ArenaNet, the Bellevue-based studio known as the developer of the two Guild Wars online RPG titles, has been hit by a round of layoffs.
The news was first reported by Kotaku's Jason Schreier yesterday, with the story citing a message sent to ArenaNet employees from NCSoft West (of which the developer is a subsidiary) CEO Songyee Yoon. We've added it below.
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. Where we are is not sustainable, and is not going to set us up for future success.
NCSoft isn't really new to cost-cutting. They've famously closed down titles like Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa, Paragon Studios' City of Heroes, and late last year Carbine Studios' Wildstar.
It is unclear yet how many employees have been laid off, but it seems to have been a rather major round. Prior to this, ArenaNet employed roughly four hundred developers, with some of them working on Guild Wars 2 live support and others busy on yet to be announced projects. Guild Wars 2 revenue declined over the years since its 2012 launch, though, which likely led NCSoft to this decision.
The good news for Guild Wars 2 players is that ArenaNet shared an update a few hours ago to confirm its commitment to support the game going forward.
We know you have a lot of questions about the future of Guild Wars 2. We want to share with you what to expect moving forward for the game. First and foremost, we are still fully committed to all of our players and ongoing support of the game. We will be moving directly from Living World Season 4 into Season 5 as promised, and we plan to continue a regular cadence of updates and releases.
We know Guild Wars 2 is important to you, and as our players, you are important to us. Rest assured that we are still working to add great new content to the game. We are deeply grateful to all of you for your support during this difficult time.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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