The head of the hardcore MMORPG EVE Online believes that core gamers will soon play on mobile in the West as well. This is where he bets the company’s future. CCP plans new strategy games in the EVE universe for mobile, as well as new games for PC.
Who is speaking? This is the CEO of CCP, Hilmar Petursson, speaking in an interview with Variety.
CCP develops the MMORPG EVE Online. The gaming studio was recently acquired by Pearl Abyss, the developers of Black Desert, for 425 million US dollars.
The sale marks a shift in CCP’s strategy that began at the end of 2017.
In the interview, Petursson explains what drives the decision and that it represents a change in the company’s strategy and how they view the future of gaming in the West:
away from virtual reality
towards mobile games
Turning away from virtual reality
This is where the change comes from: Until the end of 2017, CCP believed in virtual reality, but no longer:
“Although we had a little success, we decided that the market does not offer any returns on investment anymore and that wouldn’t change significantly in the coming years. At least not so much that it would make business sense.”
Therefore, CCP has stopped investing in virtual reality projects and focused on their PC titles. Additionally, they have started developing “core games” for mobile.
and on real-time strategy games for mobile in the EVE universe
Current player count of EVE Online: 300,000
What about EVE Online itself? For EVE Online, CCP has “ambitious plans.” After all, 300,000 customers still play EVE Online every month.
They are discussing internally whether to give the game engine a complete overhaul. The new investment could also include a major revision of the game systems.
New mobile games in the EVE universe
This is what Petursson says about the mobile shift:
“Initially, we did not believe that the mobile industry was ready yet, but we always kept an eye on the mobile trend in South Korea and noticed that it was becoming increasingly “hardcore” there.
We think this trend will come to the West in the next three to five years.
Based on this trend, we decided to invest in mobile game development because we believe that hardware will become more powerful and the market will mature. In principle, one can look at what is happening in Korea, and that will also become a reality here in the West in the next five years or so.”
What has happened in South Korea? In South Korea, people are playing what they used to play on PC, now on their smartphones:
Companies like NCSoft have had great success bringing their old PC MMORPGs like Lineage M to smartphones.
This is what it’s all about: Ultimately, it’s a bet on the future of gaming here in the West. Mobile games are already widespread, but are mostly “casual”. Gaming companies want to bring this shift to mobile towards “core gaming,” which has already been accomplished in South Korea.
With Everquest Next, Sony Online Entertainment wanted to open a new chapter in MMORPG history. Following the legendary Everquest and the sequel Everquest II, EQ...
