CCP layoffs affect 20% of worldwide staff, company focusing on EVE

@real65rcncom Holidays?! What are those? Corporates don't care about such things, only Mammon matters!

@FrostPaw

Yeah, same here. I was extremely exited about WoD, but we've been waiting on any concrete info about the game for a few years already and now it seems we won't be getting any any time soon either. This sucks. :(

There's proven demand for a WoD MMO, in the form of countless smaller, text-only games (MUSHes, mostly). Of course, there's the question of how much the demand is already filled by such semi-private games, and how many players would move to (or be drawn in for the first time by) a bigger and shinier one.

@WonderPenguin

My suspicion is that they've looked at what they're doing and realised that economically speaking, now is perhaps not the best time to be realising a game of this type. Particularly as the implied schedule for its release is similar to the Dust schedule, which would put a heck of a load on their support staff, with the result that they'd likely have to hire more expensive temporary staff to handle the flood of new users for both games.

If they reduce the staff, and perhaps delay release from early next year to late next year, they may get both lower costs and better sales as a result.

Another thing to think about, which may or may not have influenced CCP's decision-making: a game developed over a long period by a small team is like to be both better and cheaper to produce than a game developed quickly by a large team, as small teams are well-known to be more focussed, innovative and productive. I don't know how many developers WoD had, but if it was more than about 30 then they were probably spending as much time dealing with communication issues and team management as they were actually developing stuff. 20% of CCP's staff is about 120 people, although it's unknown how many of those are developers versus support staff, artists, etc. A smaller, more focussed team might actually work better for CCP. They developed EVE with a team of 21 people, including support staff.

@Rodj Blake
I have a feeling that's probably the case, looking at what they want to do with it. Their ideas for WoD are extremely ambitious, and sadly, probably more than they're currently capable of considering that making walking in stations work is already something they're struggling with.

@Rodj Blake
Resource hog? My desktop is 3 years old, probably 4-5 for some parts. It runs CQ just fine (with updated GFX drivers). No overheating, no FPS lag, nothing. I really have to wonder if EVE players generally play with even older computers than mine or what is the problem.

@Protheus

If this is Monocle-gate fallout, you'll notice that the suits are covering their butts by laying off the rank and file workers, likely as a way of making the profit reports look good to /their/ bosses ...

Way of the world, unfortunately. The people who do most of the work are the least protected.

@mysecretid work smart not hard. If you fail at that then don't complain, no one to blame but yourself.

@bcrfan

All you did was parrot slogans. I actually do know what those slogans mean, and that wasn't what I was referencing here.