Layoffs at Rift dev

EVE Online was released six months before World of Warcraft and has only within the last year or two cracked 350k concurrent subscriptions.  Six years ago when I first started playing it you'd be lucky to see 25k players on in any given night, and the average player population in the game was closer to 10-15k.  Now the numbers are closer to 40-45k and 25-30k respectively.  EVE Online is a $15/month subscription-based game.  If anything EVE Online proves that so long as you can carve out a niche of dedicated, loyal players, and don't squander the money, you can continue to support and develop a game even with "low" subscription counts.

Rift has a decent shot at staying alive for years to come so long as Trion doesn't screw up by the numbers.

Rift IS an excellent game that just had an excellent x-pac released.  Problem is, subscription fees are outdated and many gamers want to buy ala carte.  It's a shame that Trion has to lay people off because they have been one of the most customer-oriented developers I have ever encountered.

Yeah saw this coming. They need to go F2P to keep the game alive. Great MMO, just can't really compete with the other top players out there right now...ie WOW and GW2. Lack of population will eventually kill the game.

Rift was a very good, polished MMO upon its release. Probably one of the better ones I've played. WoW will never be dethroned as the top dog because it is still the game all the players go back to to see how it's doing. And the thing about MMOs is, people like a game that's well populated for the social aspect. They won't hang around in one of the other games when the populations start dwindling and groups, raids, social interacting becomes more difficult due to lack of players. So in that respect WoW will always be more popular.

Then there's the F2P market where I imagine a great deal of people will spend their time on. Between the F2P and WoW there's a very small market for a game to come in and take up a portion of the player base and be able to be profitable. In order to do so you need to offer great in game support, as well as fresh developments and updates. Rift did have fast and fresh updates, and I truly enjoyed it, but as with any game the lack of players and the consolidation of servers detracted from the experience.

I long for the days of EQ >.< those were truly fun times, but then that was because I was younger and didn't know anything about mmorpgs. No comprehensive websites telling you how to do every quest, no catering to the masses in making the game's difficulty retardedly easy because that way everyone enjoys it without alienating bad players...

Rift was an excellent game, and it was no more a clone of WoW than WoW was of EQ. Please stop displaying your ignorance, children.

maybe if ppl would stop trying to clone WoW's success this crap wouldn't be happening to developers.  People are getting tired of the same ole ride and want something different and unique.  Even watching the summary for Elder scrolls online they are gonna do the same theme park crap like wow, gw2, swtor, sad really.

I wonder if the majority of their layoffs were GMs.  I used to be a GM for this game.

Man what a awful year for developers =( 

http://www.ign.com/videos/2012/12/11/game-studios-we-lost-in-2012

Sometimes I wish a company would just come out with out all the BS speak. Just come out and say "Are games aren't doing to well and we need to fire 30 people to remain in business. This will in every way slow support for titles that aren't making us money like Rift." That would be refreshing. 

There are way too many WoW styled mmos out there.  If people really want to try and compete in that market then they need to bring something brand new to the table, there is no other way.  You can't out-wow, WoW.  Not to mention, the formula itself is getting a little stale, people are getting bored easily.

Rift is terrible and always terrible.  It just took people a month to realize it.

is rift still online? too many MMO's now

The vast majority of MMOs slowly lose suscribers a few months after release.  There are very few MMOs that are capable of sustaining a playerbase in the long term.

this could have something to do with the fast that they had some problems with EoN development.

?As End of Nations was reaching the pre-launch phase in its lifecycle, we officially brought the game development in house to Trion Worlds and will complete the development internally.

Sorry to hear about those affected. Good luck on your next job.

MMORPG needs to go away. Terrible genre is terrible. Glad it didn't take off on consoles. Phew.