Shadow of Cerberus EVE Community Forum

This is purely an opinion piece, drawing upon my perceptions of CCP Games from Twitter, the forums, my interviews with employees, not to mention the games that they produce and develop. It's anecdotal, it's circumstantial. Take from it what you will. It's simply my impression of CCP Games as a gaming company. I draw some conclusions based on my own second-hand knowledge of other gaming companies, mostly in the Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada area.

During and after university, I lived for fifteen years on the west coast. Victoria for five years. Nanaimo for a year. Vancouver for ten years. I spent time in Windows development, oil/gas and forestry software. Then I moved into web development as a self-employer. I've never been in the gaming industry. Although games development is appealing to me, most of the horror stories about the game development industry kept me away.

I knew people who worked for Electronic Arts. I was friends with one of the developers at Relic Studios. Another friend at Kerberos Studios. So whereas I wasn't in the gaming industry, I was privy to many of the stories. Most of those stories revolved around long-working hours that would persist for months on end. Which would inevitably lead to a decrease in employee morale, which would lead to employees caring less about the products they were creating.

Although I do enjoy weekends off and eight-hour work days, I'm not adverse to long-working hours. If I'm invested in a project, passionate about it, I find myself working extra hours of my own accord. But I also know when to ease back, give outside life a chance. When those crunch times come, I prefer them in spurts. A few weeks here, a few weeks there. I'm certainly not adverse to that. That is a normal working environment. On the other hand, a working environment where the crunches can last for months, if not constantly, well, I don't find that attractive, no matter how interesting the work. Work is a part of life, but work isn't life.

Electronic Arts. The stories that came out of there are probably what kept me from ever applying to a game studio. The endless crunch time, which translated into ridiculously long work hours which never ended. Granted, the EA Studio in Vancouver had a lot of perks for their employees, but those perks were mainly in place to keep employees on campus. What need to really leave, when subsidized fitness and dining were right there, a few floors beneath you. Fourteen hour days six days a week were made easier when the campus served most needs. That's definitely a situation where the job has become the life.

Relic actually seemed like a pretty decent place to work. A good group of people, crunch times only as a release neared, thus employees were able to conduct lives outside of their employment. Most of that changed when THQ bought Relic. My friend eventually left when the work environment radically changed, it became very much EA-like, except without all the perks. He left six months after that acquisition, returning to Australia to work for the new Pandemic Studios in Brisbane. When EA purchased Pandemic, he stuck it out. He was a project manager by that time, so he was able to dictate some saner working conditions than what EA wanted to dictate. It apparently still got pretty bad. EA eventually closed the studio, and now he runs his own mobile gaming studio.

As soon as a studio gets purchased by a big gaming conglomerate, the work environment seems to go straight to hell. Kerberos was formed by Barking Dog Studio employees after they were purchased by Rockstar Games. They continue to remain independent to this day. A small studio, but last I heard, still an excellent place to work.

Independence. That's definitely part of the CCP Games secret to success. Happy employees put out better product, are more excited to work on said product, think about said product more. Employees are happy when they are treated fairly and with respect. CCP definitely have happy employees. CCP make their own rules, define their own culture. That's what independence allows. That's not to say independent companies always make excellent decisions, but they've more freedom and flexibility to correct mistakes when they recognize them. Good business environments tend to lead to companies that grow. Bad business decisions lead to extinction. CCP has survived over ten years in an unforgiving industry. They're doing something right.

There is the persistent rumour that CCP Games pays its employees under the industry average. That may be true. It may not be true. I have no way of knowing. CCP isn't talking. Nor should they. But really, when you're looking at employee salary, you have to look at the broader picture. Where pay might be sub-average, what else about the company is above average?

Does a CCP developer get paid less than an EA developer? Maybe. But then you have to consider working hours. Is the CCP employee overworked? Is the EA employee? For the amount that is demanded of an EA employee, are they really ahead? Who ends up having the better life? I'd guess, that nine times out of ten, the CCP employee is the more fulfilled employee, even if they might get paid some percentage less than their EA counterpart. You have to measure all the constituent parts. Salary is just one element of the overall picture.

Working hours. CCP does have its crunch times, but they are limited to their release cycles. They seem to last approximately four weeks per expansion. A week or two of semi-crunch before point releases. On the whole, CCP employees are expected to work their paid hours, and are expected to be team players during their crunches. Employees are rewarded for effort come yearly reviews. That's entirely fair. That's entirely a normal working environment. Compare to most North American gaming companies and studios, CCP employees are far ahead of the game in this regard. Far more fortunate than many of their peers in the industry.

Consider holidays. CCP employees get them. They don't only get them, they are encouraged to take them. From what I can tell, the minimum holiday allotment is four weeks per year for your basic developer. Producers are getting at least six weeks per year. Compare that to your average EA employee, three weeks is the norm, and then employees are encouraged to split those holidays over the course of the year, rather than take them in a lump sum. Hell, if you don't take your holidays, nobody in EA management is going to complain.

Cost of living. Certainly the cost of living in Iceland is higher than nearly anywhere in North America. How does CCP Games help employees with this burden? Free lunches, year-round. Free breakfasts and dinners during critical development periods (crunch time.) With one of the basic necessities accounted for, CCP employees have more disposable income for themselves.

Location. Many might disagree with me. But fucking Iceland, man. That's an A+ location. I'm Canadian. So I enjoy winter. I enjoy seasons. I lived in Vancouver. I love the ocean. Rain bothers me little. So from where I'm standing, location is a big secret to CCP's success. A clean, safe country. Good social programs. Location definitely has to factor into employee satisfaction. I couldn't imagine anybody applying to CCP who couldn't see the pleasure of Iceland, so I have to imagine every CCP employee is very much pleased with where they are living.

People. We can only judge by Twitter, the forums, interviews, but they seem like a really happy bunch of people at CCP Games. Their passion for not only their company, but their products, really comes through when you see CCP employees engaging with the community. They do so, not because they're all junior PR representatives, but because they want too. You get the sense that they all enjoy working together, they all enjoy being part of the same team. The people that work at CCP genuinely seem to be having fun doing what they are doing. And this comes out in how they relate to their community.

Fringe benefits. Company trips. Company events. These aren't those rare things that happen only when company morale seems to be drooping, they happen because CCP likes to have fun, because it strengthens teams, because it's social. Social employees are happy employees. Employees that know each other socially tend to work much better together.

In the gaming industry, CCP Games seems to be cream of the crop.