Sunday, 27 December 2015

What will CCP Denebole bring to the table?

You may have noticed that CCP recently hired Maria Sayans formerly of Electronic Arts (EA) aka CCP Denebola as its Chief Customer Officer (CCO). Based in London, the role appears to cover all the games in CCP's fold (not sure about the China Serenity side however). 

So you see the words "Electronic Arts" and you break out in a cold sweat. You wonder why employing someone from the darkside would be a good idea for CCP. Well I have no insight into what is actually planned and CCP Denebola has barely sat down at the desk. But a little research has dug up a fairly recent video of a conference presentation she made. Interestingly senior CCP management were also attending the European Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain (D.I.C.E) Summit  in September 2015 (not to be confused with EA Dice). 

So was this event effectively her job interview? If this is the direction CCP are taking I would find this pretty encouraging. Anyway, take a look and form your own judgement. I am not sure how the CSM would fit into this if there is a "Game Changer Program", if at all, but that is not to say the approach she outlines cannot be modified to fit Eve - and indeed DUST. Time will tell, but I am feeling positive about this. She clearly knows her stuff and could be a good catch for CCP.


P.S. As a slight afterthought, it might also explain why the focus groups have come to a grinding halt. I would imagine the CCP Devs would be reluctant to park their tanks on her lawn given her seniority. We might see some interesting behaviours in future.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for digging that up and posting it.

    It seems like CCP had a lot of the same ideas, they just haven't executed them very well. I think Ms Sayan will do some great things with CCP.

    Listening to this, I think that CSM is too valuable to dissolve it. If anything, it will be expanded and maybe some of the NDA restrictions will be loosened up a bit.

    In any case, I hope she starts quickly; the player losses are becoming very noticeable.

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