Friday, May 9, 2014

Reykjavik Brain Drain Continues: CCP Dolan and Bro bid Farewell.

The brain drain seems to be continuing at CCP with the departure of CCP Dolan for Riot Games. CCP Bro appears to have left the company as well, but his destination at this point is unknown.

The Dolan situation came to light May 7th from a tweet chain started by former CCP Soundwave, and was later confirmed beyond doubt. Dolan will join a veritable slew of well known CCPers who have left the company for Riot Games over the last several months including Soundwave, Zulu, and Navigator.

Turnover in the gaming industry is nothing new, however so many leaving one company for the same destination does seem a bit odd. What is going on over at Riot that is luring so many CCP devs away specifically?

26 comments:

  1. It is not Eve, or CCP as a whole? It also explains the lag on the CSM results.

    That being said, we are now losing a test player who follows the lead (many in between) of a goon. Is this a loss? History will judge.

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    1. You are literally a cancer to discussions. Please, try and back some of your statements up, instead of taking your deeply seated and irrational hatred of anyone that disagrees with you and turning it into some sort of self-affirming truth. You are literally masturbating with your own sperg for lube and using Bacon's fair and virgin blog as your receptacle.

      As for what is going on at Riot? I don't much care what's going on at Riot. I'm much more interested in what is going on at CCP that is making capable working folks move on. That's the question that needs answers.

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    2. Iceland is not a place you want to live your whole life.

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    3. I haven't up to now, but I could start today.

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    4. Poaching at its finest.

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    5. To quote Grath Telkin, "You are the very AIDS rotting this alliance"

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    6. Tinfoil Barracuda
      Excellent Post... 100% agree...

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  2. Yeah, Bro's going to Riot. Heard it from someone at fanfest who worded me up about Dolan, too, so their info is solid I guess.

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    1. Chainsaw Plankton09 May, 2014 13:47

      I'm pretty sure that is correct, but hey my memory of that night is a bit fuzzy.

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  3. To be fair, a lot of these guys are friends and it was probably friend connections that drew them into CCP in the first place. It's not really all that surprising to see the string of friends moving on, especially if Riot pays better.

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  4. And so it goes on. Some new get in, some well known move on. It's just normal business. Even if we are the greatest community to have, working all your live for the same company is not for everyone especially in such an environment as gaming industry. I could imagine working on eve is great. But freely playing it is nice too.

    I bid them farewell and looking forward to the new ones taking over the torches. Welcome the constance of change, don't fear it.

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  5. Good riddance. Can't really speak of 'brain' drain.

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  6. "Brain Drain" might be over stating it in this case.

    As to why, who actually wants to live in Iceland? not visit but live. Probably better pay? Riot is working on a Spaceship Sci-fi MOBA with a real working economy and is trying to take all the devs from EVE?

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  7. Riot clearly has a big project they're working on. They poached WoW's senior designer from Blizzard, too.

    As for CCP:

    1) all employees are hired on contract, so they have no job security;

    2) the pay is completely unexceptional;

    3) you have to either move to Iceland or join their legendarily toxic Atlanta office;

    4) It seems like you're either in or out with upper management, and if you're out, see point 1: I understood Unifex's departure the moment Hilmar showed a slide moving from EVE Everywhere to Everything on PC.

    These conditions (except for the bit about moving to Iceland) are not entirely unexceptional in the game development industry, or even worse than average--I'm sure CCP employees are glad they don't work for EA. CCP's informal approach to hiring means that they're good at discovering people, and they're reasonably good at grooming them. However, until they sweeten the pot for their staff, they're going to be relatively easy to poach from.

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    1. Every game company has a big project they are working on. And Riot is a bit desperate for people.

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  8. Just normal company stuff. Dolan and Bro were notified that they were going to be let go several weeks ago. Soundwave left because he was not offered a promotion. Zulu and Navigator... no idea.

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    1. Yeah, I would not say that they were "lured away". These guys went looking for new jobs after CCP told them they were going to be given the boot.

      Dolan and Bro are easy to understand. I think the word used by an exec was "unprofessional", when describing how they conducted themselves during the NEO. Player surveys also were not friendly towards Dolan - he was cited as the specific reason why several players did not tune in to watch the NEO.

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    2. You have any kind of proof or source for that?

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    3. @jester2004 - what do you want, someone at ccp to post a copy of a pink slip? this sound legit, but you have become friends with dolan, so just ask him and let us know, too

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    4. Sure, Jester, it is just a coincidence that they are both leaving at the same time....

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    5. If I DID know one way or another (and I'm not saying I do), I wouldn't be much of a friend if I betrayed a private confidence in public, would I?

      And people leave companies at the same time all the time, particularly when there are a few dozen job openings at a competitor at higher salaries...

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  9. Meh, guy couldn't get the minutes out to save his life. I'm not sure that CCP is worse off without him.

    And if having to deal with someone new this year damages the CSM/CCP relations, so much the better considering the new CSM lineup.

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  10. Riot isn't based on a rock in the middle of the ocean perhaps?

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  11. Brain drain is kinda overstating it, tbh. People moving away at the same time sounds a bit like redundancies to me, which wouldn't be surprising when you take into account their financial report from last year...

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  12. Tyrendian Biohazard12 May, 2014 14:20

    It seems that Riot is primarily interested in the community people from CCP. Which is completed understandable as it has a huge presence in the world of competitive gaming. Additionally, from my understanding of LoL, it has a terrible community and maybe Riot wants to improve that. Probably not going to find better, or more engaging, community people than CCP. Most other MMOs I've played the community team only communicates to the player-base when absolutely necessary. Even then its usually if very dry language to specify rules and regulations rather than witty banter or looking for appropriate feedback.

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  13. I was slightly annoyed by the NEO presentation and the robot gimmick but overall I was under the impression that CCP Dolan and Logibro improved every time.

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