Interview with CCP Games’ Executive Producer Nathan Richardsson

The MMO Gamer had the opportunity to ask CCP Games’ Executive Producer Nathan “Oveur” Richardsson some questions. We focused the brief interview on the company’s expansion and their future as a multi-title MMO development studio.

The MMO Gamer: It seems a studio is opening in Atlanta, USA and you’re recruiting heavily for it. What will the Atlanta studio be used for? The vacancies suggest you’re building a development team for the World of Darkness MMO you have announced.

Nathan Richardsson: We‘re expanding our development teams in Reykjavik, Atlanta and Shanghai. EVE is a demanding mistress and we need all the people we can get. We already have EVE expansions planned through 2009 and still have a huge backlog of features, improvements and optimizations to get in. A new title is planned but currently our main focus is on evolving and growing EVE – delivering 2 free expansions a year takes it‘s toll

The MMO Gamer: How many people does CCP employ? How many developers do you expect to have once the Atlanta studio has been staffed?

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Nathan Richardsson: Our need for permanent staff and contracted is simply determined by what our projects need. When EVE grows and requires more manpower, she gets it. We‘re just reaching 230 people with a couple of hundred contractors and outsourcing partners. Assimilating so many new people, introducing them to our company culture, getting them up to speed with our strategies and beliefs has been a challenge, but we’ll soon be back to the same level of efficiency and productivity we’ve always done our best to maintain.

The MMO Gamer: EVE has expanded into China and it’s almost been a year, how is it doing over there? What was the toughest problem to solve with the Chinese expansion?

Nathan Richardsson: The toughest barriers were without a doubt the cultural difference and the language barrier. We relied heavily on our partners till we had gathered more in-house expertize in our Shanghai office and are now at the point of revitaling EVE China with Revelations II and upcoming expansions. We‘ve always enjoyed having direct dialogue with our players through the forums so it was difficult being in a position where we had to rely on translations and second-hand information to base decisions on but we‘ve addressed that and are already seeing positive results from those changes.

The MMO Gamer: What is the future of EVE? Will you keep expanding the game into other regions or are there other ways for you to broaden the game and its reach?

Nathan Richardsson: We have a number of ways to expand EVE, first and foremost is ”inwards“, which is our current strategy. There are so many locations within EVE which you can‘t interact fully with yet and that‘s where we‘re heading first. We‘re now building environments inside space stations with corporate offices and headquarters, going into the ships with a Captain’s Quarter, player starbases where they could control its defenses and other corporate infrastructure.

Further out, we‘re seeing planets playing a pivotal role in the future of EVE. The industrial, exploratory and warfare opportunities there, which tie heavily into the economic fabric of EV,E are immense. It‘s all player controlled; that‘s the beauty of it. We’re creating tools and a landscape with resources and it‘s up to the pilots to utilize that to their advantage and build an empire.

Working with celestial environments is also an area for expansion. Populating immense asteroids with an industrial or pirate outpost, joystick-based combat inside asteroid dungeons, hostile environments to build up an industrial base to exploit it‘s resources — anything you can imagine inside space is an opportunity for expansion.

We also have space itself to work with through outwards expansion. Space is endless and we still don‘t know what‘s out there, what‘s on the other side of the EVE gate nor what happened to Earth and it‘s civilization. We don‘t know what the Jovian race have been up to, closed off in their own section of space. Its outer boundaries unknown to us.

The MMO Gamer: How about EVE’s server technology? It seems to be breaking records often with the number of simultaneous online players. Will you use the same single-server philosophy in future games or does it only work in EVE’s space setting?

Nathan Richardsson: The fundamental backbone of EVE is its players, the pilots and organizations that create the intense economics, political atmosphere and conflict that define the universe. One of the main enabling factors for these social structures is the single-server philosophy. Everyone plays in the same world and can therefore affect each other, directly or indirectly. Someone buying on the market from your enemy rather than you is something that affects you and dynamics like this can only be achieved with a community this large and intertwined. It‘s the network effect. It has practical limitations and the future will tell if it‘s applicable, but we‘re firm believers in the philosophy of massive worlds and we‘re dedicated to make it work.

The MMO Gamer: Where do you think CCP will be in five years? What’s the future of the company and where do you want to take it?

Nathan Richardsson: We‘re part of worlds with emerging nations, transcending barriers. We‘re the creators-become-janitors really – and that‘s how we see CCP grow. We want to create a foundation where social networks emerge, become nations or empires, corporations or world-spanning organizations, putting it in the hand of the players. We only deliver the beginning. It‘s the players that ”take this to 11“ that really create the nations.