Andrea Griffin
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
8
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Posted - 2011.09.27 15:50:00 -
[1] - Quote
Quote:CCP needs to find the 'romance' of EVE again. CCP needs to fall in love with the game beyond the money it makes for them to work on other projects. This is exactly how I feel as well. It seems that the upper management, those who dictate the direction of Eve, are no longer doing so out of a sense of passion for Eve itself. They have completely different motivations.
This isn't unexpected though. It is very common for a small technology startup to be full of people who strongly believe in what they are doing and, consequently, create a product that is innovative and awesome. This product does well and the little startup starts to grow.
And then, one day, they discover that they are no longer a cool, agile start up company with lots of cool ideas just waiting to be implemented. They are now a business, and business comes first, and people are hired not because of their passion for the core product but because they're experienced managers or financial guys or whatever. People who honestly don't care about "that silly product" other than to milk it for as much cash as they possibly can.
My company is going through much the same problem right now. It's really hard to keep the start-up mentality and that energetic drive as you grow into a massive company. It gets worse as you add more and more layers of detached, uninvolved management and bureaucracy.
From conversations with current and past CSM members I know that those who work on Eve every day - the developers, the artists, the content guys, the Idea People - really do still care about Eve. A lot. It is far more than just a job to them.
But those at the top? The ones calling the shots and telling the developers what to work on? It doesn't seem like they share the same passion that the rest of the company has for Eve. Their decisions lately seem to be driven purely by profit margins and nothing else.
As an example, I understand that Hilmar thinks that MicroTransactions are the way to go because "everyone else is doing it." Yes, all those free to play, copycat Korean MMOs that die in a year's time are all doing it.
Eve never became what it is today because it did what everyone else was doing. Eve became an incredible game because people with vision and passion were doing something different. |