DEL.ICIO.USGeorgia’s video game industry heating up
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, December 28, 2008
REYKJAVIK, Iceland — Make no mistake about it. Despite having hundreds of thousands of diehard subscription-paying players, Eve Online is not a “game.”
It may be a society of people or a test bed for economic theories. But it’s definitely not a game. Or so says everyone associated with it.
SHELLEY EMLING / Cox Newspapers
Ivar Kristjansson, chief financial officer for CCP Games, holds the sword he received after being with the company for 10 years.
SHELLEY EMLING / Cox Newspapers
Sveinn Kjarval, lead game master for CCP Games, one of the world’s largest independent game developers. CCP has an office in Stone Mountain.
Touring the headquarters of Eve Online’s maker, CCP Games, is like touring a funhouse – but one with a serious purpose.
And that purpose is to make sure the release of Eve Online’s next expansion in March is the best and biggest in its history.
Set tens of thousands of years in the future, Eve Online takes players on a journey through 5,000 unique solar systems, allowing them to choose professions, run companies with other players and formulate structured battles, sometimes involving as many as 1,000 people. Since its release in 2003, Eve Online has become so complex it even boasts its own stock market.
“Eve Online is not a game but a whole world in which you are not constricted in what you can do,” said Sveinn Kjarval, a game master who handles calls and e-mails from players who need help.
Founded by three Icelanders in 1997 and privately held, the company opened its North American headquarters in Stone Mountain late last year, a move exemplifying the gaming industry surge in the Atlanta area.
CCP Games — one of the world’s largest independent game developers — has 360 employees, 100 of whom are in Stone Mountain. Dozens more are likely to be hired next year.
“Atlanta is positioning itself as a place where computer games are made and developed,” said Hilmar Petursson, CCP Games’ chief executive officer. “They’ve developed incentives for companies to go there and do this.
“I believe we’ll see more gaming companies opening offices in Atlanta as time goes on,” he said.
CCP Games announced the launch of its Georgia office after merging with White Wolf Productions, a role-playing game publisher that had been based in Stone Mountain for 12 years.
Alison Tyrer, a spokeswoman for the Georgia Department of Economic Development, said that Georgia’s 2008 Entertainment Industry Incentives Act has given the state “what we believe to be the most competitive videogame incentives in the United States.”
She said the act permits tax credits of up to 30 percent for qualified productions.
Government officials say there are at least 50 videogame companies in Georgia, including CCP Games. The industry employs 1,400 Georgians with another 1,600 Georgia students enrolled in videogame courses or curriculums.
Georgia has even hired a full time “Digital Entertainment Specialist” – Asante Bradford – to focus exclusively on building the state’s digital entertainment industry.
“We believe we are the only state to have a full time person in a position like this,” Tyrer said.
Meanwhile, there’s no question Eve Online is still small potatoes compared with Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft, a phenomenon among role-playing interactive online games with more than 11 million subscribers.
But analysts say Eve Online is holding its own and building market share at a uniquely fast clip.
Although released only five years ago, Eve Online has attracted 300,000 gamers, a number that’s grown with each of the eight free game expansions.
Some 40 percent of players are in the United States, and the average age of a player is 28.
Typically, online role-playing games start strong, growing dramatically in the first months of play, only to slowly taper off as players turn to newer games.
But Eve Online has managed to maintain and even boost growth levels thanks to viral marketing and word-of-mouth advertising.
Its makers say that the biggest difference between Eve Online and other games such as World of Warcraft is the fact that it runs on only one server, whereas other games generally use multiple servers with a few thousand users apiece.
“We are ahead of everyone in that all our players are playing in the exact same world,” Kjarval said, adding that the server is located in London and operated from Iceland.
Certainly there’s little doubt that other gaming companies would envy CCP Games’ rabidly loyal fan base. Eve Online has retained nearly one-fifth of its original players.
Employees say that CCP Games’ momentum will only grow.
Previously available as a free download from the Internet — and with a monthly fee of $15 — Eve Online soon will be available in stores, with Atari Inc. handling global retail distribution beginning March 10.
The move will coincide with the release of the next expansion.
“The primary goal of the expansion in March is to add to the players’ experience and everyone in Iceland and in Atlanta is focused on this right now,” said Eyjolfur Gudmundsson, CCP Games’ lead economist. “We will allow players to construct their spaceships differently … there will be more customization.
“We are also excited about the game being available in retail stores for the first time because this will expand our reach,” he said.
Housed in an old fish processing plant that overlooks the city’s harbor, CCP Games is an island of success in an Icelandic economy that’s fallen off a cliff ever since the collapse of the banking system, and the Icelandic currency, earlier this year.
“Since we receive our payments in dollars and euros, we are doing better than most,” Gudmundsson said.
And, if appearances are any indication, the employees seem to be doing pretty well, too.
The offices at the headquarters are littered with Lego models and board games such as Life. Employees play pool alongside a 20-foot-long reef tank. Secretaries don red Santa hats during the Christmas season. The children of employees — off school for the holidays — are allowed to roam freely throughout the building.
But beyond the playful interior, serious business is forever afoot.
After the release of Eve Online’s expansion in March, the company will focus on creating another multi-player game based on the popular World of Darkness fictional universes created by White Wolf.
“I think our business is a lot like Facebook in that people are members for a very long time,” Petursson said. “As long as we do a good job of updating our games, I think there will always be an interest in our business and our products.”
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