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[Joh]

http://www.ccpgames.com/en/public-relations/press-releases/article/75435/industry-veteran-sean-decker-joins-ccp-as-senior-vice-president-product-development/

Nice, CCP hired the guy that ruined Command and Conquer for product development. 

[Myyona]

EA sure has a crap reputation, especially among people who play Eve-O.

I hope Sean realizes this and put the "EA methods" behind him.

[Pieter Tuulinen]

Putting EA methods behind him is likely to be reason number one for him leaving EA.

Give the man a chance.

[Myyona]

Will do.

Though, I get the feeling that CCP is perhaps aiming at a F2P model for WoD now and I am not supporting that.

[Anslol]

EA's stuck a corporate raider in.

It begins.

[Sofia Roseburn]

Most likely focusing on Dust since that is a F2P venture from the ground up. The concerning thing for me is the fact that he is providing oversight for all of CCP's games, which does include EVE. What he does to influence the development of Dust, especially considering CCP's desire for intertwined action, could have a knock on effect to EVE.

That's what concerns me, and unfortunately that concern is compounded by the fact that we won't really find out about it for a while.

[Silas Vitalia]

There are games companies who primarily make games for passion and as a consequence sometimes get to stay in business.

There are games companies who are primarily a business that happens to sell a product called games. 

This sounds like CCP snatching up someone who can EA their brand with microtransactions and the F2P model


I love this game so much but each year the 'product' keeps looking shiner and slicker and more corporate and increasingly removed from those evocative grimdark paintings that I fell in love with years ago.

 

[Esna Pitoojee]

Then again, if there's one thing CCP's playerbase has shown, it's that they hold no punches when it comes to telling CCP that they've royally screwed up. If the playerbase smells a cash cow, they will stamp their feet and scream until someone listens.

CCP listened last time. I doubt they will be so foolish as to ignore it should it happen again.

[Makkal]

Putting EA methods behind him is likely to be reason number one for him leaving EA.

Highly unlikely.

[Pieter Tuulinen]

I've worked on small indie titles. I went on to become part of Sony's giant machine.

It's a career path. In my case I was sick and tired of Cowboy Development and wanted something with a focus on quality and good process. I can easily believe that someone would want to get the hell out of EA's Publishing arm and back into proper Development.

[Kyoko Sakoda]

It isn't fair to put Mr. Decker to the fire because of his resume. There's going to be as much politicking inside EA as anywhere else.

[Esna Pitoojee]

I think most of the 'putting to the fire' seems to be because Mr. Decker had his name on a number of prominent EA acquisitions-turned-disasters, Westwood games (Command and Conquer) among them.

That said, Mr. Decker is presumably capable of reading, and will likely have discovered several key facts about CCP:
- CCP games have a smaller playerbase than the megatitles EA has picked up in the past. You cannot afford to loose a significant fraction of that playerbase.
- CCP games have a playerbase that is not just incredibly vocal, but count among their numbers people with out-of-game skills such as mass-management, diplomatic negotiations, and yes, computer/electronic security.
- CCP games' playerbase has shown itself to be all but unanimously against many of the things that have come to define EA's policies.
- CCP games' playerbase have shown a willingness not just to be vocal, not just to start a record-breaking ingame riot that caught the attention of news sites gaming and otherwise, but most critically to vote with their wallets.


The progression is, to me, logical. vOv

[Kyoko Sakoda]

Progression to what? Concerns are well-founded; disaster scenarios are less so.

I can tell you from studying Nordic history in college that Icelanders can be very protective of their successes. And they should be: they struggled to survive for the first thousand years of their history. The Icelandic core of CCP will most likely remain fiercely independent. Remember that the Icelandic Outvasion was fittingly named and that the country fought tooth-and-nail not to repay egregious, unjust debt to Britain and the Netherlands. Remember that they fought the British Navy twice for fishing rights -- and won.

I'm stereotyping here, but only because I believe that everything is political and informed by background. I say it to assert that there is no way CCP will be gobbled up by an American mega like EA. If that happens I will eat my hat and the hat will be an oversized sombrero.

Every business desires to grow. CCP needs a large west coast presence in North America. They need to shore up their business in North America, which has traditionally lagged behind their success in Europe.

Is this Mr. Decker the best shot? Who knows. CCP doesn't know. Yes, they put out a proud PR statement, but pomp and circumstance is traditional surrounding a new executive hire. Predicting outcomes upon hiring someone -- anyone -- is a futile exercise for everyone from the HR manager to the employee and the customers they will affect.

[Pieter Tuulinen]

Can we take the realworld politics and chest thumping out of our internet spaceship game please?

Let's focus on the entertainment industry, CCP and EA and especially EVE.

[Aelisha Montenagre]

The sky still seems to be up where it belongs right now. 

I'll give this guy his due and see what he does with his time at CCP, though with the exception of the few scapegoats that have been herded out for us to fling our collective poo at, we never get to know who is truly responsible for foul ups anyway. 

So no doubt this poor man is going to get the brunt of any rage even if, say, it is a poor art decision or the WoD MMO collapses even further into a mire of vaporware.