CCP taps EA's Sean Decker as new VP of product development

by Mike Foster on Jul 2nd 2013 8:30AM


Big changes from Iceland today, as CCP announced that it has brought on Sean Decker as senior vice president of product development. Decker is a 12-year EA veteran and recently headed the publisher's free-to-play focused games group, along with previously overseeing DICE and EA Los Angeles. EVE Online, as crazy as it sounds, is entering its second decade of being a game about internet spaceships, and CCP is looking toward the future.

The company referenced Decker's extensive industry experience as a valuable asset in helping guide EVE Online through its next 10 years and in ensuring growth through the eventually-maybe launch of World of Darkness and the expansion of DUST 514. Decker will be based out of CCP's Atlanta studio.

Massively's Brendan Drain spoke with Decker and EVE's Hilmar Petursson at a press event yesterday. We'll have more information on how the new hire will impact EVE this afternoon!

well there's a lot of people involved in a company, some force things yon their employees even project leads.

just because he worked at EA doesn't mean he's the reason why I hate a lot of their policies, doesn't mean he's not either, guess we'll see.

Blah, Blah, Blah

CCP Atlanta = Primarily World of Darkness

Now remove Tinfoil hat, and unbunch those panties.

If, as you say, this guy made some mistakes... I'd look to who he is. If he's the type that learns from his mistakes then this could be a really good move.

Seriously guys, some of you need to grow up a little bit. CCP won't become EA overnight unless they start putting EA folks in everything. At the level this guy is coming in at he shouldn't be in the lower level details. I'd bet dollars that this guy and CCP have had some discussions about who pays the salary and what they expect to get out of that.

Aww yeah... Madden throwing skills being brought to the Grenade game.

(I don't assume that any of you are old enough to remember CoD before they went MW/Black Ops dumbness and the games were good.)

Aww yeah... Madden throwing skills being brought to the Grenade game.

(I don't assume that any of you are old enough to remember CoD before they went MW/Black Ops dumbness and the games were good.)

EA as a whole should be brought down since they love to ruin original titles when they absorb the company and sqaush any decent games in favour of the 'casual gamer' while DLC is everywhere and profit is king and always will be

They got voted worst company in US twice lol

The guy has left EA maybe he removed his head form his arse and has seen the light, then again maybe he has been brinwashed by EA and is sent out to ruin other companys with EA bad ideas

Time will tell

EA as a whole should be brought down since they love to ruin original titles when they absorb the company and sqaush any decent games in favour of the 'casual gamer' while DLC is everywhere and profit is king and always will be

They got voted worst company in US twice lol

The guy has left EA maybe he removed his head form his arse and has seen the light, then again maybe he has been brinwashed by EA and is sent out to ruin other companys with EA bad ideas

Time will tell

EA may be a ****** company (Although they seem to be changing a little now), but they do publish some fantastic games.

The question here is why did this guy leave EA Games in the first place?

I thought they promoted everything for the causal gamer, rather than crush it. Can't claim BF3 is for the hardcore type.

EA may be a ****** company (Although they seem to be changing a little now), but they do publish some fantastic games.

EA doesn't publish bad games

On another note... unless the blurb is mistaken it seems to be talking about the future of EVE online... so maybe they will consider a way to make it F2P also?

For all those who are saying that they don't buy EA games, your gaming is really limited. EA doesn't publish bad games, EA is horrible at customer service. Almost all of EA's titles win awards or are long running franchise titles, like most of their sports games. With rare exception, EA tends to buy quality studios as well. Unlike other companies, EA isn't afraid to spend money on game development. Companies like Dice and Bioware were two small to invest heavily on follow up games and large teams. They had to look some place else for investment. With rare exception, companies like Dice and EA can compete with larger companies like EA, but it's not often. Companies like EA and Activision have saturated the game market with so many games that it's almost impossible for independents or startups to get into the game. Unless they have a great idea to start with, in which case they either end up selling to EA or Activision or EA/Activision just creates their own version of the game, pour tons of money into it and crushes the little guy.

At the end of the day EA/Activision is the Wal-Mart of the gaming world. No one likes what Wal-Mart is doing to mom and pop business', but everyone still shops there.

Aside from the whole judging without even knowing the guy thing I am just going to leave this here: http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,11359/

To name a few:
C&C Renegade
BF2
BF2142
Mirrors Edge

Looks awesome to me! :D

Aside from the whole judging without even knowing the guy thing I am just going to leave this here: http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,11359/

To name a few:
C&C Renegade
BF2
BF2142
Mirrors Edge

Looks awesome to me! :D

Aside from the whole judging without even knowing the guy thing I am just going to leave this here: http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,11359/

To name a few:
C&C Renegade
BF2
BF2142
Mirrors Edge

Looks awesome to me! :D

And cut out the PLEX and RMT market? Highly unlikely.

Aside from the whole judging without even knowing the guy thing I am just going to leave this here: http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,11359/

To name a few:
C&C Renegade
BF2
BF2142
Mirrors Edge

Looks awesome to me! :D

Aside from the whole judging without even knowing the guy thing I am just going to leave this here: http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,11359/

To name a few:
C&C Renegade
BF2
BF2142
Mirrors Edge

Looks awesome to me! :D

The only other FPS i played in PVP was BC2, so yes that sound great

What the hell is BC2?

SPOILER ALERT

We'll get a choose-your-color explosion at the end (Mass Effect 3) find out that there arent one, not seven but THOUSANDS of markers but the moon is the real enemy (Dead Space 3) and lose all RPG elements what so ever infavor of third person action content (Dragon Age 2)

Suffice to say this game would be even more **** than it already is.

Aside from the whole judging without even knowing the guy thing I am just going to leave this here: http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,11359/

To name a few:
C&C Renegade
BF2
BF2142
Mirrors Edge

Looks awesome to me! :D

Aside from the whole judging without even knowing the guy thing I am just going to leave this here: http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,11359/

To name a few:
C&C Renegade
BF2
BF2142
Mirrors Edge

Looks awesome to me! :D

He didn't "just work at EA"

He "ran" the F2P games division for EA, globally.
He oversaw (read: ran) Dice and EA Los Angeles.

The two above facts place him in direct accountability as to some of the controversial changes BF3 brought about to the Battlefield franchise. It also places him in direct responsibility for failure POS pay-to-win games like Battlefield Free2Play (go google it).

This guy was not the poor pee-on looking to make EA better and getting stepped on for his effort. He's the one that was crushing said employees (and their integrity) beneath his heel......... imho

Aside from the whole judging without even knowing the guy thing I am just going to leave this here: http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,11359/

To name a few:
C&C Renegade
BF2
BF2142
Mirrors Edge

Looks awesome to me! :D

i have to say this guy being from ea does make me nervous. i really really dont like ea. but with the games he has under his belt i think he could turn out to be what was needed.

just back everything up he could be a spy....

Aside from the whole judging without even knowing the guy thing I am just going to leave this here: http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,11359/

To name a few:
C&C Renegade
BF2
BF2142
Mirrors Edge

Looks awesome to me! :D

mirrors edge was very... "meh"

EA may be a ****** company (Although they seem to be changing a little now), but they do publish some fantastic games.

MOH was a terrible game and all the C&C games made after they scrapped Westwood Studios were crap and awful

PS1 versions of C&C beat what they put out now

They wrecked a awesome series

Aside from the whole judging without even knowing the guy thing I am just going to leave this here: http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,11359/

To name a few:
C&C Renegade
BF2
BF2142
Mirrors Edge

Looks awesome to me! :D

What a misleading title.

What are you trying to say here?

For instance:
Did you just try to give that EA spawn credit for Battlefield 2's creation/development/success? Seriously?
The same Battlefield 2 that began development before EA even purchased Dice (read: Dice sold out)?
The same Battlefield 2 that was ACTUALLY inspired by the mod "Desert Combat" and was in-part developed by said mod team's first dev studio, Trauma Studios?

Please tell me that I don't no more than you do about the games on his so-called "Games Credited" list and how little his existence had on the creation and success of a number of them. Please.

Prejudging the guy? BS....
Your problem has nothing to do with the guy being prejudged, because I've done no such thing. Your issue is with my implications (read: not prejudging) of what said EA spawn's presence as CCP will result in.


By the way, nice thread title hijack. Spent all night at work wondering what the freak happened to my thread.



Every online shooter developer that I've ever encountered.... EVER..... has always had everything figured out enough to know they were right about anything I felt they were doing wrong. Until they either begrudgingly (often half-assedly) admit fault or were promoted to the position of "former dev of a now defunct game development branch/company" (often taking their position to the dev graveyard with them)

I agree that somebody working for EA doesn't equal EA taking over Dust but I can say that I've played many recent EA offerings and they all were profit based games.... just enough to get people to buy the game and then you would realize the mistake you just made. It isn't that EA sucks it's just that the bean counters are running the show over there.
I have several games that I still play even years after they were released but there isn't a single EA game worth playing after about a week. Hopefully Dust isn't going to go down this path.......

Here is some constructive criticism:
It makes no sense that you can buy some things with Aur but there are other ways to get the same stuff cheaper if you buy a different offering.
Example: Aerial pack gives dropships that can be bought cheaper if you just buy the Aur and then buy them with Aur.
Second Example: you can buy 100,000 Aur or you can buy the Merc Pack that comes with 100,000 Aur plus dropsuits and other schwag for the same price.

I still remember C&C Renegade and endless hours I spent playing it in multiplayer with my friends... Start at 20:00 finish at 6:00 the next day. Protecting the harvester all day long with my sniper!

Odd. I was under the impression that most classic CnC gamers viewed CnC:Renegade as being the beginning of the end of the Command and Conquer franchise. At least the "good" days of it.

What I remember is hours upon hours of excitement filled matches....... in CnC Tiberium Sun, and in CnC Red Alert 2. Even managed a bit of fun with the first Generals when it was released until the horrible instability killed the fun for me.
Renegade, however, was total garbage..... imho

I think the "Point" is, that he have experience with well known AAA games. CCP have lots to gain, and nothing to loose. It have nothing to do with EA in particular, as you trying to make it sound ...

It's amazing how many don't grasp the word "CORPORATION" in a game where they can create corporations. lol

Sony. microsoft, activision, capcom, EA, ext they are all corps. I'm sure some of you boy cut them all eh? happy with the indie crap huh?

I play what I like. from whatever corp. COD World at War was my last COD game, cause I felt for nothing what came after words. same with madden 2010. (being my last madden) I'm still looking forward to lost planet 3. enjoyed dragons dogma. I did like dead space 3 as a action game, cause no way it's a horror. And am I not getting BF4? hahaha.. seriously? (hell yes I'm getting it)



You play what you like.

I've only taken issue with EA in my OP. The rest is inaccurate assumption on your part.

I have no qualms against Sony, $soft, Activision or Capcom(they make like 0 games that I'm interested in, so how could I)

My issues with EA are well-earned and well-deserved.

I was gaming and fanboying EA titles long before the mainstream gaming community knew who they were, and even before most of you young ones were born.
My first madden game came on floppy and was played on my Apple II
I spent most of my first six years as a madden fanboy having to first explain to my friends that Sega Genisis didn't suck and wouldn't give them herpes, before I could even began to convince them to give madden a try.

If you'd have ask me to predict EA's future back then, I'd have never guessed it would turn out like this. not in my wildest nightmares. Not until after they pulled that crap in 1997 when the first Gameday dropped (right upside their heads).......... it's been downhill (integrity/sincerity-wise) since then.


-It would take more than COD's shamelessly casual/accessibilitardy direction to make me hate on Activision.
-In all my years of gaming with $soft software/hardware/games, I've never developed any beef with them as a company (though the hacking epidemic in Halo2 brought me close to doing so)
-Sony does a lot of underhanded crap, and in many ways they mimic EA. However, they pale in direct comparison to EA's villainy. Also, Sony knows how to reach out to core demographics in a good way from time to time (MAG, Warhawk/Starhawk, Killzone2, the early SOCOMs, planetside1/2, etc.. etc..). They know how to do more than just "acquire success". They still bring innovation to the gaming industry, regardless of the risks that comes with doing so.
-Why would one even mention Capcom in the same sentence as those four?

When pressed about DUST 514 updates, Hilmar revealed that the game is now on a strict monthly iterative development cycle for the next quarter. "We're working on a monthly iteration cycle," he told me. "The first update is coming tomorrow; we're very excited for that." One of Sean's responsibilities as VP of product development will be to figure out what developers should work on in the next cycle based on community feedback. CCP has never had to deal with the sheer volume of players that free-to-play games attract, and Sean's experience on the Play4Free titles is sure to come in handy here.

People are always complaining that CCP has little/no experience developing FPSs.

Well, now they have someone who does.

Let's at least give him a chance, and wait and see what he does here, for this company.

Can we have someone, who knows what the flop they're talking about, come into this thread and post a list of all the FPSes that he actually physically took part in developing?

I'd actually like to know, for future reference.

God people like to whine a lot!

I don't understand how Decker is being cast as the person responsible for every flaw in every game released by EA in the past 800 years. EA is a massive company and 10s of thousands of people affect the outcomes of those games. How about we don't jump to conclusions and see what impact he has on DUST and EVE?

Personally I like to think that Decker left EA as he wanted a nicer paced company to work with. He found that with CCP and Decker's experience of big FPS development will fuse well with CCP's style of development. Hopefulyl we'll have more communication from CCP and we have another person with the job of listening to our feedback and working out how to implement the best parts into DUST.

I don't think it's the FPS experience people are worried about. It's the in game marketing for **** we don't want or need.

We already have AUR adverts, they are adequate enough. I don't need asking if I want to buy Crysis 3 every 15 minutes.

*Crysis 3 was used as an example*

I see what you mean but I still think people are getting over hyped. Decker is not going to be dictating CCP policy, it will be CCP dictating Decker's goals. He also left EA for a reason.

Let's wait and see how things turn out before jumping to the conclusion DUST will turn fall apart in a heap of badly aimed micro transactions and adds. I think a new focus on Product Development will be great!

.....and then there's this:




....so yeah, for anyone who's missed it, let me lay it out for you.

CCP has put this guy directly in charge of deciding what goes into the next Dust updates. Starting with 1.3


Thoughts?

BF2142

Would you like clarification on exactly what his "experience" is with a number of those AAA games?
Well, I'll put it like this.......


You know how, sometimes, when a high-profile game is released and it's riddled with bugs and server crashes?
Well, you know how sometimes, the devs for those games end up catching a lot of hell over those quality issues and even sometimes end up closed (the dev studio) within a year of the game releasing?
Well, you know how those devs sometimes say that the publishers pressured them, rushed them, underfunded them, and/or screwed them over on the quality assurance front? (publishers often take control of QA away from dev studios)

Well, there's always this one guy that works for the publisher, and he's pretty much the publisher's appointed "overseer" for that development branch or for that specific development project/game.
In other words, he's "the man" that breaths down the necks of the developers.

^That is who Sean Decker was at EA. He's THAT guy.
Up until they promoted him to head the free-to-play division of EA, globally......
Apparently, that promotion didn't turn out well for whatever reason (underpayed? underperformed? under the microscope and having to stand on his own laurels? who knows....)

Just a few from recent memory.

1. Dragon Age 2
2. Sim City 5
3. Fuse
4. Star Wars The Old Republic
5. Ending for Mass Effect 3
6. Ninja Reflex (Wii)
7. FIFA 13
8. Dead Space 3 (lost the feeling of the original - plus microtransactions in a single player game...)
9. Warhammer Online: Wrath of Heroes
10. EVERY SINGLE iOS/ANDROID MONEY GRAB GAME THEY MAKE

.... I don't get the EA they make some of the most awsome games on the market and omg they charge u for more content shock and gasp the only issue I have with EA was the interference in how studios opperate. But that guy got the boot apprenty and now every one can develop with minimal interference.

Really steam and Activision are just as bad. But those two have godly pr teams. And the internet has a massive blind spot in regards to steam which is annoying at times

You're dislike of those games don't make them bad games. I for one liked:

DA2
SWTOR
ME3

I also liked:

All the BF Games
Madden (Pretty much all of them)
The Sims, 1-3
The Need for Speed Series
The C&C Series
007: The World is Not Enough
688 Sub Attack
Alone in the Dark 2
The Bejeweled Series (Even though it started off as PopCap published internet games)
Boulder Dash
The Burnout Series
Crysis 1-3
Dead Space
Delta Force Series
DA1
The Godfather 1-2
Most of the Jane's Combat game series
The Older MoH games (WW2 setting games)
NCAA Football
Tiger Woods Golf
PGA Golf (Before Tiger Woods)
Rock Band 1-3
SimCity 4 + Rush Hour
Skate or Die (Only us old people will remember that game, made in the late 80's)
Spore
Test Drive
System Shock
Syndicate
Ultima Online (Arguably the best game ever made)
Wing Commander

Not all of these games are recent, but they were all good in their own right and each has always had a following of die hard fans. Regardless, individual opinions, Meta scores, and IGN reviews do not make a game good or bad nor does it make a publisher or developer a good or bad one. Some could argue that CCP doesn't know how to makes games, but they do have a successful game in EvE Online and while Dust isn't wildly great, it does have a following and CCP is working to make better games.

Every body has their own opinion of games and publishers. I don't care for Microsoft Studios, but they did publish one of the most liked games of all times, Halo.

You're dislike of those games don't make them bad games. I for one liked:

DA2
SWTOR
ME3
...
Every body has their own opinion of games and publishers. I don't care for Microsoft Studios, but they did publish one of the most liked games of all times, Wing Commander.

half of the games that you listed are ancient. A generation of ppl has matured and entered the workforce since some of them were released. EA today is not the same company that released Syndicate -- that must have been 20 years ago. I am not saying that this completely invalidates your list but I am just saying that the old games you mention should probably be kept out of the discussion.

There are some objective metrics too (I am happy to discuss them with anyone interested). You liked DA2 - fine who am I to say that you are wrong but it's plain to see that it was a rushed, cheaper sequel of DA:O with emphasis on making money and product quality left the background. I mean what a surprise: the old bioware spends ?5-6 years making DA:O that has mind boggling story, complexity, branching, voice acting etc. Then they get bought by EA. What do you know, a couple of years down the road a half baked sequel rolls out that has "rushed' stamped on each side of it. Good job EA. It really takes an expert to bastardize things the way you do.

I used to worship bioware. Now I wont come within a nuclear blast radius of them. All thanks to the loving EA touch.

If you have been gaming with EA that long, then you would know that there's no such thing as fanboying. Yea I've known bout EA since the days of their unusually longer Genesis cartridges with yellow tabs. Yet and still, I believe the rant that you are now proceeding to has no place here.

To day I learnd the internet is very selective in what information thry pay attention too. Follow the hive mind like rabbits and never thought about the fact the guy might be jumping ship so he can work free from EA goals. Still also what the hell is up with hating stuff is popular it's like most of you never left collage.

We don't know that, he never told us, in fact, never speak a single word to us.

I am not an insider, so I may be wrong. But I think EA is a publisher who pushes developer houses that it owns to crank out inferior product, so that EA can market the c rap out of it and oversell it. Worse yet they buy developers with a good established reputation and brand names that embody quality and then w hores them out till they cant walk upright anymore.

I to have avoided spending money on EA products for couple of years now, the only one I granted myself was BF3.
EA is for me the very worst company out there in the business. They incarnated for me the worst of the worst, money-grubbing is all that matter, the goal is not to make a god product; the goal is to milk as much money from the customers as possible. There is a difference between profit and milking.

Disproportionate micro transaction, DLCs, the lovely online passes, DRM, always online, Origins (remember that they scanned your PC, your FULL PC(!) and you even have to agree with it, in order to use this "service". Exempt DICE, nothing god comes from this company. They destroyed the vision of my two most favored Doctors at Bio Ware, ****** up Mass Effect, ****** up Stars Wars Online, ****** up SimCity and boy, donGÇÖt get me even started what I hate else, I would hit the character limit GǪ

In general I hate companies how need to sell multiple millions of games in order to be successful, it shows me that they become way to big and losing way too much money in game irrelevant things. Please read this:
http://www.destructoid.com/used-games-and-aaa-games-are-incompatible-good--256227.phtml

But one last thing, do you remember when EA stepped up and say: GÇ£we will cancel the online passesGÇ¥? Yes? Well guess what, they did it because they were hoping to get this money from you thorough the Xbone, now that Microsoft GÇ£listen to the feedbackGÇ¥ and removed the old policies all we need to do is wait until EA find another word for online pass to milk once again the costumer.

And now we have a Senior Vice Prsesidnt Product Development guy from EA. Well boys and grils, get ready to pay $$ for SP, $$ for color patterns, $$ for planets in Dust, $$ for "Map DLCs", $$ for everything that should be allready in the game.
WAIT!! Now everyting makes sence, guys if you like to use the gallente heavy, all you need to do is pay for it!

My friends paint a diffrent pic of Ea that said apprenty the older guys admit it used to be **** but it got a lot better in order to retain the talent