Eve Dev Gets Creative to Help Out Staff

[Logan Westbrook]

Eve Dev Gets Creative to Help Out Staff

CCP, makers of hit space MMO Eve Online, paid staff in foreign currency to help them out during the bank collapse earlier this year.

Those of you who follow non-gaming news might recall that Iceland was particularly hard hit by the banking crisis. Its top three banks collapsed and nearly took Iceland's entire economy with them, leading to a massive devaluation of the Icelandic krona.

Fortunately for the employees of CCP, a little help was at hand: "CCP isn't anything to worry about, because we're in multiple locations and our revenue was all in foreign currency anyway," said Nathan Richardsson, CCP's executive producer. "What really was the problem for us was how many of our employees were hit by the crisis, so we tried to leverage some of the strengths of CCP to help them through the turbulent times."

One of those strengths was the ability to "leverage part of CCP's infrastructure that you wouldn't normally think would benefit your employees" and pay employees in foreign currency. So rather than having a paycheck that might not be worth the same tomorrow as it was yesterday, CCP's employees could build their futures on somewhat more stable ground, thanks to the company's creative thinking.

And for looking out for your employees, you receive a +10 buff to your Classy stat, CCP.


Source: GamesIndustry.Biz [http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/ccp-staff-paid-in-foreign-currency-during-economic-meltdown]


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[Doug]

I'm still not sure about Eve - it looks like fun, but a) it also looks VERY time consuming, and b) when I tried the trial, it was very overwhelming and confusing.

As for the news, makes sense really - if the Icelanding currency had broken, foreign currency was the only real option - that or gold!

 

[Aac18]

It's nice to a see a game company that genuinely cares about its staff. I doff my cap to the good sirs and madame's at CCP.

 

[hansari]

I'm still not sure about Eve - it looks like fun, but a) it also looks VERY time consuming, and b) when I tried the trial, it was very overwhelming and confusing.

I saw my friend play it one time...all he did was mine for ore...again...and again...and again...

 

[theultimateend]

While EvE is a good example (to me personally) of what not to do in a Space Epic MMO the company itself has been pretty impressive.

Kudos to them for doing what I expect as opposed to what doomsdayers seem to .

 

[Grayl]

I've heard of CCP being very nice to community, often taking on their ideas and implementing them in-game. They're a very nice company, and this news post proves that absolutely. They're up there with Valve and Blizzard, I'd say.

It's just a shame that I find EVE to be like having a second job; except that you're paying to carry on working.

Here's hoping they decide to make another MMORPG that isn't boring (and preferably one that you don't have to pay monthly for [although saying that, there's a way to play EVE for free, but it costs you in-game money, I think...])!

 

[Sevre]

Companies aren't supposed to be nice goddamnit! They need a massive death ray like the one Activision has.

 

[Ajna]

I'm still not sure about Eve - it looks like fun, but a) it also looks VERY time consuming, and b) when I tried the trial, it was very overwhelming and confusing.

As for the news, makes sense really - if the Icelanding currency had broken, foreign currency was the only real option - that or gold!

By my understanding, it's a similar-but-different version of Ogame [http://www.ogame.org]. And yes, it was time consuming.

I still want to try Eve out some time, but Ogame sucked two years of my life away just to make it into the mid 200s rank-wise. I don't want a similar experience.

OT: I agree. Classy move by CCP.

 

[Strategia]

Nice move, very nice. Good to see SOME game companies have some sense left in them.

As for the news, makes sense really - if the Icelanding currency had broken, foreign currency was the only real option - that or gold!

I'll take the gold, please. Spanish crowns will do nicely, thanks.

I saw my friend play it one time...all he did was mine for ore...again...and again...and again...

Yeah, I'd much rather kill something.....again.....and again.....and again..... I did this (endless mining) a lot back when I played RuneScape (I was twelve! Please, put the torches and pitchforks away!), it all depends on how you're looking at it. In Guild Wars, most of my time is spent trudging between outposts and quest sites, hacking my way through everything without any trouble, with the occasional mildly challenging fight breaking it up. Doesn't sound very interesting when you put it like that. In The Settlers games, all I'm doing is telling my guys where to build stuff. Sounds boring when you put it like that. In Mass Effect, I have a lot of fun deciding whether to put my last point into Assault Rifles or First Aid. Try explaining that and making it sound interesting. It's all part of the game process, and, for people who like the game, part of the fun.

 

[Destal]

I have respect for any company that is actively trying to take care of it's employee's. Good job CCP.

 

[UnravThreads]

They're up there with Valve and Blizzard, I'd say.

Play WoW, go on an RP server and look at the state of them. I would call it absolutely dreadful customer service, to be honest. Other wise, I have no issues with Blizzard.

This does seem to be top form by CCP, so thumbs up to them.

 

[Robert632]

after all those articles of activison being evil douches, seeing an article showing a company being nice to it's employee's is a nice change.

in fact, the way they just handled it makes me say if i had a choice between WoW or EVE, i might chose EVE just because there unimaginably nice.

 

[hansari]

...In The Settlers games, all I'm doing is telling my guys where to build stuff. Sounds boring when you put it like that. In Mass Effect, I have a lot of fun deciding whether to put my last point into Assault Rifles or First Aid. Try explaining that and making it sound interesting. It's all part of the game process, and, for people who like the game, part of the fun.

Haha...I didn't mean to put it down like that...its just the ratio of action .vs. preparation in a lot of these MMO's seems to be ridiculously imbalanced...

Also take into account that my friend was on the limited 14 day trial and he had to spend a good portion of it mining just to keep up...

 

[CrafterMan]

What an awesome thing to do, really good to see some commitment from the employer.

-Joe

 

[cobrausn]

They missed out on a golden opportunity to pay their employees in ISK. It's worth a decent amount [http://www.swagvault.com/eve-online-tranquility-c-904_905.html?ref=2372&gclid=CK-f_7CYmpwCFRIcawodG0W_dQ], I suppose.

 

[Grayl]

Play WoW, go on an RP server and look at the state of them. I would call it absolutely dreadful customer service, to be honest. Other wise, I have no issues with Blizzard.

Oh yes, I know how horrible the RP servers are. One of the reasons I quit WoW, actually.

But they can be good to their customers. They've always responded to my complaints and GM queries. They're one up from CCP for making a game that is actually fun.

 

[UnravThreads]

Play WoW, go on an RP server and look at the state of them. I would call it absolutely dreadful customer service, to be honest. Other wise, I have no issues with Blizzard.

Oh yes, I know how horrible the RP servers are. One of the reasons I quit WoW, actually.

But they can be good to their customers. They've always responded to my complaints and GM queries. They're one up from CCP for making a game that is actually fun.

I beg to differ, this is off topic, but would you really like playing wow and having your raid guild be called "Paris Hilton is hawk k" and your GM being called "bobtheawesome" or "eatswithspoon" ? Thats the main advantage of an RP server in a mmo, no crap names, stupid sugar addicted kids and people are much more nice, its why i had a character there.

Except it's rarely that nice, to be honest. Spent the past year on one (I won't name it), and whilst there were a lot of good, honest roleplayers, there were many more idiots and poorly named guilds. I lost count of how many times I basically got told to fornicate with myself, or I'm an idiot, purely because I asked people to RP (for those who don't play WoW, part of the Roleplay terms is you ask people who break the RP rules to follow them before reporting any anti-policy behaviour).

And Grayl, apologies for assuming you weren't on an RP server. I also quit due to the utterly dreadful state. There's a topic on the EU Suggestions forum that's over 30 pages long, and Blizzard still haven't responded to it. That's what I call poor customer service. Whilst we're a minority, we still deserve the service we're promised.

As for the GMs? Absolutely amazing if you get one who doesn't use macros. I've had decent talks with a few of them recently, but I have no time for those who block genuine queries with macros. Asked a GM once if /e (that's the emote channel, e.g. sharpens their blade) was an in character or out of character channel, because it wasn't mentioned on the policy. His response was that they can't discuss it, although the GM I spoke to the day before would happily have done so, and even the head GM himself gave me an answer for it.

Sorry for the derail.

EDIT : The topic I referenced [http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=9520920622&sid=1&pageNo=1]

 

[Grayl]

I beg to differ, this is off topic, but would you really like playing wow and having your raid guild be called "Paris Hilton is hawk k" and your GM being called "bobtheawesome" or "eatswithspoon" ? Thats the main advantage of an RP server in a mmo, no crap names, stupid sugar addicted kids and people are much more nice, its why i had a character there.

Read my post and the person I quoted. I love RP servers, and would never even attempt to play an MMORPG without one. But the state of the WoW RP servers is an example of how Blizzard have left them be, and possibly one of their main downfalls as a company for me. They keep the names in check, but they never enforce their RP policy, and still haven't even made a little message pop up saying "You are now joining a RP server, please read the rules on our website" from what I know, which is something the RP community had been asking for since the RP servers all went to shit.

Keeping my post on-topic, EVE only has one server, does it not? From what I've heard, they're very good at keeping it well run, but I always wonder whether or not RPing on EVE is something that almost everyone does, which would mean less hassle for CCP. Plus, they have less players... my point being that WoW has a hell of a lot of players, so surely it'd be harder for them to keep the servers clean, where-as CCP has a great repuatation amongst MMORPG players, but is that because there aren't that many players in comparison?

There are more idiots in the world than smart people, and EVE is very difficult to play. So, naturally, WoW will have more idiots and therefore Blizzard will have more to do in comparison. So, is that a point up or a point down for CCP?

 

[Avernus]

CCP actually take an interesting stance towards RP, as far as they are concerned, everyone is an RP'er to some extent or another when playing the game. Now there are plenty within the community who deride RP, that kinda goes without saying... but if you meet a hostile asshat in space, well he's hostile... and an asshat... in space. It doesn't really matter what his perception of Eve is, it is how he is percieved by yourself.

Reading that I'm sure it all comes out sounding ass-backwards.

There are plenty of idiots in Eve, but I could't tell you in relation to other games how bad it can be. By personal experience (played since launch), you do meet a huge number of intelligent mature individuals. The kicker is, these same intelligent mature individuals can really let all the higher evolved sensibilities go out the airlock when confronted with someone from outside their own corporation or alliance.

Eve is a passionate game (for a spreadsheet in space that is), I'd say it is likely due the nature of Eve, that you would find fewer ADD sugar addled kids compared to WoW.