EVE Online's companion FPS "Dust" To be PS3 Exclusive

[Crazed Rabbit]

Eve Online, the excel spreadsheet space conflict MMO game, is getting a companion game, "Dust" that will be a FPS set in the same game world, and same conflicts, real time, as Eve, except featuring soldiers on the ground (no space boarding actions? lame.).

The weird thing is that this game will be a PS3 exclusive. Eve's audience is *all* PC, and I can't understand why CCP, the developers of both games, would prevent their core audience from buying their new game.

It's inexplicable, as the developers demonstrate in this interview:

RPS: I get that, and obviously no one can yet prove otherwise, but I’m sure that your core audience – even the people who’ve stopped playing EVE – it just seems so strange to not offer this to a PC audience. So what is the reason? You were saying about cannibalising from your playerbase, but I’m sure there are people who would play both, or pick up DUST after having formerly played EVE.

Torfi: It is a different experience though. It is a different means to access the EVE universe.

Thomas: And never say never, of course.

Torfi: Sony do have a number policies about how you present the user interface, and how accessible the game is. For us it’s somewhat healthy, to have those policies in place, because let’s face it – EVE is not the most accessible game in the universe. Although we have made great strides to make it more accessible over the years. So the answer is, we feel that working with Sony we can deliver the EVE world to a bigger audience, and partnering with them exclusively makes it a more meaningful relationship.

Thomas: It’s certainly a much more beneficial relationship for us. And this is the first time we’ve worked on console, so this is what we need to get our heads down and focused on doing it. And then like everything we do we’re going to drop it into the hands of the players, into the EVE universe, to see what happens. How do people want to play with this?

CR

[Monk]

The attitude is one I just don't understand.

They seem to be convinced that they've completely mined out the PC market, and that everyone who's ever played EVE still plays it currently. When.. that's clearly not the case. Believe it or not there are people who've never played EVE, people who don't play it anymore, or people just didn't like it who'd gladly play Dust(like me). It's not cannibalizing your playerbase, it's expanding it. Oh well. I guess CCP doesn't want my money.

[Fragony]

Odd, as if the ps3 has a Eve fanbase, doubt most even heard about it. You pc gamers certainly get the finger a lot lately

[Crazed Rabbit]

*looks at Battlefield 3 and The Witcher 2*

Oh, I don't know. I think we're doing alright. This could have been a fun and interesting game, but it's not that big of a deal.

CR

[Voigtkampf]

CCP has made a statement later on that they are "not excluding Dust from going to other platforms as well", ie they will probably add a support for PC. So far this is a bold attempt to mix two worlds that have no connecting points; cross-platform gaming seems to be the latest idea on the market. Btw, Dust is going to be F2P with only an initial payment charge for the game, and one will get the virtual amount of ISK equal to the real money one paid.

Personally I think this is a very, very bold move. But I think CCP is moving all his eggs over to their incoming MMO and that they are feeling abit more free to "experiment" with EVE (Dust 514, Incarna etc).