Born Global

On a sunny day in June 1997, CCP was founded in Reykjavik, Iceland. A lot has happened since then and today CCP is a global enterprise with offices in Atlanta, Shanghai, London and Reykjavik, with a diversified employee base and partner relationships that span the globe many times over.

CCP is fortunate enough to be well isolated from the current banking crisis we see around us on both sides of the Atlantic (and here in the middle of it, of course). Not only do we enjoy the privilege of a global customer base bringing a diverse array of cultural influences into our single shard world of EVE Online, but that same diverse nature inoculates us from short-term fluctuations in sentiment or economic turbulence. We have also made an effort to work with various financial institutions around the world, giving us the agility needed to manage our global operations around the effects of the credit crunch.

For all of us at CCP who are used to going about our work in a completely border-agnostic fashion, it is a bit unusual to watch how politicians around us tackle the global credit crisis that the world is going through in a very local way, even using the situation to score some points for the next rounds of elections. This local approach for political gain needs to abandoned for a more global approach as the world is dealing with a fundamentally global problem. The institutions are in place... Well, enough about that.

The effects of this manmade financial storm have hit Iceland pretty hard, but don't worry about us. Icelanders are sturdy and tenacious by nature. There will still be fun times in Reykjavik regardless. Tough times never last, tough people do. Iceland is full of tough people, the rest died off centuries ago. While the world's bank bubble deflates (hopefully in a more orderly fashion than we have seen so far), we here at CCP focus on our own economy. As you might have seen with things like StacklessIO and EVE64, we are now quite focused on strengthening the core value propositions of EVE Online. We will be releasing even more features in the awesome winter expansion, EVE Online: Quantum Rise, and there is even more coming after that, as we'll announce at Fanfest.

Speaking of Fanfest, last year the ISK (the Icelandic krona, not the one we use in EVE) was quite strong against EUR and USD and many Fanfest attendees complained about Reykjavik being a very expensive place to visit. Well, guess what. The Icelandic ISK has adjusted quite a bit in the past weeks so you can now party at the top of the world without breaking the bank. Even CNN has a story on it, but we have also prepared a little FAQ on what you need to know about visiting Iceland this coming November. 

We'll see you at the EVE Fanfest in 3 weeks.

• Hilmar V. Pétursson
  CEO, CCP