Rumors Mass Layoffs To Impact Arenanet / GW2

[Poppincaps]

Seems like being a buy to play MMO is a weird choice. ESO is buy to play as well but also has a sub to unlock additional content and perks. This seems to be a superior model honestly.

[alturic]

Yes, it sounds like the layoffs aren't for GW1 or GW2:

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/disc...-from-arenanet

How do you attribute a PR spin of a comment like that to mean nothing will be affected on GW/GW2? The exact same PR spin comment was said about Blizzard games...

You must mean the article, where it was quoted:

"This is part of a larger organizational restructuring within NCSOFT in the west, but the Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 game services will not be affected, nor is any upcoming game content canceled."

But then also miss this:

"[ArenaNet] had two major projects in the works when I was there. One was indefinitely suspended while I was still there. For those of us working on GW2, our mandate was essentially to make it look like there was the same level of resources devoted to GW2, when they were actually steadily moving people off of it onto the other projects.

The point I'm trying to make is that yes, people from the GW/GW2 team will be laid off as well.

I seriously don't know how people think B2P games are sustainable without a cash shop, which it doesn't look like GW/GW2 has?

"Our live game business revenue is declining as our franchises age, delays in development on PC and mobile have created further drains against our revenue projects, while our operating costs in the west have increased," it reads. "Where we are is not sustainable, and is not going to set us up for future success."

No shit, if all you sell is a box every ~X years, you are basically a console developer with the HUGE difference being on-going development, support, etc.

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Nothing is going to effect GW2 it is a big money maker for them.

Whaaat? I admit, GW2 isn't for me (I did buy it, didn't like the gameplay at all), but outside of box sales are you saying there's a huge market for people to buy shirts, hoodies and mousepads branded GW2?

[Unholyground]

Whaaat? I admit, GW2 isn't for me (I did buy it, didn't like the gameplay at all), but outside of box sales are you saying there's a huge market for people to buy shirts, hoodies and mousepads branded GW2?

They have an in-game shop with tons of visual and vanity items including certain kinds of special access areas and gathering tools with no limitation., they make a killing off of that stuff (mainly the visual ones).

[apelsinjuice]

A Kotaku post by Jason Schreier claims that NCSoft is in the works of mass layoffs to impact Arenanet

Quote from post: "Songyee Yoon, the CEO of Korean publisher NCSoft West, which owns ArenaNet, e-mailed employees this afternoon with the news. “Our live game business revenue is declining as our franchises age, delays in development on PC and mobile have created further drains against our revenue projects, while our operating costs in the west have increased,” she wrote. “Where we are is not sustainable, and is not going to set us up for future success.”

https://kotaku.com/guild-wars-2-deve...ffs-1832799804

Loved the launch days of Guild Wars 2 personally along several months later then the temporary content updates just got annoying

To add to that Live Service model is showing its problems and considering it feels like 90% games released these days to even years ago is showing instability.... average consumer I expect can only commit to one live service and the market is too saturated to sustain itself

well at least they lay off people because it looks like they simply cant afford it, compared to activision that make record year profit and still laying off masses, just for more profit to fill their pockets

[Unholyground]

Seems like being a buy to play MMO is a weird choice. ESO is buy to play as well but also has a sub to unlock additional content and perks. This seems to be a superior model honestly.

As I said they have a very in depth in-game shop, they make a ton off of vanity items.

[alturic]

They have an in-game shop with tons of visual and vanity items including certain kinds of special access areas and gathering tools with no limitation., they make a killing off of that stuff (mainly the visual ones).

Ahh, didn't see any reference to an in-game shop on their site. If that was in since launch, probably another reason I didn't like the game. Vanity or not, hate cash shops.

[schwank05]

I played the game heavily at launch for a few months and enjoyed it. Then put it down until this past November I played the game November and December heavily got 4 characters to max level finished off all I wanted to for masteries and builds on the characters. But the fact that you can buy the 2nd best gear for cheap on the AH for almost every build just destroys the drive to play for me. It was fun I unlocked most of the mounts and had a blast playing the Mesmer melee and also the Necromancer as a healer was a blast. But there just isn't enough people that want to play the things I like to really get any amount of enjoyment out of it anymore.

[Unholyground]

Ahh, didn't see any reference to an in-game shop on their site.

You can literally only access it in game which is the funny part lol, but it has tons of stuff, and they regularly put things on sale. You can convert gold into the paid gem currency as well, it just takes a while to farm it.

[xenogear3]

First Blizzard. Now this.

I expect more to come.
In the last few years, there is really no innovative game come out. All microtransaction and mobile games.
If you google top 10 MMORPG, all are at least 5 years old.

Next recession will be bad.

[Sykol]

I tried to love GW2, I really did. I liked Destiny 2 more, which should say something. GW2 felt like it was trying to be WoW F2P, and fell short in every aspect. If I wanted to play WoW, I'd just do that, not a lesser clone.

[Unholyground]

I played the game heavily at launch for a few months and enjoyed it. Then put it down until this past November I played the game November and December heavily got 4 characters to max level finished off all I wanted to for masteries and builds on the characters. But the fact that you can buy the 2nd best gear for cheap on the AH for almost every build just destroys the drive to play for me. It was fun I unlocked most of the mounts and had a blast playing the Mesmer melee and also the Necromancer as a healer was a blast. But there just isn't enough people that want to play the things I like to really get any amount of enjoyment out of it anymore.

Ya but when you get ascended gear it feels good, it takes a while to build up to even seeing it drop. I made my own custom Tankcromancer, I never die and put out an ass load of damage, I always have a 33% damage reduction too while in combat . Basically everything I do applies chill and chill adds bleeds and might stacks for everyone. I am as close as you can get to a Blood DK in GW2 lol.

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I tried to love GW2, I really did. I liked Destiny 2 more, which should say something. GW2 felt like it was trying to be WoW F2P, and fell short in every aspect. If I wanted to play WoW, I'd just do that, not a lesser clone.

I went in feeling the same way, then took a break from WoW and realized it is something very different, plus WoW is terrible now unfortunately. My favorite thing about GW2 was that your gear is not replace when you take a 6 month break it still is just as good as when you left, and I think that is a major downfall of WoW. I wish they would implement my gear leveling idea where your gear levels as you quest and play at max level in WoW, I mean the tech is there with heirlooms and it is something that they need to do.

[alturic]

First Blizzard. Now this.

I expect more to come.
In the last few years, there is really no innovative game come out. All microtransaction and mobile games.
If you google top 10 MMORPG, all are at least 5 years old.

Next recession will be bad.

That's because what people think of when they think "PC gamers", are a dying breed. I don't think anyone thinks 40, 50, 60 year olds (large segment of WoW players) as "PC gamers". The new generation of gamers are predominantly console/mobile gamers, for a multitude of reasons.

PC MMO's, when they have investors, have grand plans and usually through development some of those plans get put on hold until after launch (because you know... we need to see if the game will make money first now) and/or cash grabs are introduced shortly after launch because the initial sales weren't as projected.

There's no real innovative games coming out because it's a huge gamble, WoW was and still is an anomaly in the MMO world. If you want to really see the state of the MMO landscape, just view the massively long list of failed games at mmorpg.com.

Note: Failed does not mean abandoned. Ultima Online, the grandad, is still going and receiving updates, ~17 years later, and still has a subscription fee. When you know that little tidbit, it's always amusing when people say WoW will die anytime soon.

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I tried to love GW2, I really did. I liked Destiny 2 more, which should say something. GW2 felt like it was trying to be WoW F2P, and fell short in every aspect. If I wanted to play WoW, I'd just do that, not a lesser clone.

Exactly how I went into GW2. I knew it wasn't trying to be a WoW-clone, but still. When a juggernaut like WoW was a/the primary MMO in the world and people (myself included) expect certain things from MMOs (holy trinity, combat speed, etc) you'll get my initial money but I probably won't last more than a month.

I still wish Rift had more players, and a better interface as it was the only MMO (again, since WoW) that I enjoyed thoroughly. It was almost... dare I say, like vanilla WoW. However, this will sound hilarious, one of the things I couldn't get over was gearing up for current tier. You needed resists/stats and unless your guild did old content, you'd never get that gear. :P

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Ya but when you get ascended gear it feels good, it takes a while to build up to even seeing it drop. I made my own custom Tankcromancer, I never die and put out an ass load of damage, I always have a 33% damage reduction too while in combat . Basically everything I do applies chill and chill adds bleeds and might stacks for everyone. I am as close as you can get to a Blood DK in GW2 lol.

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I went in feeling the same way, then took a break from WoW and realized it is something very different, plus WoW is terrible now unfortunately. My favorite thing about GW2 was that your gear is not replace when you take a 6 month break it still is just as good as when you left, and I think that is a major downfall of WoW. I wish they would implement my gear leveling idea where your gear levels as you quest and play at max level in WoW, I mean the tech is there with heirlooms and it is something that they need to do.

So basically, until an expansion comes out, once you hit a certain gear level, if you don't REALLY enjoy the game, there's no treadmill to keep you pushing for new content/gear? Seems counterproductive in a primarily cash-shop focused revenue model.

[Unholyground]

That's because what people think of when they think "PC gamers", are a dying breed. I don't think anyone thinks 40, 50, 60 year olds (large segment of WoW players) as "PC gamers". The new generation of gamers are predominantly console/mobile gamers, for a multitude of reasons.

PC MMO's, when they have investors, have grand plans and usually through development some of those plans get put on hold until after launch (because you know... we need to see if the game will make money first now) and/or cash grabs are introduced shortly after launch because the initial sales weren't as projected.

There's no real innovative games coming out because it's a huge gamble, WoW was and still is an anomaly in the MMO world. If you want to really see the state of the MMO landscape, just view the massively long list of failed games at mmorpg.com.

Note: Failed does not mean abandoned. Ultima Online, the grandad, is still going and receiving updates, ~17 years later, and still has a subscription fee. When you know that little tidbit, it's always amusing when people say WoW will die anytime soon.

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Exactly how I went into GW2. I knew it wasn't trying to be a WoW-clone, but still. When a juggernaut like WoW was a/the primary MMO in the world and people (myself included) expect certain things from MMOs (holy trinity, combat speed, etc) you'll get my initial money but I probably won't last more than a month.

I still wish Rift had more players, and a better interface as it was the only MMO (again, since WoW) that I enjoyed thoroughly. It was almost... dare I say, like vanilla WoW. However, this will sound hilarious, one of the things I couldn't get over was gearing up for current tier. You needed resists/stats and unless your guild did old content, you'd never get that gear. :P

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So basically, until an expansion comes out, once you hit a certain gear level, if you don't REALLY enjoy the game, there's no treadmill to keep you pushing for new content/gear? Seems counterproductive in a primarily cash-shop focused revenue model.

Nope because there is so much other character progression in the game to complete, gear is just a means to an end to make you feel more powerful, but it also is a lot harder to get really good gear as well so it is far more meaningful.

[alturic]

Nope because there is so much other character progression in the game to complete, gear is just a means to an end to make you feel more powerful, but it also is a lot harder to get really good gear as well so it is far more meaningful.

Gotcha. That reminds me or something else GW2 had that I didn't find enjoyable in the slighest, having to do all sort of weird map exploration I think it was. Whatever jumping up walls, collecting POI's is considered, I don't even remember if that stuff was required, but it felt required enough for me to bounce around and do them.

Anyway, not meaning to shit on the game, I'll bow out of the thread now.

[Unholyground]

Gotcha. That reminds me or something else GW2 had that I didn't find enjoyable in the slighest, having to do all sort of weird map exploration I think it was. Whatever jumping up walls, collecting POI's is considered, I don't even remember if that stuff was required, but it felt required enough for me to bounce around and do them.

Anyway, not meaning to shit on the game, I'll bow out of the thread now.

I can understand that, some people hate platforming, but I love it! Some were super frustrating until they added gliders in Heart of Thorns, now a lot of them are easy to cheese lol.

[Varitok]

A little sad but the article itself highlights the problem that Arenanet seems to be aware of. Modern gamers aren't going to continue playing an aging game. Companies can't just be complicate anymore in game design

I disagree wholeheartedly. Modern gamers will play aging games, it's the fact that these aging games like WoW and GW2 have nothing to compel them to continue playing.

[Flarelaine]

I'm not that surprised honestly. Unless you actively look for news of it when is the last time you saw anyone talking about Guild Wars 2?

Last night, I think. My guildmaster on our Discord.

[Daevied]

Its just a move from the evil corporation to earn more money for the shareholders, poor ppl that gets laid off just for greed

[dope_danny]

First Blizzard. Now this.

I expect more to come.
In the last few years, there is really no innovative game come out. All microtransaction and mobile games.
If you google top 10 MMORPG, all are at least 5 years old.

Next recession will be bad.

Well 'massively multiplayer' is not the novelty it once was and younger people are far more interested in stuff like fortnite or games as a service looter shooters. With no options for future growth the money going into the market is going to shrink on the production side. i mean its not really new news that part of the reason World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV can keep the sub model going is because they come from decades old, popular IP's in the first place.

[Edge-]

There has to be more to the layoffs then just live services being big right now.

There is, because the layoffs have nothing to do with that. NCsoft's finances took a hit last year so they're cutting across the board, especially in the west. ANet was working on a number of unannounced and it sounds like those all got canceled.

OT: Honestly, I'm surprised it took nearly 7 years for them to have a round of deep layoffs, and these aren't even directly tied to GW2's performance. The fact that they lasted this long is a huge feat considering how rare it is (just about every other major MMO had swift, deep layoffs post launch) and hell, they even grew over the years which is even more rare.

Jessica Price (polarizing I know) weighed in on this with some info as well. She's not necessarily the most reliable source given the drama around her departure so take it with grains of salt, but she talked about how they'd been steadily moving more and more folks off GW2 and onto these other projects while giving the dwindling team the mandate to make it look like business as usual - leading to a whole lot of creative solutions to problems that would otherwise not exist were staffing levels unchanged.

I don't totally buy everything she said, but this wouldn't be remotely surprising to me if it were true, especially given the unexpected delays with the last few episodes. And it's actually a testament to the incredible team working on GW2 if they were managing to keep up this quality/scope of content with a team that's much smaller than they used to have.

Either way this isn't the end of the game, I wouldn't be surprised if LS episodes slowed down a bit or were scaled back some, but I doubt we'll see them dropping support anytime soon. The game is still profitable and doing pretty well for them (PoF has been a nice revenue bump in its life-cycle compared to HoT), hopefully the next expansion can keep their numbers growing and they can staff back up.

The good thing is that there are a bunch of other developers in the area and I've seen a whole lot of industry folks supporting them (one of the co-founders who created Undead Labs included), hopefully they can find gigs that they enjoy without needing to relocate. And hopefully things aren't too grim in the offices for those that remain once folks start getting their pink slips. ANet is apparently giving all the staff losing their jobs 2 months of severance pay, which is pretty damn solid.