Layoffs at Guild Wars 2 publisher
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
NCsoft's realignment of internal publishing resources affects "several" full-time and contract positions at Seattle headquarters.
Guild Wars 2 publisher NCsoft has enacted a round of layoffs at its Seattle, Washington, headquarters following a realignment of internal publishing resources. Public relations director Lincoln Davis confirmed the news to PC Gamer.
"NCsoft is realigning internal publishing resources to better suit the needs of our game development studios," Davis said. "As a result of the realignment, several employees and contract positions were affected. This was a very tough decision to make and wish the best for all NCsoft employees in their next ventures."
It is not clear if the layoffs at NCsoft's Seattle office will have any effect on ongoing support and development of Guild Wars 2 or any of the company's other products and services.
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
88 comments
Please fire the guy who worked on the camera for this game. I haven't played it because of the crappy thing. I will not buy the game til it is fixed.
1 Like This article is misleading and it pisses me off.
The layoffs have nothing to do with Arenanet and Guild Wars 2.. yet you've put GW2 in the title. The layoffs are tied to the closure of City of Heroes and the (un)success of TERA. The GW2 team has been increased in size.
Should be ashamed of yourselves. I don't care that you put your little disclaimer at the end.. you've blatently tried to encourage more hits by making people think GW2 is in trouble.
1 Like Let's face it, with GW2 now and Wildstar on the way, NCSoft are doing right by reducing the focus of their older games. They'd be stupid not to from a business point of view.
@aovannor I loved Aion until it went F2P but yeah despite loving it, it was a total failure and definitely didn't help them out financially stateside. What was funny is the moment they mentioned the Seattle office I knew Aion's failure was involved which was too badd as it was NC Korea who screwed the pooch with it.
Contract positions.Ya know...contracts...probably expired a while after the game launched.
Hell it is most likely a good part of the studio that worked on it before launch that are heading out. This happens typically with most mmos anyway.
and let me guess in January for some reason those same people who got laid off will be back working for them in 2013.
10 Like Totally misleading. Almost own right lying for the attention of the readers...
That title is totally misleading and even developer's of Guild Wars 2 have commented on this stating: "While we are indeed a wholly-owned subsidiary of Korea-based NCsoft Corporation (read NCsoft HQ), we are also our own entity. ArenaNet has not been affected by the NCwest realignment. And indeed, we are hiring: http://www.arena.net/jobs/"
Source: https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Laying-off-workers/first#content
1 Like NC Soft, the publisher, laid people off. Not Arena Net, the company that develops and maintain the GW2 game. Article can be a tad misleading to some. Title probably should have been, "Layoffs at NC Soft, publisher of GW2".
5 Like @DaNakedTruth you should have written the news piece as you described what happened far more concisely that the writer. What happened to concise news?
I'd consider this a good thing. I'm not a fan of MMO's, but I played Guild Wars II anyway because it can be played solo all the way through. Same goes for SW:TOR imo.
Really really hope developers take a hint and lay off the MP segment of any game they make.
@Aydenuille Meh, I really like GW2, but I would have lost interest a while ago if there wasn't a huge online component to it. Makes advancement feel important and not trivial. I can never muster up the energy to play Skyrim because progression doesn't matter in an empty world filled with only NPCs.
3 Like GW2 wasn't even a Guild Wars sequel. I'm sorry, but Guild Wars had an emphasis on the story, whereas GW2 is all about exploration. GW2 is a joke, and all Anet did was use a brand name to paste onto a mediocre piece of garbage. There is absolutely no resemblance between GW1 + GW2.
1 Like @emperiox GW2 is a big step up from GW1 for Anet. It's a good game. Although a lot of Dungeons in GW2 are just crap. But I also think that there is no resemblance between GW1 and GW2, except for recycled music.
5 Like @emperiox Your a joke, GW2 is awesome. and also if you dont like it so much why is your avatar a GW2 logo?
1 Like GW2 is only fun for 2 - 3 weeks tops. I'm glad all I did was buy the game once, because there just wasn't enough interest for me to keep on playing after one month. I'd be FFXIV pissed if I had to pay monthly. But for one price no strings attached, the game did its job for a month. Never touched it again....
@decoy1978 Yeah, agree with this if it had a sub it would be free to play in no time. I hardly have the incentive to log on anymore. It was okay for a month.
1 Like @decoy1978 Maybe for you. Me, nor anyone I have met outside of rabid online forums (aka the real world) have had anything bad to say about the game, and alot of people I kn ow still play it frequently, including me. But you must have a very short attention fan. I do not suggest other games in this genre if you couldn't handle this one.
1 Like Ouch, this is just not the best time to be an MMO maker. Also anyone else see a recurring timeline here? First you have major hype machine for months before release. Then you have release and amazing opening day success and overall good reviews. Then about two months in the population starts to flat line followed by various world events trying to fight that. Then comes people getting fired and brutal fanboy/hater wars on the forums over why BLAH game is in its current state? I swear the same thing happend to SWTOR and now GW2... I would be checking retirement funds if I was working on the Elder Scrolls Online right now...
@Centurion95 Um, yeah Arena Net isn't laying off anyone. GW2 is doing really good right now. I don't blame you though, this article was VERY misleading...the guy who writes this tend to make misleading articles like this all the time.
5 Like Que all the jaded MMO players saying this is because GW2 has "no end game" or whatever, even though it has nothing directly to do with GW2.
1 Like This news is not connected to GW2 in any way, just the publisher's other games. The game is still running strong with a high population of people, new content is released often and then game is an absolute pleasure to play. Prepare to enjoy this awesome game for many years to come. Haters gonna hate though.
6 Like @Poodger I've found that MMO players are the most vocal with their complaints of any group of gamers, and yet it's without any basis in reality. The MMORPG.com community is the most critical, cynical, negative and nasty group of posters on any gaming website. In general, I've learned to take what MMO players say online with a block of salt because it's almost never bourne out what happens in the games.
2 Like guild wars 2 was and still is a buggy mess. it's really not ready for final release. crashes, bad performance, bugs up the wazoo, grindy end game, etc. some heads had to roll. they need to find and hire people that are actually competent to fix that mess.
1 Like @ghostXzero I've never run into any of these so called "bugs" so maybe its time to upgrade your crappy PC?
@ghostXzero You really have no idea what are you talking about do you?
NCSoft is a publisher. Anet is the company that coded the game. If there was layoffs at Anet then whatever you said would apply.
NCSoft has no programmers at Anet.
2 Like @ghostXzero ArenaNet is responsible for coding and maintaining the game and the servers, not NCSoft, they're just the publisher. Plus you're really exaggerating.
5 Like @ghostXzero Actually, you are quite wrong. I run into very few bugs while playing, have never crashed or lagged while running on the highest settings), and have not yet had to grind.
Find relevant complaints next time kiddo
1 Like @Poodger @ghostXzero ah actually he is right. GW2 is one of the most buggy game i've ever played on PC. Poor coding is obvious everywhere. I missed my reward tokens after completing dungeons several times. Trading Post bugs are annoying as hell. I could point out more problems but the game can be still fun. Anet should hire more experienced coding guys in my opinion.
1 Like @HailHellfire @Poodger @ghostXzero Oh please I like the game too. The least buggy MMO? Obviously this is your first MMO. Been playing MMOs for nearly 6 yrs dude. Btw I'm playing on Quard core CPU with HD7770 GPU. This is not frame rate issues I"m talking about. Broken events, Personal story bugs, missing out on Dungeon reward toekns. Go to LA and listen to ppl complaining about TP window bugs. You might also want to go to Guild wars 2 forum and do some reading there. Bugs report everywhere.
2 Like @Poodger @AlmaDanny @ghostXzero
Not sure why you must defend the game so... disingenuously... at release the second half of the game only worked half the time. And it it's only mildly better now.
For goodness sake - for months anyone who wanted to complete the Temple of Balthazar (a major dynamic event which is a big part of it's zone and the story, needed for exotic karma armors and Legendary ingredients) has had to hop servers until they find one in which the NPCs are not bugged and unresponsive - these are neither minor, or ignorable bugs - Anet's NPC coding is incredibly shaky and breaks at the drop of a hat, anyone trying to participate in the Lost Shores event 2nd day knows it! The whole of Orr is like this!
They need to pull finger and re-write their trashy, broken code - games released with bugs is normal, this game is in terrible shape - the Orrian ghost-town is demonstrative of that.
@AlmaDanny @Poodger @ghostXzero
lol!
ive never ran into any bugs with this game...
if there are bugs, they are minor...
my guess is, you might want to get a new rig...
this is the least buggy MMO that ive ever played...
2 Like @AlmaDanny @ghostXzero I have yet to experience ANY of those problems. I almost never run into bugs, and the FEW that I have seen are so incredibly minor and ignorable.
3 Like @Poodger @ghostXzero Exactly what I'm talking about above. Every small issue is blown up into a giant problem. As if every game doesn't have bugs, especially at launch.
4 Like Imagine that, NCSoft, which just fired the entire City of Heroes staff immediately is laying off people again.
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