Tag Archives: Sparc

CCP Pulls the Plug on VR as EVE Valkyrie, EVE Gunjack, and Sparc Go Dark Today

The time has come.  As CCP announced last month, it’s small collection of VR titles, EVE Valkyrie, EVE Gunjack, and Sparc are all at the end of their life today.

A little over six years ago… which both seems like not that far back and forever ago at the same time… CCP bet on VR as a growing concern with their EVE Valkyrie online space sim shooter.  It was a launch title with the Oculus Rift, which meant anybody who bought the hardware got the game as well.

That seemed like a solid plan to get the game and the company situated to benefit from the coming VR boom.  VR was going to be everywhere and analysts had the projection charts to prove it.

A lot of things conspired to turn that future into a pipe dream.  I’ve been over the litany of VR headset sins, from cost to motion sickness.

But EVE Valkyrie was not blameless in its own demise.  It was a solid, good looking game that demoed VR quite well.  I played it at EVE Vegas and it was quite impressive, being in the cockpit of your ship, turning your head to track enemies, looking down to see your hands on the controls, all as you zoomed through scenes of New Eden that are a large part of the attraction of its parent game, EVE Online.

However, it was not exactly a deep game.  The game play was good when fresh, but repetition worked to make it go stale after not too long.  CCP did a bit to try and freshen the game with a few updates, but the user base just wasn’t there.

The last throw of the dice had them porting it to a non-VR version with the Warzone expansion in hopes of getting some sort of critical mass.  However, it wasn’t to be.

I bought a copy at that point and, looking at Steam, I have a little over five hours of play time, which was about all it took for the title to wear out on me.

Valkyrie Warzone

I am actually surprise I lasted that long.  What made it cool was the VR.  On a flat screen it was a somewhat tepid 3D dog fighter without much depth.  I have almost a hundred hours into War Thunder, so I can find fun in a flight sim even if I am bad at it.  But there has to be something there.

Throwing a lot of familiar hulls on screen to make it feel like EVE

I went back to try it one last time this past week… and that was where I was surprised I had even put five hours into the title.

A more recent screen shot of the same old thing

So eventually CCP decided it wasn’t worth keeping around, posting a farewell message to those still playing.

‘See you in the next life’
Thank you for being a part of EVE: Valkyrie

Intrepid pilots

All good things come to an end, even to the immortal Valkyries. Today, we have begun the process of discontinuing support for EVE: Valkyrie to focus CCP Games’ efforts and resources on new developments in our evolving portfolio of EVE Universe titles.

We are incredibly proud of what we accomplished with EVE: Valkyrie and its Warzone expansion and want to extend our deep appreciation to all our players for their support throughout the game’s lifecycle. It is an honor to have been a part of such a dedicated community.

For the time being, you won’t see any effect if you own a copy of the game. The game will continue to be playable with our servers remaining active until Fri 5 August 2022.

On Fri 5 August 2022, EVE: Valkyrie’s servers will be turned off, social media profiles will be closed, and this website will go offline. Once servers are deactivated, customer support for EVE: Valkyrie will no longer be provided.

Thank you for being a part of EVE: Valkyrie. We look forward to the next chapter in the EVE Universe and hope you’ll be a part of it and continue the journey with us.

As a server based game with match making, it was likely that it would eventually shut down.

The same goes for Sparc, CCP’s VR sports game.  I played that at EVE Vegas as well and it was fine, in a TRON meets Pong sort of way.

Sparc shield up and ready

You and another player smacking a virtual ball at each other with throws and shields.  Not bad, but once again, not much depth either.

And then there was EVE Gunjack, which was a single player VR rail shooter.  That too is getting shut down today.

That brought up the question as to why shut down a single player title?  There aren’t any servers to maintain. (Actually, there were, but that is another story.)

But servers aren’t all there are to maintaining a title.  There are a number of things that come to mind as to why CCP might want to just turn them all off and be done with them.  The most likely is the need to provide updates.

All of these titles need to run in VR environments, which are effectively consoles.  To stay up and active CCP would no doubt need to keep providing security and system updates to stay in online and active in the Oculus or Sony VR environments.

They probably hit the point where they were not longer contractually obligated to keep the titles active… I’d bet on that being part of the deal to be a launch title… so felt it was time to pull the plug.

VR as spectator sport – just like Meta, legless torsos playing games

So it goes.  Another bad bet by CCP has run its course.

Related:

EVE Valkyrie, Gunjack, and Sparc All Coming to an End on August 5th

Notice: At the request of the publisher, EVE: Valkyrie – Warzone is no longer available for sale on Steam.

Steam store page

That was the first hint that something was amiss with EVE Valkyrie, the product being unlisted from sales earlier this week.

EVE Valkyrie: Warzone

We are not at the very end of the road for EVE Valkyrie, but you can certainly see it from where we are now.  A follow up news item on Steam laid out the details:

‘See you in the next life’
Thank you for being a part of EVE: Valkyrie

Intrepid pilots

All good things come to an end, even to the immortal Valkyries. Today, we have begun the process of discontinuing support for EVE: Valkyrie to focus CCP Games’ efforts and resources on new developments in our evolving portfolio of EVE Universe titles.

We are incredibly proud of what we accomplished with EVE: Valkyrie and its Warzone expansion and want to extend our deep appreciation to all our players for their support throughout the game’s lifecycle. It is an honor to have been a part of such a dedicated community.

For the time being, you won’t see any effect if you own a copy of the game. The game will continue to be playable with our servers remaining active until Fri 5 August 2022.

On Fri 5 August 2022, EVE: Valkyrie’s servers will be turned off, social media profiles will be closed, and this website will go offline. Once servers are deactivated, customer support for EVE: Valkyrie will no longer be provided.

Thank you for being a part of EVE: Valkyrie. We look forward to the next chapter in the EVE Universe and hope you’ll be a part of it and continue the journey with us.

That is it.  Everything gets shut down on August 5th.

A little over six years ago CCP looked like they might have stolen a march on the competition as they threw money into VR and managed to be a launch title with the much anticipated Oculus Rift VR headset.

There were many voices declaring that VR was going to be the next big thing, that the upside was going to be huge.  But there was the price, the system requirements, the cable mess, the motion sickness, the lack of a truly killer app for the hardware, and the whole need to sit there blind to the real world with an overweight set of goggles strapped to your head.  That has added up to making VR something of a niche item.

Not that VR isn’t cool.  I played EVE Valkyrie at EVE Vegas.  But it isn’t cool enough for the price and the inconvenience… and I am still pretty sure my PC still can’t support an Oculus.  It can’t even support Windows 11 according to Microsoft.

CCP saw the writing on the wall a bit too late, but tried to correct.  With the Warzone expansion we were able to play the game without VR.  A normal 3D PC version was released.  I even own a copy, purchased at a discount.  It was kind of neat, but not that neat.  The VR aspect was what made it special, and if you don’t have that it is just okay.

A little over a year after that VR was dead at CCP.  There were layoffs and statements about refocusing on EVE Online… and Project Aurora, the mobile title, and Project Nova, the elusive first person shooter that CCP seems determined to pursue forever.

Meanwhile, a little digging showed that the August 5th end of life applied to all of CCP’s VR products.

For Gunjack the message was:

Courageous gunjacks – all good things come to an end, even to fearless turret operators. Today, we have begun the process of discontinuing support for Gunjack to focus CCP Games` efforts and resources on new developments in our evolving portfolio of EVE Universe titles.

We are incredibly proud of what we accomplished with Gunjack and want to extend our deep appreciation to all our players for their support throughout the game`s lifecycle.

For the time being, you won`t see any effect if you own a copy of the game. The game will continue to be playable with our servers remaining active until August 5th 2022.

On August 5th 2022, Gunjack`s servers will be turned off, social media profiles will be closed, and this website will go offline. Once servers are deactivated, customer support for Gunjack will no longer be provided.

Thank you for being a part of Gunjack. We look forward to the next chapter in the EVE Universe and hope you`ll be a part of it and continue the journey with us.

And the Sparc page showed something similar:

vSports fans – all good things come to an end, even to plasma-clad champion athletes. Today, we have begun the process of discontinuing support for Sparc to focus CCP Games’ efforts and resources on new developments in our evolving portfolio of EVE Universe titles.

We are extremely proud of what we accomplished with Sparc and want to extend our deep appreciation to all our players for their support throughout the game’s lifecycle. It is an honor to have been a part of such a dedicated community.

For the time being, you won’t see any effect if you own a copy of the game. The game will continue to be playable with our servers remaining active until date August 5th 2022.

On August 5th 2022, Sparc’s servers will be turned off, social media profiles will be closed, and this website will go offline. Once servers are deactivated, Sparc will no longer be playable.

Thank you for being a part of Sparc. We remain open to exploring future opportunities in the VR space, but for now, we look forward to the next chapter of the EVE Universe. We hope you’ll be a part of it and continue the journey with us.

I wouldn’t take that statement about being open to VR in the future too seriously.  They sold off the team who did the work to another studio, so would have to start from scratch again.  Also, VR would have to be a lot more popular than it is now.

In an odd coincidence, news of EVE Valkyrie being not longer available for purchase (which I saw over at MMO Fallout) showed up on the same day as 25th anniversary of CCP’s founding.

It was likely a coincidence, though I do find it a bit odd that CCP was founded on the last day of the fiscal quarter.  But fiscal quarters are something companies worry about when they’ve grown and gone public.  Starting a company happens when you can make it happen.

VR Development Dead and Layoffs at CCP

One of those “note the time and date” posts, Massively OP reported earlier today that CCP was backing away from development of Virtual Reality games, closing their Atlanta office and selling off the studio in Newcastle responsible for now VR-optional Oculus Rift launch title EVE: Valkyrie.  This will mean a job loss for as many as 100 CCP employees world wide, including 30 in Iceland.

EVE: Valkyrie in stasis

CCP says that they will continue to support their VR products but will no longer be investing time into new development for EVE: Valkyrie, EVE Gunjack, or the recently launched Sparc.  That sounds nice, but once you cut the development team restarting on a VR project won’t be easy.

Hello VR captain’s quarters?

In addition to a renewed focus on EVE Online… because what else is making them any money… CCP will continue with development of the shooter known as Project Nova as well as the EVE Universe themed mobile game Project Aurora, which was demoed at EVE Vegas earlier this month.

CCP Falcon had the following to say on Reddit:

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.

While that may be so, one of the losses with the Atlanta office is CCP Manifest who was the PR and social media lead who paid a lot of attention to the EVE Online community.  Likewise CCP Logibro who minded the fansites and worked with the CSM appears to be on the list.   They will be missed.

We shall see what this means in the longer term.  EVE Online remains the only money making video game for the company.

Other coverage:

CCP Launches Sparc Today

Sparc is a virtual sport, or vSport – a unique physical sport only possible in virtual reality, in which players compete in full-body VR gameplay and connect in an online community.

-What is Sparc, from the Sparc FAQ

CCP launched their latest title today, a VR game called Sparc.

Sparc – Virtual Sports

The press release from CCP says that it is available for the PlayStation 4 with PlayStation VR from the PlayStation Store for $29.99.  There is also a launch trailer.

There is a mention of a version for PC in the FAQ, but no firm date as yet.

The game itself has been compared to Wii Sports, the extremely popular game that was bundled with the Wii in many countries.  Wii Sports was an excellent demonstration of the potential of the Wii motion controllers, a potential that the controllers never really achieved.  Wii Sports was a selling point for the Wii.

That is a pretty high bar for Sparc, which is not bundled with anything and requires potential players to have invested in the PlayStation VR hardware.  Add in the fact that you cannot play locally against another player, having to connect to opponents over the internet, thus any match requires two PlayStation 4s and two PlayStation VR sets.

Still, a simple, fun, and not-too-expensive VR sports game might do well within the VR niche, even if it isn’t the killer app that Wii Sports was for the Wii.

The game has been controversial with a few EVE Online players since it was announced back in February of this year.

There is, of course, the usual outrage at EVE Online funding other games.  For all of the recurring “EVE is dying!” sentiment, it still pays the bills for CCP.  However, any business funds new projects from the profits of current projects.  That is just the way things work.  EVE Online itself was funded, in part, by profits from the board game Hættuspil.  What goes around comes around.  The problem is that, being an MMORPG, EVE Online never feels “done,” so taking money from a game that clearly still needs work (and will forever need work) does not sit well.

And then there is the fact that Sparc, unlike Valkyrie, Gunjack, or the late DUST 514, does not glorify the universe of New Eden.  A VR spaceship game might at least bring some attention to our internet spaceship game.  A cartoony virtual sports game doesn’t even do that.

My own view is a bit mixed.  I’ve worked on projects that basically paid all the bills in the past, and have been irked by resources being siphoned off to build new things.  And as an EVE Online player I always want CCP to pay more attention to the game.  But I also know that in business not expanding is often equated with dying, and the days of growth for EVE Online seem to be in the past.  The game has too much baggage and is far too niche to expect to reach new heights now.

So the best hope for EVE Online going forward is a healthy and prosperous CCP, and we get that by CCP doing well with other products, or so it seems to me.  We shall see.

Anyway, I have neither a PlayStation 4 nor any VR hardware, so Sparc clearly isn’t for me.  But if it does do well I suspect we will hear about it from CCP.