Reykjavík Grapevine - 06.08.2008, Qupperneq 21

REYKJAVÍK GRAPEVINE | ISSUE 11—2008 | 21
Freyr, an economics graduate.
Employees within the Reykjavík office come from more
than 20 countries:
“We’re like a small United Nations,” says Massey and
explains that the staff has a really diverse background. There
are fashion designers, game designers, concept artists, art
producers, programmers, archaeologists, animators, techni-
cal artists, product designers, 3d animators... the list goes on:
“There is this misconception when people think of a gaming
company, they think you’ve got programmers and game de-
signers and that’s it. They don’t realise the spectrum of talent
it requires.”
“Right now we need more than 100 people before the
end of this year. About 30 or 40 in Iceland, somewhere be-
tween 50 and 60 in Atlanta, and between 10 and 15 in China,”
Þórðarson adds.
And they’ve got plenty of incentive for their skilled staff
to stay. There are golf tournaments, rafting tours and movie
trips. They have a masseuse and a hair stylist, and recently
opened a nail salon for the staff and its significant others.
All the while, CCP’s on-site chefs make sure there’s enough
food to keep everyone stuffed through-
out the day. To say they take good care of
their employees is to put it lightly. In fact,
if it weren’t for outdoor duties, they would
never have to leave.
“I don’t think many Icelandic compa-
nies invest as much in their 'Fun Divisions'
as CCP. We’re constantly doing something.
We celebrate all our small victories with
parties, and take a trip every 18 months.
The last one we took was to Morocco. I think
this way of treating the staff is catching on
in other companies. It’s not complicated.
If you take good care of your employees
they will produce good products and good
products will almost always make a profit.
The staff is the most valuable resource we
have. Not the building or the computers.”
Not everyone is as happy as the staff,
though, and I learn that the game can
sometimes be too much to handle for some
players. “We get suicide threats. All we can
do then is contact local authorities. Most of
the times it is because someone has got up-
set with the game. About 98% of the times,
the threats are just hoaxes, from people
who’re trying to get a rise out of us. It’s a
huge world so pretty much everything hap-
pens from time to time,” Massey explains.
And the CCP staff has its ways to deal
with the complaints and all the heated dis-
cussions on the EVE forums. “Instead of
bashing the consumers we just bash some
monsters. That makes us feel better”, says
a guy working in customer support department. “Did you
ever play Diablo?”, he asks Massey. “Diablo 3 is coming soon
and I have to be ready,” he adds, controlling his character
into combat. “Sometimes they play our game too!”, Massey
replies.
GAMING IS SERIOUS bUSINESS
What makes EVE so unique and attractive to the players is
that they are all logged on to the same server. Today there are
around 250,000 active subscribers from all the corners of the
world cruising around space in charge of their own destinies,
and that’s leaving out the massive number of Chinese gam-
ers. More than 40,000 players regularly interact within one
persistent universe, completing missions, fighting each oth-
er, communicating, trading and chatting. The record number
of people all logged in at the same time is about 45,000, but
their server could handle much more than that.
“We are the only game that is only run on one server,”
explains Associate Producer Arend Stührmann when I sit
down in his office, decorated with books, game posters and
action figures. He continues: “EVE Online is the only MMO
where your reputation is really the most valuable commod-
ity. People can make a name for themselves in EVE and even
if they stop playing people will still be talking about them.
That is one of the things that make EVE unique. The game
doesn’t restrict you in terms of what you want to achieve.”
Gaming can also be educational. The biggest company
in EVE has 2500 members and it has a guy acting as CEO. He
communicates with all the people, gives orders and makes
strategic plans. “Playing EVE has become a much bigger ex-
perience than plain “gaming”,” Stührmann says and contin-
ues: “When we opened our server in China there was actu-
ally a member from the ministry of education that said: “This
is a great game. We could use this to teach business!” People
in Financial Times and Harvard Business Review are looking
at us, saying that people can learn leadership skills and busi-
ness management, all from playing our game.”
EVE’s most hardcore players spend many hours each
day playing the game, citing the possibility to interact in real
time with players from around the globe and the freedom to
choose their own destiny as the biggest reason for why they
get so hooked. Whether the dream is to be a spaceship pilot,
pirate, corporate leader or a spy, everything is possible in the
virtual world. With a good dose of patience, strategic think-
ing and a lot of free time, anyone can get rich and powerful
on-line.
“What the game also does is that it helps groups of
people who have a hard time socializing in the real world.
One player, Jeremy, was quadriplegic. He had been injured
in a car accident when he was 12 but his father, a master
programmer, made it possible for him to play EVE and sail
his ship around by using only his voice,” explains Massey:
“He passed away a couple of years ago but we made him a
non-player character people can go and find to get missions
and such. That was our way to remember Jeremy. The modi-
fications his father made, he made them available to other
people with physical disabilities as well.”
THE fUTURE IS NOW
The future looks bright for a company Icelanders had a hard
time wrapping their minds around a decade ago. To be able
to survive in an industry growing as extremely fast as the
gaming one it is important that CCP keeps up a constant
lookout for new ways of improving. “We have other games
we are working on, but haven’t announced them yet. And we
have plans for EVE for the next 10 years,
too,” says Massey.
Right now players can only fly in their
spaceship but the next huge extension will
make it possible to leave the ship and walk
around inside the space-stations. A sneak
peak of that new feature will be presented
at the annual FanFest in November. A full
mobile avatar will of course need cool out-
fits, so one of the important current proj-
ects involves fashion design.
Sruli Recht is one of three accredited
fashion designers within the company. He
has worked for CCP since December and
tells me a little bit about his role within the
company: “CCP is in the business of mak-
ing virtual worlds and one of our roles here
as fashion designers is to make a very ac-
cessible and functional set of clothing for
online characters, so as to give it a more
realistic garment based angle. In a sense,
everyday clothing that could be the jeans
and T-shirts of the future.”
He goes on to explain that CCP is hiring
fashion designers instead of concept artists
because the more believable and realistic
your look in the game the more believable
and realistic it is for you to play. “The abil-
ity to totally immerse yourself in a virtual
environment has a lot to do with realism.
No matter how fantastic you would like
to go it has to have the aspect of realism.
I guess what our role is in this is to make
sure the clothing is in a sense believable,”
he explains.
Being able to dress up is not the only imminent feature.
CCP developers are also working on an environment where
you can have player run facilities, open up shops, restaurant
and bars, grab a drink with allies and go shopping with en-
emies.
“To have characters walk around inside the stations is
huge. That’s the next really big thing we are doing,” says Lead
Game Designer Noah Ward, who together with Stührmann
is responsible for making sure EVE is constantly moving
forward. “Everything will be player run. The goal is to have
revolutionary social interaction because the stations are
not places where people go to fight; it’s more about social
interaction. We’re now looking at all sorts of ways to make
the chatting and the way the avatars respond to one another
realistic, so it actually feels like they are conversing in real-
ity. We want to make it really immersive for the social side of
things,” he says and Stührmann continues:
“The details we’re putting into it are far beyond what’s
currently on the market. The appearance of the characters,
the way they react to conversations, will be as realistic as we
can make them. I believe that this as a social function will
be incredibly effective. By the time we’ll get it out, it will be
lightyears beyond anything other companies are planning
on!” he adds, bursting with pride.
When the rest of CCP’s staff returns from their summer
holidays, their task will be to plan the winter and develop
new technologies. As the game evolves every minute of ev-
ery day, and the competition on the market gets harsher, they
will constantly need to think ten steps ahead. Not willing to
share any specific details of upcoming plans, (everything
kept strictly confidential) one thing is for sure. For this di-
verse group of people, gaming is dead serious!
AbOUT EvE ONLINE
EVE Online is set tens of
thousands of years in the fu-
ture. It is the largest single-
server virtual universe in
the world, featuring its own
currency, ISK, a player-
controlled economy and a
unique real-time interaction
between EVE developers
and the players. The game
features stunning graphics
and design and top-notch
technology and even has
its own radio station, EVE
radio. The game is a journey
through space where play-
ers cruise around in space
ships and get into all sorts
of adventures, dangers and
on-line battles. In EVE, play-
ers can be whatever they
can think of, from pirates or
spies to business managers
and industrial entrepre-
neurs. On-line, they have
all the tools necessary to
achieve their goals. For
more info on EVE Online
see: www.eve-online.com.