More job losses at Mythic Entertainment

By Games Industry.biz Published 5 February, 2009

WAR developer feels the EA cuts deepen.

Mythic's Mark Jacobs has revealed that the company is making further staff cuts following the launch of its MMO, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.

He made the statement to assure players that the team was committed to the game, as rumours began to circulate that key development and design talent were also facing the axe.

"Though we are resizing the team to move from a pre-launch to a post-launch size, we remain fully committed to creating and delivering the best WAR experience," wrote Jacobs on the official WAR site.

"With respect to customer service, quality assurance and play testing, prior to the launch of WAR, we hired additional people to deal with the rush of demand associated with an MMO launch and to insure the best possible experience for our players.

"We accomplished that goal and as a result we had the smoothest-ever launch of a major MMO. Since the launch last year, the demand for customer service has gone down as players become more familiar with the game. Obviously, demand for a large QA and play-testing staff also falls after launch. As a result, we saw a staff reduction which is in line with the company-wide initiative," he said.

Continuing owner Electronic Arts' corporate thinking, Jacobs did not address the actual numbers of staff affected. A report by Joystiq suggests that anything between 60 and 130 staff have been cut, including development and senior design members.

Earlier this week, it was revealed that WAR ended last year with 300,000 subscribers; last week, Mythic unveiled ambitious update plans for the game in the coming months. Mythic's vocal creative director Paul Barnett will be facing your questions on both in a live interview at 5pm GMT today.

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Comments (26) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Rizo #1 3 years ago

    How much longer are people going to belive the pre-launch post-launch bullshit?

    Why doesn't the guy just admin WAR isn't doing anywhere near as well as people expected.

    All the talk pre launch of stealling WOW PVP players whatever Mark!

  • iokthemonkey #2 3 years ago

    That really sucks.

    This is the problem with the Big Publishers - their immediate response to anything is "cut costs! Get rid of creatives! Ditch the devs!" all the while hiring more useless tossers in "marketing" who spend their entire time... actually, I'd love to know what marketing people do, because aside from a few exceptions, most people I've met who work in "marketing" do fuck all of note.

    The thing is, the time will come when the shareholders will look at the next set of annual projections and find there are no projects actually coming out, as all the devs have been laid-off...

  • merkdot #3 3 years ago

    how do you know they're hiring more marketing people?

  • DFawkes #4 3 years ago

    I think he did admit it when he betted on getting 1 million subscribers, though there is time. Can't see it happening though, but it got one new subscriber recently (me).

  • mingster #5 3 years ago

    We are all doooomed.. dooomed i tell you.

  • iokthemonkey #6 3 years ago

    how do you know they're hiring more marketing people?

    ----

    I didn't mean EA specifically. I was commenting in general on the way many industries are "headed-up" by people who don't actually contribute in a meaningful way.

    I've seen it loads of times, from government agencies to the games industry. There are scores of people who - when asked what they do - give you some fluff about their role and title then swan off to spend the day schmoozing "potential clients" and running up massive tabs.

    Yes, there are obviously some people who DO work hard at what they do. I'm not taking it away from them. I'm talking about the tossers who are along for the ride, do fuck all, yet when the axe falls somehow manage to retain their positions, at the expense of those who actually did all the hard work.

  • Dizzy #7 3 years ago

    EA is going the way of the Dodo.

    Pity they bought so many good studios... I bet a lot of them are not so happy now.

  • Wendelius #8 3 years ago

    @Rizo: "How much longer are people going to belive the pre-launch post-launch bullshit? "

    I agree. So does Scott Jennings who used to work for them once upon a time (you might know him as Lum the Mad if you have been following MMO's since the UO days): [link url=http://www.brokentoys.org/2009/02/04/rituals-of-the -betrayed/
    ]http://ww w.brokentoys.org/2009/02/04/rit...[/link]

    Gaming is not recession proof after all. and this recession sucks for lots of people. :(

    Wendelius

  • MrChuckles #9 3 years ago

    The last project i worked on brought in around 30 contractors 6 months before the end of the project and then let most of them go at the end.

    If these are full time layoffs then that is something different either isn't related to pre-launch/post-launch or is a very badly run company.

    If it is contractors then it isn't news as they expect a 6 month contract when brought into the team.

  • MrAtheist #10 3 years ago

    You cant pin this one on EA, plenty of former Mythic staff are cropping up claiming EA improved the environment at Mythic.

    Simple fact is that WAR has performed way below expectations and we dont live in magic-happy-land where spending is unrelated to income.

  • iokthemonkey #11 3 years ago

    Gaming is not recession proof after all.

    ---

    Yet game sales are up 26% in the UK and 15% in the US, with a total global growth of 11%.

  • Eraysor #12 3 years ago

    To be honest unless WAR was facemeltingly good it was never going to beat WoW on its own turf. It's just a shame that the more people that get made redundant, the less likely that the game will ever approach WoW's quality level.

  • DFawkes #13 3 years ago

    The article on EG (<a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/blaming-the-crunch -article">this one here</a href>;) was quite interesting, and relevant in this case.

  • sneetch #14 3 years ago

    @iokthemonkey

    Damn, I really was hoping it was all just a conspiracy theory. :(

    In my experience as a software engineer marketing staff produce product documentation and brochures that have only a barest similarity with what the applications you make do and the services you provide actually are.

    However, I would remind people that development staff left Blizzard in droves after WoW launched for various reasons (I believe that few if any were fired however). They do not need as many people to keep updates coming out for an MMO post launch, that said, they could definitely make good use of them. Although I like the game a lot it could do with polish and new content.

    The next announcement I'm waiting for is the one where they tell us that the lay-offs won't impact the schedule for the upcoming content additions. And a week or two after they should have arrived they'll tell us that the delay had nothing to do with lay-offs.

  • iokthemonkey #15 3 years ago

    To be honest unless WAR was facemeltingly good it was never going to beat WoW on its own turf.

    ---

    I don't think even EA expected it to beat WoW. From what I can see, there was a touted target of 500K subscribers and unfortunately the game has "fallen short" of that. It's easy to dismiss 300K when you're looking at it vs 11 million but 300K is a pretty good outing. It's just not the 500K they were expecting.

  • iokthemonkey #16 3 years ago

    I was about to post a link to that Senor Fawkes.

  • Entity #17 3 years ago

    Damage limitation: #22

  • sneetch #18 3 years ago

    @DFawkes

    Missed that article first time around, very interesting and very well written.

    I just hope that these redundancies aren't the thin end of the wedge.

  • skillian #19 3 years ago

    This is the problem with the Big Publishers - their immediate response to anything is "cut costs! Get rid of creatives! Ditch the devs!" all the while hiring more useless tossers in "marketing" who spend their entire time... actually, I'd love to know what marketing people do, because aside from a few exceptions, most people I've met who work in "marketing" do fuck all of note

    I agree with you that games would be better if more marketers would be replaced with developers, but you are completely wrong to assume marketing does nothing of note for a business. They may not improve a product but they sure as hell improve sales.

  • iokthemonkey #20 3 years ago

    I agree with you that games would be better if more marketers would be replaced with developers, but you are completely wrong to assume marketing does nothing of note for a business. They may not improve a product but they sure as hell improve sales.

    ----

    I'm talking about the entourage of useless hanger-on "media relations" people who don't do anything, not the people who actively publicise the game, speak to the community, liaise with the press etc.

    What I mean is the peripheral departments are always overstaffed and filled with people who don't contribute anything, yet when the axe falls, it's always the creative/production staff that are first in line.

    And management often don't understand that you can drum up as much hype and as much interest as you like but if you have nobody working on actually producing a game for you, then what's the point?

  • Macdory #21 3 years ago

    The problem with WAR was that it's core product PVP required you to level up through shite PVE and repetative scenarios and when you got to end game you found out the mechanics were fooked up with Fortresses not working properly, and the best way to get renown is by joining the zerg train ... made for a dull dull experience !!!

    Several months after launch and it's still not working ... packed in my sub and doubt very much i will ever go back.

    They should have stuck with a winning formulae from DAoC and had 3 factions - 2 is just too predictable and dull dull dull

    After AoC and WAR this year i've learnt my lesson - im not joining a new MMO until it has been out a good 6 months and is getting solid reviews from actual players (no point looking for press reviews after all fo the raving over AoC only to find that post level 20 hadn;t been finished properly)

  • Slabbathepave #22 3 years ago

    @Macdory

    Agree completely. In the rush to steal some of WOW's massive market share we have had a few promising MMO's come and go leaving us all disapointed. (i still have a facial twitch from playing AoC)

    I suspect the problem being that most of WOW's player base just want to play WOW and not an MMO. To explain a little further... my girlfriend has been playing wow on and off for about 3 years, aside from the odd puzzle game on her DS thats about it. If i try to show her anything else (WAR/AoC) she is just not interested, she switches off. Its not WOW....she wants WOW and everything that go's with it and that means that no matter how many interesting gameplay devices and potential lures other companies use they will always be lacking.

    They can never be WOW. She just wants WOW 2 and is happy to play WOW until its release.

    Despite how much i beat her.....

  • sneetch #23 3 years ago

    @Macdory
    The problem with WAR was that it's core product PVP required you to level up through shite PVE and repetative scenarios and when you got to end game you found out the mechanics were fooked up with Fortresses not working properly, and the best way to get renown is by joining the zerg train ... made for a dull dull experience !!!

    Several months after launch and it's still not working ... packed in my sub and doubt very much i will ever go back.

    It is possible (though not easy) to level up in other ways, actually, the only other way. :)

    I levelled up a lower level KOTBS from 4 up to about 16 purely through ORvR one weekend: it took a bit longer than levelling through PVE/scenarios would as we had to wait for the destruction players to come out to play on a few occasions but I knew that would be the case before I started. But it was a hell of a lot of fun especially on T1 when two destruction healers dinged level 12 a few seconds apart from one another. :)

    Personally, I think the PVE is too easy (and the fact that mobs don't group pull is frankly stupid, you come across a camp with five dark elves having a chat and you can pull them one at a time) but I wouldn't say it was shite, really, it has problems but they're working on them. The PQs are great (when you're on the server levelling curve) but it could do with some more work in the dungeons. And putting lairs in the lower tier RvR lakes is a bad idea, as is the shiteing about required to unlock/open them: any content that has to be completed before a certain level or requires the enemy players in any way is a bad idea in an MMO, IMHO.

    Zerging in any of these games is a tricky problem though, they need to find a way to make it less profitable to zerg, to encourage the attackers and defenders to split up to attack or defend the different objectives in the zone. If the game automatically gave groups and warbands "orders" to attack/defend certain objectives it would be make a huge difference. Orders would be kinda like quests, you could of course ignore them without penalty but they would give renown, exp and influence if you complete them. I know you get that for capturing an objective anyway but the way it works now you're very much encouraged to zerg and indeed penalised when you're not with the zerg as you have to be at the objective when it's capped to get renown, influence and experience and with the 15 minute lockdown timer you may as well go for the objectives in rotation as the enemy can't recap the objectives for some time.

    I always thought Arathi Highlands worked well in WoW because you had to split up to win.

    They should have stuck with a winning formulae from DAoC and had 3 factions - 2 is just too predictable and dull dull dull

    Not sure about that as faction balance in DaoC was always a problem... I was Hibernian in DaoC and it was incredibly predictable: we'd get our asses handed to us on every occasion by far larger numbers of Middies and Albies. :)

    Besides with the Warhammer world being the way it is it's difficult to see how 3 factions would work, empire and dwarves are a logical grouping there and orcs and chaos is another, I suppose, but who'd be the third one?

    Skaven and... other... skaven? I dunno. :)

    Wood elves and high elves maybe? Too elf heavy though. Although the wood elves could bring in dryads or other nature spirits as classes. And wardancers.

  • Hypercube #24 3 years ago

    I would just like to say that Sneetch has summed up my feelings almost exactly. RvR has changed quite a bit, and I've found that levelling from it (certainly in the early tiers) is entirely feasible.

    I'm really enjoying WAR right now - OK, it doesn't have the breadth of WoW, but as far as enjoyable MMO faction based gaming, it's got my continued sub for the foreseeable.

  • Yeevle #25 3 years ago

    I've been waiting ages to see the MMO bubble burst. Shame it has taken so much.

  • iokthemonkey #26 3 years ago

    I've been waiting ages to see the MMO bubble burst. Shame it has taken so much.

    ----

    Considering few games sell in excess of 100K copies and PC sales are hardly stellar, "only" having 300K subscribers is hardly the end of the MMO. I doubt it's even the end of WAR.