Official details on the NCsoft Europe layoffs

by Shawn Schuster Feb 11th 2009 at 1:30PM

Filed under: Business models, MMO industry

As the news and confirmations are trickling in from this morning's layoffs at NCsoft Europe, we're happy to report that we were contacted by NCsoft regarding complete information and an official word on the situation. Apparently, according to the press release after the jump, this is more of a restructuring within the company as the NCsoft Europe studio is transitioned into more of a marketing hub for the company.

We also had a brief chat with a former NCsoft employee who confirmed the layoffs. This un-named source says that the Community Team, the Creative Services team, the Web Development team, Localization and a handful of others from various teams have been let go. But as confirmed in the official statement, these employees were offered other positions within the company, which is certainly a silver lining to this story. This person also stated that neither Aion nor Guild Wars 2 are in any trouble, as they're actually the largest focus of the company now. Read below the jump for the official word from NCsoft and let us know your opinion in the comments below.

"In order to solidify and streamline company operations across all NCsoft West territories, we are implementing some structural changes this week which will impact 70 to 90 employees. We are working with these employees to determine the best fit for approximately 80 alternate positions within the company.

The European office is transitioning to have a stronger focus in marketing and sales, with many of the existing disciplines being consolidated in our studios on the US West Coast and our headquarters in Seattle. Additionally, we are transitioning to an embedded quality assurance (QA) model in which the QA staff works in our studios directly with the development teams, providing support throughout the entire development process.

This finalizes the NCsoft West reorganization plan which began last September, and the resulting structure will better support the company's direction." - NCsoft PR

Tags: aion, breaking, breakingnews, guild-wars-2, layoffs, nc-west, ncsoft

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Johnny_Velocity said on 2:07PM 2-11-2009

Interesting that only FUTURE games are specified as being safe. Is another TR-esque meltdown in the works for an existing game?

I'm glad people were offered to be reassigned, but if that meant moving to Seattle or NorCal, then it may not have been much of an option for Brighton folk.

Best of luck to the affected!

Yoh said on 3:43PM 2-11-2009

I glad to here that Arenanet isn't getting the stick from NCsoft during these economical hard times....... but lord know once GW2 comes out they'll be lining them up in front of a firing squad.

I predict the nether GW2 or Aion are going to do overly well, no more than usual. They'll be a step in the right direction, but ultimately with be the same tired old product we've all seen a dozen times.

But I could be wrong, and I hope I am.

Emperor said on 5:05PM 2-11-2009

Interesting... It's the first time I hear them talk about GW2 since they announced the game back in 2007.

CindyL said on 8:47AM 2-12-2009

They say it doesn't affect Aion but not sure if that's completely true considering we're not sure where all of Aion's localising is/was taking place. Hopefully it's still on track for a spring or summer release.

Guild Wars 2, I don't know why people fret the studio is in Washington and probably not at all affected by this. ArenaNet is not another Destination Games.