In October last year CCP announced the sale of its Newcastle studio—the team that brought us the groundbreaking EVE: Valkyrie. In a recent post on the official Valkyrie forums CCP Redcape announced the completion of the transition of the studio to Sumo Digital. UK-based Sumo is best known for its work on Sonic Racing, Forza, and the upcoming Dead Island 2. The sale did not include intellectual property and CCP continues to maintain Valkyrie and its servers. The same can be said for Sparc as CCP also retains IP and server control for that title.
EVE: Valkyrie ushered in the current era of virtual reality and CCP Games stood at the forefront. Current market trends likely drove CCP’s decision to move away from virtual reality. While the industry remains bullish about the future, IDC projects the largest growth in education sectors using untethered devices. Mixed reality devices capable of shifting between augmented and virtual reality, are poised to dominate the market.
In total 34 employees from CCP Newcastle made the transition to Sumo Digital. CCP Redcape continues at CCP for a little longer to ensure a smooth transition to the Eve Community team. Valkyrie moves into support and maintenance mode meaning the servers remain up but no new content planned. Sumo did not announce their plans for the staff only that it was a “great opportunity to bring an experienced, talented and tight-knit team on board.”
The INN staff wishes the Newcastle studio the best in their new endeavors.
Included below are CCP Redcape’s announcements for reference.
As you may have seen from the gaming press this week, the sale of CCP’s Newcastle studio (and the transition of the Valkyrie development team with it) has been completed, and the Valkyrie devs are getting started in their new roles as part of Sumo Digital. In regard to your favourite first-person spaceship shooter, none of CCP’s IP rights transferred to Sumo in the sale – so there are no plans to shut down EVE: Valkyrie (or any other game) with the change, so you can rest assured that EVE: Valkyrie will remain up and running for the foreseeable future.
We are now in the ‘support and maintenance’ phase for Valkyrie, so while we do not have any further content updates or major patches planned for EVE: Valkyrie, the servers, custom matches and forums will all remain up and running. Moreover, the EVE Universe community and support teams will still be monitoring the forums and support tickets should any issues arise.
We’d like to thank you for your support over the last few months, and we wish the Newcastle team the very best of luck with their new adventures!
CCP Redcape
And from the Sparc forums.
As you may have seen from the gaming press this week, the sale of CCP’s Newcastle studio (and the transition of the Valkyrie development team with it) has been completed, and the Valkyrie devs are getting started in their new roles as part of Sumo Digital. In regards to Sparc, none of CCP’s IP rights transferred to Sumo in the sale – so there are no plans to shut down Sparc (or any other game) with the change, so you can rest assured that Sparc will remain up and running for the foreseeable future.
CCP Redcape
