Rumor has it that Funcom fired about 70% of their U.S. Workforce today. Sources say that they were released this morning, the cuts are mostly in the Customer Service and Quality Assurance departments
They will just never learn will they. Those should be the last two departments taking cuts.
FC cutting back on marketing staff is a big deal. Think about what marketing is for and then follow the chain of reasoning.
Lol, what? "Chain of reasoning"? What are you talking about?
There is absolutely no reason for FC to stop marketing AoC. Unless they have given up or the product is so good it doesn't need marketing (which we all know is false).
I love it when people here on the forums try to understand marketing.
----------------------------- Originally posted by Frobner "Massive sieges" "mounted combat" and "spellweaving" are just few words that spring to mind when I hear the word AOC.... But the word FAILURE will always top the list.
FC cutting back on marketing staff is a big deal. Think about what marketing is for and then follow the chain of reasoning.
Lol, what? "Chain of reasoning"? What are you talking about?
There is absolutely no reason for FC to stop marketing AoC. Unless they have given up or the product is so good it doesn't need marketing (which we all know is false).
I love it when people here on the forums try to understand marketing.
I don't think you've understood my post. I'll simplify it for you: FC cutting back on marketing is bad.
Since I started the thread yesterday and it got deleted, funny to see this one not removed yet.............. even though it is true. It's not trolling to report the truth is it?
Since I started the thread yesterday and it got deleted, funny to see this one not removed yet.............. even though it is true. It's not trolling to report the truth is it?
There are people on these forums who report every single negative thread about AoC in hopes of getting a mod to delete them. I guess at the time you posted your thread, the mod thought it was bs because you had no link to original source.
----------------------------- Originally posted by Frobner "Massive sieges" "mounted combat" and "spellweaving" are just few words that spring to mind when I hear the word AOC.... But the word FAILURE will always top the list.
Since I started the thread yesterday and it got deleted, funny to see this one not removed yet.............. even though it is true. It's not trolling to report the truth is it?
There are people on these forums who report every single negative thread about AoC in hopes of getting a mod to delete them. I guess at the time you posted your thread, the mod thought it was bs because you had no link to original source.
Just a guess, but maybe that's what Famine does when he says he spends half his day "updating the community portal, posting, reading, compiling, and just being a data mole"
AmazingAveryAge of Conan AdvocateMemberUncommonPosts: 7,188
It's not for financial reasons so far we can pull conclusions from their reports.
This is most likely a logical choice seeing the less subs on the NA servers the less need for them. Still plenty around and official CS is only needed for account related issues not ingame bugs as getting 'stuck'.
This in some way can 'fit' with the Craigs ideology, removing the middle man on the test forums and letting the developers connect with the player base instead of getting pre-chewed reports.
It is all speculation from this point those who dislike Funcom will make into another doom and gloom story and the rest will remain neutral, no surprise there.
This in some way can 'fit' with the Craigs ideology, removing the middle man on the test forums and letting the developers connect with the player base instead of getting pre-chewed reports. It is all speculation from this point those who dislike Funcom will make into another doom and gloom story and the rest will remain neutral, no surprise there.
Haha, so when they fire 70% of staff it's actually only "removing the middle man"? That was funny . I guess you can come up with most redicilous theories if you just try hard enough. Lol, "removing the middle man"...
----------------------------- Originally posted by Frobner "Massive sieges" "mounted combat" and "spellweaving" are just few words that spring to mind when I hear the word AOC.... But the word FAILURE will always top the list.
AmazingAveryAge of Conan AdvocateMemberUncommonPosts: 7,188
Originally posted by Scaredgirl
Originally posted by AmazingAvery
This in some way can 'fit' with the Craigs ideology, removing the middle man on the test forums and letting the developers connect with the player base instead of getting pre-chewed reports. It is all speculation from this point those who dislike Funcom will make into another doom and gloom story and the rest will remain neutral, no surprise there.
Haha, so when they fire 70% of staff it's actually only "removing the middle man"? That was funny . I guess you can come up with most redicilous theories if you just try hard enough. Lol, "removing the middle man"...
Please be factual - it's a rumor, It's supposed to be 70% of its US offices not the whole company. Removing CS and QA opens up for direct relation with the devs in some situations. Keep spinning it to suite your tastes and prove my last line in last post.
I'd fire the US portion of QA and CS too if I were Funcom. Why pay people money who actually do their job? I bet they all quit cause they weren't getting paid and Funcom spun it around making it look like they got laid off. I know, speculation is a terrible habit, but Funcom is better at it then me.
ignorance is a bliss...
ontopic: IF the rumors are true then i fear for FC
MMOs currently playing: - About to play: Lord of the Rings Online Played: Anarchy Online (alltime favorite) and lots of f2p titles (honorable mentions: 9Dragons, Martial Heroes, Dekaron, Atlantica Online)
This makes sense to me. When the game launched they weren't prepared in the US customer service departments and went on a mass hiring drive. The game population dropped now your left with an overpopulation of CSR people. Not to mention the FoA has kicked up and are handling a good number of petitions. This will save them money in the long run and shouldn't really be a suprise to anyone.
Their customer service dept. sucked anyway. How many paying customers quit because of it? AoC is going down and at this point its just a matter of time before the bankrupcy hammer falls.
Why because he stated the lay off was still a rumor, unverified, and the fact that its not surprising in light of the fact that most of the in game petitions are handled by people in the home office and volunteers to cut back on cost and ensure profit margins remain high? And yes, FC is still profitable. I know their stock is tanked right now, but thats just because they aren't planning on releasing anything in the near future or have 2billon subs. Once Secrete World, the new casual MMO, and the AoC expansion release dates are set you'll see a spike in the stock prices just like you all did prior to and just after AoC launch. Speculation and Hype go a long way.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
This is perfectly understandable as they staffed for 600k customers at launch. With the numbers now being a third of that someone have to go, and by doing this FC shows that they are intent on keeping the costs down. So for the game this is good news. ' For the people loosing their jobs; I'm sorry for them as these are hard times. For the ones laughing about it on these forums; well I guess you know yourselves how I feel about people like you.
I really don't think the csr thing is a big deal either. Why wouldn't Funcom reduce the number of customer reps to keep a ratio with player base. I'm sure there is some industry standard.. something like 1csr per 5,000 players. As a game drops or increases in players, the number of csrs move accordingly.
But the QA firings are problematic.. and it's one of the things I talked about a few months ago. I said when a game starts to struggle, the first people who are let go are csrs and qa. They are much slower to release developers and what happens is buggier and buggier content gets added to the game, or else content will sit on the public test realms much longer.
A game with a solid QA team will only have content on the PTRs for a week or two (Blizzard, Lotro). When you start to see what is happening with AOC and Warhammer, where half of patches are pushed back months and 'linger' on the PTRs forever, that is a sign that the QA team is gone and the devs are overusing the playerbase to test content. It is also when you start seeing extremely exploitable content making it to the live game. Players on test realms play the game... they don't try and break things like a good QA team does. QA gets paid to find and report exploits.... players use test realms to figure out the smartest way to advance their characters when the game goes live.
I can't wait to see the professions patch in Warhammer which is supposedly being launched in december. The lack of a QA team there is going to have that patch on the PTRs for months and months.
Nice informative post.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
FC cutting back on marketing staff is a big deal. Think about what marketing is for and then follow the chain of reasoning.
Lol, what? "Chain of reasoning"? What are you talking about?
There is absolutely no reason for FC to stop marketing AoC. Unless they have given up or the product is so good it doesn't need marketing (which we all know is false).
I love it when people here on the forums try to understand marketing.
This game was over marketed to begin with if that is even a word I wonder if that had anything to do with them releasing it as broken as they did.
I'm just keeping my fingers crossed this one goes ftp too I'd certainly give it another run then
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
It's fun to see how fanbois are going to spin it once FC starts to fire devs. They will probably say it's a good thing because it's easier for the devs to work in smaller teams and with less bureauacracy.
----------------------------- Originally posted by Frobner "Massive sieges" "mounted combat" and "spellweaving" are just few words that spring to mind when I hear the word AOC.... But the word FAILURE will always top the list.
It's fun to see how fanbois are going to spin it once FC starts to fire devs. They will probably say it's a good thing because it's easier for the devs to work in smaller teams and with less bureauacracy.
The min FC starts firing Devs is the day I unsub
Anyways, as mentioned by other people, its not suprising to see this happen since the game didn't do that well in the US, less people are making complaints now than at launch, and the FoA guys do the majority of the work now anyways. Cutting out the middle man, which this is since the majority of in house testing happens at FC HQ and the free FoA members do a good portion of the CSR work, is the right thing to do.
And again, even if the rumor is true, this means nothing to AoC. One day, after AoC closes, there will still be people posting here that AoC is doing A-OK!
Tabula Rasa...next AoC? With the global economy in a downturn, MMORPGS are not exactly something of a necessity, I say the next big MMORPG to shut down after TR will be AoC, sometime early to mid next year the announcement will come.
Tabula Rasa...next AoC? With the global economy in a downturn, MMORPGS are not exactly something of a necessity, I say the next big MMORPG to shut down after TR will be AoC, sometime early to mid next year the announcement will come.
Yes, this global recession couldn't have come at a worse time for AoC (and also WAR). FC would be in trouble even without the recession. Now I think they need a Christmas miracle to stay in business.
It would be so awesome if Blizzard or some other big developer bought AoC and started to fully develop it. It would be the best thing that ever happened to AoC.
----------------------------- Originally posted by Frobner "Massive sieges" "mounted combat" and "spellweaving" are just few words that spring to mind when I hear the word AOC.... But the word FAILURE will always top the list.
AmazingAveryAge of Conan AdvocateMemberUncommonPosts: 7,188
"We did have some staffing cuts at Funcom this week as well as new positions opening in the organization as part of our ongoing cost based efficiency and performance initiatives that are vital to any business."
and that is all we are going to get, couple with previous facts already stated.
People come and go all the time in this line of business - Pretty much a lot of people and comments I've read in the community just see it as business as usual. Some in, some out, solidifying mainly out of Oslo as always been the case. The cuts are not nearly as bad as the ones at NCsoft not long ago prior to TR closing.
Famine also writes to keep the community informed:
Famine writes:
"As some of you probably already have read on various websites over the weekend, Funcom has cut some of its staff. The reasons being cost efficiency and reorganization of certain teams and departments. This also includes hiring new people for opening positions in the organization. Such changes due to efficiency and performance initiatives are vital to any business and is to make sure that Funcom as a business stays on course. So this process was to re-adjust our cost base in some areas while increasing investment in others. This is a natural part of adjusting to the changing markets.
We are dedicated to improve Age of Conan further, as the past updates have shown and as well as the plans for the future updates clearly indicate. So we will stick to the plans we announced the past weeks and keep on working to constantly improve the game."
Personally, I think that anyone who can't see this for logically what it is and puts out that FC is closing soon or being sold is justing doing it for questionable motives all related to post history. Last week I fired 18 people and this week hired 11 new people in different area's. Happens all the time in business, we didn't need those people in that particular area anymore as we were already staffed up too much.
funCON once again fails they have failed to make age of CONan a fun game no one likes it and last time i checked most of the servers are dead bar 1 or 2 people who cyber
this is why CONan should have been a skill based swg pre-cu like game you would have had 250k of my friends playing it
i smiled when i read this funCON once again fails they have failed to make age of CONan a fun game no one likes it and last time i checked most of the servers are dead bar 1 or 2 people who cyber this is why CONan should have been a skill based swg pre-cu like game you would have had 250k of my friends playing it oh snap funCON failed
you're funny
------------------ Playing:LotRO Waiting for: anything better than whats out now.
Comments
FC cutting back on marketing staff is a big deal. Think about what marketing is for and then follow the chain of reasoning.
From the OPs link
Rumor has it that Funcom fired about 70% of their U.S. Workforce today. Sources say that they were released this morning, the cuts are mostly in the Customer Service and Quality Assurance departments
They will just never learn will they. Those should be the last two departments taking cuts.
I miss DAoC
Lol, what? "Chain of reasoning"? What are you talking about?
There is absolutely no reason for FC to stop marketing AoC. Unless they have given up or the product is so good it doesn't need marketing (which we all know is false).
I love it when people here on the forums try to understand marketing.
-----------------------------
Originally posted by Frobner
"Massive sieges" "mounted combat" and "spellweaving" are just few words that spring to mind when I hear the word AOC.... But the word FAILURE will always top the list.
Lol, what? "Chain of reasoning"? What are you talking about?
There is absolutely no reason for FC to stop marketing AoC. Unless they have given up or the product is so good it doesn't need marketing (which we all know is false).
I love it when people here on the forums try to understand marketing.
I don't think you've understood my post. I'll simplify it for you: FC cutting back on marketing is bad.
Since I started the thread yesterday and it got deleted, funny to see this one not removed yet.............. even though it is true. It's not trolling to report the truth is it?
There are people on these forums who report every single negative thread about AoC in hopes of getting a mod to delete them. I guess at the time you posted your thread, the mod thought it was bs because you had no link to original source.
-----------------------------
Originally posted by Frobner
"Massive sieges" "mounted combat" and "spellweaving" are just few words that spring to mind when I hear the word AOC.... But the word FAILURE will always top the list.
There are people on these forums who report every single negative thread about AoC in hopes of getting a mod to delete them. I guess at the time you posted your thread, the mod thought it was bs because you had no link to original source.
Just a guess, but maybe that's what Famine does when he says he spends half his day "updating the community portal, posting, reading, compiling, and just being a data mole"
www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/191/view/forums/thread/211235
It's not for financial reasons so far we can pull conclusions from their reports.
This is most likely a logical choice seeing the less subs on the NA servers the less need for them. Still plenty around and official CS is only needed for account related issues not ingame bugs as getting 'stuck'.
This in some way can 'fit' with the Craigs ideology, removing the middle man on the test forums and letting the developers connect with the player base instead of getting pre-chewed reports.
It is all speculation from this point those who dislike Funcom will make into another doom and gloom story and the rest will remain neutral, no surprise there.
Haha, so when they fire 70% of staff it's actually only "removing the middle man"? That was funny
. I guess you can come up with most redicilous theories if you just try hard enough. Lol, "removing the middle man"...
-----------------------------
Originally posted by Frobner
"Massive sieges" "mounted combat" and "spellweaving" are just few words that spring to mind when I hear the word AOC.... But the word FAILURE will always top the list.
Haha, so when they fire 70% of staff it's actually only "removing the middle man"? That was funny
. I guess you can come up with most redicilous theories if you just try hard enough. Lol, "removing the middle man"...
Please be factual - it's a rumor, It's supposed to be 70% of its US offices not the whole company. Removing CS and QA opens up for direct relation with the devs in some situations. Keep spinning it to suite your tastes and prove my last line in last post.
ignorance is a bliss...
ontopic: IF the rumors are true then i fear for FC
MMOs currently playing: -
About to play: Lord of the Rings Online
Played: Anarchy Online (alltime favorite) and lots of f2p titles (honorable mentions: 9Dragons, Martial Heroes, Dekaron, Atlantica Online)
This makes sense to me. When the game launched they weren't prepared in the US customer service departments and went on a mass hiring drive. The game population dropped now your left with an overpopulation of CSR people. Not to mention the FoA has kicked up and are handling a good number of petitions. This will save them money in the long run and shouldn't really be a suprise to anyone.
Their customer service dept. sucked anyway. How many paying customers quit because of it? AoC is going down and at this point its just a matter of time before the bankrupcy hammer falls.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
I really don't think the csr thing is a big deal either. Why wouldn't Funcom reduce the number of customer reps to keep a ratio with player base. I'm sure there is some industry standard.. something like 1csr per 5,000 players. As a game drops or increases in players, the number of csrs move accordingly.
But the QA firings are problematic.. and it's one of the things I talked about a few months ago. I said when a game starts to struggle, the first people who are let go are csrs and qa. They are much slower to release developers and what happens is buggier and buggier content gets added to the game, or else content will sit on the public test realms much longer.
A game with a solid QA team will only have content on the PTRs for a week or two (Blizzard, Lotro). When you start to see what is happening with AOC and Warhammer, where half of patches are pushed back months and 'linger' on the PTRs forever, that is a sign that the QA team is gone and the devs are overusing the playerbase to test content. It is also when you start seeing extremely exploitable content making it to the live game. Players on test realms play the game... they don't try and break things like a good QA team does. QA gets paid to find and report exploits.... players use test realms to figure out the smartest way to advance their characters when the game goes live.
I can't wait to see the professions patch in Warhammer which is supposedly being launched in december. The lack of a QA team there is going to have that patch on the PTRs for months and months.
Nice informative post.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
Lol, what? "Chain of reasoning"? What are you talking about?
There is absolutely no reason for FC to stop marketing AoC. Unless they have given up or the product is so good it doesn't need marketing (which we all know is false).
I love it when people here on the forums try to understand marketing.
This game was over marketed to begin with if that is even a word I wonder if that had anything to do with them releasing it as broken as they did.
I'm just keeping my fingers crossed this one goes ftp too I'd certainly give it another run then
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
It's fun to see how fanbois are going to spin it once FC starts to fire devs. They will probably say it's a good thing because it's easier for the devs to work in smaller teams and with less bureauacracy.
-----------------------------
Originally posted by Frobner
"Massive sieges" "mounted combat" and "spellweaving" are just few words that spring to mind when I hear the word AOC.... But the word FAILURE will always top the list.
The min FC starts firing Devs is the day I unsub
Anyways, as mentioned by other people, its not suprising to see this happen since the game didn't do that well in the US, less people are making complaints now than at launch, and the FoA guys do the majority of the work now anyways. Cutting out the middle man, which this is since the majority of in house testing happens at FC HQ and the free FoA members do a good portion of the CSR work, is the right thing to do.
{ Mod Edit }
Games:
Currently playing:Nothing
Will play: Darkfall: Unholy Wars
Past games:
Guild Wars 2 - Xpiher Duminous
Xpiher's GW2
GW 1 - Xpiher Duminous
Darkfall - Xpiher Duminous (NA) retired
AoC - Xpiher (Tyranny) retired
Warhammer - Xpiher
And again, even if the rumor is true, this means nothing to AoC
. One day, after AoC closes, there will still be people posting here that AoC is doing A-OK!
Tabula Rasa...next AoC? With the global economy in a downturn, MMORPGS are not exactly something of a necessity, I say the next big MMORPG to shut down after TR will be AoC, sometime early to mid next year the announcement will come.
The game had a successful launch in the US some months ago... There is no reason to pay those salaries of that dept.
Yes, this global recession couldn't have come at a worse time for AoC (and also WAR). FC would be in trouble even without the recession. Now I think they need a Christmas miracle to stay in business.
It would be so awesome if Blizzard or some other big developer bought AoC and started to fully develop it. It would be the best thing that ever happened to AoC.
-----------------------------
Originally posted by Frobner
"Massive sieges" "mounted combat" and "spellweaving" are just few words that spring to mind when I hear the word AOC.... But the word FAILURE will always top the list.
Funcom's Offically spoke out about the Rumour stating to TTH: www.tentonhammer.com/node/49966
"We did have some staffing cuts at Funcom this week as well as new positions opening in the organization as part of our ongoing cost based efficiency and performance initiatives that are vital to any business."
and that is all we are going to get, couple with previous facts already stated.
People come and go all the time in this line of business - Pretty much a lot of people and comments I've read in the community just see it as business as usual. Some in, some out, solidifying mainly out of Oslo as always been the case. The cuts are not nearly as bad as the ones at NCsoft not long ago prior to TR closing.
Famine also writes to keep the community informed:
Famine writes:
"As some of you probably already have read on various websites over the weekend, Funcom has cut some of its staff. The reasons being cost efficiency and reorganization of certain teams and departments. This also includes hiring new people for opening positions in the organization. Such changes due to efficiency and performance initiatives are vital to any business and is to make sure that Funcom as a business stays on course. So this process was to re-adjust our cost base in some areas while increasing investment in others. This is a natural part of adjusting to the changing markets.
We are dedicated to improve Age of Conan further, as the past updates have shown and as well as the plans for the future updates clearly indicate. So we will stick to the plans we announced the past weeks and keep on working to constantly improve the game."
Personally, I think that anyone who can't see this for logically what it is and puts out that FC is closing soon or being sold is justing doing it for questionable motives all related to post history. Last week I fired 18 people and this week hired 11 new people in different area's. Happens all the time in business, we didn't need those people in that particular area anymore as we were already staffed up too much.
i smiled when i read this
funCON once again fails they have failed to make age of CONan a fun game no one likes it and last time i checked most of the servers are dead bar 1 or 2 people who cyber
this is why CONan should have been a skill based swg pre-cu like game you would have had 250k of my friends playing it
oh snap funCON failed
you're funny
------------------
Playing:LotRO
Waiting for: anything better than whats out now.