Part 2: Fanfest (cont.)

Seriously, the entire presentation took about 22 minutes. CCP, you had a freaking hour to spend. And you just walked off the stage as though you thought there was going to be no issue whatsoever. What about some news for DUST 514 during the DUST 514 Keynote CCP? Is its development continuing? Is it being axed? How does it relate to Project Legion? All of that could have been covered for the rest of the presentation, as a sort of "Oh yes we currently have 100,000 players on the PS3 and shouldn't forget about them" kind of move, perhaps. Or do we need to rely on post-presentation news articles like this one, with headlines like: "Dust 514 sees no planned updates, scraps survival mode and Vita app" to get our information? Do you know what kind of message that sends to us? It says you'd rather spend your time filling in outside press than your own playerbase, who you've told a completely different story. It's also telling that all of your DUST 514 presentations at Fanfest were actually about Project Legion, something that you continue to stress is not greenlit. Why are you telling us about Project Legion at Fanfest as though it's already a sure-thing if it isn't greenlit CCP? Did you forget about DUST 514, the game you actually released, that you actually admit is a bad game, and that you have actual players for? Or is it just less important to you than telling us all how cool your new toy is going to be?

This all strikes me as extremely disingenuous on your part, CCP. Ostensibly setting aside time for our game, the game you've already made, DUST 514, and then throwing it out the window to talk about something your players never wanted is extremely dishonest. Maybe you didn't mean any harm, and legitimately thought we'd be excited. Well, we're not, and that was a dumb thing to think. Either way, you made a huge mistake, and now we're all mad at you.

Part 3: What Next?

So what's next CCP? We're all pissed. You've gone and screwed up everything with your "Project Legion." You didn't listen to your CSM or CPM, things you yourself put in place to prevent this sort of thing from happening. You've angered your current players for your current game on the PS3, in favor of your hypothetical players on your hypothetical game on the PC. You even spent the last Keynote at Fanfest trumpeting EVE United for the PC, which tells us you really don't want to be on consoles anymore.

And you know what CCP? I'm ok with that. Go ahead and be on PC. I understand the things you wanted to do with DUST 514 just aren't feasible on the PS3. I understand the game's future lies on better hardware. I even understand you being faithful to your EVE playerbase.

But you know what I don't understand? The need to lie to 100,000 loyal customers for months when our representatives were telling you not to. The need to **** us over at Fanfest. The need for talking to the media days before you came to us with the truth. The need to scramble for emergency roundtables and summits with the CPM who are just going to say "We told you so," hopefully in annoyingly high octaves, when all you needed to do was make one forum post, one devblog, one tweet, letting us know what was going on in Shanghai.

Maybe you'll say "there was never a good time." And you'd be right. The PS3 fanbase you've built will never react well to a PC DUST version that's getting all the cool stuff you promised they'd have years ago. But you know what? You skipped straight to "the worst time possible" by telling us when you did. But maybe your executives will keep calling us "bumps in the road" to a great product.

I hope you're happy with the result of your actions CCP.