CCP – If The Players Won’t Create Drama, The Company Is Happy To Step In…

CCP stands for “Crowd Control Productions,” and never was a company more aptly named these days.

There have been more snippets from the EVE Online maelstrom about… I’m not even sure what it is really about.

Incarna being crap, cash shops, over-priced monocles, bad faith, broken promises, and divergence from the spirit of what makes EVE Online the game it is… these ideas and more have all been thrown around in various posts that are… well… everywhere now.

New item of the day for me is this message from CCP CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, which I snipped from Winterblink’s post on the subject. (And which has two previous messages from CCP, if you want some back story or quotes for truth.)

We live in interesting times; in fact CCP is the kind of company that if things get repetitive we instinctively crank it up a notch. That, we certainly have done this week. First off we have Incarna, an amazing technological and artistic achievement. A vision from years ago realized to a point that no one could have imaged but a few months ago. It rolls out without a hitch, is in some cases faster than what we had before, this is the pinnacle of professional achievement. For all the noise in the channel we should all stand proud, years from now this is what people will remember.

But we have done more, not only have we redefined the production quality one can apply to virtual worlds with the beautiful Incarna but we have also defined what it really means to make virtual reality more meaningful than real life when it comes to launching our new virtual goods currency, Aurum.

Naturally, we have caught the attention of the world. Only a few weeks ago we revealed more information about DUST 514 and now we have done it again by committing to our core purpose as a company by redefining assumptions. After 40 hours we have already sold 52 monocles, generating more revenue than any of the other items in the store.

This we have done after months of research by a group of highly competent professionals, soliciting input and perspective from thought leaders and experts in and around our industry. We have communicated our intention here internally in very wide circles through the Virtual Economy Summit presentation at the GSM, our Fearless newsletter, sprint reviews, email lists and multiple other channels. This should not come as a surprise to anyone.

Currently we are seeing _very predictable feedback_ on what we are doing. Having the perspective of having done this for a decade, I can tell you that this is one of the moments where we look at what our players do and less of what they say. Innovation takes time to set in and the predictable reaction is always to resist change.

We went out with a decisive strategy on pricing and we will stay the course and not flip flop around or knee jerk react to the predictable. That is not saying nothing will change, on the contrary, in fact we know that success in this space is through learning and adapting to _what is actually happening_ and new knowledge gained in addition to what we knew before and expected.

All that said, I couldn’t be prouder of what we have accomplished as a company, changing the world is hard and we are doing it as so many times before! Stay the course, we have done this many times before.

The train of progress is coming, get on, get out of the way, or get run over.  I guess that is the message here.

Twitter, which has been alive with comments on the subject for days now had three choice responses that I’d like to share.

http://twitter.com/#!/AeonThePiglet/status/84463373672136705

http://twitter.com/#!/HelicityBoson/status/84461018721419264

http://twitter.com/#!/rulesaremyenemy/status/84455368033452032

Who is amoral, who gets destroyed, and who is a sucker… well, I suppose we shall see what comes to pass.

But 52 monocles sold already?  This surprises even my jaded outlook.