NCsoft Europe cuts 70 jobs at Brighton office

by Shawn Schuster Feb 11th 2009 at 9:30AM

In the continuing saga of NCsoft, we get word that their European office in Brighton, UK has just laid off around 70 employees this morning. This new comes straight out of the offices themselves, and a short write-up over at GamesIndustry.biz. While the details have yet to be confirmed by NCsoft officials, it is said that only a handful of employees remain at the office.

All of this news rides on the heels of last year's news regarding NCsoft's first round of layoffs and the closing of Tabula Rasa later this month. Does this mean an eventual closing of the office completely? Will this affect the development of future NCsoft products such as Aion or Guild Wars 2? None of this is known at this time, but be sure to keep your eye on Massively for any breaking new developments in this story.

[Update: The original GamesIndustry.biz story has been removed and replaced.]

Tags: breaking, breakingnews, layoffs, nc-west, ncsoft, ncsoft-europe

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

JP said on 9:43AM 2-11-2009

I hate NCSoft so much now. They've done nothing but shit on their players and staff the last 3 years. Fuck them. I hope all their corp execs fall face first into a bed of nails.

Pyrii said on 9:48AM 2-11-2009

This is saddening news, especially as I've met some of the people at the Brighton office and they're great people and very talented. This may explain though why I haven't been able to contact any of them x.x I certainly wish any of those reading this the best of luck, plenty of better opportunities out there.

Takk said on 10:03AM 2-11-2009

Does anybody know which office they've been localizing Aion for the west? And the silence on GW2 is troubling.

Johnny_Velocity said on 10:22AM 2-11-2009

Once again bad news accompanies NCSoft quarterly reporting time. The Q2 2008 report in August brought layoffs, Q3 on November brought TR's closing, and with Q4 due at any moment, more layoffs. But will this be the only fallout? Will they dump on the U.S. next? Or will that come 3 months from now?

Jacob said on 11:39AM 2-11-2009

A real shame, i did my work experience there and they were all genuinely very nice people, i was doing a lot more than just making cups of tea, i hope they all manage to get reemployed, there is a lot of games development in the southeast.

Iokthemonkey said on 12:08PM 2-11-2009

The government need to sort out this tax break for UK-based game developers.

Teas said on 6:01AM 2-17-2009

Ok... typo up there, this new should be this news?

Thanks for the update. Interesting that NC Soft laid off workers, was expecting it after the release of AION, but so soon... then again they are struggling, not to mention that worlds.com law suit... hey whatever happened to that heard nothing since Jan.

Teas

Gunch said on 1:22PM 2-11-2009

All of the Austin QA got cut as well today.

Clawhammer said on 6:47AM 2-15-2009

Well since they aparently chops the best mmoe ever build Tabula Rasa, which is so unique and forward in its ways of how to playing an mmo.

All i want to say to any NCSoft from Korea.

TR was my first MMO, and if i buy any new ones they will never be from NCsoft, people that chit on subscribers like you do.
Sespite the fact im an FPS player this human vs Bane Alien attracted me a lot.

If you guys had done your jobs like do ADS like crappy Blizzard do for world of wankers, then it would have been a success, no question about it.
great graphics, great gameplay.

What GW and wow have been around for 5 years !!!
today they have matured TR di never get that chance.

And not even the oppotunerty to let the players host it with someone who have a serverfarm that can host it, NAH!! apparently not no word from NC at all.
NCsoft is only good in Korea, keep out of the west, you cant do it Korean style over here, it takes a great budget for advertizing, word of mouth is great for Korea but that does not cut it here.

TR: Clawhammer Aros