Eve: Valkyrie developer CCP gives up on VR, shutters 2 studios
CCP, the company that was among the first to bet big on VR, has more or less withdrawn from the VR development, shutting down two studios in the process.
The developer of Eve: Valkyrie announced today that it's restructuring its worldwide studios, reducing the number from five studios to three, and letting go of around 100 employees.
CCP's London studio remains, and it'll handle support for EVE: Valkyrie, and Sparc. The Shanghai studio will be "refocused" to support business in China. The HQ in Reykjavík, Iceland will remain. CCP's Atlanta will be shuttered, and the Newcastle studio is being sold.
For now, CCP is working on content for Eve Online, the shooter spin-off Project Nova, and the mobile Project Aurora. In a statement (via Kotaku), CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursso revealed that the move is the result of reduced investment in VR, confirming that no other VR titles will enter development until market conditions justify further investments.
Find the CEO's statement below in full:
"Today we have made tough, but important, changes to CCP in response to how we see the gaming market evolving in the coming years. We have been front and center in the second wave of VR and our belief in the long-term transformative power of the technology remains strong.
"Despite the success of the VR games we have released we will be shifting our focus to our PC and mobile initiatives, and will be centralizing those initiatives, along with the support of our existing VR games, to our offices in Reykjavík and London. We will continue to support our VR games but will not be making material VR investments until we see market conditions that justify further investments beyond what we have already made.
"I am very proud of our VR games and, more importantly, of the people here who made them.
"These changes in strategy come with some tough decisions relating to our overall structure as a company. CCP is in a strong position to make these changes, and we are taking great care to support our departing employees to the very best of our ability. We will be offering relocations to some to our London office where we will be building up our efforts in addition to our development activities in Reykjavík."