Eurogamer Interviews the Eve Council Chairman

The peasants are revolting.

Earlier this week we reported on a statement from Alexander Gianturco - leader of Eve Online's Goonswarm Alliance, and Chairman of the player-elected Council of Stellar Management - that was intended as an Alliance update. It outlined the Council's concerns surrounding the current state of the Eve universe, perceived shortcomings of the recent Incarna expansion, and the Council's plans to increase awareness of the issues they consider to be damaging the game. We've since spoken with Gianturco for further insight into the CSM's position.

Eurogamer: Thanks for taking the time to talk. I expect we've caused you a busier week than you had planned.

Alexander Gianturco: Well, it's sort of a happy accident and made our job easier I think.

Eurogamer: You told me earlier this week that you were surprised at the speed at which your statement went out. Is this a learning experience for you, being in the spotlight, rather than being in the shadows as a spy?

Alexander Gianturco: Yes and no. We've been in the spotlight before because of the earlier controversy. I think the press was just primed to talk about it because it's a story-arc. We've had press before but I anticipated having to go to the media after the CSM [Council of Stellar Management] had released a formal statement. It's been a double-edged sword because I'm a controversial figure in Eve Online - I run an Alliance and we do bad things to people.

From a political perspective, one of the things we're trying to massage on the forums and in the press is to make sure people realise that the message actually does come from the entire CSM, it's not just me. If we had released the formal statement, people wouldn't be saying "Oh my God, it's just The Mittani."

On the other hand, the viral media wave you kicked off has been good for everyone's cause. At the end of the day, we're in a situation where it's all-or-nothing. If you've been an Eve player for a long time, you'll know shit's ugly.

Eurogamer: So despite your position within Goonswarm, can you be clear in saying that the other members of the CSM are broadly in agreement with your post - it's representative of Council concerns?

Alexander Gianturco: It is 100 per cent representative of the Council members. There's also something that hasn't really been outed. There are a lot of developers (we don't know who they are), but there are devs who play in my Alliance because we're pretty much the largest real Alliance in the game. So people around the [Reyjkavik] office would read my CEO update. Tactically we intended that I would write the CEO update and it would be a quiet shot across the bow of CCP.

1

The Council of Stellar Management are elected by the players to present player issues to CCP.

Eurogamer: To raise awareness of your stance?

Alexander Gianturco: We're always in Skype with CCP and we could say that this is what I wrote, we're upset about this, and this is sort of our last chance to negotiate - maybe have them back away from the foolish decisions they've been making - before the CSM launched a formal spotlight involving log-in splash ads, fireside chat meetings and a full courting of the media press. The message that I wrote was discussed at length, word for word amongst the CSM. Even though it was aimed at Goonswarm, the CSM had line-by-line input of what I said.

Eurogamer: You've had a lot of accusations aimed at you this week that you leaked the CEO update to us. In the interests of transparency and setting the record straight, would you like to know how we obtained it?

Alexander Gianturco: I would be highly amused to find out.

Eurogamer: It was posted on the official Eve Online forums - further down the same thread, the accusations began.

Alexander Gianturco: [laughs] Oh man, that's ridiculous. It's been funny, conspiracies are always a part of Eve right? Especially with my background as a spy, long before I got involved with the Alliance leadership. People naturally assume that I'm pulling strings, even when I'm not. I wrote a follow-up post saying "Alright guys, personally if I was an observer knowing anything about my history, I wouldn't believe that it was an accident. Of course, he called the media and is pulling the strings." It's worked out too well.

Eurogamer: So what do you see as the key problems facing Eve Online at the moment?

Alexander Gianturco: I think the key problems are obvious to a wide range of players. The development of the Incarna and Tyrannis expansions are aimed at Dust and World of Darkness, essentially creating new technologies for those games. The majority of the people working on "Eve Online" are no longer developing the core product. The neglect of the content, and the game that subscribers are used to playing, is causing stagnation.

We talk a lot about "failure cascades" in Eve. I've spent my entire time in the game obsessed with them, it's all I ever dealt with as a spy, trying to induce them in order to destroy Alliances and break social bonds. It also meant I've learned about maintaining an Alliance - if you watch how other people f**k up, you get good at not doing it yourself. In theory at least.

But MMO servers can experience failure cascades. Once they go beneath a social critical mass, you see server merges. But Eve is a fragile ecosystem - it's one shard and never in Eve's history has there ever been an expansion that didn't result in a spike of interest.

There have been hit-and-miss expansions, but they at least logged on. With Incarna, it's like it didn't even happen. The expansion was supposed to be over by now, it's September - we're supposed to have four Captain's Quarters, multiplayer establishments, and contraband gameplay by now. We still just have one Captain's Quarters.

Eurogamer: What needs to be done to resolve these problems and restore the trust between CCP and the players?

Alexander Gianturco: It's a two-part question. The situation is unique with CCP because they primarily hired people who played Eve. People who go to Reyjkavik to work with CCP want to develop Eve Online, and historically Eve is a game about spaceships. That's why you saw the leaks come through - the employees that came there and didn't want to develop World of Darkness, they wanted to develop spaceships.

The second part of the question - CCP needs to very publicly step away from the precipice and acknowledge that they have neglected Flying-in-Space. They need to provide us not only with the fixes that are needed (there are a number of sucking chest-wounds which are ruining FiS right now), but new content.

We need a full-scale expansion which has everyone in the Reyjkavik office working on it - we need new ships, new regions, new excitement. The tagline the CSM has been using recently is "We need something new to do, not something new to wear."

2

The Incarna expansion felt lacking for many players.

Eurogamer: Why haven't the players seen the minutes from the emergency summit held at the end of June. What's holding them up?

Alexander Gianturco: I haven't publicly talked about it much because the minutes are an issue of great concern to the CSM because it's a council "sovereignty" issue - but it's not something that players are going to get in a snit about, even though I think they should. It's not an effective rallying call.

The minutes situation has come up because CCP essentially tried to spin or adulterate or soften the tone of those minutes. They're normally very factual and CCP has only ever edited in the past due to NDA reasons, they have never tried to change adjectives.

If CCP's version of the minutes had been released, there would have been riots again and a massive crisis. They were so full of nauseating buzzwords, it read like a marketing drone's advertising for Eve Online, with a passive voice for the CSM.

We might have written: "The CSM said that the players are extremely unhappy with x, y and z." In the edited version it would say something like: "It was implied by the CSM that, in their view, the players might be concerned that..." So many mitigations and clauses, with CCP always talking in the active voice.

I used to be an attorney before I retired and I was like: "Oh, come on guys, this is transparently insulting." But I guess they thought they could pull one over on us. The CSM has a lot of professionals on it, a lot of former businesspeople, current businesspeople.

Eurogamer: Do you have any regrets about appearing in the post-summit video with Arnar Hrafn Gylfason [senior producer of Eve Online] in the wake of recent days?

Alexander Gianturco: I actually have no regrets about that as the minutes aren't related to what we saw in the video - it's an important distinction. The biggest takeaway from the emergency summit was resolving concerns around CCP adding gold ammo or pay-to-win microtransactions in Eve. I am still convinced and have no concerns about them doing that sort of thing. This is not going to turn into World of Tanks.

It's an issue of nuance and there are two levels to being on the CSM. There's dealing with developers and on that level, we've changed tactics from the past CSM's by being really chill guys with them. We hang out on Skype whereas previous councils would be very confrontational. Instead we've been more persuasive and almost everything slated for the winter expansion that we've seen has the CSM's dirty paw-prints all over it. That's one level.

The second level is when you're dealing with upper management. I think they saw us getting along, being chill and reasonable with the designers and thought this meant we were push-overs.

Eurogamer: When you were elected, players were concerned that the CSM would become a vehicle for promoting Goonswarm interests. Was that ever the case?

Alexander Gianturco: It's never been the case. There's always a small paranoid mindset about that. If you have a null-sec empire, your enemies assume the worst. People who paid closer attention to the election would have seen every null-sec bloc get together, work together, and ensure our candidates were there.

It's important to note that the health of the game as a whole is the macro level that the CSM deals with. It's not possible to get on the CSM and promote the narrow interests of your Alliance. That behaviour would be very transparent; you'd be ignored by CCP, shoot your credibility in the foot - and the rest of the CSM would get very angry with you. I've advocated for nerfs that currently benefit Goonwarm.

3

The air was cleared at June's emergency summit, but tensions lingered.

Eurogamer: Does it strike you as ironic that an Alliance that sets out to "destroy the game" is now involved in what the CSM sees as rescuing it?

Alexander Gianturco: I never actually joined the game to destroy it - that's Darius's [former Alliance leader] line about what we do in Goonswarm. We aren't here to destroy Eve - we are griefers and a home for the Something Awful community in Eve. It's a hysterical propaganda line from people we've crushed under our jackboots.

I care very deeply about Eve and God knows I waste too much time playing and running my Alliance. The sort of issues that the CSM is faced with are ones that deal with the very survival of the game itself. I'm afraid that's the situation we're in today.

Eurogamer: In terms of next steps, "loud statements" were mentioned in your CEO update. Can you elaborate on that?

Alexander Gianturco: That's a tactical question, and talking about "loud statements" was before I expected you guys to snap this up and kick off the media storm. I was preparing my Alliance to get ready for a formal CSM spotlight and to be able to implement our media strategy once that spotlight hit. I don't know that we'll bother with a formal spotlight now - the horse has already left the barn. We've moved on to the next stage of the strategy which is to make ourselves available to the media. Hopefully we'll see results, but I think this is our best shot, the media pressure angle.

Comments (43) Latest comment 8 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • richarddavies #1 9 months ago

    I don't know what any of that was about. Pretty pictures though.
  • crsmithy #2 9 months ago

    In before "I don't have the time to play Eve but I love reading about it" that every comments thread after an Eve article degenerates into
  • Madder-Max #3 9 months ago

    Straight over my head that. Does he have a beard? Is andy macnab involved at all?
  • Cronan #4 9 months ago

    What the hell is this about?
  • Madder-Max #5 9 months ago

    its about a major beardy, corduroy pipe smoker meet.
  • Golgo #6 9 months ago

    I don't have the time to play Eve but I...oh, ok then.
  • Felwyn #7 9 months ago

    I don't have the time to play Eve but I love reading about it
  • M_of_the_sys #8 9 months ago

    I don't have the money to play Eve but I love reading about it.
  • ResidentKnievel #9 9 months ago

  • MattEdWithCheese #10 9 months ago

    I do have the time to play Eve and I probably will at some point; it seems quite deep and looks fantastic!
  • marmaduke #11 9 months ago

    I think the gist of this is that they would all be much happier if you could only buy hats that can be put on spaceships.

    What's most disappointing is that he keeps banging on about his media strategy, rather than talking about what's actually going on. Couldn't you have found an adult to interview?
  • Fidjit #12 9 months ago

    In space no-one can hear you smoke a corduroy pipe.
  • retrological #13 9 months ago

    WTF is this shit?
  • jablonski #14 9 months ago

    I don't have the time to play Eve but I love shitting into a polythene bag and then feeling the warmth against my face without getting sticky
  • Bertie Verified Senior Staff Writer, Eurogamer.net #15 9 months ago

    Is there an Eve store where you can buy corduroy paraphernalia?

    There should be.

    Off topic: I'm always surprised at how well Gianturco expresses himself. I love that Eve has this level of politics.
  • Stranded87 #16 9 months ago

    What I want to know is how does someone who looks about 25 claim to be a retired attorney? Did he somehow get super rich? Does he mean he now does something else (rather than actually being retired)? And why would someone as young as he looks quit that job? I'd assume being an attorney is a pretty decent career path.
  • Eraserhead #17 9 months ago

    I fully expect the UN to get involved at any minute.
  • ResidentKnievel #18 9 months ago

    He's in his mid thirties and I think his wife is a model so he's probably financially secure.
  • kangarootoo #19 9 months ago

    Read the whole thing, but didn't really know what I was reading.

    When I got to the bit where he talked about how he used to be a spy, my brain asked "Is that in the game or in real life?". My brain then asked "How many more times will I have to ask that question before the end of this article?". The way players talk about Eve, its frequently hard to tell.
  • username84 #20 9 months ago

    So the Goonsquad and the council are gojng to have a ruk?
    London riots all over again. (in slightly geekier terms)

    But no I don't understand what these two people are on about.
  • username84 #21 9 months ago

    Jablonski wins my post of the month. Creates such a clear mental image I can almost feel it.
  • agparrot #22 9 months ago

    Great work John, in both what you have written here, and really in kicking off the long-overdue media interest in what everyone is trying to stop becoming the death of a great MMO.

    I'd love to moan and bitch that it was CCPs indifference that made me quit, but really it is because my PC was too poor to carry on running it, as was my wallet, and my schedule was too time poor.

    I do miss it though.
  • DodgyPast #23 9 months ago

    Alexander Gianturco is pretty much a full time games person, a lot of that is CSM and running the alliance but also writing about MMOs professionally.

    While the guy is a consummate politician ( you never quite know what his true opinion is as the message he delivers changes according to where he is delivering it ), he is pretty spot on regarding the current situation with Eve and managements lack of interest in anything but milking as much as they can to fund other projects.

    Whether Hilmar is capable of stepping down from his high horse is another matter, though the clash of Hilmar and Alex's egos should be worthy of a few buckets of popcorn.

    For a very good take on it Seleene's ( an ex CCP employee on the CSM ) blog is worth a look:
    http://seleenes-sandbox.blogspot.com/
  • riz23 #24 9 months ago

    That is an interesting blog DodgyPast but it does make it sound like the death knells of EVE are ringing. If the apathy and frustration are true then surely it cannot pull away from a downward spiral.
  • wogsy81 #25 9 months ago

    I dont have the time to play EVE but,,,,, ahh who am i kidding.
    I got loadsa time but i just cant be fucking arsed..
  • dagas #26 9 months ago

    "we are griefers"
    In what other game can an alliance that is focusing on griefing the players be so popular and has such a high standing that the CEO is voted to represent the players?

    I stopped playing the game because of griefers. EVE is a sandbox game, a sandbox where te big guys love to destroy your sand castles. A better name for it would be Evil Online. I'll stick to MMO's where the developer encourages people to play together, and punish griefers rather than reward them.
  • DodgyPast #27 9 months ago

    The griefing aspect does encourage you to group together for self defence. Infact when people try to grief you it means that they're providing you with a chunk of challenging content that you can enjoy dealing wit. ( The 2nd generation corp was war decced within a couple of weeks of us noobs forming it and we had a riot making them look foolish, provoked them into pissing off most of the locals and ended up chasing them to the other side of the empire with our new found friends ).

    Right now the ennui of management has filtered through into the higher end players that shape the Universe, but that doesn't mean that they wouldn't come back if management demonstrated that they cared about the game as much as they do.

    I know from my own point of view I need to feel that the game has a future again before I'm prepared to put in the kind of effort that I used to. But if it did I'd slowly start logging on more and more.
  • HeNiCiDe1988 #28 9 months ago

    man its just hilarious how serious this all is with eve online and the politics and so on, but to me it sounds like its too like reality in how people pick on each other, I do look forward to DUST542. But I do still love how connected customers and the developers are that its probably pissing of CCP because they cant do big changes without the players permission. Like a real democracy haha.
  • Shikasama #29 9 months ago

    After the first couple of questions asking how awesome and piercingly investigative EG was, I was excpecting a bit more than 'we saw it in a forum thread'.
  • Macross #30 9 months ago

    i think the mittan is a bit of a plum, but i whole heartedly support him in this. CCP really are taking the piss at the moment.
  • jimdove76 #31 9 months ago

    if they fixed the silly game fonts theyd have a lot more players too. Its virtually unchangable and so small its silly. anyone without perfect vision has no chance of reading it, hell, look at google and you will see even people with perfect vision refusing to play as the fonts are so poor!
  • Chibi-Kibou #32 9 months ago

    I just wish us lot actually think of EVE as a Science Fiction Sandbox rather than a Spaceship Sandbox would't get written off so.

    Not that the 'FiS' element doesn't need a serious looking at, nor indeed am I saying it shouldn't be the game's primary conceit .. but views are, way, way too viciously skewed against the non-spaceship-ey (or indeed, non-direct PvP) stuff as far as the game's vocal quarters go, to my mind.
    Edited by Chibi-Kibou at 09/09/11 @ 20:08
  • DodgyPast #33 9 months ago

    ^^ CCP plant?

    The non spaceship side doesn't need a single shitty room with an overpriced wardrode, if you want to do serious business stuff be it spying, theft or trying to control your own particular corner of the market there's nothing that CCP are promising that will enhance the current in and out game toolsets that these kind of players already use.
  • Aradiel #34 9 months ago

    jimdove76 - I agree, the fonts are ridiculous. I tried planning the game in HD. It looked pretty, but I couldn't read a damn thing, so now I've down-scaled it to less than 720 so that I can actually play it.
  • DodgyPast #35 9 months ago

    Meeting minutes are out, by the responses of CSM members and commentators it's being made clear that CCP have NDA'd out as much as possible. Though CCP still manage to make themselves look foolish.

    [link url=http://jestertrek.blogspot.com/2011/09/cross-purposes.html
    ]http://jestertrek.blogspot.com/2011/09/c...[/link]

    [link url=http://seleenes-sandbox.blogspot.com/2011/09/minutes-meetings.html
    ]http://seleenes-sandbox.blogspot.com/201...[/link]

    Mittens + lackeys seem to have allowed themselves to be fobbed off by a meeting with Arnen, despite the fact that he has no real power and isn't one of the inner circle that can influence resource allocation. Hopefully some of the more independent CSM members will call bullshit on this.
  • Chibi-Kibou #36 9 months ago

    @DodgyPast

    Oh how dare I like anything but endlessly shooting at other people's spaceships. Go check my backlog of posts and then claim a second time I'm here to further the developers' goals you prat; way to ignore the point of the post being some people want more than "a single shitty room with an overpriced wardrobe" as well as to fly cool spaceships. God I wish people would hurry up and realise how stupid that pathetic "^ disagrees with the herd therefore CCP alt" thing makes them look.

    Of course I realise Incarna as it is now is more than a little rubbish; I just happen to want the expansion as it's supposed to be, and to make it clear I'm not of the faction of morons think Incarna should be torn out and burned "because nobody wants it," nor even the rather less daft people that just don't like that particular element, but rather the number had a little fun with the tiny bit we got and want to have fun with the full version at some point down the road and all.

    Hell, I don't even think the off-ship element needs expanding now (although I'd prefer they implement the other three quarters variants and restore the old hangar view sooner rather than later); but people need to stop pushing this stupid falsehood that Incarna-as-it's-supposed-to-be is a meaningless waste that nobody would enjoy, use, nor want.

    And yeah, if you're a trolling me, goodo, you got your giggles; either way I hope you get just as much fun out of your new spot on my ignore list. Anyone does the "^ CCP alt" thing is too great a jerk to not ignore, troll or no.
    Edited by Chibi-Kibou at 10/09/11 @ 15:24
  • DodgyPast #37 9 months ago

    I'm not debating the value of Incarna in absolute terms, what I would question is the value that team delivers to the game in return for the resources they are given. Especially compared to the value that would be delivered if those resources were given to other teams working on FiS.

    For all you may want to see Incarna expanded there'd be no point in having a perfectly realised Incarna if all the movers and shakers had quit the game. This is coming from someone who has flown with some of the best FC's in the game, e.g. Shadoo of PL or LM of RnK. It's players like them that CCP need to keep onboard in order to keep Eve alive, as they're the people that drop the stones to cause the ripples that everyone else swims in.

    BTW I did just check your posting history and the only Eve related post I can see is in a comments thread for Dust where you make no comment regarding the main Eve game... why did you need to feel the need to lie about your posting history?
    Edited by DodgyPast at 10/09/11 @ 12:44
  • Chibi-Kibou #38 9 months ago

    @DodgyPast

    Alright, one more, since the 'Ignore poster' link's on the fritz again:

    I didn't "lie about my posting history".

    "Go check my backlog of posts and then claim a second time I'm here to further the developers' goals" - if I were a 'CCP plant', then I'd have posted in more than two articles related to EVE or its owners, or at least have not posted in more than 46 articles that have absolutely nothing to do with them this year alone.

    I wasn't arguing that I normally speak out against CCP, I was pointing out I have nothing to do with them shy of playing EVE Online.

    Oh well, at least the ignore tag's working again.
    Edited by Chibi-Kibou at 10/09/11 @ 13:05
  • deano2099 #39 9 months ago

    You reap what you sow.

    His alliance are self-confessed 'griefers' and now he's concerned that the player numbers will drop off to the point where people there's not enough people left to keep the game fun?

    Griefing is by definition ruining other people's experience in the game. If you do that, there's a good chance they'll quit and not come back.
  • 43n1m4 #40 9 months ago

    I quit the game a few months ago. As much as I like EVE, I think the game began to smell a bit stale. As a mission runner, effectively nothing new had happened for a long while. And changing paths this late in the game requires more effort than I was willing to give. In short, CSM and CCP needs a lot more talks about what the gamers want versus what the company wants. Right now, it doesn't seem to be the same thing. We don't need new hats. We need new, exciting, content.
    Edited by 43n1m4 at 10/09/11 @ 19:54
  • deanimate #41 9 months ago

  • NorfolkNClue #42 8 months ago

    "I know from my own point of view I need to feel that the game has a future again before I'm prepared to put in the kind of effort that I used to. But if it did I'd slowly start logging on more and more. "

    This. As well as addressing the botting issue.
  • Valland #43 8 months ago

    This reminds me I have to update my training queue.
    I haven't played it in months though.