ICELAND – March 23, 2009 – CCP, one of the world’s leading independent game developers and creator of EVE Online, has announced a strong corporate outlook ahead of this year’s Game Developers Conference (GDC), (San Francisco, CA, March 23-27, 2009). The company was recently honored for its innovative approach to development; is announcing aggressive recruitment plans; and earlier this month released the latest EVE Online expansion: Apocrypha, available online as well as in retail stores via a distribution partnership with Atari.

CCP has received two key business awards over the last month, The Icelandic Innovation and Knowledge Award from the Association of Businessmen and Economists in Iceland and the 2009 Top 10 Innovative Technology Companies Award from the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG). Both awards highlight CCP’s strength and innovation in technical development.

CCP was founded around innovation and the pursuit of excellence,” said CEO Hilmar Veigar Petursson, “and those core values have continued to be at the heart of everything we do, even as we’ve expanded our global reach in the last few years. We feel great pride and humility to have been recognized with these prestigious awards and feel more determined than ever to keep attracting brilliant people and building the best battletested technology to create the most compelling virtual worlds imaginable.”

On the heels of these two awards, and with March 10th’s retail box release of EVE Online: Apocrypha, CCP has announced a heavy presence at this year’s GDC. Several CCP representatives will give presentations, and CCP is also hosting booth #210 in the GDC Career Pavilion as part of its recruitment drive.

GDC speaking slots include:
- Eyjo Gudmundsson, Lead Economist, and Petur Oskarsson, Researcher: “The Council of Stellar Management: EVE Online Bridges Worlds for a Society”
- Halldor Fannar, CTO: “From Evolution to Revolution: Upgrading the Graphics Engine of EVE Online”
- Ryan Scott Dancey, CMO: “Network Marketing: Leveraging Social Networks to Grow an MMO”

During the expo, CCP will be accepting resumes from aspiring and talented developers as it commences a series of recruitment waves in which the company aims to fill about 60 positions over the course of 2009. The company will also show highlights of the new features and capabilities associated with their latest expansion, EVE Online: Apocrypha, including an eased learning curve for newcomers, unstable wormholes for exploration and modular ships that pilots may tailor-build to suit their own specifications and needs.

“We are excited to be growing our developer team, and it’s nice to see the team winning awards from our industry peers,” said Mike Tinney, president of CCP North America. “By hiring top talent, and tackling hard problems 2008 became a strong year for CCP. Now coming into 2009 we’re looking for more insanely talented and like-minded people to join our team. We will continue to enrich the EVE player experience and continuously develop and improve our upcoming projects as well.”

REYKJAVIK, ICELAND and LYON, FRANCE – 24 February, 2009 – Atari and CCP, one of the world’s leading independent game developers, today confirmed details regarding the contents of the retail box version of EVE Online, coming to retailers in North America beginning March 10th, 2009 and in Europe and Asia Pacific regions beginning March 12th. The retail version of CCP’s award winning PC massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) will ship with a number of high value extras offering newcomers a rewarding first voyage into the incredible universe of EVE Online. The Peak Concurrent User (PCU) record for EVE Online’s 260,000 subscriber single-shard game world has been broken three times in 2009, recently surpassing the 50k mark with 51,675 players online simultaneously, proving EVE’s long-lasting depth of gameplay and the importance of the players themselves in its success.

The EVE Online box will include all nine previously released expansions plus the forthcoming tenth expansion entitled EVE Online: Apocrypha which introduces numerous new features including unstable wormholes to explore and modular ships that pilots may tailor-build to suit their own specifications and needs. All subsequent expansions will be free of charge to all subscribers, continuing CCP’s commitment to offer free updates and expansions to its subscribers at regular intervals.

Breaking with tradition, the collection of extras will also include 60 days of free game time, a departure from the standard 30 days offered for most MMOGs, allowing players to sign up and get started without paying any subscription fees for the first 60 days of a new account. Alternatively, the included game time may be used to extend an existing subscription or be split into two 30-day codes known as “Pilot License Extensions” (PLEX) that can be sold to other players through the in-game market for in-game currency.

Players redeeming the code to activate a new account will also receive these special in-game items:
o INSTANT WAR ACCESS: This certificate allows rapid access to organized combat (through increased standings), helping new players get into the action quickly.
o EXCLUSIVE CAREER GUIDE: Accessed via the website to allow for dynamic updates, the guide includes insider tips and tricks.
o VIP PASS: Use this card to invite a friend to try the game for 21 days. When that friend becomes an EVE Online subscriber, you will get an additional 30 days of free game time
o EXCLUSIVE IN-GAME SHIP: An exclusive new ship, the Interbus Shuttle, will allow players to fly in style with an increased capacity cargo hold to ferry those extra crucial items at high speeds

More information about CCP is available at the company’s website.