Originally posted by Siveria

Rift is doing fine. 

[...]

NA has like 4 servers on medium, EU altogether barely hits "medium" anymore and has a strong "low" trend allover the servers -2 months after SL hit the game, as well as before.

At the moment the official news about Scott Hartsman leaving has an 8 pages thread in the US-forums going, less then 2 pages on the EU forums. On the german forum 3(!) people answered, while the two german PVE servers are among the most populated worldwide.

So, if you count all the poster's names, there's like 20 people NA+EU who comment on news of Hartsman leaving. And please, don't pull the "no one is reading the forums, everyone is busy playing and in game"-card here.

I wish the game the very best, maybe it'll get what it desperately needs with Bill Fisher at the controls -but Rift is shurely doing anything but fine, both in population and overall reaction on the guy leaving who to an extend "made" the game.

Well, I think we have a decent idea why SH took a walk.  He got out-voted on the new deals Trion announced, and decided he had enough.

Interesting to read the latest Mark Jacobs interview, because he says he got out-voted at Mythic when it came to doing the sale to EA.  ROI trumped everything else.  MJ also said he didn't throw a hissy fit and quit because he felt an obligation to not sabotage selling Mythic, because the employees were shareholders.  I SERIOUSLY wonder if the same is happening at Trion, and if SH's displeasure and leaving were timed to do it now before buyout discussions get serious, or if he decided to show his displeasure BY monkey-wrenching any current discussions.

Pure speculation, I know.  But the MMO industry has proven rather transparent about the reasons behind people coming and going, so there's a real Captain Obvious element to guessing.  Why would SH leave *now* when Trion was just about to announce some major additions to its portfolio?  I'm not thinking he'd be bothered by AA offending his PvE bias THAT much.  I *am* thinking he might be bothered by his studio, built from the ground up, turning into an investment to get gobbled up by the EA's of the industry.

Of course, he might just want to spend "time with his family" and all.  But Trion just made some Big Deal big deals, and SH didn't want to bask in those accomplishments? 

There were earlier posts about the big layoffs at Trion worlds, where I tried to make the point that, the writing was on the wall, the layoffs were part of the 'norm' in the video game development world, and while the layoffs were huge and sad, most developers know the industry they are joining.

Scott leaving is the straw that broke the camel's back for me. Now I know that the shake-up was beyond just 'bad'.