Mittani's CSM Twitter Updates

[Ash2k7]

Mittens, you asked everyone to go over the financials and that produced some pretty obscure theorycrafting. Did any of that get discussed at the summit?

I'm very interested in whatever comes out about this and the cancellation numbers.

The challenge is that in process numbers are damn tightly held within a company, nevermind releasing it to the playerbase and media. I'm guessing a big fat NDA gag on the topic, which is totally legitimate but disappointing.

[Bittervet]

I'm very interested in whatever comes out about this and the cancellation numbers.

The challenge is that in process numbers are damn tightly held within a company, nevermind releasing it to the playerbase and media. I'm guessing a big fat NDA gag on the topic, which is totally legitimate but disappointing.

Summer of Rage didn't get the CSM summoned and ultimatley cost CCP 35k subs (only picking up again with the first team BFF patch and still not fully recovered according to mmostats, close but not back to where it was) This did. It is a fair and logical assumption that the figures, if shown, were best described as "very very bad" and most certainly showing trends that were worse than Summer of Rage.

[Tsubutai]

I've never, ever, seen an internal newsletter that wasn't filled with non-controversial fluff that was the firm direction of senior leadership.

Good to see CCP chastened enough to abandon it though.

Pretty much this. Am content with "the Noble Exchange (NeX store) will be used for the sale of vanity items only" for the time being, however.

[Zoidberg]

You are "very very bad" if you think they actually lost 35k subs. Also MMODATA is bullshit. get out.

Just curious, but why don't you like MMODATA? I've never seen people complain about it before.

[Bittervet]

You are "very very bad" if you think they actually lost 35k subs. Also MMODATA is bullshit. get out.

Stop fucking white knighting bitch. Even the PCU fell during Summer of Rage. -35k is how much it cost them. Deal with it.

[Tarminic]

Stop fucking white knighting bitch. Even the PCU fell during Summer of Rage. -35k is how much it cost them. Deal with it.

I remember someone posting this data before actually, and i recall that it seemed to completely discount the trend of subscription increase/decrease cycle that has been a part of every expansion in the last year or two. What was the % difference in PCU? To match up with 35K subs it would end up being about 10%.

Plus, I thought that MMOGCharts relied entirely on the data that CCP releases, so essentially whenever they say or release a subscriber count, which happens maybe once an expansion? That's a lot to infer from 3 data points a year.

[Virtuozzo]

I remember someone posting this data before actually, and i recall that it seemed to completely discount the trend of subscription increase/decrease cycle that has been a part of every expansion in the last year or two. What was the % difference in PCU? To match up with 35K subs it would end up being about 10%.

Plus, I thought that MMOGCharts relied entirely on the data that CCP releases, so essentially whenever they say or release a subscriber count, which happens maybe once an expansion? That's a lot to infer from 3 data points a year.

Pretty much that, it's CCP provided data. I think they have a mention somewhere of who their ccp contact is, or used to. Not sure, been a while.

[Dr. Nguyen Van Phuoc]

I was in Heidelberg in Germany visiting family the other day and I overheard two guys raging about changes to EvE and threatening to set robotic spiders on CCP. They appeared to be students from the university robotics lab so they may well have been capable of carrying out their plan. So I have mixed feelings about this general meeting. It's good that CCP have clarified the vanity item nonsense and promised to bring back ship spinning. It's bad because it likely means there'll be no robot spider attack on the news

[Ben Derindar]

I remember someone posting this data before actually, and i recall that it seemed to completely discount the trend of subscription increase/decrease cycle that has been a part of every expansion in the last year or two.

You mean this?



If so, then that was me.

And I was well aware of the natural cycle of things at the time, but it just seemed funnier when taken a little more out of context. :P

[thebomby]

I remember someone posting this data before actually, and i recall that it seemed to completely discount the trend of subscription increase/decrease cycle that has been a part of every expansion in the last year or two. What was the % difference in PCU? To match up with 35K subs it would end up being about 10%.

Plus, I thought that MMOGCharts relied entirely on the data that CCP releases, so essentially whenever they say or release a subscriber count, which happens maybe once an expansion? That's a lot to infer from 3 data points a year.

CCP probably won't fudge the numbers too much, because they're fairly easy to work out from the financials which now having being shown to be easily avaliable will hopefully make them a tiny bit less devious in future.

[Bittervet]

You mean this?



If so, then that was me.

And I was well aware of the natural cycle of things at the time, but it just seemed funnier when taken a little more out of context. :P

Whilst I admit it's easy and natural to make patterns where there are none, the pattern does fit the data points and I seem to recall a 350ish figure in one QEN and it dropping to 315ish in the next which was mentioned. Beyond it being summer and the EVE player base going on holiday... something very odd happened between those data points.

[a mitten]

What would you say with regard to the veracity of the Glass Door postings?

imo (not nda or based on data) ccp diluted their corporate culture by expanding so much, and i imagine they recently went around and trimmed the fat/fired some people in the past couple of months that would have resulted in more glassdoor postings than usual. i brought the dissatisfaction in those reviews up directly to Hilmar and was ~quite direct~ about the need to ensure his employees were happy.

[a mitten]

This is a very good point. The language of the Fearless article is very clearly based on discussions that were taking place within CCP, albeit with an unknown degree of seriousness in consideration. Given the work of CCP's marketing guys, the sheer amount of bullshit it sounds like CSM6 went through in their Noble Exchange dealings, and with additional consideration to the methods CCP Marketing uses to sell everything to everyone, inside and out, I find it highly suspect that the May 2011 issue of FEARLESS was mere "toilet reading." Someone, somewhere, had decided something and right now I am highly concerned whether or not the emergency summit's impact represents any genuine barring of game affecting MT or simple shelving of their plans for a later date.

If there is not a guarantee of time in the "no gold ammo" statement, we cannot assume anything more than shelving, where taking those plans out for future use is highly plausible.

sorry about shitting on your favorite conspiracy theory bro, it's just a dumb newsletter with troll bios for the employees vOv

[a mitten]

Mittens, you asked everyone to go over the financials and that produced some pretty obscure theorycrafting. Did any of that get discussed at the summit?

no because i had some of my people with actual relevant experience handle it (innominate's father) and there was no ZOMG BANKRUPTCY looming at all, the link to his report is in the other thread

[Herschel Yamamoto]

no because i had some of my people with actual relevant experience handle it (innominate's father) and there was no ZOMG BANKRUPTCY looming at all, the link to his report is in the other thread

Yeah, in retrospect I feel kind of stupid for having busted out the B-word, even as laden with "this is really unlikely" as it was. For all I like to make fun of CCP's communication, I'm no pro at it myself. (That said, if you want to see true stupidity, look at the thread on the financials in general Discussion on Eve-O. Jesus fuck those people are fail at everything.)

[Malcanis]

I was in Heidelberg in Germany visiting family the other day and I overheard two guys raging about changes to EvE and threatening to set robotic spiders on CCP. They appeared to be students from the university robotics lab so they may well have been capable of carrying out their plan. So I have mixed feelings about this general meeting. It's good that CCP have clarified the vanity item nonsense and promised to bring back ship spinning. It's bad because it likely means there'll be no robot spider attack on the news

There's every chance of CCP doing/saying something terrible enough to merit a robot spider attack soon enough, so don't worry too much.

[Virtuozzo]

sorry about shitting on your favorite conspiracy theory bro, it's just a dumb newsletter with troll bios for the employees vOv

We all understand it's not fun to see friends get spiked on a pole, especially in this manner and without reason whatsoever, but don't be dumb.

[pc l0adletter]

Whilst I admit it's easy and natural to make patterns where there are none, the pattern does fit the data points and I seem to recall a 350ish figure in one QEN and it dropping to 315ish in the next which was mentioned. Beyond it being summer and the EVE player base going on holiday... something very odd happened between those data points.

Is it possible to run a regression on subscriptions and PCUs? I assume they're roughly correlated, and you could predict the subscriber amount for a given PCU decline...

[thebomby]

imo (not nda or based on data) ccp diluted their corporate culture by expanding so much, and i imagine they recently went around and trimmed the fat/fired some people in the past couple of months that would have resulted in more glassdoor postings than usual. i brought the dissatisfaction in those reviews up directly to Hilmar and was ~quite direct~ about the need to ensure his employees were happy.

With all respect to your dedication to this game and your abilities, I laughed out loud when I read that. If there's anybody who would be even worse at running CCP than Hilmar, it would be you. Not because you don't have the ability, which you most obviously do when it comes to managing people and doing the legwork when it comes to negotiations, but you would trip over your own ego on such a regular basis that it would be the seed of a whole generation of EVE if not internet memes.

[thebomby]

sorry about shitting on your favorite conspiracy theory bro, it's just a dumb newsletter with troll bios for the employees vOv

I honestly don't know why you stress this point so much. As much as internal company newsletters are usually just crap, there is one thing that I have never seen and that is them being a discussion platform. What I have seen is them being a vehicle to bring employees up to speed on current policies, strategies etc (amongst all the other drivel they contain). Seleene, who should know, confirmed this. I don't know if you're trying to protect your BFFs at CCP, but your argument is a bit ridiculous.