This will be a long post but I feel like this has to be said.
On Monday morning in my meeting with HR my rep said “I understand you are in shock”. I was not. In fact, none of this is in any way a surprise for me. I expected this but a lot earlier. Around the beginning of last year is when I knew this would happen. I slowly started talking to immigration and some recruiters back then but deep inside I had hoped that things would change. I am not the only one to feel this way, by far.
It was around that time that we were promised that people working on the EVE project would not be affected if things didn’t work out as was planned. Was I working on EVE? No, this would be a huge understatement to put it that way. I wasn’t working on EVE, EVE was my life. I wear it on my clothes, hell I even wear it on my skin, my house is practically an EVE museum and even my cats are named after EVE and even as I write this absolutely unnecessary essay I am washing down my ever-growing pile of meds with some alcohol to numb things down from an EVE glass. I grew up with this game, in many ways it made me who I am today. And I am not going to cry about whether making that promise was unfair or wrong or naïve, it doesn’t matter, this is not what I am here to tell you.
My journey to come here was not easy. I had to take a 300% pay cut, something that nobody in their right mind would do, and leave everything and everyone I cared about behind. I left my family, as fucked up as they are – they are still a family, my husband, my pets, my friends, my band, my hobbies, my business and pretty much everything that I had. I came here with just a few bags of clothes and three boxes that contained whatever scraps of my belongings to remind me who I am. I held on to that and fought hard every single day to prove that I am worthy.
When you are a foreigner, especially in a country like Iceland, you live a very different life. I was never able to recover, I never felt like I belong. I am terrible at making friends and by this day I don’t have a person in my life I could just sit down and talk about anything with. You see, when your whole existence is attached to a piece of plastic that determines whether you are a human being or an unwanted intrusion it’s hard to make plans, hard to connect, hard to think past the date printed on it. So I’ve never really let anyone close enough to see how I felt. I’ve felt lonely and lost, you have no idea how lonely you can feel even when surrounded by the most wonderful people, when you know it’s just temporary. This journey was very hard, I’ve been through depression and on a verge of suicide but I never gave up, because I believe in EVE, it drives me. I could never shrug it off, turn around and leave. Even though I could have, more than once. I turned down job offers and opportunities that only come once in a lifetime.
I’ve felt this burning passion and desire to make a difference, because I knew that I could, I was capable of it. I fought my battles, they were tough, some I’ve won, ultimately my war for the better future of this game is lost at this stage, but I do not regret anything for a second. These will always be my happiest memories. And I am not angry at anyone or about anything. I am grateful to have had this opportunity, to have worked on a thing that matters the most to me in my life. And yes, I know that’s dumb.
I knew I would get fired, it was inevitable, it was just a matter of time. So I made the best of my time here and tried to change the things that I could. I knew that when I would be gone, my fellow co-workers would pick it up and keep going, and CCP has some of the best people on this goddamn planet, so I never doubted for a moment that they would continue fighting.
Today, for the first time in over ten years that I’ve been with this game I feel like it’s the beginning of the end. I’ve never wanted to be wrong more than now, and for as long as I am alive I will hope that I am wrong about this. But I have to say this – throwing out the whole EVE Community Team might be the single biggest mistake this company has ever made. I am not bitter, and I am not ranting, although you are free to think so if you wish, this isn’t my intention for it to come across this way. If you talk to any EVE player, they will probably agree with me on the fact that no feature in this game has kept them going like the community. I know this was always the case for me. Community got me into it, community kept me in it, community is happy to take me back into its hands even right now. I’ve seen people make friends, get married and grow old and still come together because of EVE. And seeing CCP completely give up on the community just breaks my heart. I know that without community this game will not exist. And I also know that it is absolutely impossible to do anything with just two people. I know that Paul and Svenni will do their best and they are more than competent to. But even with the skeleton crew we had left after the team got slashed in 2014 it was already impossible to do what had to be done. Even despite us working late hours, weekends and not taking vacations. But hey at least I’ll get almost a month of those back in cash…
I understand that you had to make the numbers look right and I understand that we are the easiest to let go, I always knew we are disposable. It’s nobody’s fault, it’s just how the world works. It’s a part of the job to be a meat shield, when something hard needs to be said, when things don’t work out, when players need someone to shout at. It’s the risk we all knew and accepted and lived with. I wish there was anything I could have done to change that, but I can’t. I know I will probably never have this opportunity again and I doubt that powers that be will see this post, but if you do, make the right decisions this time, while you still can. There is a reason why this happens every three years, it’s easy to turn to a blank page but it’s very hard to change how your handwriting looks. Please try.
Having spent a few days wrapping my head around this I slowly begin to realize that there is a very slim chance of me being able to stay here. I am not giving up and I will fight hard for it but I am also realistic and I know how this government works. I will leave just like I came here, with nothing in a pocket and nothing to show for myself but hoping and believing that in the end it will either work out or simply won’t matter as we all fall back into the stardust that made us.
Now I have to go and put myself together. Look at myself in a mirror and write up in my CV how badass I am and just hope that someone in Iceland still needs me. If it comes to the worst, just know that I will miss all of you fuckers real bad 
<3
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