The Drifter Crisis Of 2025 - Patch Notes And Lore

A day after I complained about the lack of events in the roadmap for the first and third quarters of 2025, CCP launches a live event. Designed for group play, the largest Drifter offensive in EVE Online history began yesterday. And unlike the last time the developers tried to do a mass event, null sec residents don't have to worry.

As the Drifters extend their aggression in New Eden beyond Zarzakh, capsuleers will encounter them in multiple systems in highsec and lowsec, and pilots of all skill levels are called upon to assist in beating the threat back. Various sites and activities are available to Tech I ships up to battlecruiser class. These engagements are perfect for small gangs and provide opportunities for exploration, salvaging, and enforcer career followers to thrive. Eliminating threats will unlock a Crisis Resolution operation at the heart of the affected systems, the successful completion of which will force the Drifters to withdraw and regroup.

On a personal note, the initial description from the introductory article doesn't sound promising for solo players like myself. Let's see the content others will enjoy by looking at the patch notes for the event.

Drifter Crisis: Drifter Crisis Systems

Drifter-controlled forces have begun launching attacks on all four empires throughout high and low-security space! The first systems will become available between 19:00 and 21:00 tonight, with more following as the crisis continues.

• Systems under attack can be found in the new ‘Interstellar Events’ section of the AIR Opportunities window.
  
  
• Complete ‘Crisis’ sites to weaken the grip the Drifters have on these systems.
  
  
• There are 4 varieties of Crisis site, with a 5th Crisis Resolution site available once the Drifter forces have been sufficiently weakened.
  
  
• Each site requires teamwork and strategy, with specific roles needing to be fulfilled for success:
  
  
• Crisis: Field Rescue — Salvage the wreckage left behind following an empire assault on a Drifter facility to locate any survivors. It is recommended that at least 3 capsuleers tackle this rescue mission. T1 frigates and standard T1 destroyers are permitted.
  
  
• Crisis: Observatory Infiltration — Scan down this site to retrieve valuable relics from the remains of an emergent Jovian Observatory. Bring up to 2 other capsules to maximize rewards, but be wary of any traps the Drifters may have left behind! T1 frigates, destroyers, and standard T1 cruisers are permitted to enter.
  
  
• Crisis: Deathless Research Outpost — A Deathless research base is under attack by Drifter forces. Use remote repair modules to keep the structure alive until it can be secured. Alternatively, destroy it yourself and sell the accrued Hyperspace Telemetry data to the highest bidder. 5 capsuleers are recommended to aid the site; less may be required to destroy it. T1 frigates, destroyers, and standard T1 cruisers are permitted to enter.
  
  
• Crisis: Lancer Counter Offensive — An empire-owned Lancer dreadnought has been deployed to aid a civilian structure. Help it destroy the Drifter presence before its nefarious task can be completed. T1 frigates, destroyers, and standard T1 cruisers are permitted to enter.
  
  
• Crisis Resolution: Vigilant Dreamer — To resolve the crisis within the system, 10 capsuleers are required to bring an end to the Vigilant Dreamer. Using data analyzers, the defensive array protecting this Drifter facility can be disabled allowing it to be destroyed. T1 frigates, destroyers, cruisers, and standard T1 battlecruisers are permitted to enter.
  
  
• Payouts from these sites are awarded to the top contributing fleet alone.

These event entries do not show up in the main window by default, so make sure to select the Interstellar Events icon on the left side of the window to see the sites nearest to you.

From the AIR Opportunities window

The patch also brought back a recent type of event site.

Deepflow Rifts

Deepflow Rifts have reemerged across the cluster and wormhole space! Intrepid capsuleers should tread carefully; both the rewards and difficulty of the site have been increased.

Additional updates were made to another type of group PvE content, Homefront Operations.

Homefront Operations:

• Remote capacitor transmission is now less effective on allied Dreadnought NPCs within Dread Assault sites.
  
  
• The effectiveness of enemy NPCs which energy neutralize allied Dreadnought NPCs within Dread Assault sites has been greatly increased.
  
  
• Added a delay to the initial enemy hauler spawn within Raid sites.
  
  
• Increased the variance and average spawn time of enemy haulers within Raid sites.
  
  
• Decreased the access difficulty of salvaging wrecks in Salvage Research sites.
  
  
• Increased the number of enemy NPCs within Salvage Research sites.

Of course, a live event isn't really a live event without a news article. So what do we know about the actions of the major players in our little drama.

The Drifters

Drifter-controlled forces have attacked solar systems in all four major nations. The attacks have focused on civilian infrastructure, triggering the deployment of military crisis response forces. Initial strikes by the Drifters have already led to a death toll in the thousands, with that number expected to climb as the violence continues.

The motivation behind the Drifter aggression is unclear. The targeted systems are of little strategic significance, there are no signs of permanent occupation, and no resources are being extracted by either the Drifters or the Sleeper Drones under their control. The only clue to the Drifters' goals are the surveillance structures at the heart of their efforts. Named “Vigilant Dreamers”, these structures appear to be the focal points of Drifter activity in affected systems. Defending forces are attempting to gather sufficient intel to pinpoint and ultimately destroy these Dreamers.

The Gallente

Today’s attacks have silenced many who questioned President Aguards decision to postpone the Federation’s regularly scheduled elections. Only the Federalist-Liberal Party has remained vocal in their criticism, accusing the President of using an atmosphere of fear to disrupt the lawful democratic process. Her own party, the Progressive Unionists, have dismissed these claims, praising Aguard for putting the defense of the Federation first.

The President herself spoke at a press conference on Luminaire today, praising the “dedication and bravery” of those who have taken up the fight against the Drifters. When questioned she was reluctant to give a definitive answer on the rescheduling of the election, stating that “this crisis has only just begun”.

The Caldari

Speaking aboard a Chimera class carrier, Chairman Akimaka Saraki has commended the Caldari Navy for its speedy deployment to all systems in conflict. He added that “the very best of the State cannot be distracted from their sworn duty.”

Some political pundits took the comment as a disparaging reference to those who criticized the CEP for relying on Gallente intel. Saraki issued a second statement dismissing this analysis as divisive and unfounded. This statement began, “We are one Caldari. Never is this truer than when we find ourselves tested by unprecedented times. As long as we stand as one, none may stand against us.”

The Amarr

Across the Amarr Empire, newly deployed joint holder assets have moved to meet Drifter forces. Organized in secret, these newly formed armadas pool the resources of local nobility to enable timely countermeasures. Able to respond more rapidly than Imperial forces, they are part of a strategy that puts responsivity first.

Empress Catiz I has been credited with this logistical innovation. In an Empire-wide broadcast, she commended all Amarrian citizens for their “fortitude in the face of darkness.” She called on “all faithful to band together against the demonic abborations that plague our skies. In years past, these same monstrosities breached our borders and murdered our holy Empress Jamyl I. They caught us by surprise, but this time we are ready to show them the truth of our Lord’s will.”

The Minmatar

The Republic Fleet has scrambled to defend clan holdings under attack. Thukker Chief Ennar Aeboul has criticized Sanmatar Maleatu Shakor and the Tribal council for failing to heed his tribe’s warnings of a rising Drifter threat. “We who wander are tired of being overlooked,” he told reporters, “It brings me great sorrow that innocent Matari must now pay such a high price for the Republic’s foolishness.”

The Sanmatar has deflected these criticisms, saying that “now is the time for unity. Despite what Aeboul might think, the Republic Fleet is always ready to defend our people. We should be focussed on how to support them, not casting aspersions.”

Society of Conscious Thought

Just a brief note. When the Jove took their leave of New Eden, they nominated The Society of Conscious Thought their heirs and successors.

As the nations of New Eden respond to the Drifter threat, their representatives are being hosted at an emergency CONCORD summit in Yulai. As diplomats headed into session, the Society of Conscious Thought’s Elder Mentor Matshi Raish spoke to the press, laying the blame for the ongoing crisis at the feet of the Deathles Circle.

“These Drifter attacks are the direct result of the Deathless and his Circle’s reckless hubris. Their occupation of the Fulcrum and Warden structures has clearly awoken a threat that long lay dormant. Through their interference with technologies beyond their understanding they have unleashed tragedy upon our cluster.”

The Deathless Circle

Rumors have spread that the Deathless Cricle are attempting to take advantage of the current situation by deploying research outposts within Crisis systems, only to come under attack by the Drifters themselves. While calls for aid have been registered, military forces are encouraging capsuleers to bring any research produced at Circle facilities to national intelligence agencies, and not to aid the criminal organization.

I think this most of the recent news from CCP Games setting up the players for the upcoming summer expansion due for release in the second quarter of 2025. At least, I consider the event the ramp-up to the next expansion. After the recent Director's Chat, the developers may argue that this qualifies as part of the Revenant Update.

An Uninspiring Directors' Chat For EVE Online

Perhaps playing Final Fantasy XIV has spoiled me and raised my expectations to unrealistic levels. But I get the feeling that with these presentations, EVE Online's director chats are just checking off some boxes in a game promotion checklist. Or in other words, CCP Rattani is no Yoshi-P, even if you let CCP Berger handle all the cosplay work.

Look, I get the concept. Having a reliable release schedule works wonders for FFXIV. Every four months we get a major point patch with every two months various types of content in a point 5 patch. But I already knew the above release cycle for content in EVE Online. I even like the schedule, although the developers really need to think about some type of seasonal event to run in Q1 and Q3 in order to boost sales. Why act like Cloud Imperium and load everything in the fourth quarter with the second biggest quarter the second? Seems like someone at CCP is copying from the Masters of Marketing in Manchester.

Watching the stream, I thought the presentation felt like an excuse to issue a press release. Sure enough, when I visited the CCP Games corporate website I found a press release. Using my editorial discretion I'll post most of the press release below for those who don't want to watch an hour long video.

REYKJAVÍK, Iceland -- January 28, 2024 -- Today, CCP Games shared an ambitious 2025 roadmap for the iconic space MMO EVE Online, during a special Directors' Stream. The year promises two major expansions along with the return of fan-favorite in-game events, as well as the long-awaited reunion at EVE Fanfest 2025, to be held May 1--3 at Reykjavík's iconic Harpa Concert Hall. Watch the Directors' Stream on the official CCP Games Twitch and YouTube channels.

As the Revenant narrative arc continues to unfold, the rising tension between the Deathless and the Drifters will lead to the next expansion for EVE Online, arriving in Summer 2025. Focusing on empowering players within the sandbox, it will offer enhanced tools for customizing player-owned sovereign space, enabling capsuleers to set their own agendas and create content for their communities. These upgrades are being designed to give corporations a higher degree of agency, deepening the dynamic and player-driven emergent gameplay within the universe of New Eden.

The introduction of Freelance Projects will open the door to new levels of cooperation where pilots can craft and complete missions created by fellow capsuleers. From mercenary contracts to collaborative ventures, this new system will create new emergent opportunities for storytelling, conflict, exploration, and relationship-building within EVE Online. With new ships, tactical objectives, and tools for all fleet sizes, the future of war will continue to be reshaped. These additions will offer fertile ground for small and large fleets to thrive, pushing EVE's signature sandbox to new heights.

"This year, we're putting even more power in the hands of our capsuleers," said Snorri Árnason, Game Director for EVE Online. "From customizing sovereign space to crafting missions that spark new alliances, the 2025 roadmap is all about letting players create and shape their own moments, their own stories and ultimately being part of the history books of New Eden itself. EVE Online has always been a living universe driven by its community, and with the new tools and systems we're introducing, the potential for creativity and collaboration has never been greater."

"2025 will be monumental for EVE Online," said Bergur Finnbogason, EVE Online's Creative Director. "We've listened to player feedback to refine our development process and create high-quality expansions that empower capsuleers. Join us in New Eden to experience a year filled with characters to meet, alliances to forge---or break---and thrilling stories to uncover. It's a year you don't want to miss!"

Fan-favorite events, including Capsuleer Day, Crimson Harvest, and Winter Nexus, will also return in 2025, along with the Alliance Tournament, promising fierce competition among New Eden's finest fleets. Later this year, the second expansion will arrive in Winter 2025.

Tickets for EVE Fanfest 2025 are nearly sold out. Capsuleers looking to attend can purchase tickets now at Eventbrite starting at $35 USD. Those eager to experience the full Fanfest experience can purchase the Festival Pass for $295 USD, which includes access to the legendary Party at the Top of the World, exclusive EVE Online in-game content, an EVE Fanfest 2025 t-shirt, and a goodie bag.

I don't think a lot of excitement surrounds the corporate projects feature, although I do use projects in order to distribute money amongst my alts to pay for things like planetary interaction fees. The Freelance Projects feature seems more targeted to the factional warfare militias or NPSI groups like Bombers' Bar. I'm also pretty sure Johnny Splunk could have used Freelance Projects to pay out players not in Signal Cartel for mapping wormholes leading into Thera.

If I want excitement, I'll follow Yoshi-P's producer live letters for FFXIV. Even for the ones not translated on the stream, following the unofficial translations is a lot more exciting than what I watched. Which is a pity since I would like to at least get a little hyped up for the next expansion.

Copilot Versus Final Fantasy XIV

I keep reading and hearing how artificial intelligence programs like Chatbot and Copilot will take over the world. All the smart people say so. But I don't think technology has reached that point yet. I came up with a hairbrained idea yesterday while levelling up my Dragoon job in Final Fantasy XIV. Instead of using the wiki I normally use to get the location of mobs, I would use Copilot.

The test involved finding the targets of Veteran Clan Hunts. Veteran Clan Hunts were introduced in Stormblood, so the data has floated around the internet for several years. The hunts fall into 1-, 2-, and 3-star types based on level. Since my Dragoon job is at level 64, I could grab the first two classes. Each bill lists 5 mobs and new bills are available each day. So 10 sets of mobs to kill. A nice round number. Let's see how Copilot performed.

One-star Veteran Clan Marks

The first mob on my hunt list was the Gazelle Hawk. A very plain, uninteresting mob unless one likes graphics. I asked Copilot for the location and I was told the correct zone, The Fringe, but given the wrong coordinates, (x:16.1, y:13.9). Instead of the coordinates for the Gazelle Hawk, I was given the coordinates for the Soldier Gazellehawk. The actual coordinates were (x:10,y:11).

Next up was the Diakka. I just received the zone and area, which would be helpful if the information wasn't given as part of the description of the target. But the area is very large so I pressed Copilot for the coordinates. I received (x:10, y:12). I think Copilot was giving me the coordinates to Kirnis, the boss of the FATE "The Evil Seed", although the coordinates were off for the FATE also. I should add that the wiki page was titled Diakka (Enemy) so perhaps that threw the AI off.

From here I'm going to depart from the actual order I performed the searches. I performed a search for a two-star mark in The Fringe because I was trying to limit my travel. But for one-star marks, my request was for the location of the Crag Claw. Here was Copilot's first success. I did follow Copilot's link and it led to the page for Tail Screw, a level 1 Blue Mage spell. But I did receive the coordinates (25,11) which are the first set of coordinates on the Crag Claw page.

Next up was the Unkiu. Copilot insisted the crabs were in the Dimwold area in The Fringe. I didn't check out whether the mob was located there since the crabs are located in The Ruby Sea at (32.2,16.8). If a miss was really great, I didn't go and double-check by visiting the location. But I didn't remember seeing any crabs when I visited the area looking for Diakka.

The final one-star mark was Gasame.  Copilot told me the correct area (Hells' Lid) and with a prompt gave me the coordinates (31.4,37.1). Close, but not close enough as the actual coordinates are (24.4,33.2). And I can't even blame the AI getting the common mob confused with Hellish Gasame which is found in the instance Hells' Lid.

Two-star Veteran Clan Marks

Okay, so for the first set of marks Copilot gave the correct location 1 out of 5 times. How about the higher level two-star marks? The first mob I asked about, Gazelle, Copilot gave me the first set of coordinates listed on the wiki page, The Fringes Copilot (23.4, 31.1). And in my actual order of queries, I asked about Gazelle right before asking about the Crag Claw. So Copilot was doing better.

The next two mobs lead me to believe Copilot hates Yanixa. The first was Taoquan. The AI told me I would find Taoquan in The Fringe. When I told Copilot Taoquan were not located in The Fringe, the AI apologized and wanted to send me to The Peaks instead. At that point I just followed the wiki's instructions to go to Yanixa (30,34) and moved on.

The next mob I asked about were Minobi. These mobs live in rice paddies in Yanixa (31,20). But Copilot wanted me to search for them on the fiery hot land of Hells' Lid. After the conversation over Taoquan, I just went to the rice paddies without arguing.

Next I asked about Matanga. Copilot would have sent me to Thavnair, which would have been okay except I needed to advance another 20 levels to get to the Endwalker zone. As far as I could tell, Copilot became confused between Endwalker's Arkasodara, who are also Matanga, and the Stormblood NPCs. So I gave Copilot some prompts and I did receive coordinates of (26.1,11.2) in The Azim Steppe. A very nice view, but unfortunately that location was on the other side of the map from the actual location of (9,21).

Finally I concluded with Halgai. Another mob found in The Azim Steppe, I received coordinates not found on the wiki (17.5,15.2) but found my targets anyway. So for the first time Copilot provided me a valid location not found on the wiki. Another success.

Overall results

Honestly I'm not very impressed. Three out of ten is usually a failing grade. Sure, finding the locations of 10 mobs is a small sample size, but do I really want to take the chance Copilot will be more accurate in newer content? As always when AI is involved, verify everything. But when the subject is finding locations in Final Fantasy XIV, I'll stick with a wiki.

The Consumer Financial Protection Board: A New Player In The Game

Back in 2016 and 2017, the government regulation I wrote about was quite limited. The subject primarily confined itself to the gambling industry and the regulators were organizations like the UK Gambling Commission and the Washington State Gambling Commission. The arguments for and against practices like selling lootboxes were designed to fit into the scope of the regulators powers.

But times change. Whereas at the start of the first Trump administration issues involving gaming wasn't a federal issue, by the start of Trump's second administration the concerns are possibly greater in North America than in Europe. Sometime during the four years of the Biden administration, the concept of regulating video games acquired a more mainstream reasoning beyond protecting kids from gambling.

In today's post I'd like to briefly examine the conclusion to the Consumer Financial Protection Board's April 2024 report titled "Banking in video games and virtual worlds". The conclusion begins:

For several years, the most popular video games have included immersive virtual worlds that offer the storage and exchange of valuable assets. Gaming companies have created digital marketplaces that facilitate the buying, selling, and trading of these assets with limited consumer protections, which has led to potentially harmful practices for players including financial losses due to theft and scams.

I'll have to write another post about how the concept of "money's worth" has expanded in the United States, reflecting a more modern understanding of online video games. The report even provided what may become my favorite graphic on how money is extracted from online video games and thus provides more than sentimental value to assets acquired in games.

In my reading of the report, the phrase "limited consumer protections" refers to the signing of terms of service or EULAs which limit the rights of players to enforcement actions of game publishers for rules violations.

The idea of non-traditional is rather intriguing.

Consumer protection laws apply to banking and payment systems that facilitate the storage and exchange of valuable assets. The CFPB is monitoring non-traditional markets where consumer financial products and services may be offered, including where such products and services are provided by or in connection with proprietary gaming platforms

I'm a bit of a skeptic, but when we look at proprietary gaming platforms, a whole lot of money is involved. Those platforms range from sellers like Steam to consoles like Xbox and Playstation to games like Runescape and World of Warcraft. Although they way things are going, the CFPB may have to take Runescape off its list in the future. And I'll need to write another post to explain that line of reasoning.

Finally, we get to the portion of the report into which the recent case of U.S. v Cognosphere applies.

Additionally, the vast accumulation of data collected from consumers by gaming companies raises questions as to whether privacy rules are being adhered to and whether consumers, especially young ones and their parents, are fully aware of how their data is being collected and used across the industry. The CFPB will continue to work with other agencies to monitor companies that assemble and sell sensitive consumer data, such as a consumer's payment history, especially when this data is harvested and monetized without the user’s awareness.

The report came out in April 2024 and the FTC complaint in the case was settled in January 2025. Now, politics could get in the way of further action. Republicans are not overly fond of the CFPB and Donald Trump began his second presidential administration on Monday. Will the CFPB continue on the course we've seen over the last year, or will a Trump appointed director change the direction away from looking further into online video games?

U.S. Regulators And Crypto-Games In 2025

Around the time CCP Games began selling Alpha access to EVE Frontier, a question popped into my head. Will U.S. government regulations prevent blockchain games from even operating in the United States, whether from making the games unprofitable though onerous regulations or Congress just passing an outright ban? The question went from crazy to possible once Cognosphere settled with the FTC's lawsuit over practices in Genshin Impact.

Things move slowly in the United States' political system. For example, I first wrote about skins gambling in CounterStrike: Global Operations 8 1/2 years ago. The Washington State Gambling Commission even filed a lawsuit in February 2016 against Valve for aiding in the practice. But a state gambling commission isn't a federal government agency like the Federal Trade Commission or the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

An article on MassivelyOP led me on a trip down the rabbit hole to a CFPB report titled "Banking in video games and virtual worlds" published in April 2024. Here I found a reference to that old issue of skins gambling.

Although, the Steam Community Market does not directly facilitate a cash-out process to withdraw Steam wallet funds for fiat currency, there is an entire ecosystem of third-party markets that are enabled by Steam’s application programming interface (API). These sites facilitate player-to-player trading and converting skins to crypto-assets or fiat currency, leading to even higher exchange values for some individual skins on these third-party markets, as well as the Steam Community Market. For example, the largest sale of a Counter-Strike skin occurred in 2023 on a third-party website for over $500,000.

Third-party websites also facilitate a growing skin gambling industry that supports wagering skins, similar to casino chips, in virtual games such as blackjack, roulette, or craps. For example, a player’s account balance can be made up of skins, conventional currency, and other forms of virtual currency that are then converted to that site’s form of credit. Skins are then won or lost depending on the outcomes of the games. Third-party websites also facilitate skin betting on events like competitive gaming contests, also known as esports, and games between professional sports teams. Winnings can be converted to fiat currency or other forms of virtual currency and withdrawn for a fee directly to the player’s digital wallet.

Yes, after 8 years the issue is on the radar of federal regulators. Also on the minds of regulators, or at least those that issued the report? "Crypto-asset related metaverses."

Is crypto always on their minds?

The attention doesn't just come from in the form of diagrams. Does the following passage sound like EVE Frontier falls within the description?

Though their usage remains sparse, a number of virtual worlds and games exist that utilize crypto-assets—such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs)—as virtual items, or crypto-assets as game currency. The relationship between these virtual worlds and their official crypto-assets is similar to video games and their in-game currencies. Players purchase the virtual world’s native asset and use it to buy goods and services within that virtual world’s economy.

While these crypto-asset virtual worlds are significantly less popular than virtual gaming worlds like Roblox, Second Life, or Fortnite, they are important to note because of the prevalence of third-party crypto-asset trading platforms, users can convert a virtual world’s native crypto-asset to fiat currency, making them even more porous than typical gaming markets. Notably, some of the largest virtual gaming world publishers have expressed growing interest in positioning their virtual items as crypto-assets that have the ability to be traded outside of the game’s economy.

Also, the report uses Axie Infinity as an example of a crypto-game. I don't find the passage very flattering.

In the game Axie Infinity, players interact virtually through digital pets called “Axies,” each of which is a non-fungible token (NFT) stored on the Ronin network. Users earn the crypto-asset Smooth Love Potion (SLP) by playing the game. Players can also “breed” new Axies by spending SLP and another crypto-asset token, Axie Infinity Shards (AXS). Users can trade SLP and AXS for fiat currency or other crypto-assets on third party crypto-asset trading platforms. At the height of its success, Axie Infinity had over 2.7 million daily active users but as the number of users grew, the NFTs required to play became very expensive, leading to hierarchies of users: investors, managers, and workers. While the crypto-asset industry and its investors lauded the game as a viable way to earn income, reports documented the ways the gaming system exploited workers. The ecosystem largely fell apart in 2022 following a breach of the game by a state-sponsored hacking group. [emphasis mine]

The paragraph reads like areas in which the author sees the need for government regulation from an agency like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Today's post is just a taste of what I've seen in the CFPB's April report. I didn't get too excited about the issues back in 2016 and 2017 because I knew the government works extremely slowly. Also, blockchain games are tiny compared to big players in the video games industry like Microsoft and Sony. Between the report and the settlement between Cognosphere and the FTC (technically the DoJ), we are now seeing more active government intervention in the video game industry. I don't know what form the attention will take but I may have to return to following the activities of regulatory bodies again, this time the ones in North America.

The FTC's $20 Million Dollar Fine On Genshin Impact

Lootboxes. Apparently everyone hates lootboxes except those who spend hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars on the damn things. Sometimes attitudes change based upon the age of the people doing the purchasing. What is fine for adults becomes a horrible crime worthy of a government issuing many millions of dollars in fines against a game publisher. Such was the case for perhaps the final Federal Trade Commission action under the Biden Administration.

On Friday the FTC issued a press release about a settlement between the regulatory agency and the Singapore-based Cognosphere PTE Ltd and its U.S. subsidiary. 

The maker of the video game Genshin Impact has agreed to pay $20 million and to block children under 16 from making in-game purchases without parental consent to settle Federal Trade Commission allegations the company violated a children’s privacy law and deceived children and other users about the real costs of in-game transactions and odds of obtaining rare prizes.

“Genshin Impact deceived children, teens, and other players into spending hundreds of dollars on prizes they stood little chance of winning,” said Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “Companies that deploy these dark-pattern tactics will be held accountable if they deceive players, particularly kids and teens, about the true costs of in-game transactions.”

A complaint, filed by the Department of Justice upon referral from the Commission, alleged that Singapore-based Cognosphere Pte. Ltd and its California-based subsidiary Cognosphere LLC, which do business in the United States as HoYoverse, actively marketed Genshin Impact to children and collected personal information from them in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA). The complaint further charged that HoYoverse deceived players about the odds of winning particular sought-after “five-star” loot box prizes and how much it would cost to open loot boxes to win the prizes. It also alleged that the confusing virtual currency system that players had to navigate to open loot boxes and the marketing and promotion tactics used to entice players to open loot boxes were unfair to children and teenagers.

Popular among children and teens, Genshin Impact is free to download but has generated significant revenue through the sale of in-game virtual currency and other content. Players advance in the game by collecting virtual heroes, forming a team and using heroes’ abilities to complete tasks. Five-star heroes are the most desirable to collect given their powers, and they can only be obtained by opening loot boxes, which players can purchase using virtual currency.

I'm going to go down the rabbit hole a little deeper. Many times over the years stories have told of game publishers not publishing accurate odds of obtaining items from lootboxes. The case, U.S. v Cognosphere, spelled out what occurred in Genshin Impact. Considering the below is the argument for count 3 in the case, I thought I'd provide the details.

73. In many instances, HoYoverse has represented that consumers who open loot boxes corresponding with Event Banner promotions will receive increased odds of obtaining the 5-star hero featured on the Event Banner.  For example, social media ads like Figure 10 have touted a “huge drop-rate boost,” and HoYoverse has instructed influencer-promoters to highlight “boosted rate[s],” or odds, if players open loot boxes during the Event Banner promotion. 

74. In reality, the purported “boost” in odds refers to the featured prize being available to obtain at all during the promotional period, while the underlying odds of obtaining the featured prize remains the same. 

75. Within the Genshin Impact game itself, HoYoverse makes further misstatements concerning purportedly increased odds of obtaining featured 5-star heroes. 

76. The Genshin Impact game represents that consumers can view complete information about the game’s loot box odds by engaging with a “Details” menu navigation button below the Event Banner (like the second button from the left in Figure 9), and navigating through several sub-menus. 

77. The consumer is presented with a “Promotional Items” subsection, which depicts the featured 5-star hero with the phrase “Increased Drop Rates!” and a statement that this hero’s “Percentage of 5-Star Item Drops” is “50%”, without adequate additional context. A second “Details” sub-menu within this interface states that the “[b]ase probability of winning 5-star character = 0.600%; consolidated probability (incl. guarantee) = 1.600%; guaranteed to win 5-star character at least once per 90 attempts,” and indicates that the featured hero has a “huge drop-rate boost.” A third “List of Items” sub-menu similarly states that the odds of obtaining the featured hero are “UP!,” but does not disclose actual or relative rates at which HoYoverse awards loot box prizes.

78. In reality, HoYoverse offers consumers only a 0.3% (three in one thousand) chance of obtaining the specific featured hero when they open loot boxes.  To put these low odds into perspective, this means that, even if a consumer opens 50 loot boxes in a row, the consumer has odds of less than 15% to obtain the 5-star prize featured on the banner. 

79. Consumers are also misled by HoYoverse’s “guarantee[] to win 5-star character at least once per 90 attempts” because they are led to believe that it applies to the 5-star character prominently featured in the Event Banner. As shown in Figures 9 and 10 above, a picture and name of a character is featured next to language touting the opportunity to open loot boxes for the chance to win an “event-exclusive 5-star character.” In reality, if a player opens 90 loot boxes, HoYoverse frequently does not provide the player with the featured five-star character: half of the time, HoYoverse will instead award the player an unrelated, and typically less desirable, 5-star prize not featured on the Event Banner.  If this happens, the player must then open as many as 90 additional loot boxes, at which point HoYoverse is finally certain to award the prize featured on the Event Banner. 

80. In other words, a consumer may need to open as many as 180 loot boxes, at a cost of $2–3 per loot box (or as much as $360–540 in total), simply to get the prize that HoYoverse features on the Event Banner. 

81. Taken as a whole, HoYoverse’s representations and misleading disclosures serve to convey the message that consumers who purchase loot boxes are more likely to obtain rare prizes than they are in reality.

Well, in this post, figures 9 & 10 are below.

I should note that the deal has not been approved by a judge, although in most cases approval is pretty much a formality if both sides agree to the terms. But in addition to paying $20 million to the federal government, HoYoverse will be:

• Prohibited from allowing children under 16 to purchase loot boxes in their video games without a parent’s affirmative express consent
  
  
• Prohibited from selling loot boxes using virtual currency without providing an option for consumers to purchase them directly with real money
  
  
• Prohibited from misrepresenting loot box odds, prices and features
  
  
• Required to disclose loot box odds and exchange rates for multi-tiered virtual currency
  
  
• Required to delete any personal information previously collected from children under 13 unless they obtain parental consent to retain such data
  
  
• Required to comply with COPPA including its notice and consent requirements.

Now, since today is the day Trump was inaugurated, we need to look at the voting amongst the FTC commissioners on the referrals of the counts to the Department of Justice in the case. Here are the five counts:

• Count I: COPPA Rule
• Count II: Misrepresentations of Lootbox Odds
• Count III: Misrepresentations of Cost of Loot Box Prizes
• Count IV: Unfair Selling and Offering a Multi-Tier Virtual Currency System to Children and Teenagers
• Count V: Unfair Promotion and Sale of Loot Boxes to Children and Teenagers

On the first two counts, the commissioners voted 5-0 to approve referring the counts to the DoJ. But the other three counts were approved on a 3-2 party line vote, with former solicitor general of Virginia Andrew Ferguson and former solicitor general of Utah Melissa Holyoak opposed. I'll just provide a link to Ferguson's statement on the case for his reasoning. I also want to post his dissent to count 5.

Finally, Count V accuses Cognosphere of further unfairness for marketing a loot box system to children and teenagers. I cannot tell whether the Commission here rests its theory on the overly enticing nature of loot boxes as a marketing scheme for children and teenagers, or merely the further unfairness of targeting children and teenagers with the sort of deception alleged in Counts II and III. Either way, I dissent. If this count simply mirrors the allegations of deceptive conduct in Counts II and III, then it adds nothing. And none of our precedents hold that marketing violates the FTC Act when it is too enticing. As I said in November, I will not support novel theories of liability advanced in the final hours of the Biden-Harris Administration. That principle applies to Count V. 

None of this should be taken to mean I favor the loot-box scheme. I do not. But the FTC Act does not authorize us to prohibit unsavory or unseemly business practices. It forbids only unfair or deceptive acts and practices. I do not foreclose the possibility that targeting certain kinds of addictive activities to children and teenagers—such as virtual slot machines in the form of loot boxes—could violate Section 5’s prohibition of unfair acts and practices. But demonstrating such a violation would require us to assemble strong evidence of substantial injury, unavoidability, and the absence of countervailing benefits to consumers or competition. We have not done that here. I therefore dissent from Count V both because the Biden-Harris FTC should not be advancing wholly novel theories as the sun sets on this Administration, and because we do not have the evidence required to demonstrate that marketing loot boxes to children and teenagers categorically violates Section 5. 

That's the rub. How much of this stuff is political and might turn on who's president? How much is getting floated out by an outgoing administration looking to burnish its legacy and/or influence policy even when out of office? 

And how much will occur because of factors outside of video gaming, like the worsening relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China? I didn't go into the fact that while Cognosphere is the publisher for Genshin Impact, the developer is Shanghai-based miHoYo, of which Tencent owns 25.8%. Tencent was recently placed on the Defense Department's list of Chinese military companies.

EDIT: But perhaps most important question is: how will this all affect Honkai: Star Rail? If I read the order correctly, the settlement affects all games that Cognosphere publishes, not just Genshin Impact. Here is the definition of "Covered Product or Service" from the proposed settlement.

“Covered Product or Service” means Genshin Impact or any video game or video game service, such as HoYoLAB, controlled, distributed, or operated, directly or indirectly, by Defendants, marketed, promoted, sold, or otherwise distributed or made available in the United States.  For purposes of this Order, to the extent that, after entry of this Order, Defendants obtains direct or indirect control over a video game or video game service, such video game or video game service becomes a Covered Product or Service ninety (90) days after the date on which Defendants obtained such control.

So the order would also cover Honkai: Star Rail. But I'm just an internet space lawyer. We'll have to see what, if anything, changes.

EVE Online: Revenant's Unannounced Pochven Patch Notes

Yesterday CCP pushed a patch aimed squarely at Pochven to Tranquility. Believe it or not, the region was introduced over 4 years ago in October 2020. Frankly, I know absolutely nothing about the gameplay in Pochven except it has its own special mechanics. I took a look at what the EVE Online sub-Reddit had to say and, as always, I found negativity, which claims the changes will just favor multi-boxers. Knowing that the sub-Reddit is an extremely unreliable source of misinformation, I searched YouTube for opinions. Sure enough, I found someone who lives in Pochven stating how multi-boxers will hate the changes.

So who should I believe? Let's take a quick look.

The first changes involve Observatory Flashpoints. According to the EVE University wiki:

The Observatory Flashpoint is a combat anomaly that can be found in Pochven, intended to be run with a fleet of up to 15 ships. It is functionally unchanged from the Observatory Flashpoints found during Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 of the Triglavian Invasion. Whenever a site is completed, a new site will spawn immediately in another part of Pochven, with a hard limit of three sites in the region at a time.

And the rewards are interesting, with a downscaling function similar to those in incursions.

The site pays a considerable sum of ISK that varies with fleet size, ranging from around 520 million ISK per pilot for a fleet of 5, to around 230 million ISK per pilot for a fleet of 15. Including more than 15 pilots in the payout will greatly reduce total site rewards. In order to be included in the payout, pilots must be in the site, not cloaked, and either apply damage to the Observatory structure or apply remote repairs to another ship which has damaged the structure.

The loot cache can contain skillbooks for Precursor Dreadnought or Capital Precursor Weapon. It can also contain a Zirnitra BPC, Supratidal Entropic Disintegrator BPC, XL Exotic Plasma Charge BPC, or capital component BPC.

So, in theory, a small gang running an Observatory Flashpoint is easy meat if a gang of 30 or so ships sweeps through a system. This is where the patch notes come in.

Observatory Flashpoints:

The following changes aim to counteract the efficiency of over-filling a site by adding a net loss when more than 15 characters are present. The payouts for the site have been adjusted to offset the additional setup time and risk.

• Assault Vector gates now require the use of Observatory Resonance Keys:
  
  
• Each character will need their own key to unlock the gate.
• A key is consumed on use.
• Keys can be bought via NPC sell orders within Pochven stations for 30m ISK each.
• 15x Keys will drop as loot from CONCORD Stellar Observatories.
• Note: Spare keys cannot be sold to NPCs, but can be sold or traded to other characters.
• Gates will become unlocked for all characters 60 seconds after a site is complete.
  
  
• Payouts have been adjusted:
  
  
• The total optimal payout of the site has been increased to 3.3b ISK (from 3b ISK).
• Stellar Surveillance Data will now make up 30% of the optimal reward (from 40%).
• Stellar Surveillance Data now belongs to the new EDENCOM data item group.
• Greatly increased the number of NPC buy orders for Stellar Surveillance Data.
  
  
• Threshold Werposts will now have a significantly longer cooldown between target switches.
• Threshold Werposts will now always attack the same target as each other.

Next come changes to standings requirements. Probably the biggest reason I don't play in Pochven is the standings requirements. They've changed, but not enough for me. Those who actually play in the Triglavian region may have different results.

Standings:

To help make Pochven more accessible, the minimum standings requirements for certain actions have been reduced.

• Fitting and Repair requirements have been reduced to -0.05 (from 1.00 and 2.00, respectively).
• Manufacturing and Corporation Office requirements have been reduced to 3.00 (from 4.00).
• Home system stargate requirements have been reduced to 6.00 (from 7.00).
• Standings will no longer be gained or lost when destroying either type of EDENCOM GunStar.
• Standings will no longer be gained or lost when destroying a Stellar Observation Post site’s Stellar Observatory structure.

The Dazh Liminality Locus is a structure located inside Stellar Fleet Deployment Sites. Apparently CCP made a change that broke some things and needed to correct the site.

System-Wide Effects:

Last month's change to the Dazh Liminality Locus negatively impacted some playstyles in unintended ways, and as such has been softened significantly. The change also incentivized removing system effects which help make Pochven feel unique, so these have now been split off from the structure.

• The Dazh Liminality Locus structure has been reworked:
  
  
• Increased the decloaking pulse cooldown timer to 60 minutes (from 6 minutes).
• Increased the decloaking pulse chance to 60% (from 30%).
• Removed the system-wide buffs and penalties.
  
  
• Added the removed buffs and penalties as permanent system-wide effects within Pochven:
  
  
• Increased the remote repair bonuses to 30% (from 25%).
  
  
• Added a lesser version of the Pochven system-wide effects to Triglavian Minor Victory systems:
  
  
• Reduced the remote repair bonuses to 15%.
• Removed the warp speed penalty.

Looking at the PvE section, I wish I could say I was amazed at all the PvPers interested in doing PvE. But I think we all know that's not what is going on. If CCP makes a change that makes ganking PvE players harder, complaints will result. Which makes determining if a change truly is bad or not.

PVE:

All Acceleration Gates which consume a key per character activating it have been improved:

• When a key is consumed, the gate will remain unlocked for that character for the duration of the site.
  
  
• Note: This persists when a character leaves the location or logs out, but resets after a downtime.
  
  
• No keys will be consumed when activating a gate already unlocked for that character.

Finally comes a couple of changes concerning those who like to bring out capital ships to run PvE content.

Wormhole Capital Escalations:

The following changes hope to refine last November's changes to capital escalation rules.

• A combat site can now escalate at any time before the second wave spawns.
• A combat site will only de-escalate if there is no capital within range after the second wave spawns.

In summary, a combat site will escalate if a capital ship enters within a 100km range of the warp-in point before the second wave spawns. After that spawn, the site will deescalate if no capital is within range. The Drifter Response Battleship will spawn if the site is escalated when the Decloaked Transmission Relay is attacked. Otherwise, the Drifter Recon Battleship will spawn. A beacon appears while the site is escalated to help players keep track of that state.

And a final note. Once again I was blindsided a bit. I didn't look for patch notes yesterday until I went to log in and saw them on the launcher. I guess a win for the launcher team?

Dawntrail Diary: Role Quests

I realize a lot of people are complaining about a lack of things to do in Dawntrail. But I'm taking my now traditional first post-patch break from crafting and gathering to catch up on old content. During Endwalker's patch 6.1 I bought and decorated a cottage. Now during Dawntrail's patch 7.1 I'm catching up on role quests.

Role quests first came out in Shadowbringers as a substitute to the individual job quests we've had from A Realm Reborn through Stormblood. Role quests encourage completionists to level 5 jobs to the level cap as completing all the role quests for an expansion unlocks a special unifying questline. The mechanics are very similar to the alliance tribal quests made available in the last patch of an expansion.

The role quests, as the name implies, focus on roles. I only have four roles (if you count summoner and scholar as different roles) at the level cap of 100 and two additional roles at level 55 or above. The breakdown as of yesterday was:

• Tank: Warrior (level 98)
• Healer: White Mage, Scholar (both level 100)
• Melee DPS: Dragoon (level 57)
• Physical Ranged DPS: Dancer (level 100)
• Magical Ranged DPS: Summoner (level 100)

The people complaining about the lack of content probably look at the list and think I only started playing with Dawntrail. Actually I started on the 50th anniversary of the first manned moon landing, which was July 20, 2019. I just get caught up doing things, like crafting, gathering, and decorating my apartment and cottage. I didn't catch up to current content until patch 5.4, which was around a year-and-a-half. I've passed up doing a lot of content trying to get to the end of the main story questline.

That out of the way, I'm learning completing all the role quests does unlock some things, although I've only unlocked the Shadowbringers content. Completing the final role master quest opened up the Void Quests. Well, it would if I had kept up to date. Here are the things I still need to do in order to start the first Void Quest:

Complete the quests The Diabolical Bismarck and Thok Around the Clock. The quests require clearing both Trial The Limitless Blue (Extreme) and Trial Thok ast Thok (Extreme). The wiki assures me I can complete the quests solo at level 80. I'm waiting until I complete the role quests for all expansions so I should have no problems running them with a well-geared level 100 warrior.

Complete the Warring Triad questline. The wiki indicates I don't have to complete the Warring Triad extreme trials in order to complete the three quests. I do wonder how a level 100 warrior would do with the trials.

I don't know what follows the Endwalker and Dawntrail role quests since I need to level a physical dps job up to the level cap in order to complete both sets. But the Shadowbringers one was done well enough I'm willing to level a physical dps class up to level cap. I know I could have started off with Endwalker's Reaper job but I figured I already had a level 53 dragoon so why not finish the job?

And really, once I get to Stormblood content at level 60, levelling isn't too bad. The alliance society quests (formerly tribal quests) offer decent xp (and great xp in Dawntrail), and doing the quests in Stormblood, Shadowbringers, and Endwalker produce 135 tomestones a day. Just by levelling my characters I'll get additional Manderville weapons. I should have my second Manderville weapon by the end of the weekend.

So that's what I'm currently working on in Final Fantasy XIV. Like I stated at the top, I'd like to have the content completed before the launch of patch 7.2 so I can go back to crafting and gathering full bore again feeling refreshed. After all, sometimes I need to take a break and do something different. Apparently I play slowly enough I can take that break inside the game.

Cloud Imperium's Leadership Musical Chairs: The BoredGamer Leak

Yesterday one of Star Citizen's major news You Tube channels, BoredGamer, released a video with a leak about the restructuring going on over at Cloud Imperium Games. BoredGamer is I think the longest running Star Citizen news channel going back over a decade. He's very bullish on both Star Citizen and Cloud Imperium without straying into white knight territory. In other words, not someone who's going to just throw something negative up for the clicks.

When a guy has a decade's experience and doesn't have a motivation to spread false rumors, I give him a lot more credibility than some rando from the Star Citizen Refunds sub-reddit. I also find the idea of someone inside Cloud Imperium reaching out to BoredGamer a lot more credible than some anonymous source talking to a writer from Insider Gaming as well. Below is the letter shared in the video, which according to the long-time YouTuber was edited to sanitize the content to protect the source's identity.

Good evening,

I've been watching a lot of your videos over the years, and I have always found it fun to hear your speculation regarding the goings-on at CIG. I have consistently compared your speculation with what has actually been going on at the company. I previously worked at Blizzard and I knew a lot of people who moved to that company. People like Tyler Witkin and EKD. So a few things in regard to your recent videos where you mention upper management speculation:

• EKD (Chief People Officer) has not been working with the company since Q4 of last year.
• His direct report (former VP of HR US) was similarly let go shortly after (Q4 also)
  
  
• Carl Jones (formerly the COO, then CSO) may have not left of his own accord, he may have been pushed out by others in his peer group.
  
  
• John [Erskine] has assumed the role of Chief Operations Officer
  
  
• The chief marketing officer, Elliot, is another C-level who has been informed of their termination and is on their way out the door.

The reason that all of these people "appear" to have left on their own accord is because they all signed agreements that were essentially gag orders by the company, where if they speak ill, they lose their departing compensation package.

How much is true? Hard to say, but I did compare the letter to the information I dug up for my previous post on the subject. Let's take the points one by one.

Eric Kieron Davis - EKD is a reference to Eric Kieron Davis, the Chief People Officer. According to Davis' LinkedIn page, the position oversees all people functions and studio operations. Davis joined CIG in April 2015 after working for Blizzard Entertainment for 8 years. According to the information provided to BoredGamer,  Francesca McKibben, the former vice-president of human resources in the U.S., was let go shortly after Davis departed.

The information from BoredGamer's source, if true, narrows down Davis' departure from the company to October 2024. According to McKibben's LinkedIn page, she left CIG in October 2024 and began working as the Senior People & Culture Business Partner for LinkTree in November. Given the speed with which she obtained a new job, I'd assumed she left CIG voluntarily because she'd found a better position.

I have another data point to consider. Looking on CIG's corporate website, the company is not hiring for any positions in either its Austin or Los Angeles locations at this time. If CIG does not have plans to replace Davis and McKibben, I think that strengthens speculation the North American headquarters is moving to Montreal.

Carl Jones - CIG's Chief Strategy Officer announced his departure on LinkedIn on 7 January. The letter speculates he was possibly pushed out. To me, that sounds like office rumors. 

On the other hand, when I watched the Star Citizen 1.0 presentation at CitizenCon in October, I felt like the vision of the Turbulent crew had taken over. Gone were the days of vague gameplay goals to attract players to spend money. In were promises of the type of gameplay Star Citizen would hold when the game reached a commercial release and not the semi-live service experience players currently log into. So Jones leaving due to philosophical differences is not something I would have to stretch too far to believe.

John Erskine - Erskine becoming the Chief Operations Officer is an established fact. But I didn't mention the fact in my first post about the leadership musical chairs because I only went back to the beginning of the fourth quarter of 2024.

"Now hold on," I can hear someone say. "At the beginning of October Erskine was listed as the Chief Publishing Officer on the About page." Very true. But as we are finding out, CIG's corporate About page isn't always kept up to date. Erskine's LinkedIn page indicates he became the COO in September. 

Does that mean anything? I think so, but I'll wait until the conclusion of the post to say what.

Elliott Chin - The full name of the Chief Marketing Officer is Elliott Chin. According to his LinkedIn page, he is still employed at CIG's Los Angeles office. If the headquarters is moving to Montreal and Chin does not want to relocate, that could explain why he is still around. Also, Chin's status as a lame duck, if true, helps explain the office rumors reported in the Insider Gaming article that Sandi Gardiner, the former head of marketing Chin replaced, is coming back to the role.

Now, for the significance of the information coming from BoredGamer's source. According to the Insider Gaming article, Chris Roberts sent out an internal memo on 19 December that the changes started to be implemented in early December. But according to both to the source and my own research, the changes actually began in October. Or perhaps the Insider Gaming article was only referring to Jones, Davis, and Chin as the "at least three executives with a combined experience of around 25 years" affected. The three's combined experience at CIG is 25 years and 10 months.

Quite frankly, I'm not sure exactly how negative the game of leadership musical chairs going on at Cloud Imperium really is. I think change was inevitable once CIG acquired the rest of Turbulent back in July 2023. Looking at all the information available, the possibility exists we had an old guard verses Turbulent battle occur and the newcomers from Canada won. Whether players like the new vison represented by Star Citizen 1.0 really will determine how these moves are judged.

Oh, and if the moves result is significant workforce reductions later in the year. That's important too.

CIoud Imperium Late Again Submitting Its Accounts To UK Companies House

What is going on at Cloud Imperium Games? Specifically, at Cloud Imperium UK LTD. On 7 January the company filed paperwork indicating Dr. Martin Franz, Cloud Imperium's General Consul, was no longer acting as the company's corporate secretary. Then on Friday, 10 January, I noticed UK Companies House had tagged Cloud Imperium UK LTD as not having submitted its financial accounts for 2023.

As seen at 1400 UTC on 13 Jan 2025

To review recent history the 2023 accounts are the third consecutive set of accounts to be turned in late to UK Companies house. The 2021 accounts were stamped as arriving on 3 January 2023, the first workday of the year. I didn't say anything at the time because Cloud Imperium UK could have submitted the paperwork on time and the government just didn't process the accounts in a timely manner.

The 2022 accounts, on the other hand, caused some concern. I first reported on the late filing in January 2024 with the idea that the late appointment of Dr. Franz in December 2023 might have delayed the filing. Turns out the filing, delayed until 3 March, was probably delayed due to discrepancies found by Cloud Imperium's new auditing firm. One of the discrepancies is a contingent liability Cloud Imperium did not have the funds to cover. And, given the company's known financial performance in 2024, presumably still doesn't.

Which is why the resignation of Dr. Franz last week raised red flags. Sure, Cloud Imperium losing its general consul at this time with all the other senior people leaving would cause some concerns. But the corporate secretary walking away with the filing of all the accounts currently two weeks late? I wonder if Dr. Franz didn't want to go through whatever happened with the 2022 accounts.

One other condition is different now than back in 2024. CIG published its 2022 financials on 2 January 2024. Sure, the paperwork was late to the government, but the company was still open about its finances, right? But this year, I highly doubt the company will publish a 2023 financial report until the auditors from PwC (assuming CIG uses the same firm from last year) finish their review. But the company will probably publish its 2023 financials before submitting the accounts to Companies House. So the quicker we see the financial information on the CIG corporate website, the better the situation probably is.

Look, I get it. Cloud Imperium Games is special. Through the end of 2024, the company had brought in over a confirmed $931 million through its founding in April 2012 when outside investments are included. The gameplay itself will revolutionize the industry. Chris Roberts is a genius. But CIG still needs to file their financial paperwork on time.

A Look At The Active ISK Delta In December 2024

With a new year comes a look back at the past one. With the first full month after the Revenant expansion's launch in the books, the time has come to not only look at the Active ISK Delta in December, but for the entire year of 2024 as well.

From the December 2024 Monthly Economic Report

The Active ISK Delta is the net effect on the New Eden monetary supply of players leaving and returning to the game. The Active ISK Delta also includes any reductions due to any and all GM actions. In December, 64.3 trillion ISK left the economy from the movement of players into and out of the game. The change made the Active ISK Delta the biggest ISK sink in the New Eden economy for the second month in a row, dwarfing the 25.9 trillion ISK removed from the economy through transaction taxes.

Data from the last 24 MERs

Now, 64.3 trillion ISK seems like a rather large about of ISK. But the amount only represented a decrease of 2.6% of the total amount of money in the economy at the beginning of the month. Even with that amount leaving with departing players, the money supply still managed to grow 10.4 trillion ISK. I think for those worried about inflation, and the dev team's possible reaction to high inflation, the money supply growing only 0.4% is good news.

Data from 8 years of MERs

Normally I perform a year-over-year comparison. The December 2024 Active ISK Delta showed a 6.5% decline in ISK leaving the game compared to December 2023. But perhaps more importantly a new trend was established for the month of December. Looking back at the first 3 years of the Alpha/Omega era, the Active ISK Delta was positive, indicating players returning to the game. The pattern broke in 2020. No, I am not going to blame the debut of the Winter Nexus event that year. But for the three Decembers of the Second Expansion Era which began with the Uprising expansion, the Active ISK Delta was within plus or minus 5% of 66 trillion ISK. I will point to the reintroduction of yearly expansions in November as a major influence on that statistic, however.

Data going back 7 years

Looking at the entire quarter I think may show the popularity of the Havoc expansion of 2023 versus 2024's Revenant expansion. Since 2022 the fourth quarter encompasses the run-up to an expansion, the month the expansion launches, and then the first month of play afterwards. In the final quarter of 2023, player movement in and out of the game was a net ISK faucet, with an Active ISK Delta of 32.7 trillion ISK. In 2024, the faucet became a sink with players removing 88.4 trillion ISK from the New Eden economy on their way out the door.

The raw numbers are misleading

Of course we have to look at the full year numbers, and 2024 set a record with 509.3 trillion ISK removed from the economy due to players leaving the game. But I thought the number was very skewed, especially after discovering that the amount of ISK in the New Eden economy grew by 139.6% from the beginning of 2017 to the end of 2024. So I decided to look at the numbers slightly differently.

Percentage of ISK departing game by year

And hey, look at that. When taking into account the growth of the money supply, 2024 doesn't look so bad after all. If fact, the 24.2% of the money supply that left the New Eden economy due to players moving in and out of EVE Online is slightly lower than the yearly average of 24.5% from 2017 to 2021. Perhaps more of interest, the year with two low-sec content heavy expansions only saw 9.1% of the ISK leave with players in 2023.

Lately I find writing these Active ISK Delta posts a little boring and wonder if the effort is worth doing. Then I get to the end of the year and get to pour over the data and produce an article where I learn something from the analysis. But if I am going to continue, I need to start taking inflation more into account, don't I?

Cloud Imperium's Leadership Musical Chairs At The End Of 2024

This is a story that began on 20 December 2024. Insider Gaming, a publication which apparently has sources inside Cloud Imperium Games, came out with a story about a shake-up in corporate leadership. I decided to pass up on the story until more information came out. Well, more information came out as the story interested more inquiring minds (okay, I'm very nosy!) than mine.

Here's the guts of the story according to Insider Gaming.

At the time of writing, Insider Gaming has heard of at least three executives with a combined experience of around 25 years at Cloud Imperium Games who have had their positions terminated. It’s said that announcements of their departures will be announced in due time.

In an internal announcement to employees, Chris Roberts said, To achieve this laser focus [of meeting the release of SQ42 and Star Citizen 1.0], it is more important than ever to ensure we have high-performing and efficient teams working throughout the company. In order to achieve this, I have had to make changes to the structure of our teams from the very top of the company and downwards to ensure we have the right people in the right roles, working in person as much as possible from our most critical year yet.”

When the story came out, a small Star Citizen YouTuber, Camural, noticed that Roger Godfrey, the lead producer of Cloud Imperium's Core Technology Group, issued a post announcing he left the company the day after CIG launched the preview version of Alpha 4.0.

An update on my role at Cloud Imperium Games:https://t.co/Wm734zlKa9

— Roger Godfrey (@roger_godfrey) December 20, 2024

Given that Godfrey does not appear under an NDA to not to talk about his departure from CIG, I don't think the vague references in the Insider Gaming story referred to the long time CIG employee, so I pushed the story to the side until more information became available.

Today another Camural video popped up on my YouTube feed, this time about the departure of CIG's Chief Strategy Officer, Carl Jones. According to LinkedIn, Jones was hired in 2014, before former Crytek developers were scooped up by CIG when Crytek experienced major financial problems in 2016. While Insider Gaming noted he had been removed from the corporate About page sometime around 21 December, Jones didn't announce his departure on LinkedIn until Monday.

Carl Jones departure announcement

At this point I decided to do a little snooping around and found that Dr. Martin Franz had resigned as the corporate secretary for Cloud Imperium Games on 7 January. The move is a bit unexpected as Franz is the General Consul for Cloud Imperium. He took over the job from Ortwin Freyermuth at the beginning of June 2023 and according to his LinkedIn page was CIG's general European consul from 2017 to 2023. Submissions to UK Companies House indicate Franz was appointed the corporate secretary to replace Freyermuth in that role in December 2023.

From UK Companies House

Among the duties of a corporate secretary is ensuring that the company complies with legal requirements by filing annual returns at Companies House. These returns include financial statements, directors’ reports, and auditors’ reports. As of the writing of this post, those returns were still not posted to Companies House for 2023, which throws a wrinkle into the whole matter I was not expecting.

As of the writing of this post, Franz still serves as Cloud Imperium's top legal officer.

Looking back to the beginning of Q4 2024 I saw two other people removed from the corporate About page between 4 October and 4 December, both working out of the Los Angeles office. The first was Francesca McKibben, the vice-president of human resources in the U.S. Her departure seems normal as she left CIG in October to begin working as the Senior People & Culture Business Partner for LinkedTree in November, also in Los Angeles. One remarkable fact is McKibben had worked for over 10 years at CIG, beginning as the human resource manager from April 2014 to November 2015 who established the HR department at CIG.

The second person from the Los Angels office is a little more interesting. Eric Kieron Davis is the Chief People Officer for Cloud Imperium. According to Davis' LinkedIn page, the position oversees all people functions and studio operations. Davis joined CIG in April 2015 after working for Blizzard Entertainment for 8 years. Perhaps more importantly to this story is that while Davis was removed from the About page 1-3 months ago, his LinkedIn page still lists him as working for Cloud Imperium. Sort of like how Carl Jones didn't make any announcement of leaving the company until Monday.

If we discuss all the faces that left (or are possibly leaving) CIG, we do need to cover the one new face on the About page: Claire Buffet. With as much press as Turbulent co-founders Benoit Beausejour and Marc Beaudet have received since CIG acquired the company in 2023, I'm a little surprised Buffet hasn't received a little more attention. A 16-year veteran of Turbulent, she became a partner at the company in January 2013 and the company's vice president of strategy and creation in November 2019. Currently she is Cloud Imperium's vice president in charge of Canadian operations.

At this point a little speculation is in order. If a restructuring is truly underway, I would foresee Claire Buffet moving up from VP of Canadian Operations to VP of North American Operations, with the Montreal, Toronto, and Austin studios falling under her domain. 

What about the Los Angeles facility? I could foresee the facility closing, with Chief Marketing Officer Elliot Chin and Vice President of US Finance Brian Stich moving from Los Angeles to Toronto. Also, Stich would receive the title Vice President of North American Finance. Toronto seems a good compromise location as the two Americans could still live in the U.S. and commute into work from the Detroit suburbs if they wanted.

For now, that's all I have. But when I saw a video about the departure of a member of Cloud Imperium's C-Suite Tuesday morning, I didn't expect to write a thousand word post. Since I seem to know a lot about the subject already I'll keep an eye out for updates.