NCsoft Austin sheds staff
by Tateru Nino 
Aug 13th 2008 at 3:30PM
Filed under: City of Heroes, City of Villains, Dungeon Runners, MMO industry, News items, Tabula Rasa
Rumors abound across the manifold tubes of the Internet over just what is (or is not) presently going on at NCsoft Austin. NCsoft's Austin office is presently home to Tabula Rasa, Dungeon Runners, at least one unannounced fantasy MMO, and noticeably fewer developers than last week.
We have some confirmed departures, including staff from Dungeon Runners such as April 'CuppaJo' Burba, and Crickette -- The much-loved April Burba, you may recall was the newly minted Associate Producer for Dungeon Runners, having recently transferred from the Tabula Rasa team. That comes courtesy of Jester of w00tstudios.net, a well known DJ and broadcaster on the MMO scene, via the CoX forums.
Also Scott Jennings (aka Lum The Mad) is no longer with NCsoft as of today. The fate of the unannounced fantasy MMO that he was working on is unclear, Jennings reports that his whole team was let go.
There are mentions of "quite a few other" departures, though there's no word that this impacts on Tabula Rasa at this stage (pitched to move to the West Coast in any case, if you believe the rumors) and City of Heroes/Villains shouldn't be affected at all, not being an NCsoft Austin item.
You could argue that this is a reorganization and consolidation that has little to do with NCsoft's whopping 60% drop in quarterly operating profits. Sure, you could argue that, but we don't think that's the way to bet.
NCsoft was not immediately available for comment. We'll keep you posted, as we are expecting additional information from them later in the day.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
TheDeadEye said on 4:05PM 8-13-2008
Heh, where are Quinn and Plukh now. :P
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JuJutsu said on 4:53PM 8-13-2008
Eating crow?
wraith808 said on 6:00PM 8-13-2008
Why would they be eating crow? The initial report was wrong and just rumor mongering. Some people were let go from DR ... not TR, and the studio is not shutting down. So how was the initial report true?
Quinn said on 10:14PM 8-13-2008
Right here sunshine ...and if this "article" was the one that went to press yesterday in lieu of Zenke's tabloid rumour mongering drek no one would've said a thing. Nice to see Zenke's unvetted, rumour mongering was further invalidated by the latest Massively "article" on the subject as well.
Not quite a retraction but at least there is some truth in there rather than baseless supposition dressed as verified through "thrusworthy" "third parties" and self-arse covering with liberal use of a "rumour" tag and subsequent "article" title change.
californiadreaming said on 11:13PM 8-13-2008
Where are they now? Back in planettr deleting posts that annoy them.
Quinn said on 8:24AM 8-14-2008
Hey Capn King? why not post under your usual nomenclature?
Ripper McGee said on 4:43PM 8-13-2008
:-(
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JP said on 5:41PM 8-13-2008
Actually, both of them were defending TR's staff, as the orginal article said that they'd be "shutting the studio down". They weren't right, but they weren't wrong either, as this is hardly "massive layoffs" or the closing of thier Austin offices.
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Ripper McGee said on 6:09PM 8-13-2008
Steve Nichols just reported 13 out of 18 were affected from the Dungeon Runners team:
http://boards.dungeonrunners.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=DungeonRunnersGeneralDiscussion&Number=73913&bodyprev=#Post73913
So, of the 21 reportedly affected, 13 were from a single title.
Ryzomite said on 5:55PM 8-13-2008
Here is NCsoft's official reply to the rumors:
http://www.warcry.com/news/view/85652-NCsoft-Austin-Eliminating-21-Positions
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Deunan said on 3:12PM 8-14-2008
In other words, much ado about nothing with regards to the fluff piece written by Mike Zenke and published by Massively yesterday. MMORPG "journalism" is just a subset of tabloid "journalism." I have no idea why people give so much credence to it, then again I don't see the appeal of tabloids in general.
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