Without knowing what departments the layoffs came from, it's tough to say what the impact will be for customers.
Taking a guess though, I'd say that NCNA had staffed up considerably starting around 2.5 to 3 yrs ago. They knew they had several big time releases on the horizon, so they bulked up for it. Between L2, CoH, GuildWars, AutoAssault, and whichever other titles I'm forgetting.. that is ALOT going on in a short period of time.
As far as I know, there's only one title that's slated for release in the next 1.5 yrs.
It makes sense to slim down a little bit if they are changing from rapid launch mode into maintenance mode.
I believe, if I were the CEO, I'd be looking at reducing staff in the departments relating to getting all of those titles up and running so that I could beef up the departments related at maintaining and growing my subscriber base.
The vast majority of the money coming into the company over the next 6 to 8 quarters is going to be from subscriptions. My focus at this point would be on keeping those subscribers happy and getting more. I'd be pretty nervous about not being able to count on new box sales.
I would also know that if I don't keep those subscribers happy, and replace the ones that are leaving, that my days are numbered.
As far as I know, there's only one title that's slated for release in the next 1.5 yrs.
What? Is it that Dungeon Crawler game?
And of course you are correct, if they don't need the people anymore then it makes sense to set them free.
I've always wondered though, instead of laying people off, why couldn't a company set those extra people to other tasks that could actually streamline any needed work or just assist in other capacities.
Then again, we don't know who was laid off. Maybe customer service? :)
Hey like I said.. if it were me, I'd prolly be cutting some of the launch people and focusing on subscriber retention, which includes GM Staff, Community Staff, Event Coordinators, PR, Advertising...
As far as I know, there's only one title that's slated for release in the next 1.5 yrs.
What? Is it that Dungeon Crawler game?
And of course you are correct, if they don't need the people anymore then it makes sense to set them free.
I've always wondered though, instead of laying people off, why couldn't a company set those extra people to other tasks that could actually streamline any needed work or just assist in other capacities.
Then again, we don't know who was laid off. Maybe customer service? :)
Without knowing who was laid off, we can't say for sure. It makes sense if the people have the right skills to move them from launch to support.
Typically with software, it takes way more people to get it deployed than it takes to maintain it though.
I'd say they are pretty much moving to maintenance mode.
We already know that NCNA is structured so that their team of people works across multiple titles. So the same guys who launch the expansion for Guildwars will also launch C5, and will probably launch the expansions for the other titles too. That's pretty **** smart IMO. Instead of hiring/firing as each game has an expansion coming they just use the same team and work them hard to handle each game.
It's also worth noting that customer support is almost entirely outsourced, and if I'm not mistaken, NC has had it that way from day 1. I doubt we'll see much of a change, if any, in customer support.
I wonder if there is any correlation to the 70 ppl laid off and the possibility of 70% of the consumer base being banned for 3rd party useage? :cool: naaaaahhhhhhh.
Thats just my opinion and I am stickin to it... :D
Scott Jennings (Lum the Mad) is an employee for NCSoft working on an unannounced title. His blog said that he still has a job, though he isn't permitted to comment on if his job has changed, his project has been cancelled, or anything of that nature.
NCSoft is actually working harder now than they were in the past. NCSoft Seoul is working on Lineage 3, Aion, and at least one other large unannounced project. NCSoft recently acquired a dev studio in the UK who is working on Soccer Fury. They also have Exsteel, I'm not exactly sure where that's being developed, as well as Dungeon Runners. There is known to be at least 2-3 unannounced projects total between all of their studios (which now range from Seattle to San Fran to Austin to the UK to SoKo).
All in all, I would say this has to do with the Austin studio being too large. Possibly it was the discontinuation of an unannounced title. Hard to say, but it likely has little or no influence on L2.
After having read this thread and reading the f13 article on it, it seems more likely that this was a customer service layoff than a cancelled project. I trust f13's sources on this one. I haven't really noticed a difference in L2 support since the layoff, although the servers have been crashing pretty strangely.
Oh well, people playing L2 at this point aren't really going to cry about less GMs.