÇÖt ever forget. I am indebted to the EVE community teaching me both passion and humility, and for reminding me how important the voice of a community is during both the good and bad times.

So, what does the future bring for me? IGÇÖm not entirely sure. To be honest, I am a bit scared and concerned, but I am hopeful. I do realize that I am probably going to have to stop wearing pajamas all day, and introduce myself to some soap, but I am confident that things will be okay. And I wish the same thing for all of my friends who currently are on the same boat as I.

Please do fly safely. IGÇÖm going to go now, because I am starting to cry.

P.S. Yes, I know whatGÇÖs coming into the game next. No, I will not tell you

1. You know I only mean this with love!
2. Also: haha, no blackfilter on my site!

oh hey the playerbase is upset and unsubbing

let's fire the community team who are beloved and have the most contact with the playerbase

****

My theory: CCP is dying. Evidence:

1. They just let go of 20% of their workforce, including some pretty key-sounding people (entire community team, databse wizards)
2. They felt the need include in this press release a lengthy section strenuously emphasising that Eve (and by extension CCP) is alive and well and doing roaring trade, yes sir! We must reassure our industry partners that we're not in any trouble at all!

The second of these is far more worrying.

from #tweetfleet

WTF? Fire the community team?

If anyone on the Eve team should go it's whoever thought $70 monocles were a good idea, or bland virtual clothes should be sold for as much as real clothes. Also the person responsible for designing Incarna's gameplay, who has actually done nothing at all for 4 years.

What a ******* joke.

Sucks that so many people have to pay for Hillmar's failure.

There's no small amount of office politic and voice of dissent removal bullshit in this list. CCP is removing a fair few people who didn't get with the :awesome: program.

I wonder how...if they are going to axe key members of their community management team who really were the glue that helped hold the community together and keep it on an even keel through many rough times...that CCP will now justify a need for and costs associated with CSM. If the staff reductions are cost-cutting measures, it will be kinda difficult. Three trips to Iceland for 9 people plus staff time plus incidental expenses like taking the CSM to dinner at fancy restaurants probably equates to at least one dev salary annually.

Edited to add: I just realized that while I've been tweeting and posting elsewhere about my sadness and dismay in response to CCP's news, I've not said anything here. Long story short, seen some names on the "20%" list that I think belong there; the rest are just sad and many seem to make no sense...and are in fact CCP shooting themselves in the foot. Or the ass. Or hell...a headshot for that matter. Also, while I for one would like certain members of the web cell or incarna team to be on that 20% list, the reality of internal politics and investment status protects some from such a fate. Ah well, as mentioned in other threads, one can hope that they are shuffled to a non-decision-making role or simply stay home and do "research" while collecting their salaries. Regardless, it's sad for folks to lose their jobs in this tough economy and I wish all of them the best in finding new positions and new adventures to pursue.

[17:57:07] Verone > Noah Ward (CCP Hammerhead) just posted "I am the 20%" on his facebook

I'd blame the people who only saw bad things coming to Eve and unsubscribed. People who shot at the statue. People who thought that damned ship spinning disappearing was the end of everything. People who say I don't want walking in my flying spaceships game. People who think the NeX store is pure evil. The people who think lets hit them where it hurts and unsub their alts and wait to see something good happening before resubbing. You narrow minded bastards. The blame lies at your feet.

Anyone who unsubbed for a useless reason. Shallow people who only focus on a few little bad things. You've probably forgotten what makes Eve, Eve, or maybe you never realised. Well now we know just how much damage you can do to CCP. You might of thought we have to do something to make CCP fix the things we want.

Did you really want it to go this far?

Well you got what you wanted, and I hope your happy!


disclaimer: I don't mind the ones who actually left cause their gameplay was affected too much for their liking. I'm not talking about anyone in this group.

The art department that thinks 1 ship every 6 months is a reasonable level of output.

The Incarna project leadership that thinks that 1 room to be foreveralone in is a reasonable result for a 4 year project

I feel sorry for quite a few of the people that I saw on the lists, especially Pann (we can strike the CCP I think).

She's an extremely cool duder and I absolutely don't understand the reasoning of CCP to cut basically the whole community staff that I have seen in my time (excluding those that were a goner before this).

What does this mean for CCP? Well, it doesn't look too shiny, that's for sure. If you have to roll out a statement like this after what has been 6 months of lolpress, **** has hit the fan. The expansion of staff has been extreme, though. I remember that I attended Fanfest 2009 and the numbers of staff that were thrown about back then was around 300. Today I've read current numbers well above 500, without any change in revenue whatsoever. If by some factors your revenue drops, your main cost factor will come and bite you in the arse.

I still can't be arsed to log into the game. So I hope to find this game still up and running when I get that shiver again and actually find the time in two or three years.

I'm a mix of angry and sad right now. I don't see a light at the end of this tunnel. To me these actions are the actions of a dying company making a last wobble through the burnout belt to quote William Gibson. However, be that as it may, I'm resubbed right now and although I have next to no time to play, I am going to get as much out of this game as possible before it goes down.

The thing about EVE's community devs is that they actually end up responding to a lot of questions that require some knowledge of the game...often the kind of knowledge that you only get from actually playing. That kind of specialized knowledge--plus first hand experience of the history of a community that many of them have--doesn't come with any degree but is really important to do an excellent job.

Confirmed list of 20%ers:

Community:
Wrangler/ Christian Danhill
Pann/ Valerie Massey
Fallout/ Misty Matonis
Zymurgist/ Kevin Dudenbostel
Mike Read


Content:
Pall Ivarsson
Hilmir +P+¦r Einarsson
CCP Maiden Steel
Gnauton/ Gauti Fridriksson


Other:
Valar/ Emil Fridrikson
Finnz/ Finnur K+íri Gu+¦nason
Hammerhead/ Noah Ward
Kristleifur +Porsteinsson

Unconfirmed, but likely:
Kitty von Sometime

This is sad, and I agree in principle that management should have to suffer for such failures rather than workers, but I'm not sure that firing Hilmar is the best alternative. He's always seemed like a decent person to me, and his humble letter to the community earned more of my respect. What do most of us know about how he operates, short of what can be gathered from fanfest footage, devblogs, and second hand opinion? Is that enough to base such a strong opinion on? Do you think he might have any trusted managers offering him bad advice?

Web team should've been fired, anyway :p

(fire hellmar)... and not the goddamned community team who are awesome at trying to damage control your constant upper managerial fuckups.

I honestly dont understand how CCP management go from damage control, lets save face by communicating with our paying customers and FIXING stuff they need to DERP LETS FIRE THE COMMUNITY TEAM.

Obviously this was necessary.

Community Rep: Mr. CEO, the subscribers are rioting and screaming at our failures! They're unsubscribing in mass!

Mr. CEO: Easily solved. Off with the heads of the community team!

-- chopping sounds offstage --

Mr. CEO: Ah, sweet, sweet silence. I must be winning!