Friday, 9 December 2016

CCP For Sale

The pieces of the jigsaw are beginning to come together. The pieces being, Eve going free to play, The silence of the routemap at EveVegas, the push for VR and of course the moving of CCP's corporate headquarters to London. The move to London was only ever about one thing. Finance. If it had been about a move to more efficient tax regime in Europe then Ireland would have been a better solution. London is for better or worse the financial heart of Europe. London is also experiencing a mergers and acquisition frenzy in the gaming industry. This is fuelled by money from China. This is in part due to the untended consequences resulting from the current Chinese administration. Money is looking for different homes than the traditional property and American bond markets - particularly post Trump. But also Virtual and Augmented reality is huge in China.

So the news today that CCP are for sale and have some potential buyers cannot be considered surprising. What would be surprising is  if a deal fails to materialise. It is a sellers market right now.

What does this mean for Eve? In the interim I would imagine CCP will not want to rock any boat until the deal is done. More longer term, I can't imagine EVE having any priority over CCP's VR products. However, depending who makes the deal, the pressure for Eve to be the cow that is constantly milked to fund VR development might be reduced. Interesting times. There is a quote about that from someone somewhere.