Mythic layoffs... Friday Jan 16th

[Bismallah]

And so it begins.

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/01/19/rumor-mythic-layoffs-affect-qa-customer-support/

"...21 customer service employees, half of QA and all of the playtest group were let go."

We need testers? What testers, fuck it, roll the patches out!!!

[Trippy]

Their players are their testers

[Bismallah]

I should add, that was a rumor, but then the article seems to verify it as being fact by stating that they followed up with EA which gave the canned statement of cutting 10% etc...

[IainC]

I should add, that was a rumor, but then the article seems to verify it as being fact by stating that they followed up with EA which gave the canned statement of cutting 10% etc...

Not saying it isn't true (and honestly I don't know either way) but your analysis isn't entirely accurate. EA announced a 10% head count reduction measure a few weeks ago and says it won't comment on individual facilities, so the statement that apparently backs up the rumour doesn't say what you are suggesting it does.

[Bismallah]

I agree, my analysis is by no means spot on.

Just throwing it out there for people to digest. We should probably see some stuff this week though to either confirm or deny.

[Evildrider]

Probably not til the end of the month, as according to MBJ thats when the next big EA pow wow is.  Almost all companies are laying people off, it has more to do with the economy then it does the companies at this point.

[Nebu]

Almost all companies are laying people off, it has more to do with the economy then it does the companies at this point.

I'm going to guess that Blizzard isn't laying off many, if any people.  Success transcends economy. 

[Evildrider]

I wasn't particularly pointing at gaming companies.. but yes Blizzard probably isn't, but of course people will bring up Blizzard cuz they can do no wrong right?  EA has way more projects then Blizzard does and goes far beyond Mythic.

[waffel]

Man this is great, Mark is really getting worked up on the Nancy Drew thread on VN. He's doing the classic tit-for-tat with other posters while keeping the spin going. I'm sure he's thinking "If I had my own forums I could ban these fucking assholes! Gah!!"

Oh, he found the thread about this topic too. His answer? The economy!

[Bismallah]

Actually, Blizzard did trim some fat at the end of the summer but I hadn't dug up anything past that... economy nothing. IF his game was doing well, he'd be singing an entirely different tune.

[Nebu]

... but of course people will bring up Blizzard cuz they can do no wrong right? 

It's not that they can "do no wrong", rather that they a) know how to cater to the masses and b) know how to run and scale a successful business. 

[Mavor]

 Mythic is being driven into the ground my Mark Jacobs because he is riding the classic delusion cloud that many successful people ride on. In reference to the book "Taking it to the next level" by Marshall Goldsmith and Mark Reiter , many successful people feel that because they were successful in the past, their failure in the present MUST be caused by external factors.

 My conclusion is that Mark cannot, and will not, ever understand that most of the people around him, including his players, have all the information Mythic needs to put WAR back on track.

[Nebu]

My conclusion is that Mark cannot, and will not, ever understand that most of the people around him, including his players, have all the information Mythic needs to put WAR back on track.

I'm not entirely sure this is the case.  Players (read: paying customers) know what they want, but they may not be the best judge of what is reasonable to expect.  You also need to consider that forums such as VN and WHA are populated by a vocal minority.  The majority of people populating WAR will say little about their wants and desires making it difficult to know what the paying majority really wants.  I think MMO's need to make better use of in-game tools to determine what the average player really wants from their gaming experience.  This avoids the common mistake of taking cues from the most vocal minority or hardcore audience.

[ghost]

Yep, VN and WHA are the folks that populate the end of the bell curve, the two standard deviation types.  Therefore, most either absolutely love the game or they hate it.  Unfortunately, that seems to be who Mythic got together for their beta.  They needed the middle of the road types to get a good beta assessment.

[IainC]

Kotaku discovers the dev tracker on WHA without realising that they are reposts from VN.

[Sheepherder]

I think MMO's need to make better use of in-game tools to determine what the average player really wants from their gaming experience.  This avoids the common mistake of taking cues from the most vocal minority or hardcore audience.

Replace daily/repeatable quests with a short (5 questions or less) questionnaire asking for data on the state of the game as a way of data collection, make it per account rather than per character.

Edit: daily/repeatable rather than daily.

[Chockonuts]

Almost all companies are laying people off, it has more to do with the economy then it does the companies at this point.

I'm going to guess that Blizzard isn't laying off many, if any people.  Success transcends economy. 

Yep, when you have four of your game boxes in the Top20 PC sales for November and December 2008, and Warhammer didn't even crack it.. you don't have to lay off anyone cause youre pulling in all the cheese.

[Xanthippe]

Man this is great, Mark is really getting worked up on the Nancy Drew thread on VN. He's doing the classic tit-for-tat with other posters while keeping the spin going. I'm sure he's thinking "If I had my own forums I could ban these fucking assholes! Gah!!"

Oh, he found the thread about this topic too. His answer? The economy!

Nancy Drew thread, what?

[Delmania]

Nancy Drew thread, what?

Look on WHA's dev tracker thingie for a post entitled "Nancy Drew > WAR" a reference to the fact that for the month of December, some Nancy Drew sold more copies than Warhammer Online did in retail stores.

Linkie inc:
http://vnboards.ign.com/warhammer_online_age_of_reckoning_general_board/b22997/109992820/r110004487/

[Checkers]

Regardless of popularity, I'd like to know how close Warhammer is to returning a profit based on subs and box sales.

[Montague]

Regardless of popularity, I'd like to know how close Warhammer is to returning a profit based on subs and box sales.

I would say its profitable but not making nearly the ROI that EA was expecting. Not a good situation to be in at this time.

[Nebu]

Profitable? Really?  Box sales probably went a long way to paying the development costs, but wouldn't they be struggling to meet staff costs?  Low sub numbers mean less for payroll unless they are already down to a skeleton crew. 

[Lantyssa]

Since Jacobs was saying they've had 400+ working on it and they're not doing anything else in-house right now...  Granted some of those are going to be EA divisions and whatnot, but their staff cuts haven't been that great unless there were significant unless there were other unannounced ones.

[Righ]

No need to sack them. The game's so adrift that they've probably resorted to eating each other by now.

[Bismallah]

Mark said that they spent south of 100m for the WAR and related development costs. Assuming that he did have around 400 staff on the project (I am sure some of those are under different charge numbers though connected more to EA then Mythic, say Marketing or Shipping) and they live in/around Fairfax they are probably paying their employees around 40-50k a year, if not more (some less like CSRs, some more like lead developers). Assuming 50k so the math is easier that's 1.7m a month just in salary (not including benefits).

If they spent around 100m for WAR and they sold 800k boxes at 39.99 a piece, that's right around 32m they made initially with the box sales (but the stores had to cut a profit on each sale, so they probably made less then that). Where those missing 400k went from being shipped to sold I have no idea. Assuming they held those 800k subscribers every month from release until current, 12m a month in profit for subs, that's only another 60m give or take. We all know they did not hold that number of subs. That barely evens up the gap, and since they have probably lost in upwards of 500-600k subscribers their net income per month is probably barely covering labor at this point...

Then again there could be all sorts of other things thrown in the mix. Best guess, EA bean counters are freaking out.

[GoodIdea]

This was a rumor started by some moderator at WHA and he later apologized for it. The truth is there will be staff layoffs since the game isn't doing as well as expected, but it's not going to be dramatic imo, unless they are just shutting the entire game down, which I highly doubt.

[Bismallah]

This was a rumor started by some moderator at WHA and he later apologized for it. The truth is there will be staff layoffs since the game isn't doing as well as expected, but it's not going to be dramatic imo, unless they are just shutting the entire game down, which I highly doubt.

Doesn't the fact that there will be layoffs because the game isn't doing well as expected substantiate the 'rumor'?

[Nebu]

Doesn't the fact that there will be layoffs because the game isn't doing well as expected substantiate the 'rumor'?

First rule of gaming hype: Don't let silly little things like "facts" get in the way of your fanboism.

[tazelbain]

This was a rumor started by some moderator at WHA and he later apologized for it. The truth is there will be staff layoffs since the game isn't doing as well as expected, but it's not going to be dramatic imo, unless they are just shutting the entire game down, which I highly doubt.

Doesn't the fact that there will be layoffs because the game isn't doing well as expected substantiate the 'rumor'?

Not really.  Mythic has got the EA Monkey on its back.  Even if Mythic is profitable by itself, they will be force cut people to carry EA's bloated carcass around.

[Montague]

Profitable? Really?  Box sales probably went a long way to paying the development costs, but wouldn't they be struggling to meet staff costs?  Low sub numbers mean less for payroll unless they are already down to a skeleton crew. 

I meant profitable as in making more money month-to-month than spending. Most of the development costs were borne by Mythic, not EA itself, though I guess you could factor in the purchase price of Mythic into EA's costs.

If in fact it's not profitable month-to-month at this point if I was a WAR player I wouldn't get too attached to my character.

[Nebu]

When the 6 month mark rolls around things will get interesting.  You have to wonder how many poor souls bought a 6 month sub thinking they would get the game they hoped for. 

[Arthur_Parker]

I think these cuts would probably have happened anyway, given the economy excuse and EA's results.  When the next round of cuts hit the dev team, then there will be much stronger case for saying it's because of subscriber numbers.

[Nebu]

I think these cuts would probably have happened anyway, given the economy excuse and EA's results. 

You're more of an optimist than I am.  Looking at the server populations after the second month live, it was quite obvious that there was a mass exodus. 

[Arthur_Parker]

I think they are still in denial, I wouldn't classify that as optimism.

[Ingmar]

No need to sack them. The game's so adrift that they've probably resorted to eating each other by now.

Five star drive, three star flavor?