EVE Vegas Day 1 - CCP Presents

I can happily say the first day of EVE Vegas surprised me, and in a good way. I wasn't sure how much the purchase of CCP Games by Pearl Abyss would affect the Icelandic company. Seven days after the purchase became official, the answer is, not much. At least so far.

In the opening session, "Opening Ceremonies and CCP Presents", CCP CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson laid out the near future of CCP and its line of upcoming games. Hilmar stated that the "partnership" put CCP in "a super strong position" going forward. The punctuation in the previous sentence are not meant as scare quotes, just words we may want to review six months from now. Hilmar also stated that CCP is scrutinizing its development process and won't publish games until they are ready.

As for new games, the next 12 to 18 months should see CCP make the gaming news frequently. The beta for EVE China continues, which CCP expanded on in the EVE keynote. NetEase also is far enough along in the development of its New Eden-based mobile game that it dropped the code name Project Galaxy and announced the final name of EVE: Echoes. As expected, Echoes will not interact with either Tranquility or Serenity but will launch with an Android version. Up until now, we had only heard of an Apple product release. Also, from the presentation, I am not sure if NetEase has dropped the ARG component from the game. All the reporting prior to EVE Vegas suggests the answer is no.

In a bit of news that will probably fly under the radar, CCP has taken control of further development of EVE: War of Ascension from PlayRaven and will finish development of the title in CCP's London studio. Hilmar announced that Phase 1 of the beta is complete and that the game is expected to launch sometime in 2019.

Perhaps the biggest news from CCP Presents was the news that the invite-only alpha for Project Nova will launch in November, with an alpha build available for EVE Vegas attendees to play on Saturday and Sunday. The game has two modes. The first, Onslaught, mimics New Eden as players battle the forces of Sansha's Nation during incursions in an attempt to save the population from a fate worse than death. The other mode, Hijack, involved an attacker trying to install their own pilot in the cockpit of a ship and defenders trying to eliminate the breach. While no launch date was given, I expect a finished product sometime in 2020.

I originally planned to combine both presentations into one blog post, but the EVE Keynote presented by CCP Falcon, CCP Burger, and CCP Rise really needs a dedicated post. But I'll give you a hint of how I felt about the keynote.

It's officially Eve Vegas. #tweetfleet pic.twitter.com/AiM0PZRnwF

— Noizy (@noizygamer) October 20, 2018

EVE Vegas: Winning The Race Against Time

One of the long-running themes around EVE Online is, "EVE is Dying!!!" While the game has declined since its peak in 2013, the game is pretty active for a 14-year-old title. Of all the EVE killers to emerge, though, the biggest recent threat is Star Citizen. If the game had come out in the 2014-2016 timeframe as originally advertised, CCP as a company probably would have felt a lot of financial pain.

But beginning in 2015, CCP implemented financial moves to become a major player in the virtual reality market. In April 2015, CCP bought back $20 million in bonds two years early. That news was followed in November 2015 with the announcement that venture capitalists had invested $30 million USD into CCP for the purposes of developing virtual reality games. A week later, CCP's first VR game, EVE: Gunjack, released on the Gear VR, with releases on the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Playstation VR occurring throughout 2016. EVE: Valkyrie also debuted on the three VR platforms in 2016, with a non-VR version releasing just last month. And at the end of August, Sparc released on the Playstation VR.

With the recent emphasis on the development of VR content, Hilmar's presentation on the first day of EVE Vegas, titled "CCP Presents", provided the surprise of focusing on non-VR games. The two games discussed were Project Nova, the followup to DUST 514, and Project Aurora, which promises to bring the EVE Online universe to mobile devices. Interestingly, CCP is not trying to develop the games alone. To develop the new first-person shooter, CCP is working with UK developer Sumo Digital. Doing some research after the presentation made me a lot less impressed with the developer than Hilmar made them sound from the stage, but I guess that's expected at this point. The developer working on Project Aurora is the Finnish studio Play Raven, who seems a good choice to work with as a mobile game studio. Play Raven co-founder and CEO Lasse Seppänen appeared on-stage, where he was roundly booed when he described Project Aurora as EVE Online with less spreadsheets. Yes, EVE players love their spreadsheets!

Now, despite Chris Roberts and Cloud Imperium Games doing their best Blizzard impersonation and announcing the release of Alpha 3.0 to the Evocati test group Friday morning, I think CCP is in good shape. By the time Star Citizen launches, probably in late 2019 or early 2020, CCP's product line should have diversified enough to withstand a hit caused by the release of a new game. Depending what I hear over the next two days, the promise exists that CCP's product line will prove superior to what CIG eventually produces. Two years ago, I thought Star Citizen could cause CCP problems. Now? Unless CIG has something they haven't shown the world, CCP is in good shape.