Sunset Period

Yesterday some terrible news was delivered:

EVE Valkyrie creator CCP is pulling out of VR with major layoffs
CCP Games is closing two studios and moving away from virtual reality, one of its main focal points for the last few years. The Iceland-based company will close its branch in Atlanta and sell the one in Newcastle as part of a round of layoffs, leaving the studios in London, Reykjavík, and Shanghai. The Iceland Monitor reports that today’s cuts will affect around 100 employees worldwide; CCP says that it’s providing relocation opportunities or severance packages to anyone who’s affected.
CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson calls the changes “tough, but important.” CCP will continue to run its flagship title EVE Online with no changes, and it is continuing with two previously announced projects: a multiplayer PC shooter called Project Nova and a free-to-play mobile game called Project Aurora, which is being developed by external studio PlayRaven. It will also maintain support for its existing VR titles, including the sci-fi sports game Sparc and EVE Valkyrie, which was recently updated to a VR-optional title called EVE Valkyrie – Warzone.

First of all, my heart goes out to the employees whose lives just got shattered by being let go. I've been laid off before and it was terrible. I hope all those affected find new jobs quickly.

Secondly, I feel that this move indicates a retrenching of the company and despite their assurances that EVE Online itself will suffer no changes, I can't help but feel that is not true. Both CCP Manifest and CCP Logibro were affected by the layoffs and both were instrumental to supporting the EVE community and well liked.

CCP Falcon posted this on the forums:

Hey guys,
Just a quick follow up to this, given that there are questions about EVE, and the future.
Obviously this is a really difficult day for CCP, and it’s been super tough to see a lot of our friends and colleagues end their journey with CCP.
With regards to EVE, it’s kind of bittersweet that this puts us in a more solid position going forward, as a lot more focus is back on EVE Online, its services and all the technology and support around it.
The EVE Online development team was not impacted at all by these changes, and remains the same size, working toward the same goals and features that have already been announced.
We still have very big plans for EVE Online, and everything we’ve announced, plus more, is still going ahead, so there shouldn’t be any concerns from our pilots in that respect.
There’ll be more information about other projects, studios and suchlike in the coming days, and there’s also communication going out soon to the Valkyrie community too that has further information.

This does not make me feel better to be honest. Even if the development team itself was not impacted directly, there will be follow on indirect impacts as the work the laid off employees had gets farmed out to remaining employees, or dropped altogether. Will alliance tournaments be affected? Live events? Council of Stellar Management? Fan site and events support? All of these are considered non-development activities but how many of them will continue going forward? And by whom?

In the end, I feel this move is not only an abandonment of VR technologies, but an acknowledgement that EVE Online's heyday is truly over. The hordes of Alpha players to power EVE into a new stratosphere of concurrency numbers did not appear like the Host of Rohan at the battle of Minas Tirith. We are definitely in the Sunset Period of EVE Online.

My own pic, actually a sunrise.

Is EVE dying? No, I wouldn't go that far. But its not thriving anymore.

The Art of Teaming Up

There was this comment from Ashertothi on twitter today and while I responded, I want to follow up here more completely.

When I started playing EVE, I remember the terror. Not of losing my ship which was more frustrating than scary, but rather the terror of being in a group of people and making a fool of myself. I knew some of the people in that first corp from my Warhammer 40K group but others were strangers and the anxiety of being part of that group was monumental. Going on voice comms? Terrifying.

When I first decided to try Call of Duty online, the hardest part was steeling myself up to get on a public server. I didn't even have to talk to anyone! But just being in the public space was fraught with nervousness and hesitation.

Social Anxiety of various degrees is a common condition for many people and online situations can be as threatening as public spaces, especially if attention falls on you. It is hard for people that do not suffer from it to understand how something like saying "Hey, want to join me in this mission?" can be a minefield of stress. I'm 43 and just a few months ago I was shaking with nerves at going to a martial arts class with people I didn't now. The biggest obstacle to becoming a fleet commander of even newbie low sec fleets was the social anxiety of putting myself in front of strangers.

I'm not surprised Alphas don't team up. It is a step beyond just playing a game to steel oneself to make that first move to ask for help of virtual strangers.