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CONFIRMED: Layoffs Hit Turbine

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  • KonfessKonfess Member RarePosts: 1,667
    edited July 2016
    Correct me if I'm wrong. Isn't LotR on(e) of the favorite F2P games because their cash shop is done right, meaning its is not P2W? I think what this means is survival of the fittest. By Fittest I mean P2W will survive.

    Realize every time a Play For Free (P4F) gamer complains about a cash grab and P2W, all they are doing is hammering a nail in a games coffin. Being P4F friendly also means being not long for this world. Without depending on whales to keep the game alive.

    EDIT: added an "e" to on to get it to be one.
    Post edited by Konfess on

    Pardon any spelling errors
    Konfess your cyns and some maybe forgiven
    Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
    Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
    As if it could exist, without being payed for.
    F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
    Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
    It costs money to play.  Therefore P2W.

  • gervaise1gervaise1 Member EpicPosts: 6,919
    Konfess said:
    Correct me if I'm wrong. Isn't LotR on of the favorite F2P games because their cash shop is done right, meaning its is not P2W? I think what this means is survival of the fittest. By Fittest I mean P2W will survive.

    Realize every time a Play For Free (P4F) gamer complains about a cash grab and P2W, all they are doing is hammering a nail in a games coffin. Being P4F friendly also means being not long for this world. Without depending on whales to keep the game alive.
    Maybe. And your comment about p4f gamers complaining is certainly true.

    However - at least in part - I think the "love" comes partly from it being "the cosy chair in the corner of the room" and partly from it "encapsulating" pretty much everything that people feel should be in an mmo. So cosy not brand new super comfortable lounger.
  • syriinxsyriinx Member UncommonPosts: 1,383
    Konfess said:
    Correct me if I'm wrong. Isn't LotR on of the favorite F2P games because their cash shop is done right, meaning its is not P2W? I think what this means is survival of the fittest. By Fittest I mean P2W will survive.

    Realize every time a Play For Free (P4F) gamer complains about a cash grab and P2W, all they are doing is hammering a nail in a games coffin. Being P4F friendly also means being not long for this world. Without depending on whales to keep the game alive.
    Its actually one of the worst of the 'freemium' games in terms of cash shop providing player power.

    Its also one of the most restrictive freemium content models, as 80%+ of the games quests are via the cash shop.

    The model is generous in terms of being able to earn cash shop points in game, but its a boring grind to do so.

    Games like Rift and EQ2 give far, far, far more bang for your buck for free.  EQ2 and SWTOR are far better to subscribers.

    LOTRO is a good game and the model was one of the better ones at its inception, but freemium models have gotten better over time in general while lotro's has gotten worse.
  • Doug_BDoug_B Member UncommonPosts: 153
    edited July 2016
    SBFord said:

    imageRUMOR: Layoffs Hit Turbine

    UPDATE: We have received the following statement from Turbine:

    Turbine is transitioning into a free-to-play, mobile development studio, and as a result we are eliminating some positions. The Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons online games will continue to operate as they do now. Re-focusing and reducing the studio size was a difficult decision for the company, and we are grateful to all of the Turbine staff for their considerable contributions.

    Lord of the Rings and Dungeons & Dragons Online developer Turbine Studios is rumored to have undergone a round of layoffs. The information was posted to the personal Facebook account of former LOTRO Community Manager Rick Heaton. We have reached out to Turbine to confirm or deny the rumors and will report back when we know more.

    Read the full story here


    Translation " I (some WB manager ) can't afford my 20 million dollar life style so we had to lay off some peasants"

    In my opinion, Turbine should simply abandoned WB and form a new game studio and work on a Asheron Call game with a whole new engine with up-to-date graphics . Let wb deal with the sinking ship that is Turbine, turbine has some great people who need to take the chance like Brad Mcquaid is doing, and create the next evolution of the genre. Turbine will never be able to do that under WB control.

    LotrO was a great run, I had so much fun playing, but it is simply an infinity loop of rehashed ideas. IT is time for the founders of Turbine to step forward and spread their wings once again into a new era of mmo's  and create a new game study. Mark Jacobs has done it, Brad McQuaid , Lord British, these are founding fathers of the genre, it is time, for Turbine to do it !

    Bachelor's in Web Design and Multimedia
  • DrunkWolfDrunkWolf Member RarePosts: 1,701
    Its sad to me to see Turbine reduced to this. A company that made one of the greatest ( ahead of its time ) MMO's ever Asherons Call.
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  • Whiskey_SamWhiskey_Sam Member UncommonPosts: 323
    Loved SOA era LOTRO.  Would still play it today if I could.  Lot of mismanagement and abysmal customer relations at Turbine, though, poisoned the well for me.

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  • KopogeroKopogero Member UncommonPosts: 1,685
    Good, layoffs are always good. They help relocate people to more useful places in society.

    image

  • holdenhamletholdenhamlet Member EpicPosts: 3,772
    They struck me as a good company when I started playing LOTRO a long time ago. I thought the base game and Mines of Moria were both really well done. Things seem to fall apart after that, though. Not sure exactly why.
  • DKLondDKLond Member RarePosts: 2,273
    This way they can continue to exploit the audience without feeling obligated to the same extent. It makes sense ;)
  • LobotomistLobotomist Member EpicPosts: 5,981

    SBFord said:

    "Operate as they do now" probably means no new content, maybe some bug fix patches, but perhaps development is at an end there.

    F2P mobile development studio...well, sad as it is to say, I can't blame them since that's the currently exploding market. Heck, just look at Pokemon Go. One game like that, they can make tons more. 

    Too bad I hate mobile gaming. :/



    No mobile is not a booming market. In fact its disaster. It made me quit my game development job and never wish to return to industry.

    Mobile games face massive competition. Every day thousand games are released, and its hard to stand out from the shit. The platform is crazily limited both interface wise and performance wise.

    You can basically only do very sub par games on it. ( Technically , ingenuity in overcoming technical obstacles is only way )

    Its end of Turbine.

    Shame, in my opinion Turbine was the best MMO company Asheron call was masterpiece, but also DDO and LOTRO that in my opinion was second best Themepark MMO after WOW.

    The fall of Turbine shows that they didnt have a secret MMO in work, something we all hoped for.


    Sad but not unexpected - MMOs are dead



  • DKLondDKLond Member RarePosts: 2,273
    Don't fret about MMOs dying.

    Have you ever heard of a bird called Phoenix?

    Sometimes, we need things to die before they can truly change.

    The mobile market has been imploding for a while. Greed and opportunism + terrible platform can only lead to death.

    The sooner all this crap kills itself, the sooner we can have real evolution again.
  • Loke666Loke666 Member EpicPosts: 21,441
    I am not surprised, LOTRO is over 10 years old and while it still have some fans any gaming company need to make new games once in a while, even MMO companies. They should have made a new Asherons call or something 5 years ago...

    Focusing on the mobile market might work, far less expensive to make mobile games after all but it is of course a loss for us PC MMOers, Turbine have aftyer all made a few pretty good games.
  • ThebeastttThebeasttt Member RarePosts: 1,130
    Can it be? Have gamers finally raised their standards enough to let these Turbine abominations die?
  • WarlyxWarlyx Member EpicPosts: 3,368
    F2P mobile development studio.....and more will follow


  • JeroKaneJeroKane Member EpicPosts: 7,098

    Deekins said:


    Alomar said:

    Been waiting for Turbine to loose the rights to Lotr for years. They had their chance, was an alright start but nothing but downhill after that. Looking forward to another potential Lotr mmo to come in the future.


    You maybe in for a wait then. I am pretty sure that Warner Brothers owns the rights to Lord of the Rings video games...Warner Brothers owns Turbine. So, more than likely if something is put out again, it will be by Warner Brothers studio, Turbine. 



    Saul Zaents company owns the rights - they leased the book based MMO rights to turbine who was later bought by WB. Those rights end in 2017 unless they get renewed.

    WB is under no obligation to let a single owned studio turbine make any future LOTR MMOs if they still hold the rights. And frankly, it's better to tie the movie and book rights together in the next MMO. WB probably screwed themselves by buying teh turbine name but aren't ready to ditch it.

    Well WB is definitely not going to renew it for Turbine to continue with LOTRO.

    They have been rushing all the way into Gondor now with latest content patches and basically already at the doorstep of Mordor with the game.
    So as far main LOTR story goes, they are almost done and can finish it up before end 2017 when rights expire.

    The game population has tanked too hard over the years, that it's way too expensive to renew the License for this game. More importantly, you can forget ME enterprises even allow for License renewal, as it's run by Tolkien's son and he is against everyone and everything when it comes with giving License rights.
    He is still pissed that his family lost the Movie rights and be glad for that, otherwise we would have never seen a single LOTR Movie nor the LOTRO game. If it was all up to him.
  • SeelinnikoiSeelinnikoi Member RarePosts: 1,360

    Forgrimm said:

    Apparently Turbine's licensing of LoTR is valid until 2017. Maybe they're just going to ride it out until then and shut it down at that point.



    That is the plan, and that is the reason they did not renew it sooner.

    They already had the raid patch in the works, they finished it, laid off the devs and are now back to maintenance mode until shutdown in around Q2 2017.
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  • FrodoFraginsFrodoFragins Member EpicPosts: 6,057
    edited July 2016
    JeroKane said:

    you can forget ME enterprises even allow for License renewal, as it's run by Tolkien's son and he is against everyone and everything when it comes with giving License rights.
    He is still pissed that his family lost the Movie rights and be glad for that, otherwise we would have never seen a single LOTR Movie nor the LOTRO game. If it was all up to him.

    The tolkien estate has ZERO to do with the LOTR or Hobbit game licenses.  You are confusing things I'm afraid.  If the estate had the power there would have never been a single Hobbit/LOTR movie or game ever made.  They can only step in if there is a violation of the original agreement his father made when selling the rights permanently

    ME Enterprises is the saul zaents company and they have those rights.  It's up to them on who gets licenses and it's not in their interest to not let anyone get the rights.  But there's no reason to let Turbine retain the rights after 2017 - the game is dated and mostly crappy.


  • JeroKaneJeroKane Member EpicPosts: 7,098
    JeroKane said:

    you can forget ME enterprises even allow for License renewal, as it's run by Tolkien's son and he is against everyone and everything when it comes with giving License rights.
    He is still pissed that his family lost the Movie rights and be glad for that, otherwise we would have never seen a single LOTR Movie nor the LOTRO game. If it was all up to him.

    The tolkien estate has ZERO to do with the LOTR or Hobbit game licenses.  You are confusing things I'm afraid.  If the estate had the power there would have never been a single Hobbit/LOTR movie or game ever made.  They can only step in if there is a violation of the original agreement his father made when selling the rights permanently

    ME Enterprises is the saul zaents company and they have those rights.  It's up to them on who gets licenses and it's not in their interest to not let anyone get the rights.  But there's no reason to let Turbine retain the rights after 2017 - the game is dated and mostly crappy.



    The Tolkien Family has ALL the rights to J.R.R Tolkien's work!

    The only rights they no longer have are "movie" rights, as J.R.R. Tolkien sold them back in the 70's or so.
  • FilburFilbur Member UncommonPosts: 254
    It's no surprise, really. The Q&A last year with an ex Turbine employee was pretty telling.

    Just a few tidbits:

    * Turbine pitched a Harry Potter MMO to Warner Brothers, before WB bought the studio, but it was turned down. Also, a console version of LOTRO was explored, costing the company millions of dollars but not ever proceeding past initial stages.

    * Siege of Mirkwood, the game’s second expansion — which was barely bigger than an update, and Aylwen calls a “budget expansion” — was when things really started going downhill.

    * Infinite Crisis cost a lot of money — $4 million a month to develop — and tanked badly because of the belief that it could be developed into the next major e-sports craze. According to a friend of Aylwen’s, who was just let go from Turbine in the fall, it has/had a peak concurrency of just 1,000 users.

    http://lotrocommunity.com/forum/topic/3465-lotro-pvpersare-they-really-that-bad/page-3#entry112183




  • Dreamo84Dreamo84 Member UncommonPosts: 3,713
    I feel like all the old MMO companies are slowly dying off.

    image
  • scorpex-xscorpex-x Member RarePosts: 1,030
    MMO publishers sadly are their own worst enemy.

    The companies that embrace p2w make good money, the good companies who refuse to ever go near p2w and as such give players almost no reason to spend money are the first to fall.

    These guys need to see players for what they are, if they aren't pushed to spend money then more often than not they won't.
  • SpottyGekkoSpottyGekko Member EpicPosts: 6,916
    Dreamo84 said:
    I feel like all the old MMO companies are slowly dying off.
    Your feeling is quite correct. And the only reason why it feels like it's happening "slowly", is because there's not many left, lol

    Blizzard will probably be "the last man standing"...
  • cheyanecheyane Member LegendaryPosts: 9,407
    I have old friends because I myself am old. I go with them always to keep them company when they have their endless tests. So I keep Sudoku and Mahjong on my phone while I wait sometimes for hours once I even carried my loom knitting along but I won't touch any other mobile game. I hate them with a vengeance because they are killing MMORPGs by making companies pay less attention to them or preferring these rotten ,stupid mobile games over the MMORPGs.

     DIE,DIE DIE mobile games !!!!!!!
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  • DeivosDeivos Member EpicPosts: 3,692

    SBFord said:

    "Operate as they do now" probably means no new content, maybe some bug fix patches, but perhaps development is at an end there.

    F2P mobile development studio...well, sad as it is to say, I can't blame them since that's the currently exploding market. Heck, just look at Pokemon Go. One game like that, they can make tons more. 

    Too bad I hate mobile gaming. :/



    No mobile is not a booming market. In fact its disaster. It made me quit my game development job and never wish to return to industry.

    Mobile games face massive competition. Every day thousand games are released, and its hard to stand out from the shit. The platform is crazily limited both interface wise and performance wise.

    You can basically only do very sub par games on it. ( Technically , ingenuity in overcoming technical obstacles is only way )

    Its end of Turbine.
    Market isn't getting better anytime soon either. The race to the bottom and build by numbers ideology that a lot of studios have resorted to has rather crippled themselves.

    Feel like you can technically make pretty interesting games, but ultimately they aren't going to net you money because the better the game you make the higher the budget typically becomes for development (very few developers are magically skilled enough for this to not be the case). If the development cost is high, the more you have to monetize to get a return. The more you monetize the less customers are apt to play, and with such a massive market you can also guarantee a few copycat/ripped games to be competing with you directly alongside the sea of indirect competition.

    "The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay

    "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin

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