A quick turn of the knife should do the trick. NCsoft. Again.

[schild]

http://www.giantrealm.com/gaming/more-ncsoft-layoffs

Word on the street is that every team and department at NCSoft Austin except Tabula Rasa has been given the axe. No hard numbers yet, but let's be honest - we, well no, I saw this coming.

Lineage 2, axed. Has nearly 150,000 subcribers. That's five times more than Tabula Rasa.

Dungeon Runners seems to be safe at the moment, because they were already touched in bad places last time around.

Aion, axed. It wasn't even out yet.

Lineage 1, axed.

Most of localization, community, production and publishing that isn't under the TR banner will be looking for new jobs.

More later, I suppose. I'm in awe at the moment. How does a company rationalize keeping a game that has no chance of recovering? As someone else most eloquently put it, "It's just getting f*cking silly at this point."

Is this where I type "hilarity ensues"? As always, best of luck to all the people let go.

Oh, hey, a press release. While I was typing. A press release that says nothing of layoffs but talks about a new studio. I think a shark just jumped NCsoft. Disgusting.

[Mrbloodworth]

ouch.

I'm not understanding how they can continue to support the games they have going this route. Let alone all the ones supposedly coming for the PS3 deal.

[schild]

Your games belong to Korea.

Noxzema jokes are not funny.

[Soln]

I wonder if they have debt problems, what with credit dissolving worldwide.  Scaling down spending fast might be the only option.  /shrug

[Draegan]

And I wanted to try Aion out. Boooo

[HaemishM]

Tabula Rasa gets spared? Whose dick is Garriot sucking to keep this sinking turd afloat?

[Evildrider]

Why don't they just close down already?

[LK]

And I wanted to try Aion out. Boooo

I saw that it required you to buy lots of healing and mana potions and wrote it off there. Pretty graphics and models + winged flight aside, it stunk of Korean game design just by taking one glance at the hotbar.

[Ratman_tf]

I don't agree that Tab Ras has no chance of recovery. I think it's thin and hanging by a thread, but I've seen stranger recoveries in MMOG land.

[Nonentity]

Aion, nooo!

Here's for pouring one out for Aion:

[sam, an eggplant]

Really, Aion too? So then NC's only hope is GW2, which they aren't even developing inhouse. They lost MUO and champions online, right?

How far they've fallen... all that lineage money squandered. Can't say I didn't see it coming.

[Lantyssa]

http://www.giantrealm.com/gaming/more-ncsoft-layoffs

Can you talk to someone about Giant Realm showing a blank page when viewed with SeaMonkey?  I have IE tab which solves it, but it makes me think the site is busted every time I go there for the fifteen seconds until I remember that.

[Oban]

People in North America play L2?  Why would you cut off a game that must cost next to nothing to maintain? 

Or were the recently departed working on a localized expansion?

[Falwell]

I'm curious as to where this will leave Lum and his crew.

[Ingmar]

I'm curious as to where this will leave Lum and his crew.

That ship sailed a couple weeks ago, this is the second round.

[FatuousTwat]

Didn't NCSoft run GW? Did they fire those people as well?

[Falwell]

I'm curious as to where this will leave Lum and his crew.

That ship sailed a couple weeks ago, this is the second round.

Gotcha, I missed that one.

[Lum]

I'm curious as to where this will leave Lum and his crew.

Um, working somewhere else for the past month!

[Ingmar]

Didn't NCSoft run GW? Did they fire those people as well?

ArenaNet is in Washington state, so far this has only been NCSoft Austin.

[stark]

This article is retardedly misleading, you make it sound like Aion, Lineage I, and Lineage II the games have been cancelled.  If anything was actually 'axed', it was probably just some NC Austin producers or pointless North American administration.

The Lineages are already made and done, and Aion is being developed in Korea so its not like NC Austin even has the power to cancel a game.

[schild]

I don't remember saying any games got canceled. Lemme take another look.

[schild]

Nope, didn't say that.

But hell, since reading is hard, I'll clarify.

Edit: Just for you.

A quick update: I'm not saying these games are canceled. I'm saying much of the staff that was left on these titles, which may or may not have already been skeleton crews, have been let go.

[sam, an eggplant]

It looks like the austin studio is being closed entirely except for the crew maintaining TR, which they're keeping alive because... well, nobody really knows. Everybody left after the layoffs is being moved to seattle.

[schild]

Yup. But then, I had already reported that people would be moved to Arena.net and TR had a few months to get their shit together. It's a shame that I posted the final tally of firings that would be staggered over 3 months, but then, whatever. Jesus himself couldn't turn TR around.

[Hawkbit]

I'm guessing they realized that with 149,997 bots that left the three other legitimate paying players for L2. 

Well, its always sad to hear of folks losing jobs, especially when TR stays firm.  Lord British must have a secret vault of money hidden away in one of his secret passages.  Bummer. 

[sinij]

Your games belong to Korea.

I think grind is too much ingrained in all levels of Asian culture and individualism is too prevelant in "western" world for games to mesh that well.

[Iniquity]

Your games belong to Korea.

I think grind is too much ingrained in all levels of Asian culture and individualism is too prevelant in "western" world for games to mesh that well.

Didn't Lum already make a really long post a few months back demolishing this sort of overly reductionist bullshit?

[UnSub]

Ignore the man behind the curtain and keep your eyes on ... NCsoft West!

I've only skimmed this thread - don't have time to actually read it - but thought this was interesting.

[Falconeer]

Lord British must have a secret vault of money hidden away in one of his secret passages.  Bummer. 

That's the insurance money he got when he was killed, back in 1997.

[Tale]

Hello I play Tabula Rasa.

[Mrbloodworth]

(*Everyone in the room) "HI TALE!"





 

[UnSub]

Hello I play Tabula Rasa.

If you recruit another friend, you'll be able to double the concurrent server population.

[Lum]

Didn't Lum already make a really long post a few months back demolishing this sort of overly reductionist bullshit?

Probably, but a simpler response is to simply point out that the most successful MMO in Asia is World of Warcraft.

[sam, an eggplant]

Well that's difficult to prove, given the PC bang playstyle and popularity of free to play MMOs. Yulgang has 60 million registered users, but who knows how many actually play? Habbo hotel has >100m, that crazy chinese ZT online game has ~8m actual subscribers, and so on. WoW doesn't clearly dominate in asia like it does here. I generally qualify everything with "but I don't count Asia, because they're incredibly weird".

[Yegolev]

I'm curious as to where this will leave Lum and his crew.

Um, working somewhere else for the past month!

So you indeed brought your "crew", then.  I don't believe I met your "crew" when I was in Austin.  Perhaps they are more of an "entourage"?  Do you have a photobucket for them?

Ah... I just remembered that I forgot to take my meds this morning.  I'll come back after lunch.