CCP CEO speaks out on redundancies

Hilmar Petursson, CEO of Eve developer and publisher EVE Online, has spoken about his feelings of responsibility over recent layoffs, and revealed how the industry is reaching out to those affected.

"This is a major thing, and it's something which it is my responsibility to avoid," he told Gamasutra.

Petursson also explained how the company are helping the 120 staff that have been made redundant.

"I've personally been contacted by many CEOs in the industry which have offered to help with finding employment for the people who are leaving, and that's a great thing to see."

"We are connecting people with our industry friends, we are helping them with their resumes, we are helping them to make contacts, and things like that."

Petersson has also spoken to GamesIndustry.biz sister site Eurogamer, publicly shouldering even more of the burden for the company's recent misfortunes.

"I feel very accountable for the situation and it's really hard to go through these steps in this way," Petursson explained.

"We took on too many things as a company and our focus was spread too thin. These were very much the decisions that I as CEO made and supported, and I think everyone now agrees that we need to do these adjustments. That's a hard thing to realise, especially because people are hurt in the process. That's the reality.

"It's a danger of having gone from success to success for such a long time. We've consistently bucked the trend with Eve now for eight years. Eve as an initial creation was an almost impossible feat and we've carried that through the years, growing each year. It frankly made me arrogant and making a change to the game as we did over the summer - in the way that we did - led to taking a look at the whole company as a result."

The company intends to concentrate on EVE and Dust 514, with a smaller team focussing on World of Darkness. As Petursson himself concludes in the Eurogamer piece: "We are back in the spaceship business."