EVE boys slap TESO dev over MMO 'innovation' comments

EVE Online developers Kristoffer Touborg and Jon Lander have hit back at comments made by Elder Scrolls Online boss Matt Firor, in which he said there was no innovation left to be enacted in the MMO space.

EVE’s lead game designer Kristoffer Touborg and senior producer Jon Lander have pushed back at comments made by Elder Scrolls Online director Matt Firor over claims that there's no progression left for the MMO genre.

Speaking to PC Gamer, Firor said: "At this point in the evolution of MMOs, every MMO has tried something at one point or another that you’re going to do in your game. There aren’t any more truly innovative features."

In a later interview with the site, the EVE developers were less than restrained with their responses.

Touborg said that he didn't agree with the statement, "and if I ever said that, Jon should fire me."

He added: "The best MMOs are entirely different. If you want my top five MMOs, they’re all completely different. Other people have tried to replicate it afterwards, but the fact is that the unique MMOs are the ones that are going to survive for a long time. Those are the interesting ones. This genre has so much left.

Lander agreed, referencing PS3's F2P EVE tie-in shooter, Dust 514: "I’ll be honest: nobody in the world has ever mixed a PlayStation game with a PC game, where you can interact with each other in the game world and shoot each other in a third-person-style sci-fi spaceship game and a first-person shooter. If that’s not unique I don’t know what it is.

"I’ve come out of some meetings where we’re talking about what we’re going to do next and… No, I fundamentally don’t believe that. I think that if we thought that [there was nothing left to innovate in the MMO genre], I would probably leave the industry, because what’s the point?"

Dust 514 enters beta this week. The Elder Scrolls Online releases next year.