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EA / Mythic Layoffs and Some Response
MMORPG.com Managing Editor Jon Wood has been looking at recent rumors of layoffs at Mythic Entertainment and recent forum responses from Mythic boss Mark Jacobs. Here, he tries to present some of the more interesting responses to this now confirmed story.
On January 19th, joystiq published a rumor that Mythic had layed off “21 customer service employees, half of QA and all of the playtest group”. This seems to be attached to previously announced plans by Mythic owners Electronic Arts to reduce their workforce by 10%. The article also mentioned that “specific questions about the future of Warhammer Online were not answered”, leaving many to speculate whether these layoffs spell doom for the RvR game and the company that created it.
It’s now a few days later, and Mythic boss Mark Jacobs has cleared a number of things up through a dialogue with users at Warhammer Alliance, the site that the developers seem to have taken to using primarily in lieu of Mythic-run official forums:
First, Jacobs answers the question of whether or no the rumor was true by saying that “EA corporate communication has already commented on that, it was in the article”, in reference to the 10% workforce reduction eluded to earlier.
Jacobs goes on to say that while he wishes that he could discuss layoffs (both actual and possible) in greater detail than he has, that he has “very specific guidelines” that he needs to follow in regards to that topic. This isn’t a particularly unusual thing to hear in issues surrounding layoffs.
On Monday, Jacobs made the following post:
Folks,
Two things to keep in mind:
- Our CEO JR has publicly stated the need to cut costs across all of EA. This statement is old news and applies all throughout EA.
- As part of EA, all studios are expected to do their fair share to meet the expectations of our CEO.
It isn't any more complicated than that other than to say that we have a very large studio and pretty much every person there has been and will continue to work on WAR for quite a while (meaning we haven't started work on another game yet). When we launched, we had over 400+ people working on the game in one capacity or another so it's not like we had a small team at launch or even a small team now.
Oh, and the whole (OMG, we're losing 1/2 the developer (or even of the total team) thing) is total nonsense. This is one of the times I really, really wish I could comment more than I can but if you look at what JR has said in terms of cost cutting, that should give you a good idea about what is happening throughout EA.
Mark
*In the post, JR is a reference to John Riccitiello, the CEO of Electronic Arts.
Another interesting post that Jacobs made revolved around sales. One of the forum users brings up the point that Warhammer might be in more trouble than is being indicated based on the fact that it is not currently within the top 20 sales charts. This same user goes on to draw similarities between Warhammer and Age of Conan, stating that both companies (Mythic and Funcom) claimed the economy as a reason for layoffs and while the results on Warhammer are yet to be seen, Conan has recently merged their servers to a much smaller number than original launch. To this, Jacobs said:
“You do know that we were one the best selling PC games of the year right? In 3 weeks we'll be able to say just how well we did sell both through retail and digital downloads. We sold fantastically in Sept/Oct (top five game), dropped in Nov, went back up in Dec (but still didn't crack the top 20 for retail sales) and are doing nicely in January.
In terms of AoC, I wouldn't call them one of the biggest failures ever. They launched a game, sold a lot of copies, kept subscribers for a short while and are trying to improve the game. I'd save the "biggest failures ever" line for some of hundreds of MMORPGs that have gone into development and never been released or released and closed right away. Funcom managed to at least release a game and have been working for months on it. Eve Online didn't launch well (brutal sales in the US) and the CCP guys have done a brilliant job of turning that around. I hope that the guys at Funcom, with a much better start than CCP had, can do the same with AoC.
And by the way, I'm not using the economy or Blizzard as an excuse for any layoffs. Unless you consider the CEO of EA saying that EA needs to cut costs as an excuse.
It is important to note from this response that while Jacobs doesn’t come right out and say that things are rosy and well at Mythic, he does make implications that sales are at least relatively steady and that in 3 weeks (presumably at or around EA’s next earnings call), he should be able to tell us more.
All in all, based on what can be gathered from these forum posts, it seems as though while tough times at EA (and indeed for the entire industry) have forced Mythic to make a number of layoffs, the studio has not (at least yet) been targeted specifically for a massive round of layoffs, or even a studio closure.
For now, Jacobs seems confident that Warhammer will continue to be supported and developed by mythic as best that they can: “I have a very large team continuing to work on WAR now and going forward and we'll continue to build with that.”
The game is doing well. Despite the nay-sayers.
At least from my interactions w/ my guild, the WHA forums, and through friends. The game saw a large dip in Dec when people left or quit for one reason or another, but since the first of the year I've seen as many, if not more, people start a new account or come back to the game.
Whatever happened to DAOC Origins? I think they are running DAOC on a skeleton crew now, which is a shame because that game deserves a lot more respect and attention than it seems to be getting currently.
Respectfully, what does that have to do with Warhammer online layoffs and some responces?
Respectfully, what does that have to do with Warhammer online layoffs and some responces?
The layoffs may be having effects on DAOC. In the interview, Mark Jacobs claims that pretty much everyone at Mythic is trying to hold Warhammer Online together. Some of the repsonses I have from my article have people telling me that Mythic has barely been doing anything over there short of a few grab bag questions every week. 6 Months ago they promised the DAOC players a new ruleset server and there hasn't been any word since. The lack of information and support for Dark Age of Camelot could show that Mythic could be under a lot of pressure right now.
ahh ok, I think I get you now, they are cutting costs at the expense of DAoC for Warhammer.
gotcha, and if they said this, that would really make DAoC peeps mad
There is very much lack for dark Age... seems they go on to warhammer to make that better and gotget all about the game... no wonder that game has a low population.. sad to. but i still play there
Which game do you believe have the most players between WAR and DAoC ?
and in 1 year ?
stupid question ? well not that much I'm afraid.
I never played DAOC (was playing FFXI at release) but read lots about it and its oRvR. It sounded like after a few years, the game was solid.
After reading the VN Boards and watching MJ come in and talk mostly about stock quotes, little about Warhammer, less about DAOC and nothing about Origins, I am of the mind he probably would like to see it go away, but he can't kill it.
He just made a game that directly competes with it (WAR, on the oRvR scale of Pvp) which cost him tons of money and also got an infusion of cash from EA. He really needs for Warhammer to survive at all costs. This means pouring mass resources into WAR especially now after over probably 60% of the original subs have gone (maybe more). DAOC is not gaining lots of new subs so its like throwing good money after bad. I think he realizes if he were actually to try and fix DAOC up, EA would have a fit because that pulls subs away from the main stablehorse. You'd ideally want it like Wow, with one game and one company not splitting loyalties between their first born and the new baby.
The easiest solution is just to neglect DAOC so it slowly dies, then most of the DAOC fans would come to Warhammer, no matter what they say now. They wouldn't go to Wow. The goal was probably to phase in all ex-DAOC people anyways once Warhammer took off, but it has too many bugs for experienced gamers to live with. I think MJ is betting DAOCers will give up eventually and come over once he lets it die out. He'll keep saying the right things to keep money coming in, but its just in maintainance mode. I think the Origins talk was just a pipe dream to keep funds coming in until people realized it. Sadly, theres still plenty that havent, but such is the way of the business world.
MJ is (was?)a trained lawyer, so he's quite fluent in double speak and understanding how to keep cash flows (billable hours) coming in even when the client's case is a foregone conclusion.
...this thread astounds me honestly...seriously......EA is letting go of 1,000 people world wide...Mythic's lay offs dont' even cover a quarter of those numbers and none of them are developers...people are really making this out to be bigger than it is. If Mythic was really hurting EA they'd let go of some of the higher paying people along with the others.
btw maybe Jon needs to read Gamasutra more...it sheds better light then tabloid gaming news sites and forum posters with wild speculations and hater aid.
just for reference I am not a over zealous fan boi etc...i cancelled my account at the beginning of the year.
Game company mergers hurt us the consumer/player. This is another example of just that.
It doesn't matter what portion the layoffs at Mythic represent in comparison to the rest of EA. All that matters is what portion of Mythic does these layoffs represent.
If this was for example 25% of Mythic you can't say it is no big deal because the rest of EA lost 1,000 people. That makes no sense at all.
Obviously Mythic needed those people to get Warhammer to where it is at now and it still has a long ways to go. Losing these people will not somehow help that effort let alone not set it back some.
Devs are important but so is the QA team. They make sure the dev's work, works. I think this will slow down content and fixes due to the devs having to QA their own work. CSRs and QA people can't be making more then 14 bucks an hour. I think I saw the ad from Mythic for those jobs a while back.
I can vouch for this. He no longer drinks deeply of the Mythical magical Koolaid, although back in the day, he was pretty hardcore. (had pretty good posts on the pro side) Although there is nothing wrong with that. Too each his own. :)
Did you pick a new game or taking a break, banthis?
Looks like EA layoffs are hitting a lot of their other studios...
Well, it is not good news, but it could of course be worse.
But I wish they actually gave us numbers of subs also, both WAR and AoC was very open with the numbers at first but as soon as the subs started to drop things started to be very quit about any numbers. Keeping their mouths now only leads to speculation that it is actually a lot worse than the current numbers (or so I hope).
But right now, it isn't Mythic that is in trouble, it is EA. The cuts Mythic got was acceptable but it will still makes things more difficult for them. It is no big problem now but it is likely we see another EA cut this summer or so, it seems like 2009 will be a black year for most companies. So if WAR wont start gaining players again this summer it might be time to worry.
shame really . i dont know how this will effect warhammer but it does nt bode very well for the future . personally i think the company should have offered a free trial sooner . theres a lot of fun to be had in war inspite of the same issues you get with most mmo releases
Well, it is not good news, but it could of course be worse.
But I wish they actually gave us numbers of subs also, both WAR and AoC was very open with the numbers at first but as soon as the subs started to drop things started to be very quit about any numbers. Keeping their mouths now only leads to speculation that it is actually a lot worse than the current numbers (or so I hope).
But right now, it isn't Mythic that is in trouble, it is EA. The cuts Mythic got was acceptable but it will still makes things more difficult for them. It is no big problem now but it is likely we see another EA cut this summer or so, it seems like 2009 will be a black year for most companies. So if WAR wont start gaining players again this summer it might be time to worry.
Because the subscriber numbers have dropped below the 250k mark. That's why they suddenly keep it quiet.
And most of it they can thank GOA for. Mythic was just stupid to go with GOA again for the Europe publishing and that has cost them dearly.
GOA litterly ruined DAoC in Europe. So everyone was ofcourse completely baffled that Mythic went with these guys again.
Especially that it was well known that the largest Warhammer Fanbase resides within Europe and thus most money was to be gained here in Europe!
There are litterly only a handful of decent populated servers left here in Europe. So well has GOA been doing.
Simply said.... Mythic pretty much dug their own grave right from the start.
Add to that, that the game is not meeting it's expectations. Tier4 oRvR is a complete mess, not to mention really boring for most.
Scenarios are even worse. You can do Serpent's Passage just that many times before you get completely bored out of your skull.
And the whole PVE side of the game is even worse. That alone put off a lot of people already within the first months.
I continue to keep saying that Mark was just obsessed with World of Warcraft (and appearently still is) and it will eventually be his downfall.
When do people like Mark Jacobs get it in their heads and face it! Why in earth would a WoW player come to WoW 2.0 ..ehhh WAR, while they can happily continue playing WoW itself that is now far more polished?
Instead Mark Jacobs should have focussed more on his own creation DAoC and take the good things from that game and put that in WAR's design and work from there and make it better.
The whole oRvR in WAR right now is just a mere pathetic shadow of what DAoC once was.
And till this day it still baffles me greatly! And so for many others.
That's why we have given up on the game and quit. As it will never be fixed. They just gonna instance and limit the Fortress keeps and you will still be stuck by Keep and BO swapping day in day out for gear, gear and more gear.
Cheers
In these times layoff can mean nothing AND everything. Yesterday Ericsson Mobile here in Sweden announced they made a record profit (15billion or something) and the same day they announce they plan to layoff 5000 people worldwide....DOH?!
So I wondered if said CEO is taking a pay cut? Refusing his bonus? Probably not.. but one could hope.
People can speculate all they want. It will take another 6-12 months to determine how well (or poorly) WAR will do in the future.
It's sad to see anyone get laid off, especially in these times. It's rough.
With that said...WAR is doing fine. It's not going anywhere, it's making money. It has some work that needs to be done, but the doomsayers here crack me up. They are so off the mark it's not even funny.
WAR would keep being 'one the best selling PC games of the year' and in the 'top five' if they only had stuck to further development of RvR instead of creating a WoW-clone.
Open field RvR is what made DAoC so popular for a long time, it's THE best end game anyone can hope for and instead of using this unique gameplay that themselves invented and bettering it in WAR they managed to fail with a sub-par RvR system that won't hold peoples interest for long enough.
They listened to all the e.g. CC-whiners and didn't use the lessons learned with DAoC to their full extent and thus they lost the most dedicated players, the RvR people that have followed from DAoC and helped out creating an active and fun atmosphere. Big mistake.
Guess the good staff from DAoC didn't follow over to WAR or they just failed big time in not listening to corporate jackals that want another WoW-success and another clone of that game (a game with a bad PvP system). Sad.
So ppl are still buying the game?
Wait till they hit t4 and promptly quit.
The game is downright aweful. Pve is bland, everyone looks the same {different colour dyes dont count...} and the RvR...
My eyes literally went blurry the first time I played it. Once I got used to it, was fun and different {for me at least} in t1 & 2. T3 was just more of the same and T4 is where ppl finally realise theres nothing more to the game.
Didnt even make it to 40, lol. Left to go play SP games for a few mths and return to Lotro for Moria. Only now my guild members have come to the same realisation and have left. {some even had 4 lvl 40s, god knows why}
Last year was a complete dissapointment for MMO releases. Lets hope this year is different.
It only had to be a matter of time before the games companies started announcing major layoffs and I'm sure as the world reccession bites harder that there will be plenty more shedding jobs, I've been redundant since Nov so I have plenty of sympathy for those that have been Laid-off.
I would however doubt very much weither the lay-offs will mean the end of WAR or DAoC, if so we would have seen the complete WAR/DAoC teams cut to save money, they haven't and so this must mean the games are still being supported by EA as going concerns, heck if the lack of subs was true Everquest 1 should have died long ago.
Mmmm.. not really.
After all the clues MJ left around the internet about Slayers coming and as much as he has talked up the next patch's fixes and reworks, it won't take long at all.
If they release that patch, and the only worthwhile thing worth doing after that is rerolling a Slayer for another month, people will leave extremely fast. You won't need a year to watch that exodus. This next patch is probably the difference between making the game a nice stable niche model (+250k) or it's the last straw for most (-200k). With the coming competition this year, they need a homerun, not a double. After that, you probably then wouldn't have to speculate on layoffs anymore.
I just know I'll probably wait until I see how the patch works. I wouldn't even think of resubbing personally without some assurances things are handled.
Corporate greed is the primary reason the economy is in the shit hole and it is corporate greed yet again that always results in layoffs of the peons while the overpayed executives keep their jobs and their ridiculous salaries. Nothing has changed and nothing ever will. EA has a staunch record of being the asshole company and THAT will never change either. Expect some of their games to suffer as a result, Mythic is not immune to EA's greed.
I REALLY don't like WAR, but it's not unusual for a company to layoff employee's when the company needs to cut it's variable costs.
Laying off 24 of 400 launch employees and the fact that the world economy has suffered a tremendous blow is hardly a clue to how Mythic is doing. We also don't know how many people Mythic hired after launch.
Given the stability of the game now compared to launch (true of any MMO) it seems only natural that QA would be snipped back. This is especially true for Mythic given how smooth the game was at launch compared to more MMO's. Logic dictates that they had a comparatively large QA team pre-market release.
I'm not saying they're in good or bad shape. Just wait a few weeks for the financial news. Quarterly and Annual reports aren't just a balance sheet and cash flow statement. They're often full of information about various business units within the company.
People even if there only 100k subscribing that still $1,000,000(+/-15%) a month and 12 million a year that still good money in a MMO, there a lot of games out there that have been about for 8+ years as long as people pay you'll have a game. That should still pay for the staff computers and make a good profit for EA.
As population go down so will the servers and staff that’s the real world of economics and it will happen to all games.
That all depends on how much they invested in making the game. The only figure I recall was MJacobs saying it was below 100 million, but it seemed to imply not much below that.
@hembot: I doubt they have 400 current employees at Mythic. His statement says 400 people have worked on the game in one capacity or another, not 400 at the same time. If I recall correctly, Mythic fired a bunch of developers prior to the games launch and did not list them in the games credits which would also count in that 400. That 400 number is just clever word smithing on MJs part.
Odds are it was more than 24 people. 21 customer service, half of the Q/A team and all of the playtest team. Unless the playtest and Q/A teams were each only 2 people, then it would be 24. Somehow I don't think that is the case though.
I don't think this was a devistating blow to the game, but it sure doesn't help.
Doesn't sound like anything "terrible" to me (I mean, beyond it obviously sucking that people have to lose their jobs) what EA's doing.
Hell, a company I worked for did a major layoff right before Thanksgiving and, similar to how EA's approaching it, the order was that each department had to let go of at least 1 person (more depending on the size of the dept), so that it would be as "fair" as possible.
And, just as coldly, later that day, when people were still concerned that the layoffs might not have been over, the owner and his cronies called a company meeting to, ostensibly, explain the layoffs and assure everyone that no more would be cut. A simple "We didn't want to have to let people go, but it became necessary. However, no more layoffs will be happening." would have been sufficient. What it turned into was the 3 of them cheer-leading the company and talking about how great it was doing - you could almost see the $$$$ in their eyes as they talked. To put it mildly, many of us were not impressed.
To add insult to injury, not even a month later at a Christmas party, the owner received an award from some firm for having 500% revenue growth in its first 3 years and being a highly profitable company.
So the economy was stable at the time, employment was up, the company was highly profitable... yet they had to let people go.
That actually killed the mood at that party more than anything.
All that said...
Those cuts didn't hurt the productivity or (obviously) success of the company and we were far smaller than Mythic, not to mention EA. I doubt they're going to hurt WAR at all.
Either way, I hope those who are let go can find another job quickly. I've been through a few lay-offs, and they are not fun.
lol do you honestly think that warhammer online has lost 60% or more of its population? or are you just throwing a random number out there? because while the game isnt pass the one million mark its not doing bad
"This means pouring mass resources into WAR especially now after over probably 60% of the original subs have gone (maybe more)".
Pulled it out so you could read what I typed better.