Mmmm

The “group of three big financial investors” who own CCP are selling her to a Korean MMO developer, Pearl Abyss.

https://www.eveonline.com/article/pemjmb/black-desert-online-makers-pearl-abyss-to-acquire-ccp

The release talks a lot about us – you / your is mentioned 11 times, community is mentioned 5 times.  Excited is thrown in twice.

You can see some of the initial feedback on CCP’s Facebook page and in this official thread here:

https://forums.eveonline.com/t/dev-blog-black-desert-online-makers-pearl-abyss-to-acquire-ccp/103942

It seems to be an even mix of Pearl Abyss being horrible for how it approaches pay to win, EVE is dying, or what an exciting opportunity.

I don’t have a view on if this is a good or bad thing.  I did raise my eye at the comment that CCP will continue as a “wholly owned independent subsidiary”.  That didn’t make much sense.  The only way CCP would be left entirely independent was if it was a safe and secure cash cow that gave a great rate of return on investment.  If that was the case, it wouldn’t have been sold.  In every company I have worked for that has been purchased “wholly”, the new owners have always moved to extract their profits from the purchase.  The only question is how long it takes, and if their influence is for better or worse.

Overall I am of the mind that change is probably a good thing and that EVE needed it.  Whether it turns out good for EVE or not, I am not so sure.  Whatever, it should take a while before we see real evidence of what will happen within the game.