1 'EVE ONLINE' STUDIO ACQUIRED BY KOREAN MMO MAKER (ENGADGET.COM)
3 Thursday September 06, 2018 @11:30PM (msmash)
4 from the in-some-business-news dept.
6 o Reference: 0102639448
7 o News link: https://games.slashdot.org/story/18/09/06/1921222/eve-online-studio-acquired-by-korean-mmo-maker
8 o Source link: https://www.engadget.com/2018/09/06/eve-online-pearl-abyss-ccp-games/
11 MAXOMENOS writes: EVE Online developer CCP Games has been
12 acquired by Pearl Abyss, the South Korean studio behind the
13 action-oriented MMORPG Black Desert Online. According to
14 VentureBeat, the deal was worth $425 million and will close in
15 early October. It's a surprise announcement for CCP, which has
16 long operated as an independent developer. Eve Online isn't
17 the biggest MMORPG on the market, but it has maintained a
18 steady and loyal userbase through continuous updates and a
19 well-timed switch to a hybrid premium and free-to-play model.
20 The 15-year-old game is unique, too, with its large-scale
21 battles and notoriously complex economic and political
26 (by spiritplumber ( 1944222 ))
29 Now watch the new owners completely misunderstand the userbase's
30 culture and wreck a good thing.
36 If someone could make EVE more grindy, it would be a Korean
37 MMO maker. I don't see them misunderstanding that aspect, as
38 they invented Korean Grinder.
42 (by duke_cheetah2003 ( 862933 ))
45 > Now watch the new owners completely misunderstand the
46 > userbase's culture and wreck a good thing.
47 CCP already did that years ago.
56 Son, if Koreans will do anything it's inject sexy alien
57 women and bikini-space-armor into it.
58 East Asia never suffered the retardation of puritanism,
59 which is unique to the Western world owing to Abrahamic
60 doctrine, to develop Gymnophobia and Genophobia, so they
61 don't care about the Church-Feminist anti-sexualization
62 offense alliance. The only exception are the "Communist"
70 (by jeff4747 ( 256583 ))
73 It's almost like you don't know there's already Korean and
74 Chinese alliances in Eve.......and they're not doing all
75 that well. I'm sure FRT will stop feeding Keepstars soon.
82 (by St.Creed ( 853824 ))
85 It was bad in the beta and never actually recovered from
86 some pretty bad development choices. Have they discovered
87 parallel processing yet? And version management? Okay, I
88 guess the last one was a bit mean. They must have
89 discovered Git by now.
90 But seriously, the game is an unstructured mess. Played it
91 for a while, flew a Machariel and did incursions, level 4
92 missions etc. but after a while it got boring. May pick it
97 ** Not Good News (Score:4, Interesting)
98 (by Kunedog ( 1033226 ))
101 Shamus Young has a series on Black Desert, explaining how
102 shockingly aggressive, expensive and game-ruining he found the
103 microtransactions system to be, even if you're familiar with the
104 worst of the American systems. There's manadatory PvP and
105 deliberately cramped inventory space but the "cash shop" can
106 always make things better (i.e. playable).
108 I'd be worried if I were an EVE Online fan.
110 [1]https://www.shamusyoung.com/tw... [shamusyoung.com]
111 > I see all the default clothes are bland and I need to pay real
112 > money for a cool outfit. Aesthetics are important to me. (Which
113 > is why I spend so much time on sculpting my character.) So I
114 > really don’t want to spend the rest of my time looking at these
115 > blando outfits. Sigh. Fine. What’s a pretend suit of armor cost
116 > these days? Three bucks? Five bucks?
118 > FORTY SIX AMERICAN DOLLARS? ARE YOU TRYING TO START A FIGHT?
119 > The cheap outfits can be had for $22. They also offer ladies
120 > underwear sets for just $7, if you want to run around in your
121 > underpants. (I don’t, thanks.)
123 > (They also offer similar options for male characters. I was
124 > tempted to get the outfit that would let my kung-fu guy go
125 > shirtless, because he’s a kung-fu dude. But all of the choices
126 > looked like modern-day boxers. You can’t just wear baggy pants
129 > Would you like to dye that super-expensive outfit you just
130 > bought? Or any other outfit? That will set you back another $10.
131 > And that’s somehow a rental. Your ten bucks gets you a month of
132 > being allowed to have dyed clothes. After the month is up, your
133 > clothes revert to their original colors and you gotta fork over
135 > Do you enjoy wheeling and dealing at the auction house in other
136 > games, but the egregious 35% tax on all your sales is making it
137 > impossible for you to have fun or turn a profit? Pay fifteen
138 > real-world dollars and the tax will go down to the normal 5%.
141 > Everything is exorbitantly priced like this. It’s so
142 > outrageously expensive that I get immediately pissed off. It’s
143 > not even about the money, it’s about the sheer audacity of the
144 > seller to ask this much[2] for what should be trivial virtual
145 > goods. Even if you’re a millionaire, you’re still likely to get
146 > offended if someone tries to sell you a stick of ordinary gum
152 [1] https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=42507
154 ** Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
155 (by Anonymous Coward)
158 > Everything is exorbitantly priced like this. It’s so
159 > outrageously expensive that I get immediately pissed off.
160 > It’s not even about the money, it’s about the sheer audacity
161 > of the seller to ask this much for what should be trivial
162 > virtual goods. Even if you’re a millionaire, you’re still
163 > likely to get offended if someone tries to sell you a stick
164 > of ordinary gum for five bucks.
165 Sometimes, I thought Stallman was being a pendant for gripes
166 about terminology like "intellectual property".
167 Now I realize he was exactly right.
168 This guy uses the words "virtual goods", like it's something
169 he'll actually own. Dollars to donuts, the EULA and TOS says
170 these 'virtual goods' are nothing more than bits on their
171 server, you don't own a single bit of it, and they do
172 whatever they like, and fuck you we're keeping your money if
174 Seriously, this should be a legal term. If your company
180 (by Calydor ( 739835 ))
183 Remember when they wanted to make players PAY for mods for
189 (by JustAnotherOldGuy ( 4145623 ))
192 $46 for a suit of armor?
193 If I ever had any interest in playing Eve*, this pricing
194 would instantly cure me of that notion.
195 *Which I don't, but still...
198 ** Eve + Korean MMO + Pay To Win (Score:2)
199 (by Crashmarik ( 635988 ))
202 If that isn't a match made in hell I don't know what is.
207 (by MAXOMENOS ( 9802 ))
210 ....if they can only get out of beta......
213 (by blackomegax ( 807080 ))
216 The current beta is 3 moons, 2 stations, and a shitty
217 framework of a "game" that runs at 10fps on a GTX1060
218 at low settings and looks 5x worse than games like doom
225 (by St.Creed ( 853824 ))
228 They're not even in Alpha. They call it that, but
229 what it actually is, is "perpetual development
230 hell". It doesn't have a version number but if it
231 had, it would be 666.
237 ** Why didn't microsoft acquire it? (Score:3)
238 (by xxxJonBoyxxx ( 565205 ))
241 Since its unofficial tagline is, ya know, "spreadsheet online"
244 (by JustAnotherOldGuy ( 4145623 ))
247 It's also known as "Spreadsheet Simulator".
251 (by meglon ( 1001833 ))
254 But...it's a really pretty spreadsheet.
260 (by ctilsie242 ( 4841247 ))
263 Makes me wonder too. I wonder if White Wolf would be sold off
264 (likely) or spun off (unlikely, but would be nicer). My fear
265 is that it gets tossed to some big company, and the IP
266 completely shelved, never to see the light of day again,
267 similar to how EA has done with a lot of Origin IP.
271 (by jeff4747 ( 256583 ))
274 CCP was making a World of Darkness MMO, but canceled the
275 project a few years ago. I think they sold the IP.
278 ** Only half a billion? (Score:2)
279 (by beheaderaswp ( 549877 ) *)
282 My god... that number is kinda high...
283 That aside... this new owner will just accentuate the problem
284 areas of Eve that kept it from truly meeting it's potential.
285 As it is, it's already a griefing sandbox with little wiggle
286 room for anything except PVP and/or massive corporate/alliance
287 industry or fleet ops. When it could be far more balanced and
288 appeal to a larger player base.
289 Pushing it further into "gang warfare" style griefing will
290 eventually make the player base smaller.
291 I stopped playing in 2016. So I play
294 (by Luckyo ( 1726890 ))
297 Your description of events is the exact opposite of your
298 conclusion. It sounds like EVE has in fact achieved
299 greatness, because the process you describe functions exactly
300 like real world functions on macro level.
301 The fact that they apparently managed to recreated the world
302 on macro level in a game through long standing player
303 interactions in less than two decades is mind blowingly
307 (by St.Creed ( 853824 ))
310 And indeed, a subject of economic studies. Pretty
311 brilliant work in that respect. Whether it's successful as
312 an enjoyable game is something else entirely.
315 (by Luckyo ( 1726890 ))
318 Not economic. Political. This is literally the core
319 tenets of concept of sovereignty. Economy is just a
320 part of the picture here.
325 ** Eve Online New addon will contain loot boxes (Score:2)
326 (by Cito ( 1725214 ))
329 No more expansion packs but eve online will offer season passes
330 at 4 different tier prices; standard, deluxe edition, legacy and
333 ** Also known as (Score:2)
334 (by JustAnotherOldGuy ( 4145623 ))
337 "Eve Online", also affectionately known as "Spreadsheet
340 ** made me laugh (Score:2)
341 (by meglon ( 1001833 ))
344 > Eve Online isn't the biggest MMORPG on the market
345 In other news: water is wet, and the sky is blue.