f13.net

Where you going?   

They are launching AoC in Russia in 3 weeks by the way. Just relocating?  :oh_i_see:

I'm on a plane so forgive the briefness.

Funcom just canned about 60 to 70% of the US office. Mostly QA and CS.

What happens to Dreamfall? :(

Anyway, best of luck to those effected. More later.

49.30 on launch day, 3.10 yesterday. In just 6 months.

Still, they claim everything's ok. I can't read their financies, but someone told me they look ok (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=15287.0).

.
I keep convincing myself its just growing pains with the industry and not the economy..
In this case it might have something to do with how successful AOC was.

FC already has a better and cheaper system coming online to replace their QA/CS (at least for AoC).  They're not "gutting" themselves, they're being smart.  Instead of hiring a bunch of idiots to handle QA/CS, they're letting the players get involved voluntarily.  Matter of fact, someone in my guild may be a part of this new system.  Doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out it's wise to utilize the brightest of your playerbase to help maintain and expand your game.

The game was over-bloated to begin with.  To ME growth is more than just making a profit no matter how dumb your business model is, to me growth also means contracting your model to a more REALISTIC state.  Saying something is "gutted" because they finally grew a brain is a bit extreme.  The whole idea was extreme to begin with, at least now they're having a reality check like the rest of the world is.  It might not be "growth" but it's indeed "growing up."

Any sources or confirmation for this, or should it be treated as rumor?

FC already has a better and cheaper system coming online to replace their QA/CS (at least for AoC).  They're not "gutting" themselves, they're being smart.  Instead of hiring a bunch of idiots to handle QA/CS, they're letting the players get involved voluntarily.  Matter of fact, someone in my guild may be a part of this new system.  Doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out it's wise to utilize the brightest of your playerbase to help maintain and expand your game.

Why are they idiots?  Why will players working for free do a better job than someone who was paid and hired at (I guess) a face to face interview?

I think we're going to see more of this, because it's the financial crisis biting the industry. Debt is doom. Time is up for any project that has not yet worked. Businesses are battening down the hatches, focusing on their key strengths and trying to survive

Shut the fuck up, Ghambit. You're out of your element.

Mass market entertainment traditionally does quite well in a recession. You can't beat MMOs for entertainment value. They blow everything out of the water. I expect this to be a time of plenty for WoW. Everybody else is of course screwed.

Any sources or confirmation for this, or should it be treated as rumor?

It's really annoying when he

What happens to The Secret World? :(

Some folks seem to have been let go from Norway, but

Didn't UO do something like this?  Wasn't there a lawsuit?

I think so.  Don't know.  :| Where's Photek.  He's close.

(probably.)

I am, very close! Funny thing you mention it, I applied for a job as system designer a while back and go to the last stage of their developer tests and got a "Sorry, your visions for AoC are different than the devs" kinda talk, so.. Yeah  :heart:

Funcom can run a volunteer program because they are not based in the US.

However their labor laws fall under the country of incorporation for "virtual" positions.

Even if the volunteers live in the US?

But if their NA servers are based here and they have offices here it's like not like they are immune to the laws in the US.

Recent Restructuring
As some of you probably already have read on various websites over the weekend, Funcom has cut some of its staff. The reasons being cost efficiency and reorganization of certain teams and departments. This also includes hiring new people for opening positions in the organization. Such changes due to efficiency and performance initiatives are vital to any business and is to make sure that Funcom as a business stays on course. So this process was to re-adjust our cost base in some areas while increasing investment in others. This is a natural part of adjusting to the changing markets.

We are dedicated to improve Age of Conan further, as the past updates have shown and as well as the plans for the future updates clearly indicate. So we will stick to the plans we announced the past weeks and keep on working to constantly improve the game.
__________________

   Oliver 'Tarib' Kunz
Senior Community Manager

WW2OL has volunteer GM's, there's only 15 people working on the game total so it's the only way CRS can handle it.

'Corse most of the time I get a GM warning in game, it's from a guy already on my Mission channel.

Official statement (EU):

That has to be the worst "We just fired an ass load of people" statement I've ever seen.

Too easy. :oh_i_see:

Funcom has been laying off staff for the past few months. They did a round of layoffs in early September and did indeed let another large chunk of people go again on Wednesday morning.

Funcom also offered a severance opt-out to the QA and CS personnel in the states, which seems to have been a very popular choice. At a guess, it would appear that 90% of their workforce in the states is or will be gone by Monday.

Fortunately, almost no one actually plays AoC anymore so this shouldn't affect their ability to handle Customer Service; AO has a higher petition load. I imagine the volunteer programs will pick up the slack, though quality of service will suffer quite a bit since they are not even remotely empowered by Funcom.

This is all thanks to some wonderful decision-making on the part of the management team, whose 1337 skillz should have been evident to anyone who has played AoC or paid any attention to the launch.
__________________
Former (NDA lapsed) Aliases:
GM Rakoshi - AO and AoC Fraud Investigator
Assistant Director Divergence - ARK Academy

I don't have exact numbers, but about 60 people were laid off on Monday.

After September the CS levels were consistent for a game with a population of about 200,000. Many of the GMs who were cattle-called in directly after launch, when petition levels were higher than could be handled, were fired before then as well for misconduct (cyb0ring anyone?) or were generally incompetent and a drag on the system.

The current US department is now about the same size as it was for AO alone. By the way, the US wages are the lowest in the company, but the job protections are not even reminiscent of those available to the Norwegian employees. I'm sure the Norwegian side of things is getting hit pretty hard as well, but I can't speak to that.

The main problem is that FC has always used an approach of relying on CS to put out the fires that are the result of bad coding and sloppy testing. They'd rather spend dollars on stop-gap measures than on fixes. This is why after several years it still requires a GM to update the Uncle Bazzit quest if it's dropped at a specific time and why Afirce's book 4 never spawns properly; this is why the Dust Brigade quests give the wrong nanos and why if you're not close enough to the Beast on a kill you won't get credit for the Profession Star quest. AoC has some of these as well, and with a lower CS staff the support will simply not be there to put those fires out.

It's definitely a financial situation. If you've looked at stock prices lately you'll see why, the company has lost a load of value since going public. If I were to guess, FC is preparing to either hand off US licensing to another company or sell the game altogether. Time will tell.

Edit to add, I didn't play AoC, is this video fairly accurate (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Fey0wl5kS64)?

Never met a single roleplayer in the two different servers I spent the last 7 months on. I guess they are all on the carebear RP server though, for all the good reasons the video explained very well. Cool one, by the way.