What's Behind NC West?
MMORPG.com Managing Editor Jon Wood recently caught up with David Reid, the President of newly minted NC West. The formation of this new company from NCsoft has been the starting point of a number of rumors about the future of NCsoft Austin. In this interview, Reid speaks about the new company, and the future of games like Tabula Rasa and Dungeon Runners.
Last week, I had the opportunity to sit down and talk to David Reid, the new President of Publishing at NC West, the recently announced spinoff company from NCsoft.
There has been a great deal of confusion and speculation coming out of this most recent announcement. Even looking around at various forums and even some news sites, reports and rumors of the closure of the NCsoft studio in Austin, among others, have been circulating.
The best guess for the heart of the circulation of these rumors is the line in the company’s original press release which read: “NCsoft’s existing subsidiaries NC Interactive, NC Europe, NC Austin, and ArenaNet will be led as a unified organization under NC West with a dedicated focus towards becoming the world’s premier western publisher of MMOs.”
This seems to have been mis-interpreted (at least according to Reid) by some readers and members of the media alike.
“Basically, the idea here was to set up a new publishing headquarters for the company,” Reid said in the interview, “that would govern the operating roles throughout our western territories.”
What we’re looking at here, according to Reid, is the fact that before this announcement hit, the four companies listed above: NC Interactive, NC Europe, NC Austin, and ArenaNet all have various and sundry responsibilities when it came to publishing and marketing NCsoft games.
“If we’re really serious about getting into the big leagues,” he continued, “then we need to consolidate those efforts and make sure that everyone is on the same page.”
Essentially, the company decided that rather than having a number of different smaller companies with a myriad of responsibilities, that they would bring them all together under one roof in Seattle. This also allows the company to keep a separate outlook for the Eastern Market (Asia) than they have for the Western Market (Everywhere else) which, according to Reid, require quite different approaches.
The long and the short of the situation is that, according to Reid, rumors of the death of NCsoft’s studio in Austin have been greatly exaggerated. And that they are more of a case of mistaken identity than anything else.
“There has been some misperception about the Austin office, which is still a very vibrant place with over 200 employees. Nothing has changed on that front other than the publishing headquarters which is primarily: marketing, sales, PR, some of those customer facing things are what is moving up to the Seattle office.”
This is all fine and good, and completely understandable. NCsoft has always had a bit of an identity crisis in terms of being a developer and a publisher at the same time.
This left open the question of the recent rounds of layoffs that we have been hearing about, leading fans and industry speculators alike foretelling doom.
“The first one was several weeks ago,” Reid said in response to my question about the two recent incidents of layoffs. “and that was really a decision based on focusing the company’s development efforts on these large scale AAA MMOs that very few companies are successful in doing aside from ourselves and maybe two other companies. Those particular positions are related to what we call “light” MMOs, a couple of unannounced projects, some explorations on things that just weren’t really in the wheelhouse of what has made NCsoft the successful company that it is.”
In terms of the move toward AAA MMOs, David had this to say:
“We are one of the best companies in the world at these large-scale MMOs. The business is great, the product is successful, the gamers love our products. Why should we be doing anything else?”
The implementation of this new focus for the company, we were told, is what was responsible for the first round of layoffs.
The second and more recent round only last week, we were told, was 12 jobs out of an office of 250 employees. These were positions that were eliminated as a result of the move of positions (from the departments listed above) into the Seattle office.
So what about the speculation that these consolidation moves are born out of Tabula Rasa performing under expectations?
“The company has been fairly straightforward about the fact that Tabula Rasa hasn’t delivered exactly on the level that we had hoped it would but we are still very behind the game.”
The company has indeed been behind the game as of late, with a marketing push centered around Operation Immortality that will see human DNA taken into space when Richard Garriott reaches the International Space Station. This promotion, which has collected not only public DNA, but also the DNA of people like Stephens, both Hawking and Colbert, and a number of other celebrities.
This has resulted in the program being mentioned on television shows like The Colbert Report and even TNA Impact, a wrestling program.
“We would have preferred that the game got off to a better start,” he said, “but we are behind the game, the team is intact and we are very excited about the progress that we are seeing. In a lot of ways, this is a brand new game… Twelve updates later, people who went through a beta or launch experience with that game would find a brand new game and we’ve got the free trials for them to give it a shot and a promotion around it to encourage them to do so.”
“The move to Seattle has nothing to do with any of our development studios,” he continued. “It has everything to do with building a world-class presence for the publishing side of the business.”
So, a move toward AAA size MMOs is a move away from what Reid described as “Lite MMOs”. A couple of these MMOs have been making waves for NCsoft recently in the form of Dungeon Runners and Exteel.
I asked Reid about the future of Dungeon Runners given this new direction and he told me that while DR would continue to run for the PC, they have abandoned thoughts of expanding its scope to the platforms like Xbox (this would be one of those “explorations” we mentioned earlier).
So, in the end, according to Reid, NCsoft isn’t in the level of trouble that many have speculated. NCsoft Austin isn’t going anywhere and in fact will be a “critically important office”.
“NC West is really about NCsoft getting serious and doubling down back into the AAA side of the business. These games have big teams, require huge investments, and take years to build but there aren’t many people who do that as well as we do and you can expect to see and hear more from us on the Lineage / City of Heroes / Guild Wars kind of product going forward. That’s what this company is going to be all about.”
Still doesn't explain why they laid off their Lineage 2 executive producer as well as the Community Manager. I mean, one day they are there... next.. no so "there".
And with no "official announcment".
I also understand that some other cm's were laid off as well along with many others.
Gl NCsoft ;)
I just hope this isnt double talk so they dont lose what they do have going now as far as the games that are slipping slowly. As far as DR and Exteel goes, this should have never been considered to be on a console platform, not only are they a bit behind in graphics but they dont have the substance to stay long term on console. I honestly believe that if they intend for TR to become successful , maybe they should take the GW model for the approach of the subscription of what would be lack there of. Its already dropped in price so this shouldnt be such a far fetched idea. Work on expansions and free content and then add item mall of some sort. I guarantee if it was buy the box , free for life lots more would play.
Im very interested in this NC West idea and admit it makes sense especially given their success with a team like ANet and i believe when they mentioned who was head of this Jeff Strain and a few others were mentioned from Anet. Tbh its kinda ironic that 3 of the top ppl are former Anet employees, maybe this was their way of showing that gratitude. But now we know that their will be more expressive power for Anet come GW2 and future projects.
I just want to add this last bit, did anyone catch the interview part where they mentioned Xbox, i could have swore that they signed exclusive rights with Sony to develop games for PSP and PS3, maybe they just meant MMO, but the way the original news release made it sound , it was all games. And in another interview Chris mentioned that they were not looking at the xbox as a possible platform they were willing to get into. [think this is a huge mistake still but hey these guys know more than us right.]
MS might be tough to get along with and certify the content but atleast they do check it thoroughly before its put on marketplace.
Anyway GL to NC WEST
I just used thje XBox as an example. Nothing specific was mentioned.
when it comes to NCsoft i can only think of one thing...one HOPE! and it's not Aion...
Blade and Soul
http://bns.plaync.co.kr/
I just used thje XBox as an example. Nothing specific was mentioned.
i did kinda wonder about this as ive been following NC very closely since the original Sony announcement especially but thank u for clearing that up though. Ill still stand behind their decision to go sony over both markets is a mistake though, and others plz dont flame me for that thought. Do the math and see the online community numbers and it would make more sense to you. As i do play on both 360 and the ps3 so i do have a little insight on this
They layoffs don't bother me from an overall perspective. Sure, seeing someone get canned especially in the crappy American economy sucks for them and I hope they can find new jobs soon. From an overall perspecitve, these layoffs appear to be small things to prepare for all of the smaller subdivisions to be under one roof of NC West.
Hmm... I've always liked NCsoft for publishing Guild Wars. Didn't like the games they made themselves, but who knows... They sound pretty ambitious there, I'm hoping we might see the next big MMO coming from there. Too bad they didn't say anything about their future 'projects' as in, genre, target players, etc. Yay, another company which I'll have to google every week...
BTW; quite off-topic. But somebody here said something about that other korean NCsoft game. If I recall correctly, miniskirts were forbidden in korea (not sure wether it was north or south), but daim... Some of those female characters didn't even wear miniskirts. 0.0
LOL "that other Korean Game" is like saying "that other American MMO" -- there are a *lot* of them.
Probably the most popular Korean MMO is Lineage II which recently celebrated it's 4th anniversary. L2 is still very much alive and was, arguably, the best PvP MMO until the release of Warhammer Online.
L2 female characters, particularly dark elves, whose bodies and "armor" are highly suggestive (many say excessively so) ,,, the female dark elves look like they were inspired and drawn from the wet dreams of 16 year old boys ,,, in game, when those dark elf female characters cast a spell, their breasts jiggle O.o
I don't quite know what to make of this.
It's worth saying; this reassurance they're giving about both Tabula Rasa and NC in general is very similar to what we heard right before Auto Assault shut down. So is, best I can tell, the financial situation.
Still, one cannot just be pessimistic about everything. my [b]HOPE[/b] is that they realized korean-y titles like Exteel weren't working out in America and Europe and just decided to give them their own division.
Unfortunately, no amount of my speculation can provide insight on this. I personally don't trust NC, but I try not to be biased about it- and it seems like not much but biased arguments can be drawn from this. So I guess we'll just find out soon™. (I meant to make Soon link to this, but MMORPG.com's linking tool is weird. http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2007/dec/HQ_07283_Mars_Scout_Missions.html)