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General: Affected Daybreak Employees & A Call to End Hate
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Two interesting pieces of news have arrived over night. In the first, the EverQuest Next Reddit has been updated with a full list of SOE/Daybreak employees affected by yesterday's firings. Eric Smith, Jeff Butler and Steve Danuser join Dave Georgeson from the EQ franchise team as those now seeking employment.
The list goes on to show other employees from other IPs as well:
Everquest Franchise
David "Smokejumper" Georgeson, Franchise lead
Eric "Felgon" Smith, Landmark/EQNext producer
Jeffrey Butler (skip to 27:20, in chat), EQN/Landmark creative director
Steve "Moorgard" Danuser, EQNext lead content/story designer
Mark Storer, EQNext programmer
Aaron "Gnobrin" Bisnett, EQ2 artist
Akil "Lyndro" Hooper, EQ2 Designer
Racheal "Afista" McKenny, EQ2 community manager
"Endymion", EQ2 developer
Planetside 2
David Carey, producer
Katherine Anderson, build master
Xander Clauss, level designer
Kevin Moyer, designer/vehicle balance
Taylor Dowell, database/marketplace
Sarah Vu, QA
Ryan Owens (confirmed via reddit PM), QA
H1Z1
Noah Watkins, UI artist
Kelduum Revaan, technical designer
DC Universe Online
Ellen Andersen, producer
General Staff
Linda "Brasse" Carlson, Director of community relations
Tiffany "Amnerys" Spence, community manager
Aimee "Ashlanne" Rekoske, community manager
Kyle Manchester, community manager
MMORPG.com user ice-vortex also dug up a letter written by now-former PlanetSide 2 producer Dave Carey where he asks the community for calm during this transition and further explains that the new management company, Columbus Nova, has done the right thing with the firings to give the current franchises a new direction and a chance to survive.
Columbus Nova deserves no hate in all this. They are more like white knights than negative forces here. SOE needed a shake up/new direction, and CN provided that. They have done nothing but been gracious in their new ownership, and they went out of their way to make sure that Devs and support teams that got laid off were taken care of. Right now things seem shitty, and of course for the folks that were let go, today was rough, but CN and DB were both very open about the need for restructuring. This wasn't a surprise to folks in the company.
Back to the subject - if you guys feel angry or betrayed, it would be misdirected to place that at the feet of the new company. They didn't bring in new staff to replace us, or say we did a shitty job and treat us poorly - they looked at the bottom line and the numbers just didn't line up. The new layout lines up now, and the goal is that DB can be successful and move on from this and eventually expand again. Saying "I'm cancelling my sub" or "I'm never buying another thing in PS2" isn't the right tactic, as much as the former Devs appreciate the intent of your support. If you want to make a positive impact, then keep doing what you're doing - if you like the game, play it. Give feedback. Get your friends to play. Buy what you want to, and what you feel gives you value. If you aren't happy, tell DB through the means you do now, social media and /bug reports. The game will grow or shrink depending on how you guys act, which is how it should be. If you make a statement on principal for the dearly departed devs, you will be hurting the remaining staff who have worked just as hard to make you guys a game you like to play. They may not be all names you know, but trust me, they put their blood, sweat, and tears into this.
You can discuss Carey's letter and read the full post in this MMORPG.com forum thread.
Let us know what you think in the comments.
Comments
LOL!
SOE indeed needed a good shake up! Firing regular staff is not a shake up!
If they really wanted to shake up Things and move the Company in a New direction, then you start With the guy at the top who has been nothing but EPIC FAIL the last years: John Smedley!
You can fire Your entire workstarff and re-hire an entire New one! As long as John Smedley is there, NOTHING will change!
They gutted development for everquest next, and the teams that maintains eq2 and ps2 while making small cuts elsewhere.
I suppose this means that the only real development is going to be for H1Z1, which is an uninspiring zombie survival game but for some reason sells really well on steam. From a business perspective it makes sense, soe has been bleeding for a long time. As a gamer it sucks.
From here on out its just going to be indie developers in the west, korean games and the odd thing coming out of russia.
Daybreak
lead to
Heartbreak
before the
Lunch Break
when you realised you were getting an unplanned
Career Break
Director of community relations and 4 community managers fired. It looks like the first part of their plan is to not tell us anything.
Otherwise in a company as large as Daybreak that's not a large layoff. If they were stopping or seriously reducing development of something we'd see many more names than that.
Funcom stopped making mmorpg's and work on Lego minifigures online instead. Trion made a minecraft game in Trove for minimal costs. Turbine killed their mmorpg development and made a moba that turned into a huge flop. I have no idea what CCP works on after killing WoD and making big cuts but I doubt they will ever make an mmorpg again.
The only western studio that has said that they are working on an mmorpg is Cryptic Studios, but there are no more details on that.
I would tend to agree.
I would even go further and speculate that the "voxel" features are going to be scaled back. All the risky "next gen" features will be headed for the chopping block. EQ:Next will become EQ3...
Basically: "Forget the fancy stuff, take what you have and get it out the door ASAP !"
I don't see them going back to the drawing boards to create EQ3 because it would mean creating an mmorpg from scratch. If they make something it will probably be expanding on Landmarks in the cheapest possible way.
trion managed to survive thanks to rift..they added casual stuff like dimensions and also reduced difficulty of game play particularly by changing the soul system in right way..thus they managed to keep casual around and survive..rift was good game just needed some changes to become more profitable, best free to play game in the market as of today imo.
funcom also survived thanks to tsw.. but just survived nothing more..for how long?? we should wait and see
on the other hand soe/daybreak games are not good and they perform poorly when they are already free to play..or so old only hard core fans are playing it, which is very small community..they dont have ace game in their pocket to help them..maybe EQN was/is suppose to be that game..but with layoff of all its main developers..it sound cancellation badly.
Well now they get to see how much those devs are worth to the EQ community
FUN!
You can't fire the people that are beloved by the community and expect smiles and flowers.
SmokeJumper is an EQ legend. Many people love the guy and looked at him as the face of the franchise. Now, he's gone. What are we suppose to assume? EQN will no longer be under his vision so it won't be nearly as good a game.
So... Smedley squeaked through this unscathed? While a huge portion of his Staff get the boot?
I had a really bad gut feeling this is exactly what would happen. Typical and predictable corporate culture. Makes a guy want to leave the planet.
My best wishes goes out to the Staff Members on the List and those not on the List that now need to move on to a new job.
HAHAHHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAH!
I am sorry DMKano, but the future is the bean counters hands. Hence the reason the more innovative things are coming from small indie developers. I wish it wasn't so, but realistically speaking once a young and bright dev starts in with companies like SoE.... their creativity is unwillingly crushed out of them. A sad truth.
I think, they let go of the expensive staff that lacked specialist skills (ie those that are replaceable) and they let go of most of the community team, whose duties are likely easily picked up by others (but not as good as dedicated community managers).
From what I know, SOE, whilst a marginally profitable entity on the live products, was as a whole, not sustainable. Sony were paying above and beyond to keep it operating (and we know Sony throw money around like its going out of fashion).
Redundancies were inevitable, the shock is merely that so many of them going are public facing people. Given those that have been let go from EQN, I'd also expect it's design direction to change, how much remains to be seen, but letting those people go indicates that beyond the cost of them, they probably feel the need to change the game as well to ensure it will be successful.
I actually expect them to put on hold development EQN & Landmark, focus on PS2 and H1Z1 for PC/PS4/Xbox One and mobile games based on their IPs, then revisit EQN in a couple of years once the company is profitable and sustainable.
New legends everywhere!
Here's one caught on camera on its way to SOE! It has the power of "bae"!
I loved EQ and EQ2, I truly did, but it has been a long while since SOE was delivering what I wanted to see. I am not sure that the 'death' of them is a bad thing at this point from my perspective.
I have been getting my EQ fix in alternative place for a long time now, despite actually wanting to throw my money at the guys that actually own the game. That won't change in the near future I guess.
It is still kinda shocking to see it go down like this though.
There once was a poor old man who owned a beautiful white horse.
Whenever noblemen passed through the village, they always noticed the horse and offered handsome sums of money for the stallion. But the old man always declined their offers, saying, "This horse is my friend. How can I sell my friend?"
One morning the old man awoke to find the horse was gone. The village people gathered and said, "Old man you were a fool not to sell the horse. You could have been wealthy! Now it has been stolen, and you have nothing. It is a great misfortune!" But the old man replied, "Don't go so far as to say that. Whether the horse was stolen or not, or whether it is a misfortune or a blessing, is unknown. All we know is that the horse is not in the stable."
Some days later the horse returned, bringing with it several beautiful wild mares. Again the village people gathered, and they said, "Old man you were right! The horse was not stolen, and it was not a misfortune. It was a blessing, and now you have many fine horses!" But the old man replied, "Again you go too far. Don't say it's a good thing, don't say it's a bad thing. Just say the horse is back. Whether it is a blessing or a misfortune is unknown."
Some days later the old man's only son began to train the wild mares, but he was thrown and trampled, and one of his legs was badly broken. Again the village people gathered. "Oh old man, you were right! It was not a blessing but a great misfortune, and now your only son is lame! With a sigh the old man replied, "Don't say it's a good thing, don't say it's a bad thing, just say my son has broken his leg. Whether it is a blessing or a misfortune is unknown."
It happened that a few weeks later the country went to war, and all the able bodied young men were forcibly taken for the military. Only the old man's son was passed over, because he was crippled. The whole village was crying and weeping, for they believed their sons would probably be killed and never come home to them. In their grief they came to the old man and said, "You were right old man, your son's injury has proven to be a blessing. Your son may be crippled, but he is with you, while our sons are gone forever! The old man simply shook his head and said, "Will you never learn? Only say that your sons have been forced into the military and my son has not. More than that is not known."
-- attributed to Catherine Marie Heath
By: Scott Teitsworth
This discounts the possibility that CN was sold on SOE after talking to someone high on the food chain. Perhaps said person had grown tired of answering to Sony overlords. Sometimes people make a deal with the devil to get some unfettered control, fully understanding overhead must be slashed initially.
Not saying this happened, or that CN is the devil.. but most people seem to think the second thing already.
- Nellus