LOTRO developer cuts staff post-Moria

By Games Industry.biz Published 16 December, 2008

QA and support jobs lost at Turbine.

Lord of the Rings Online developer Turbine has made a number of staff redundant at both its Massachusetts and California studios.

GamesIndustry.biz understands that the positions were in QA and Account Management. Turbine has said that it has no plans to outsource QA or tech support duties going forward.

"Yesterday, Turbine took steps to align our business to successfully achieve our strategic goals in the years ahead," said a spokesperson for the company.

"As part of this transition some of our talented colleagues will not be with us going forward."

When asked about specifics of the redundancies, Turbine declined to discuss the number of staff let go.

"We are a privately-held company and will not discuss the details regarding the number of our team that were affected. These changes were made across the entire organisation in both our Massachusetts and California offices," said the sposkesperson.

The company's California outfit was only established in October, and is headed up by former execs from the now defunct Flagship Studios.

Turbine has just released the first Lord of the Rings Online expansion, Mines of Moria, and said that the Tolkien MMO and its other online games, Asheron's Call and Dungeons & Dragons Online, would not be affected by the redundancies.

"We remain committed to delivering on the high level of quality entertainment services that our growing community of customers have come to trust from Turbine.

"The changes will not affect the operation of our three games, the development of future products and services or the customer experience that we are committed to delivering."

Turbine said that it has "no plans" to lay off any more staff in the immediate future.

"We just finished a major project with the launch of Mines of Moria and are now adjusting our resources to focus on several other projects that are in development. 

"In fact, Turbine is still hiring and we will continue to grow in 2009," said the company rep.

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Comments (15) Latest comment 2 years ago

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  • Darkjinxter #1 3 years ago

    Shame.
    I bet they've paid off the designer who would've fought for Champions who dual-wield to have 2 legendary weapons.

  • iokthemonkey #2 3 years ago

    Wow, that sucks indeed.

    I know QA posts are often "seasonal" - no pun intended - but it's hardly the best time of year to be laid-off.

  • ZuluHero #3 3 years ago

    yeah - but Account Management lay-off's are a bit strange.

  • kangarootoo #4 3 years ago

    ""Yesterday, Turbine took steps to align our business to successfully achieve our strategic goals in the years ahead," said a spokesperson for the company.

    "As part of this transition some of our talented colleagues will not be with us going forward." "

    Why do people feel the need to phrase things that way. Its like they feel obliged to appear dramatic and "business like". What is the actual purpose of wording statements in that way? Did anyone bother to ask that question before sitting down to write this press release?

    If its trying to a put a posititive spin on the news, they should equally sit down and ask themselves "Who will we actually fool with this waffle?". Seriously, write like normal human beings and people will think better of you for it.

    Edit: ah, what mogs said.
    Edited by 1 at 16/12/08 @ 16:43

  • iokthemonkey #5 3 years ago

    Corporate-speak like that reminds me of the Dilbert episode where the world's technology is wiped out and they turn into a feudal society and the Boss ends up as the Jester.

  • optimusprym8 #6 3 years ago

    It's a long winded bullshit way of saying "we need to spend less and make more" - committed to quality but let the QA guys go. Committed to community and their players, unless they have problems with their account.

  • iokthemonkey #7 3 years ago

    yeah - but Account Management lay-off's are a bit strange.

    ----

    It depends what their account managers do... Maybe it was to cope with new/returning registrations with the release of Moria? /hmm...

    Although to be honest, I don't know why Turbine issued a statement about it. They're a private company and can fire/hire whoever they want (not that they SHOULD, but you get my point) so why issue a statement about it?

  • MaxiSleep #8 3 years ago

    Unfortunately I would guess that the upswing from Moria was rather less then they expected.

  • sneetch #9 3 years ago

    @kangarootoo
    "If its trying to a put a posititive spin on the news, they should equally sit down and ask themselves "Who will we actually fool with this waffle?". Seriously, write like normal human beings and people will think better of you for it."

    That's exactly what they're going for. They don't want it to sound bad as flighty investors (and customers) may be spooked so we're not firing people, we're restructuring just in a way in which people are losing their jobs, we're not doing it to reduce the salary budget, we're doing it to realign our finances to ensure we can continue to meet our strategic goals, you know, like continuing to exist. Pretty important goal.

    However, I was told it was better to say nothing and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt and I think these kind of announcements fall into the second category and I think that once people "decode" the language they treat them as contemptible, corporate bullshit. You ain't fooling anyone. You laid people off in order to ensure you can continue to operate, just say it.

  • sneetch #10 3 years ago

    @MaxiSleep
    "Unfortunately I would guess that the upswing from Moria was rather less then they expected."

    Perhaps, but perhaps this was the plan all along. They've got the expansion finished they don't need so many people any more (especially not QA now that the Q has been A'ed).

    @iokthemonkey
    "Although to be honest, I don't know why Turbine issued a statement about it. They're a private company and can fire/hire whoever they want (not that they SHOULD, but you get my point) so why issue a statement about it?"

    It is kinda odd that they issued this release at all. Unless it's damage control? Is some hacked off ex-Turbine employee kicking up a doom and gloom storm on some website/blog that we don't know about?

  • onyx_elite #11 3 years ago

    Translation

    "Yesterday, Turbine took steps to align our business to successfully achieve our strategic goals in the years ahead,"

    All of our QA and tech support will now be performed by indians because we can pay them in crisps.

    "As part of this transition some of our talented colleagues will not be with us going forward."

    We're sacking all the current people because we're cheap and they won't let us pay them in crisps

    "We are a privately-held company and will not discuss the details regarding the number of our team that were affected.

    You don't deserve to know our special secrets.

    "These changes were made across the entire organisation in both our Massachusetts and California offices"

    We're sacking everyone in the company that doesn't like crisps.

    "We remain committed to delivering on the high level of quality entertainment services that our growing community of customers have come to trust from Turbine. The changes will not affect the operation of our three games, the development of future products and services or the customer experience that we are committed to delivering."

    Focus groups show 84% of you are too stupid to notice a significant drop in service quality and 32% of you only log in to masturbate at elf characters anyway.

    "We just finished a major project with the launch of Mines of Moria and are now adjusting our resources to focus on several other projects that are in development."

    These include several games about horse riding, one game about skipping and a unicycle simulator.

    "In fact, Turbine is still hiring and we will continue to grow in 2009"

    When I think about money I get a tingle in my happy place

  • Pirotic #12 3 years ago

    we've just fired some of our talented staff....but don't worry, we're hiring new talented staff.

    wha?
    Edited by 1 at 16/12/08 @ 20:07

  • KillerMonkey #13 3 years ago

    "we've just fired some of our talented staff....but don't worry, we're hiring new talented staff.

    wha?"

    You know there's different kinds of staff, right?

  • hiddenranbir #14 3 years ago

    Our tech support is by Codemasters though, innit?

  • kangarootoo #15 3 years ago

    @sneetch

    Too true. But you would think any flighty investor that would be fooled by such waffle is only a matter of time away from losing their money anyway, as a result of their MASSIVE STUPIDITY.

    If I were an investor in this company, I would write them an email saying "Is it me you are supposed to be fooling with that ludicrously worded press release? If so, you are calling me stupid. Why are you calling me stupid?". Stuff like that, make it all personal and weird them out.

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