CCP Seagull Flies Away And Weirdness At Daybreak Games

CCP released the new Abyssal Deadspace content on Singularity yesterday. Instead of joining in on the fun, two stories are distracting me.

The first story is the news that EVE Online's Executive Producer, Andie Nordgren, is leaving CCP to return to Sweden and work for Unity Technologies.

Some personal news - moving to Sweden with the family in July! Sad to leave Iceland and CCP after 8 amazing years, but very excited to join Unity in Copenhagen! Friends and family in the area - see you soon! pic.twitter.com/UbkQCN9pzG

— Andie Nordgren (@nordgren) April 26, 2018

Nordgren announced on the official forums she will leave the company sometime in June, so I still have time to write a proper post before she leaves. I'll just note that Nordgren's initial job with CCP involved working with Carbon and the Core Technology Group and she leaves to work on the Unity game engine. For those interested in Nordgren's background before becoming EVE's Executive Producer, I wrote a little piece back in 2014.

Going from sadness to madness, what is going on with Daybreak Games? Starting from the premise that Daybreak Games is under threat of US sanctions against Russia due to the company's ownership by Columbus Nova, a subsidiary of the Renova Group owned by Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, the situation got weird. A spokesperson for Daybreak told MassivelyOP Tuesday that Columbus Nova never owned Daybreak, and that years of press releases and privacy policy statements players agreed to were incorrect.

On Thursday, Daybreak laid off an estimated 70 employees as MMORPG.com reported that Daybreak ownership was shopping the studio around for sale. The report singled out Intrepid Studios as a serious suitor. As a former EQ2 player, I plan on following the story.