Oct
20
The Twenty Percent
Yesterday was a sad day for those interested in the goings on at CCP, particularly those that interacted on a frequent basis with the community management staff. They announced in this devblog that they had, indeed, stretched themselves too thin by essentially fighting a war on three fronts – Eve, Dust, and WoD. As a result, they stated that they would be slowing development on WoD and cutting roughly 20% of their employees.
At first, everyone was mildly shocked but figured ‘Hey, if this means they are pulling back from their other ventures and focusing on Eve, good for us yeah?’. Then, the victim list started piling up, and it became apparent that the 20% included a hell of a lot more than the WoD staff. The ranks of the Eve community management team were decimated, with many prominent forum and community faces in CCP being shown the door that we just got rid of in the game:
Community:
Wrangler – Christian Danhill
Pann – Valerie Massey
Fallout – Misty Matonis
Zymurgist – Kevin Dudenbostel
Mike Read
Content:
Pall Ivarsson
Hilmir Þór Einarsson
CCP Maiden Steel
Gnauton/ Gauti Fridriksson
Other:
Valar/ Emil Fridrikson
Finnz/ Finnur Kári Guðnason
Hammerhead/ Noah Ward
Kristleifur Þorsteinsson
Unconfirmed, but likely:
Kitty von Sometime
Stavros / CCP CAPSLOCK
Raem Civire / Sham / Sigurður Árnason (not sure what his CCP name was)
CCP Fear (maybe)
*From reddit, some intrepid interweb user noticed that CCP folks who were laid off had their Devblog info (ie. Bio, Start Data,etc) set to unknown. Assuming the above is true, then these guys/gals are most likely gone too:
CCP Salvo
CCP Big Dumb Object
CCP Sreegs
CCP Redundancy
CCP Aporia
CCP Cascade
* Please note, from @katrinat (Katrín Atladóttir, UI designer at CCP) on Twitter, this statement is untrue, though she cannot confirm/deny the specific list.
This list is long, and growing longer, but is also an unfortunate necessity when your company simply can’t sustain whatever ambitions it was reaching for. This much I think we can all understand. It also stands to reason that in the wake of an entire summer seemingly dedicated on the part of the Eve Community towards raging, the Community department would be hardest hit. Whether that is fair or unfair towards the individuals chosen to be shown the door is hard to say.
The one bright spot, however, among this list (if anyone losing their job can be said to be a bright spot) is that the lead NeX dude, CCP Hammerhead, is among those affected. Going to be hard to afford anything off the NeX now, amirite? However, he is too easy a scapegoat and target. The real perpetrators are, of course, CCP upper management, going right to the top with CCP Hellmar (the ceo whose name I can’t be bothered to attempt to spell at this moment).
Sad that it had to come to this, but you had to figure there would be very real repercussions to the stagnation and slight dip in subscriber numbers, as well as the summer of Incarnage (to steal a phrase from @Freebooted). A sad day, but hopefully a sign that CCP really is committed to doing the right thing – when it comes to Eve Online anyways.
One has to wonder though – is cutting down the community staff when one of your major problems over the summer was communicating with your customers such a good idea? Is laying off the people that coordinate Fanfest, CCP’s greatest PR event, such a good idea? Time will tell the truth of the matter, as it has a habit of doing. The rest of us shall have to wait and see.
Fly Safe, you 20%ers,
Marc
