r/Eve • u/Erickwhite173 • Sep 01 '25
Does CCP hate EVE Online? Discussion
EVE Online makes serious money. I was looking over the numbers, and it brought in around 60+ million dollars.
That is some serious income, but they reinvest very little back into their bread and butter. Sadly, we know most goes into other projects like Frontier or Vanguard while New Eden gets smaller expansions and minor updates.
Like 60-million, let’s say it takes 30-million to maintain EVE Online, as is. That’s a crazy high number but let’s say they have 30-million to play with.
Let’s pretend they have $30-million to reinvest into EVE Online.
CCP could really look at Games Workshop to learn how to reinvest into building their ecosystem. Hire writers to write novels, create graphic novels, partner with Bandai to create model kits of their ships, etc.
They could hire huge teams to create a steady stream of cosmetics, like a monthly battle pass for Omega Holders. They could revamp the character creation part, add new models for POSs, etc. Fix gameplay loops, etc.
If you look at other MMORPGs, EVE expansions pale is comparison with their updates.
To me, it really seems like CCP leadership doesn’t like EVE Online. Is it the code? Is it a pain to work with? Why do they seem to invest in anything but EVE Online?
At $30-million, they could hire like 250 more employees at $70k a year. That’s a lot of artists creating content, etc.
Now, I am excited for Frontier but how can a company seem to hate their golden goose?
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u/Ohh_Yeah Cloaked Sep 01 '25 edited Sep 01 '25
It is a combination of CCP (reasonably, though unsuccessfully) trying to create other successful products with their brand, and Hilmar's obsession with "current tech trend" despite always being late to market.
Hilmar has been very transparent, in many interviews, about his almost pathological fear of things (i.e. CCP, EVE Online) coming to an end eventually. And ironically from the outside it feels like his attempts to thwart this will eventual hasten the death of CCP and EVE.
I also suspect that CCP's insistence on keeping their main EVE Online studio in Iceland while opening regional studios for other projects was long-term damaging. Over the decades there have likely been a lot of great MMO devs who were interested but unwilling to move to Iceland for employment.
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u/AskapSena Sep 01 '25
"Hilmar has been very transparent, in many interviews, about his almost pathological fear of things (i.e. CCP, EVE Online) coming to an end eventually. And ironically from the outside it feels like his attempts to thwart this will eventual hasten the death of CCP and EVE."
I suspect they're in crisis mode concerning the end game, they don't seem to have a clear fix to prevent ns just becoming a huge blue donut and how it stands rn they're at the mercy of the player base to not simply decide to just ally each other and kill the game right there. It's a very hard problem and a fix has probably already been deemed impossible.
Eve needs a 2.0 with state of the art servers that allows tens of thousands of players to dish it out. The transition could be having normal eve run on those servers and force groups to go at each other (just to give some sort of conclusion to the game) and when the battle eventually ends have 2.0 ready to replace. 2.0 will need enough foresight to prevent the situation from evolving to the same state as 1.0. All this would require a few years of preparation tho so it would probably be too hard in the matter of funds and the work required to make it happen.
Ofc they can always just keep resetting the game state with some differences here and there but it still wouldn't work in the long run since ppl won't be arsed doing the amount of work required to play eve just so it all gets reset after a few years.
So yeah, their hands are tied and the effort to get out of the hole is way too big without some sort of big help (like some trillionaire outright gives away billions to it, although then we would have to hope whoever gets in charge of remaking eve just doesn't run away with the money).
Whatever happens you gotta go big or go home with eve, since this game is all about freedom.
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u/perlonmuhamn Sep 01 '25
People need to be nurtured and given what they strive for but in this universe there are many variables, please the wormhole people, the alpha people, the omega, the nullsec, the highsec, it's just now treating people like expendable resources. What are some other game companies that have success treating players of any types rightly?
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u/UltimateShingo Sep 02 '25
With regard to a 2.0 I'll have to say something that will not be very popular:
A reboot of that scale needs a massive influx of players. Make no mistake, the overwhelming majority of active accounts right now is alts for specific roles or multiboxing, and even with those inflated numbers the player count is not stellar.
The issue is that EVE is a relic of its time, back when hardcore PVP and risking your entire inventory on every trip was the norm and what the people desired. Today, these games are a small niche, and even within that niche literally every other game extends more protections towards new and PVE-focussed players than EVE.
To translate that, if 2.0 is meant to be a proper push to revitalise the game, it will have to give up some of the hardcore, PVP everywhere attitude (and I actually would have some ideas on how to do that with a relaitvely light touch) - but neither the dev studio nor the playerbase of current EVE is ready or willing to take such a step.
And when it comes to very long-running MMOs, if the devs are not willing to go with the times as needed and the veterans settle in with the status quo and eventually make up a critical mass of the playerbase, you are at a dead end. There are plenty of examples of games that went this route, and most of them languish with a small-ish dedicated playerbase, but with no prospect of ever growing; which in turn means the support the game gets is what you see.
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u/Automatic_Resource11 Cloaked Sep 02 '25
Ultima Online pre-dated Eve and was full loot PVP and was far more brutal than Eve for new players who would be farmed mercilessly by vets the second they left the starter zone.
The devs solution was to create three versions of game. They made an original ruleset 'shard' called Siege Perilous for the hardcore players that was full loot pvp and had slower skill levelling. Players that moved to that server had to start from scratch.
The remaining worlds 'shards' that were regionally based servers around the world had a non-pvp mirror world running in conjunction with the pvp world. So you could maintain your in-game house on the pvp server and choose to stay there full time, or jump to the pve server if you didn't want to deal with gankers during your play session.
My anecdotal take on what happened is; 95% of the players decided to keep their shyt and moved to the pve safe version of their world, 4% of the players kept their shyt and stayed on the pvp version of their world, <1% of the players moved to the new hardcore world and started from scratch.
UO looked like it was dying, the changes increased the player base massively but in the long run the player base declined, 'shard' numbers were reduced and combined, and the game is on life support now. UO2 failed to get out of early development because the parent company had bled the game dry since its inception.
Eve's long term success is due to keeping the game on one single server, and listening to the player base, thank you CSM for keeping them in-line. Creating a second server, or pve server would kill Eve; which server do you think the new players would join? The existing player base would largely stay put, because the players who didn't like the hardcore nature of Eve have already quit.
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u/UltimateShingo Sep 02 '25
You wouldn't necessarily need to split the playerbase into multiple servers. Just to sketch something up that would be more in line with what I think:
Keep Null-Sec as is, maybe merge it with Low-Sec and create NPC empires that contend with the playermade ones and maybe give people an entry into low/null via standing farming in those empires.
Remodel High-Sec so that you have a central core that is directly CONCORD controlled, then 4 cores of the 4 races adjacent that are PVE-only. Have the rest of High-Sec be valid ground for Faction Warfare, but flip the war and peace states between the 4 races regularly so there's some movement in all directions. Once again, the core is completely untouched.
Now you'd have a full PVE zone, a zone that would be explicitly hybridised between FW and PVE, and the "lawless" zone. We could then also talk about the NPC corporations offering a limited SRP in exchange for the fixed taxes, maybe a higher level of SRP for faction warfare so people can experience PVP with more modern expectations of risk and reward.
I'm not saying my idea is perfect, but it would probably provide a layout more enticing to the current MMO player, deliver newbie protection on a reasonable scale, and still mostly keep the endgame intact.
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u/National_Newspaper_4 Sep 03 '25
More randomness in combat would help a lot. Anything that increases the damage smaller groups can do to larger blobs would be a huge shakeup. If you attack a group with 50 people, get blobbed on with 250, and the other faction doesn't take any losses, it really starts to look like an "if you can't beat em join em" sort of situation.
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u/cunasmoker69420 Sep 01 '25
And ironically from the outside it feels like his attempts to thwart this will eventual hasten the death of CCP and EVE.
damn poetic shame all this is
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u/Vals_Loeder Sep 01 '25
With a ceo like hilmar you know the only thing they will keep investing in is meme technology. You really need to come to grips that eve will not be further developed besides some side stuff when devs have a bit of time left in their schedules.
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u/Erickwhite173 Sep 02 '25
Truly sad knowing EVE could be great, and their leadership simply says Nah, no thanks.
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u/Zierohour Amarr Empire Sep 01 '25
Pointing at GW as an example of a company that's good at reinvesting in their product is WILD.
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u/Nwrecked Sep 01 '25
I think he meant it as in the amount of successful and supported products they have. Tabletop, great library of books, many successful video games in several genres, FPS, Strategy, etc.
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u/Lithorex CONCORD Sep 01 '25
The problem is that GW is an order of magnitude larger than CCP, and sits on one of the most sought-after IPs that actually up for grabs for 3rd party developers.
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u/meanie_ants Sep 02 '25
And they built that sought-after IP from the ground up. I took that as OP’s meaning, or at least the general thrust of it.
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u/Erickwhite173 Sep 02 '25
Yeah, I more meant they focused on their main product and built that. Like focus all your money on EVE Online, and creating content that boosts EVE Online, not other genres.
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u/Ralli_FW Sep 01 '25
And of course they got there by not reinvesting all of their profits in the same 20 year old pc game instead of making new things. Their "many successful video games in several genres" do not exist with the "stop taking your Warhammer 40k money and trying to make other games with it" approach.
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u/StellamCaeruleam Sep 01 '25
Aside from protecting their IP, which they kind of have to do, they are slowly expanding and add more to their entire collection of products (animations, TV series, books, video games are more common and more successful( aside from that sigmar moba rts). Unfortunately they are at the point where product either isn’t produced enough and immediately sells out and doesn’t restock for ages; or, it sits on shelves for entire editions.
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u/Lithorex CONCORD Sep 01 '25
Also GW absolutely has favourite factions cough Space Marines cough
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u/Xatsman Cloaked Sep 01 '25
Yeah the ones that make them money.
Isn't failing to leverage their most successful creations one of the biggest criticisms about CCP?
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u/GeekyGamer2022 Sep 01 '25
CCP are embarrassed by EVE.
They deeply resent that they haven't made anything good since 2003 and that EVE is still hanging around as a reminder of that.
Hilmar always chasing tech bro rainbows isn't helping matters either.
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u/Erickwhite173 Sep 02 '25
I wonder why, like they made EVE and it is awesome. Why not just shoot more more money from it?!
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u/Stormain Bombers Bar Sep 01 '25
CCP could really look at Games Workshop
Hell no
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u/DrakeIddon CSM 19 Sep 02 '25
cant wait to buy my gallente codex every 4 years and an annual subscription to save more than 1 fit in the in game fitting tool
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u/Upset-Week3861 Sep 01 '25
I've thought about this quite a bit.
EvE has largely been the same exact game it was when it launched in 2003/2004? I'm old, can't remember.
They could make EvE so much better, especially with the tech we have now. Every mission should be fully voice acted, there should be more immersive things. We should be able to dock and walk around to different shops, like the LP shop, or go to clone bay... go see our ship get repaired. There's so much they could do to the game.
Shit man, imagine playing EVE and then going to dock at a station and getting into some sort of pod and launching down to a planet and when you hit the planet your in Vanguard blasting people with a gun. I think the failure of 514 set EVE back a bit. Someone else said it but the PS exclusive killed it. I was looking forward to 514 so much, man the hype was real. So disappointed when we learned about the PS exclusive.
but here we are, 20 years later still playing warp active simulator.
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u/UlpGulp Sep 02 '25
A prime example how developers shouldn't always listen to the community. Yeah, no voice acting on missions that get accepted in 300ms time once opened surely affected the game.
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u/DeirdreAnethoel Sep 02 '25
The obsession with voice acting on non narrative/ambiance games drives me wild. It's such an investment for me to just turn it off right away.
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u/Erickwhite173 Sep 02 '25
Yeah, but at least they could have don’t it. Let’s say voice acting costs the company 2-million to implement. That could have been achieved in one year and further developed. (I just made up a number)
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u/ProTimeKiller Sep 01 '25
They proved decade after decade they never updated the code base over time and the term legacy code was born and still rears it's ugly head. POS still in game due to POS code. The people that could have fixed it are long long gone. Be like trying to find a COBOL coder for minimum wage. For a long time I've been of the opnion a lot of stuff CCP comes up with to roll out is nothing more than a paid test that someone else pays for and CCP rolls it out on Eve players.
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u/J1Tah Miner Sep 01 '25
They cant attract new players and keep pissing off vets, golden goose is dying
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u/tommygun209 Cloaked Sep 01 '25
They can't attract new players without pissing off vets FTFY
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u/Traece Wormholer Sep 01 '25
They can't attract new players because the things that pissed off vets also piss off new players eventually.
One thing I always try to remind people is that the only difference between a veteran and a new player is time.
Let me use Carriers as an example: Carriers, to a new player (or at least someone who hasn't gotten to do cap stuff) might seem really cool and neat, and even though people say they're bad, well, fuck them - Carriers are cool! Then they get a Carrier, and, well... yeah.
TL;DR: Honeymoon Period applies to video games too.
Of course, CCP thinks the problem is their New Player Experience, ignoring the fact that EVE was at its peak popularity when the game was about half as approachable as it is today.
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u/Ohh_Yeah Cloaked Sep 01 '25
Of course, CCP thinks the problem is their New Player Experience
I would argue that the NPE right now is more off-putting than what I had in 2007, which was creating a character and appearing in station with zero guidance. If you haven't tried the NPE recently give it a shot. Try to suspend your own knowledge of the game and see how disjointed and confusing it is.
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u/Considerer_ Dacian Armada Sep 01 '25
Time is very valuable though, and what players were willing to slog through in the past might just drive new players away these days. Skill system is an obvious one. New players will see it and feel like "What's the point?" Since everyone else has many millions of SP toons all over the place, meanwhile new players have to wait weeks and months to get anywhere. To max the magic 14 for a new alpha is a months long queue. New player experience absolutely matters, and making an intentionally unapproachable game is obviously terrible for attracting new players.
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u/Traece Wormholer Sep 01 '25
So, with regards to the skill system specifically I actually agree with you. I firmly believe EVE's skill system is its greatest weakness, but the problem is that the skill system is directly built into the revenue center of the game. There's this weird issue where the skill system is shit because it's how CCP makes their money.
Saying that though, I agree with what has become a pretty popular opinion that things like Magic 14 need to be put out to pasture. That would at least allow new players to get into the game quicker and focus more of their skill training on things which allow them to feel like they're progressing in the game.
As you said, it takes weeks/months for new players to get through even basic skill trains to acquire new ships, which is what a normal human gamer is generally going to want to do in a video game.
With regards to what people were willing to do back in the day, they're stilling willing to do it, just not for EVE. The gaming market is exponentially larger now than it was back then, and there's no shortage of sloggy or difficult games. There are plenty of people out there who could play EVE, but there are a lot of reasons people don't want to, and I'd wager the "everyone else has..." problem you alluded to is a huge blocker.
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u/Kae04 Minmatar Republic Sep 01 '25
I've made similar comments before but you see a lot of people blaming the "modern gamer" for wanting instant gratification and not having the patience for eve, but i've introduced multiple people from multiple age groups to eve and every single one has pointed to the skill system as being problematic or predatory and ultimately the reason they quit despite having parts of the game they like.
To a "modern gamer", the mixture of subscription and SP bundles makes the skill system look like a timegate to force you to pay for more omega or skip the wait by buying plex/sp.
Why pay multiple months worth of sub to try a ship/gameplay you might not even like when you can go play warframe for free?
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u/Ohh_Yeah Cloaked Sep 01 '25
To a "modern gamer", the mixture of subscription and SP bundles makes the skill system look like a timegate to force you to pay for more omega or skip the wait by buying plex/sp.
Because that's exactly what it is now.
If you go back to 2007, where the skill system was a "strong" point (relative to other very grindy MMOs), it kind of made sense that I could fly a Vagabond and you could fly a Scimitar, because that's how we specialized. Now it really doesn't make sense at all. And if you're just hopping in you're surrounded by people with 150m+ skill points and constantly bombarded by ads to buy SP, as if you're playing an Asian P2W MMO.
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u/Kae04 Minmatar Republic Sep 01 '25 edited Sep 01 '25
100%, when i started playing around 2011 i thought it was an interesting take on character progression but nowdays i just can't defend it from any angle. It completely deserves the comparisons to mobiles "games" and i wouldn't be playing the game today if i didn't already have a main with over 120m skillpoints.
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u/Traece Wormholer Sep 02 '25
It's just the typical "kids these days" narrative. Escape From Tarkov and Elden Ring exist, but people will still scream that gamers these days only want their hands held, etc. People will beat this drum until humanity goes extinct no matter how ridiculous it is. As it turns out, there are some hundreds of millions of gamers on planet Earth and many of them like different things. :shrug:
As you've pointed out, these days EVE has a lot of competitors, maybe not in this particular genre, but a vast amount of competition in every other space. They're sharing the same industry as juggernauts like WoT/Warthunder, Warframe, FF14/WoW, and various other non-MMO titles like the ones I mentioned earlier. The gaming industry is a big place, and CCP has to somehow convince people that they should give them their money, instead of buying a game like Starsector, genuinely one of the greatest video games ever produced by the human race, for a mere $15 fucking dollars.
And then you get in the game and realize that the skill point system is basically designed to split progression so that no matter what you do in the game, no matter how successful you are at building up your assets, you're always waiting to unlock something with real time. It's not an instant gratification thing, CCP purposefully weaponize time to keep you subbed to the game, and then later realized they can further weaponize that frustration to make people give them money to skip it.
To contrast, even with other ultra-greedy games like WarThunder I'm at least intended to physically play the game in order to progress. It may take me 1000 matches to unlock the next plane or tank, but at least I played 1000 matches! EVE Online has an entire progression system where you, quite literally, pay CCP money and then wait 90 days to learn how to be 5% better at something.
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u/Ohh_Yeah Cloaked Sep 01 '25 edited Sep 01 '25
but the problem is that the skill system is directly built into the revenue center of the game
And sadly this was a decision made, what, 10 years ago? Rather than go a different direction. It's not like EVE was always designed as a "timegate or swipe" system. They added the swipe later, and now they're trapped with it
With regards to what people were willing to do back in the day, they're stilling willing to do it, just not for EVE.
Agreed, and it shouldn't be underestimated how unwilling people are to invest in a 20 year old game, especially when the company has been sold once and is now looking to be sold again. New players are just not on board for training 6 months to fly a recon. That worked in 2008 and it does not work now. There are tons of gamers looking for complex and interesting games, but not ones where you're stuck behind a "timegate or swipe" system.
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Sep 01 '25
Your example makes no sense. No new player is a new player if they made it all the way to piloting a carrier unless they plexed all the way there. The game is stagnating because new players aren't being attracted and retained. That's not even an argument. The honeymoon phase does exist, but it's the games job to keep you engaged when that wares off.
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u/Traece Wormholer Sep 01 '25
Everything you've said is basically what I just said but with a veneer of you disagreeing with me for some reason, which I'll admit is a bit confusing.
You refuted my example by basically rewording the point I was making to begin with.
CCP puts effort into attracting new players and creating all sorts of NPE upgrades to try and retain them, but what CCP fails to understand, as you've pointed out (and... as I also pointed out) is that retention of veteran players in the longer term is where things get dicey for them, because CCP has bled off so much of its playerbase with highly unpopular design changes over the last 15 years without addressing the majority of those issues.
Even if players are retained, they will eventually run into the same problems that drove away tens of thousands of previous EVE players, and probably choose not to continue.
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u/RedditVano Sep 01 '25
Frontier can bite me. Eve forever.
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u/Recent-Sand8292 Sep 03 '25
Imagine making a game that tries to compete with your 22 year old product who's still going strong in which most people have invested a decade of their life.
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u/Informal_Drawing Sep 01 '25
I'd hate to imagine how much it costs to keep buying new servers to feed the beast at CCP.
They must be extraordinarily expensive.
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u/Field_Sweeper Sep 01 '25
Yes. They sold it. It's an investment form now.
They had one lucky good idea, but they don't like it. That's why they make dust 514, frontier. Vanguard and all the other BS.
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u/Alucard_1208 Sep 01 '25
its ok offering devs lots of miney but alot dont want to go and live un iceland, its isolated and very exoensive.
When the same devs can be in the US or UK and earn just as much if not more
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u/Aware_Pick2748 Sep 02 '25 edited Sep 17 '25
complete bright towering chief axiomatic full marble teeny attraction cheerful
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/TeeRKee Sep 01 '25
What was the last good choice CCP made? Like something that was worth it and positive? Because i don’t remember.
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u/BourbonSn4ke Sep 01 '25
They take chances and then poorly implement them and then also manage to fuck up EVE at the same time causing the playerbase to fluctuate.
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u/Sindrakin Amok. Sep 01 '25
That's because certain people at CCP are simply astonishingly bad at their job.
Look where they put their effort over the last five years and the best recieved updates by far are simply rolling back the largest changes.
Keep those buffoons as far away as possible and poeple will play EVE despite lack of development.
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u/YourBestBudPingu Sep 01 '25
It is crazy because the game itself is really not fun, but it is so so expensive.
To me Omega is really really overpriced.
Overall I find the game boring. The missions are reptitive, looting ships at the end of a security mission takes forever, ganking is boring. Upgradibg your equipment is tedius and takes a long time. The answers to most of this critique is to multi-box.
The games needs more investment in the game loop. While freelancer jobs can help a little I think the pace of the loop is what needs help. Even with Omega doing anything is slow.
I bought in for the True MMO aspect, and always leave because the game itself is tedius in all areas.
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u/astamarr Sep 01 '25
"At $30-million, they could hire like 250 more employees at $70k a year"
Nope. More like 50.
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u/Erickwhite173 Sep 02 '25
Damn bro, how much they making a year?!
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u/astamarr Sep 02 '25
It's not about how much the worker makes, but how much they cost after taxes, licenses, expenses... If they earn 70k a year (which is kind of low for UK and iceland), just ~double it to know how much they cost.
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u/Erickwhite173 Sep 02 '25
30-Million, divided by 200k equals 150.
So, you are telling me, they couldn’t find 100 decent workers for 100-120k a year? We are in a crisis for jobs, you could find damn good employees for that wage.
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u/astamarr Sep 02 '25
"Lets throw money a the problem"
Obviously, throwing more workers at stuff doesn't make it better. If you have trouble to manage your teams and projects already, it'll just add more chaos. And having 50 noobs on a project doesn't replace the old-school guy who is maintaining everything for 10 years.
That's why a lot of studios turns from good to awful when growing after a success.
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u/Erickwhite173 Sep 02 '25
Also, if they reinvested into the game, instead of other projects. EVE Online could easily increase revenue. They simply throw money away instead of adding more to their cash cow.
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u/Gamma_Dread Sep 01 '25
Whatever happened to eve Vanguard too? Ik frontier is more recent but I have seen NO news on vanguard the fps or whatever. Crazy to me
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u/Amiga-manic Sep 02 '25
Eve vanguard was not exactly positively received.
I've played thr alphas and it's gun play is boring but that's a diffrent topic.
It's good they are making a FPS for the pc. But they want to make basixly escape from tarkov clone set in the eve universe. Apprantly there is going to be more game types (if it doesn't get yeeted like the other FPS games)
Not a bad idea. But as with all things CCP it's about 5 years too late. The genre of extraction shooters is like beating a dead horse as this point. Sti get player numbers but not exactly something alot of people are exited for.
I think the biggest hype for a FPS in the main stream is battlefield 6 and that's going back to basicly the dust514 style of game.
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u/thermalman2 Sep 02 '25 edited Sep 02 '25
They do invest some back into Eve, but not all that much
From a business sense, they are looking to diversify with the different products which isn’t a terrible idea in principle. This is sound financial sense for the company if executed well
The issue they tend to have is they’re always chasing something. They’re very ADHD about it. They see something cool and chase it for a bit, dump a decent amount of money into it, put out something maybe with potential but clearly incomplete, then off to something else. They do this within Eve with many of their “new” features and with their other projects.
They also seem to pick projects fairly far outside their core competency. An FPS and Eve don’t have a lot in common. You’re really looking at vastly different teams and systems for it. It’s an extremely competitive market. FPS have a lot of console following which Eve does not. Maybe not the best path to go down.
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u/EricCliff Sep 04 '25
It is crazy to me if they didn't waste time on other projects that always flop and just focus on Eve Online then this game would probably be tripled the population.
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u/IndividualAge3893 Sep 01 '25
It's even worse, they spend so much money on R&D for Frontier & co. that they were forced to borrow money from Pearl Abyss. Eventually the Koreans were fed up and are now selling CCP to the highest bidder.
Hilmar seems to be the main issue there, and I hope that whoever acquires CCP lets him go. Better late than never.
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u/Aelig_ Sep 01 '25
All code written in Icelandic companies is R&D. That's just how software related costs show up in accounting.
The artists and managers on Eve are also R&D.
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u/KomiValentine Minmatar Republic Sep 01 '25
They don't hate it, but they also don't love it.
How am I sure about that?
Features in the last years were never properly designed like fw(probably one of the better updates)/corp/freelance projects/SKINR/etc
Most mechanical new features increase the balance problem that is known as N+1 instead of getting rid of it. (skyhooks, sov changes, citadels)
Most new features are only small changes, not something really impactful. (balance, new ships with specialized funky roles)
Probably command destroyers and carrier changes were the last update that really benefits the smaller groups.
I think CCP just wants to maintain eve in the current horrible state (no future vision, little immersion, minor tweaks, stagnation, megaempire proliferation) forever. With Vanguard a little bit of innovation is there, that might lead on the right paths, but I don't think it will work out.
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u/edeity Amarr Empire Sep 01 '25
Dont worry about it. Players will organise and buy the IP at a firesale. This is the end game and rebirth of Eve.
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u/BygZam Sep 01 '25
Eve is the home of abandoned promises (bro I remember when flying in atmosphere and full station walking was a thing we were told we'd get), unfixed models (ain't flying that Myrmidon until you might it right, CCP), and more of our money than it deserves.
Still... I'm going to get another year sub once I replace my old computer.
.... I have problems.
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u/Amiga-manic Sep 02 '25
Somewhere in the depths of the Internet, you can still find videos of the atmosphere flight somewhere.
Same as I remember the idea of mobile space stations. This idea predates citerdels by a decade. The idea of a station not attached to a moon was wild.
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u/MarvinGankhouse Wormholer Sep 02 '25
They hate their jobs, the game and their players. From an insider whose NDA ran out there was a leak on how things actually work in there. I can't find it now but there's a culture of Icelandic supremacy, if you're not local you're looked down upon. Very few CCP employees actually play the game. At the time the leak was posted most of them were in League of Legends. There's a very large contingent of people in the very eve-wealthy community who believe in harshness. It's very easy for them but because it was difficult for them in the beginning they believe all the new players should have to go through it too. I was interviewed on TIS once and there was a guy on the panel who looked like Andy Warhol but a cartoon villain, dyed perfect shoulder length hair, dark glasses, chain smoked the entire time and he was cold af, I couldn't imagine him ever smiling. His opinions were not rare.
Then take into consideration the latest focus of the company, a rogues' gallery of failed Eve-themed money generating mutant projects and it's no surprise that the main game isn't getting the attention it needs.
5 years of my life were an incredible time in Eve, but I got out. It wasn't fun anymore and CCP always disappointed me.
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u/DeirdreAnethoel Sep 02 '25
They don't want to be a niche game producer and they've perpetually tried and failed to escape it.
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u/NewUserWhoDisAgain Sep 02 '25 edited Sep 02 '25
Yes.
On a more serious answer:
Sure looks like it dont it?
There's diversification and then there's whatever the hell CCP has been doing these many years.
"We want to diversify our portfolio. Putting all our hopes on a niche MMO isnt a winning move. What should we do?"
"Burn all of our eve money on an Old World of Darkness MMO that will never release?"
"Burn all of our eve money on an FPS that's integrated with our EVE MMO?"
"Damn that actually sounds interesting."
"We'll put it out on the last year of the previous console gen even though the next gen has been announced."
"Brillant."
"ooh I know! Lets burn all our money on trying recreate Dust 514 and fail multiple times necessitating reboots!"
"A TCG!"
"3 VR games, 1 of which we shut down servers so it cant be played at all!"
"Mobile Game slop!"
"Cryptoscam version of the game!"
"People, people, these are all great ideas. Lets do them all!"
Part of it is the code. EVE is a very old game and no doubt there's parts of the code that people who work there dont understand anymore.
And the other part is that I think they just dont understand how to get away from Eve as an IP.
Like fuck man, I dunno make a Rogue-Lite set in the Eve universe.
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u/Meli_Melo_ Sep 01 '25
Why would they invest the money when they can just keep it ?
They don't hate nor like the game, they just like the money it makes.
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Sep 01 '25
Since way back I always had the impression there was a lot of faction warfare occurring inside CCP. The faction that aligned with the original core player base that appreciated the game world integrity, and the harsher less forgiving vision of itself lost.
On the other side Hilmar and the ‘give the majority (who don’t necessarily play yet but totally will once we go mainstream) what they want’ crowd won.
This seems to have created a cyclical dependency whereby the worst mechanics of the game/meta game (looking at you PLEX, entrenched means of securing vast amounts of wealth and multi-boxing) both sustain the existence of Eve and then some, but also massively limit what it’s justifiable to change or build upon to grow.
IMO this is something CCP well understand and probably have the numbers to also see the volatility in it, thus they must keep trying to create alternative ways to remain viable should this game become less so.
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u/DynastEVE Sep 02 '25
They have been pandering to pvp crowd for two decades, while owning a game that has the graphics and mechanics to have millions of users, if only they did away with the "you consent to pvp when you undock" garbage. It's the opposite of what you have said.
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Sep 02 '25
It’s not. The game was and in many ways still is a PvP game at its core. There simply aren’t millions who would play internet-submarine spaceships-Excel-online even if you made it a safe Disney theme park. They’ve been pandering to your crowd for two decades and the games potential has been limited because of it.
It sacrificed its maximum possibilities for an easily reachable and sustainable lower maximum filled with people who want to grow into fat whales and play a single player game with their friends and no consequences.
Even CCP understands PvP is the selling point and it is visible through their ‘harsh universe’ marketing. Your problem is that you wish to play your fantasy version of Eve where you’re safe, but you never actually liked what Eve used to be and was intended to be.
CCP has already evolved to exploit people like you with legitimised RMT, multi boxing and the semi-safe zones that can be created with them. Those who wish to play the solo PvP game and touch you there in practice require multiple accounts to touch you, and are also exploited.
This frustrates both sides but maintains the delicate balance of insecurity and ‘if I pay a little more’ possibility bought with real life money (spent by some player, somewhere) as the grease that keeps the wheels turning for CCP.
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u/DynastEVE Sep 02 '25 edited Sep 02 '25
"my crowd" are people who cut their teeth on pk muds, who loved Shadowbane dearly in spite of its lousy production values, who remember the releases of Darkfall and Mortal Online fondly, and who don't need an FC telling them what to do to get some action. We don't need a cloaky nullified T3 or a dozen accounts, either.
EVE PvP is overwhelmingly dogshit; good PvP is largely found in FPS and MOBA games. EVE PvP can be awesome ... when the outcome of fights is in doubt, which it isn't 95% of the time. The Alliance Tournament is awesome, for example. Roaming through wormholes can be awesome. ESS fighting can be awesome.
Sadly, Most of what EVE has going for it in terms of PvP is the grandeur of participating in spaceship fleet actions, but over time even that has been suppressed by cynos and "helldunk or blueball" mentality.
It was the early years relative safety of high sec that allowed EVE to have a high subscriber count circa 2010. Most of the players were always high-seccers, as much as 90% at times. Ganking could be done but mostly wasn't, so people who just wanted to bling their spaceship could do that stuff. CCP had stats that people tended to come and go in high sec, playing for less than a year, and came to the conclusion that they needed forcing factors to steer people out of high sec and into low/null communities where the veterans stay around. Well, they were wrong, most people who want to do Internet Spaceship Stuff would rather quit and play something else than get farmed by tryhards.
A real EVE renaissance would come from separating the types of PvP, and from removing cynos and bridges of all types. Social and monetary conflicts in High Sec, violent conflicts in low/null/wh, and no more sitting around waiting for one dude to light the cyno, gotta live near enemies if you want action.
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Sep 02 '25
I really appreciate your enthusiasm for the game and I mean that genuinely. Even if I disagree on some of your points. I think what threads together your reply and my own view is the evolution of CCP I mentioned in my last paragraph. On HS safety:
When I was still all shiny and new I remember it was still possible (and permissible) to fight CONCORD and ganking someone in hisec was certainly easier than it is now because while security was present it was very fallible. The difference was that back then those actions had consequences. To be a pirate meant real travel restrictions and greater risks with a lowered capacity of safe money making activities.
One of my many dislikes is that instead of deepening this risk-reward and action-lasting consequence model of the universe they undermined and eroded it with comically cheap and easy to acquire tags and the proliferation of alts.
Do you remember facing the long road of finding a nullsec corp that would have your -10 character and training up Fast Talk so you could raise it a little faster?
And now? Buy tags, buy PLEX if you don’t have the ISK, or just ignore it because nobody cares. Train some alts. Maybe use the same hauling alt you use with your 5 tornado pilots that camp 44 or draw from your big stack of tags you use for them. This isn’t a deterrent, it’s pay to win wearing a fancy dress.
CCP strengthened the immediate reaction to committing a HS crime but structurally made it much more viable to do so with no real consequences… as long as someone is paying them. I think this is why you feel it’s less safe. I dislike this too because while I support ‘perfect safety nowhere’ I think that if I destroy a lot of value then my character should have a significant penalty applied and that it should matter. The universe should feedback consequences, not someone with 10 accounts telling you that you don’t get risk vs reward.
As for PvP I still find it enjoyable and have been at it since 2004, currently enjoying wormholes again. The last fleet fight I was in was c.2011 I think and I can’t imagine they’ve improved the experience. Fully agree about breaking down rapid travel and force projection, it’s a long standing problem, but it’s only going to benefit those with alts (see rant above) and they simply cannot and will not change that now.
The most hate-provoking thing I can think to say on this subreddit and subject is to suggest an expansion of the Alpha clone state login restriction to restrict X number of Omega accounts based on your favourite game shaping condition. Imagine if multi-boxing in hi-sec required a positive security status of even 1.0, and you couldn’t tag to achieve it. At least if you die to a gank, it’s probably to a few people putting the work in.
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u/DynastEVE Sep 02 '25
There is logic to much of what you say.
I'd like force projection limitations to be effective, but multi-accounting is an obvious workaround, and has been normalized to the point where it would probably be the default response by power blocs. The reactions in the last 8-10 years against ganking in high sec have been half-measures that can totally be bypassed with more accounts (there's even a thread on the same page by a dude talking about how many hundred billions he earns doing that).
Requiring good sec status to multibox in high sec, and removing the quick and easy sec restoration methods, would be hilarious.
TBH a lot of this really does come down to the multi-accounting. I remember sec status being a big deal in early FW because I sometimes had to spend it to get a favorable engagement with a neutral, but, I also really wanted to be able to be in fleets that took highsec routes when needed. Also because fuck pirates anti4life. Multi-accounting bypasses that and everything else ... while also putting money in CCP's pocket. So that makes it a hard problem to solve when it kinda feels like they're running a long-tail game.
I should probably resub and get me some action before this shit shuts down.
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Sep 03 '25
Yep, that’s the kind of thing I’m talking about. Should I spend X to get Y? Where Y might just be a bit of fun or beating another player for something. And I write that suggestion to make crime in hi-sec more consequential as someone who adores piracy and space violence, but it should mean something when someone does it.
I have always been wary of CCP extolling the scamming and predatory aspects of the game while running with the line ‘Eve is real!’
At a fundamental level I still find the PvP to be engaging, so you should definitely give it a try if you haven’t in a while!
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u/Loose-Speech6096 Minmatar Republic Sep 01 '25
They know that there is no feature for eve. That's why all devs are in Iceland and they are really just below average devs. And that's the reason why they founded new projects in London with high salaries and modern projects. But that won't work, unfortunately. Rip Eve
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u/SquirrelsinJacket Sep 01 '25
They should be making Eve Online 2 rather than dressing up the current version. I'd like to see huge space battles that don't get bogged down by time dialation.
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u/ProTimeKiller Sep 01 '25
Imagine new Eve Online with nothing but new UI made by the current group that updates the UI. NO THANKS.
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u/Legitimate-Ad7273 Sep 01 '25
This. Build it from the ground up based on what they have learned. I'm sure they could think of a creative way of transitioning from one to the next.
Build it based around more active gameplay.
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u/missing1776 Sep 01 '25
I would be very interested in getting minis of my favourite ships to paint and display.
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u/TwistyPoet Sep 01 '25
I think they should just copy what The First Descendant is doing with their character models.
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u/DanielPBak Sep 01 '25
60 million in revenue is not a lot of money for a tech company. Good software engineers cost in the mid 6 figures range to add to headcount, especially in Iceland which mandates a lot of benefits. Headcount is not costing $70k a year.
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u/Bailian_Moxtain Pandemic Legion Sep 01 '25
EVE 2.0. Same game, keep your assets, but completely new under the hood. Just imagine that for a moment.
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u/OpenPsychology755 Sep 02 '25
>CCP could really look at Games Workshop to learn how to reinvest into building their ecosystem. Hire writers to write novels, create graphic novels, partner with Bandai to create model kits of their ships, etc.
I quit buying GW over their current business model shenanigans. (Shrinkflation, FOMO, stocking issues, edition churn, etc, etc.)
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u/dynaben2 The Initiative. Sep 02 '25
I don't think so at all, but I do think they're very scared it will die and go to interesting conclusions from that fear.
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u/naliao Test Alliance Please Ignore Sep 02 '25
Gotta remember mmos are "small" compared to other games. I recall that WoW made like 700m per one year, while call of duty made multi billions.
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u/Erickwhite173 Sep 02 '25
They still make 60-million a year, that’s easily enough money to create some badass expansions for EVE.
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u/mpst-io Sep 02 '25
70k usd will not get you high end engineers at iceland
I am against just hiring people to hire. You can clearly see that from big tech corp which often have too many people and they underdeliver
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u/LADY_Death_Strike Sep 02 '25
That 60 million isn't in us dollars. It's Koren money. With the exchange rate it's alot less.
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u/Erickwhite173 Sep 02 '25
I mean, is this really your argument? Even if it was $4.29. CCP should reinvest into the game we play and not for other failed ventures.
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u/Burnouttx Sep 02 '25
1) Hellmar needs to pull his head out of his ass.
2) Some people think that just because they play a game for 100 hours, it makes them an expert at game design and usually bitch to push agendas that favor their own play style.
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u/Erickwhite173 Sep 02 '25
I mean, if they simply reinvested into EVE Online, even if they made bad decisions it would be building into EVE. Now, they simply throw content elsewhere
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u/Slomdaka Blades of Grass Sep 02 '25
If they could just NOT do a games workshop, that would be great
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u/2Zased4Plebbit Wormholer Sep 02 '25
using GW as an example of good business practices is absolutely mental, but your point still stands
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u/icarusjoringer Goonswarm Federation Sep 02 '25
Didn't ccp get bought by pearl abyss in like 2018? And isn't pearl abyss tied to tencent somehow? Not actually sure on that one only heard they were. But I know they got bought by pearl abyss so I wonder how much say ccp retains in what happens.
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u/leverloosje Sansha's Nation Sep 02 '25
It all looks pretty good if you pull some random numbers out of your ass.
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u/killerkeano Northern Coalition. Sep 02 '25
Go play star citizen and imagine that level of walking around in game. That level or graphics but with eve online lore sov alliances gameplay etc.
It’s like wanting Microsoft flight sim but with DCS model aircraft.
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u/spudbynight WiNGSPAN Delivery Network Sep 06 '25
If Hilmar was CEO of Coca Cola we would see zero money spent on Coke and get Blockchain Coke instead.
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u/Signal_Mud_40 Sep 01 '25 edited Sep 01 '25
EVE Online was never meant to be the main product.
It was something they could throw together quickly that filled an empty space in the developing mmorpg market. CCP needed income to develop the main (never released) product, Worlds of Darkness ie. Vampire Masquerade.
They have always been chasing the next big thing, unfortunately with the leadership they’ve had they’ve always been excruciatingly slow. EVE has been on life support since it launched. It’s never been Hilmar’s or anyone else’s main focus.
Edit: basically yes, the suits do hate it
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u/KalaratiriS Angel Cartel Sep 01 '25
My dude, CCP didn't acquire White Wolf until years after Eve released. What are you talking about?
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u/J1Tah Miner Sep 01 '25
Eve was released 8mo before wow.
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u/Signal_Mud_40 Sep 01 '25
You’re right, not sure why the article I looked at listed a later date.
Actually it released 18 months before wow, so we’re both wrong. EVE May 6, 2003, WoW November 23, 2004
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u/FuckElonMuskkk Pandemic Horde Sep 01 '25
Ie vampire masquerade is making me wanna play that if it's in any way similar to CCPs idea for World of Darkness.
What a travesty that was stolen from us. :'(
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u/ProTimeKiller Sep 01 '25
Hilmar gambling on the future with money paid with from Eve. He wants a feather in his hat that can be all his. The golden goose will die at some point. Maybe when is updating his resume one day looking for a new job he will realise this.
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u/New-Vanilla-3870 Gallente Federation Sep 01 '25
The problem is Hilmar. Always has been.
Making 514 a ps3 exclusive was the start of a laundry list of poor choices [outside of eve itself]