Earlier this morning we posted an article from The Korea Times that -- on the surface -- seemed to herald very bad times for NCsoft and Tabula Rasa. After talking with our contacts at NCsoft, things may not be nearly as dire as the writer of that article made it seem. The cliche "take things with a grain of salt" was coined for a reason, and as you'll see... this appears to be one of them.
Here are a few nuggets of knowledge that Cho Jin-seo "forgot" to mention:
NCsoft CFO Lee Jae-ho did state that some downsizing in Austin is inevitable. But he also indicated in the conference call that he has hope that TR will improve its revenue stream over time.
NCsoft has committed to putting several million dollars more into further developing TR.
TR is launching in Japan later this year. Considering that Richard Garriott's games have done well in Japan, this will only help to bolster the game's population.
There will be some reduction at the Austin Studio, but only on the TR team. This isn't shocking by the way. MMOs normally ramp up their staff during development and leading up to launch, then reduce it after. Fact is, some of the TR team has already transitioned over to other internal dev teams.
Here's another cliche to chew on: "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck... it must be a duck." Sure, you might think this is just NCsoft PR spin. And in this day and age of jaded, conspiracy theorists who walk around with a glass that's half empty (instead of half full) wanting immediate gratification... that's to be expected. But remember: every cliche started from truth. And truth might be the very thing lacking in this report from The Korea Times.
