Black Desert Online Developer Acquires EVE Online Dev CCP Games | Gaming News

In terms of long running MMO titles, CCP Games is up there with over 15 years of commitment to their flagship franchise, Eve Online. While the company has supported the game successfully for nearly two decades, they'll now be working alongside another studio whose history is also focused on the MMO genre in an effort to further expand upon the current vision of Eve Online.

CCP Games, best known for Eve Online and more recently Eve: Valkyrie, has been acquired by Black Desert Online developer Pearl Abyss for $425 million. News of the acquisition comes via the official Eve Online Twitter account, announcing the studio will become an independent subsidiary in the coming months. In the company blog post announcing the acquisition, CCP Games CEO Hilmar Petursson explained that being acquired by another studio thriving in the MMO space can only be beneficial to the future of Eve Online, a game the team plans to continue supporting for years to come.

As far as Pearl Abyss, the studio acquiring CCP Games, Black Desert Online launched first in Korea back in 2015 before releasing in other regions over the course of the next few years. Like many MMO and live service titles seen in recent years, Black Desert Online has received continued support following its release with new expansions and consistent updates to further enhance the gameplay.

CCP Games hasn't just focused on their support of Eve Online, however. Back in 2016, the studio released Eve: Valkyrie across Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR, and HTC Vive. While Eve: Valkyrie was pushed as one of the flagship games in the VR market, the respective space hasn't seen the commercial results the developer was expecting. As of now, Eve: Valkyrie has been updated to be playable without the use of VR on PC and PS4. Plans were announced for both Eve: Valkyrie and Eve Online to exist in the same universe, however those plans seem to have been put on hold for now.

Around the same time Eve: Valkyrie was updated to not require the use of VR, CCP Games also began making large moves internally. Their Atlanta studio was shut down back in October 2018, while their Newcastle studio has been sold off. The closing of these two studios has resulted in layoffs of about 20% of the overall headcount at CCP Games, with the company's primary focus turning back to Eve Online.

Eve Online launched back in 2003 for PC.

Source: Twitter