Funcom layoffs slow The Secret World development

by Kyle Horner Sep 29th 2009 at 11:00AM

Filed under: MMO industry, New titles, News items, The Secret World

The announcement of a 20% workforce layoff at Funcom will be delaying the release of The Secret World by "several months" according to the Norwegian developer. It's currently unclear if this will effect the release of Rise of the Godslayer, Age of Conan's first expansion since release last year.

We're curious as to whether or not the company will be refocusing its efforts on the recently opened Montreal studio, as the layoffs appear to be hitting the Oslo building much harder. We hope everyone let go lands on their feet and finds new work as soon as possible.

If you missed it, we previewed both The Secret World and Rise of the Godslayer at PAX09 this year. Both titles are already looking promising, so here's hoping they make it through these somewhat turbulent financial times.

Tags: age-of-conan, aoc, funcom, pax-09, rise-of-the-godslayer, the-secret-world, tsw

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

BaronJuJu said on 12:36PM 9-29-2009

Dang, I hope this isn't a future sign of things to come with The Secret World.

Hub said on 1:26PM 9-29-2009

But maybe for AoC. Desperate for a cash boost, can't think of a dodgy court case to try, why not go: F2P!!!!

Rejoice 'freemium' players, you might be about to get your dream come true, soon hordes of people will be fighting over microtransactions so you don't have to pay for a sub anymore...

Dunno where they are, I won't be one, but I'll assume that sensible market research has been done and not a lets follow the trend panic.

Goonja said on 12:57PM 9-29-2009

I have a bad feeling about this...

Temko said on 1:20PM 9-29-2009

company fucks up release of game,
loses confidence of stockholders,

less money, more layoffs... sounds right about right.

i have litle to no expectation from anything that exits the gates o funcom. Feel bad about the people that lost their job more then anything.

best of luck.

Evi said on 1:24PM 9-29-2009

Noooo... we've already been waiting a long time for The Secret World. :(

Jonny Lava said on 3:59PM 9-29-2009

failcom serves you right.......years to develope a game like AoC and push it out of the gate fearing what Warhammer would do ( 1st strike )....releasing the game so broken that god himeself couldnt fix it. Then trying to fix the game and making far worse then your could even phathom....wall gltches, pvp that didnt mean a damn...classes so far off balance...selling points of the game totally undelivered ( 2nd strike ) . The failing to even listen to the true core players ( 3rd strike ) was their own un-doing....if failcom even read their own forums they could have resolved all of their problems in a sort amount of time. They banned players for even posting true opinions and ways to fix it......smart move failcom....welcome to the soup kitchen of life......can you say "paper or plastic?" or try the comfy saying..."would you like fries with that order?"....watching the servers depopulate faster then a cheetah chasing its meal got to be more fun then actually trying to play the game. It was like someone farted in game and everyone really smelled it

caj190 said on 4:38PM 9-29-2009

I may be interested in Secret World but I already know what Failcom will do... rinse and repeat Age of Crap release... give a less than 40% complete product and hope the boxes sales will pay investers and allow the game to be completed year or two later. Good Plan! It worked all so well for AoC!

Maybe Failcom should NOT have screwed over so many hundreds of thousands of customers with Age of Crap. The companies stock would have a greater crediability if they did not release a piss poor product and then thumb their noses at the customer base. You reap what you sow Failcom... so sad indeed.

crsh said on 4:32PM 9-30-2009

I wouldn't be surprised if they laid off Norwegian devs to hire Canadian ones at their new Montreal office; cheaper labour and tax breaks may be a huge incentive for a company that's not doing so well financially.