Economic crisis may force CCP Games to leave Iceland
by James Egan 
Dec 22nd 2008 at 7:00PM
Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Business models, Economy, Events, real-world, News items
The global financial crisis is hitting many companies and individuals very hard. This is especially prevalent in Iceland, home of CCP Games -- the developers of the sci-fi massively multiplayer online game EVE Online. The collapse of Iceland's banking system and currency has been devastating to the nation. "Icelanders are reeling from the shock of having everything they knew virtually disappear overnight," Valur Gunnarsson reports from Reykjavik for The Guardian.
Despite these economic woes, Hilmar V. Pétursson, the CEO of CCP Games, gave assurances all is well with the company back in October. He's stated that CCP is "well isolated" from the banking crisis, that their holdings and assets were diversified enough (due to partner relationships in different parts of the world) to stave off the ruin that many other Icelandic companies are facing. But there's a potential downside to that diversification: restrictions on access to foreign currencies have gone into effect in Iceland. Specifically -- as it relates to CCP Games -- on foreign investment coming into the country. Are these restrictions enough of a hassle that CCP Games would ever need to leave Iceland?
The Guardian article on the state of the Icelandic economy touches upon this idea. It frames the situation in terms of individual Icelanders becoming overwhelmed by the financial crisis and choosing to leave their country behind for the chance at a brighter future, elsewhere. Could organizations be forced to make similar choices?
Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson is the Lead Economist for CCP Games. He generally studies EVE's in-game economy, but clarifies the company's real-world financial picture for Valur: "To make new games, we need foreign investors...the present currency restrictions are putting us in a straitjacket. We are in talks with the government, but if we can't let capital in, we might be compelled to leave Iceland, even though this would be against our wishes."
It's still too soon to say whether or not CCP Games will need to relocate their headquarters to another country, but it seems to be a possibility at this point. See The Guardian's "For richer, for poorer: the struggle to survive after banking collapse" for more on the situation in Iceland as it affects CCP Games and EVE Online.
[Via Broken Toys]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Durinthal said on 8:23PM 12-22-2008
Nice article, putting CCP in the larger context of the country's economic collapse. Ever since initially hearing about it several months ago I was wondering how they were affected.
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CrazyKinux said on 12:38AM 12-23-2008
Woh!! That would be a major event if they were forced to do so!!
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Erbo Evans said on 2:13AM 12-23-2008
If CCP had to leave Iceland, where would they go? Selenalore suggests London (probably based on the fact that Tranquility is hosted there), but I think they'd be more likely to consolidate with the CCP North America/White Wolf headquarters in Stone Mountain, GA, USA. Big change from Reykjavik...
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Gary said on 5:00AM 12-23-2008
Think of the staff too, there will be fair a percentage that wont want to leave their country. This will somewhat slow the evolution of EVE.
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Harmen said on 6:33AM 12-23-2008
But there will also be people who would like to work for CCP, but don't really want to live on Iceland. So maybe they'll actually have better changes finding new people.
W. Graves said on 8:19AM 12-23-2008
whatever happens they need to keep tranq. up or iceland will have bigger problems than an economic crisis, such as a quarter million fanboi army ready to storm the place :P
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lateris said on 10:58AM 12-23-2008
This is sad news.
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Xiphos83 said on 7:41AM 12-24-2008
That would be terrible. Glad to know that they have the finances available to make a move and keep EVE running though.
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parcivale said on 4:54AM 12-27-2008
Good riddance. The sooner this corrupt company goes under the better.
CCP cheated in more than just the t20 incident. They have engaged in all sorts of shady game mechanic exploits. They were also engaged in rigging events
I know people who WERE affected by the dev cheating scandals and having looked at the evidence, it's clear CCP will do and say anything up to and including smearing those that blew the whistle. They claimed the whistle blower for the t20 cheating was lying...then belatedly came out to say actually that there was cheating and that they had known it all along.
I play a game to be entertained, not to have developers entertain themselves by cheating at my expense
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joboutlets said on 10:37AM 1-14-2009
I have a very close friend, who graduated from Harvard. Worked for ML for over 8 years, recently he’s been “right sized” too, despite of his outstanding performance and the increasing revenue he generated. OMG, now the banking industry is badly hurt, how long it would take for those financial background guys like him get back to the job market. Banking jobs are not there as much as before as easily seen on http://www.joboutlets.com and other job sites in the region
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