It’s very hard to be a fan of MMORPGs these days, and not have heard of NCSoft. You almost certainly know of them- these are the people who’re the publishers of such genre defining and leading games as Lineage, Guild Wars, and this year’s much hyped (but ultimately irrelevant) Wildstar.
Today, they announced a significant restructuring of their western operations, which entails a large number of layoffs. Predictably, developers of Wildstar Carbine are the ones most affected by this restructuring, while Guild Wars developer ArenaNet is entirely excluded from it.
NCSoft does reiterate, however, that it remains committed to the game, same as it remains committed to its other intellectual properties. “Moving forward, we will continue to focus on our core development capabilities and the intellectual properties (WildStar, Aion, Lineage, and Guild Wars franchises) that have made NCSoft what it is today. However, we are looking to move into new business segments like mobile and tablet games as well as explore emerging technologies,” they said in their press release.
Hopefully, the people affected by these lay-offs can get back on their feet soon.