Uncertainty: #StartupIceland: EVE Fanfest 2012

[Original post written @http://startupiceland.wordpress.com]

This was EPIC to say the least. It was my first EVE Fanfest, thank you Hilmar for inviting me. I got to see the true awesomeness that has been created by the CCP team. Congratulations! I was mesmerized, and it took me back a long time when I was fascinated by video games and how I spent endless hours playing games although I did not have access to the latest or the greatest, I got hooked. I have been resisting the temptation of getting back to playing games. I have to say EVE Online and Dust 514 look incredibly attractive. First of all, there were a couple of announcements that I think was incredible,

DUST 514 will be the first AAA game to be totally free on Sony PS3 platform
DUST 514 and EVE online are linked, what does this mean? this means CCP has really broken ground in integrating a first person shoot out game with a massively multi player strategy and battleship game. It has never been done before! In addition to that the level of details that has gone into developing the avatars, the space ships, the engine, the missile launch systems is just simply mind blowing. CCP has truly shown leadership and broken new ground in gaming.
What was fascinating to me was how involved the gamers were in the entire show. CCP has shown incredible strength and maturity in allowing the players in the game dictate how the game should be run. To seal that strategy they have formed what is called as the Council of Stellar Management, which is a democratic way in which the players in the game get elected to represent all players. The CSM meets with the CCP leadership and the Game development teams to provide feedback and raise issues. This is truly innovative and I would like to say a small company called Clara which has been working with CCP for more than 18 months is helping CCP. Full disclosure, I am one of the investors in Clara, made me really proud looking at Jon Lander, the Product owner of EVE online show the word cloud generated from CLARA to describe how CCP takes Community interface seriously and how they engage with their players. It basically validated our business hypothesis that gamers and players of the game really are the true heroes in this new world. The gamers define the agenda and develop the eco-system.