https://massivelyop.com/2019/10/11/...s-been-hit-with-yet-another-round-of-layoffs/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/dgma6o/daybreak_layoffs_megathread/ Seems to be primarily planetside people.
An update from DBG to Gamasutra here https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news...multiple_employees_in_company_realignment.php 'Separate Franchise Teams' would seem to refer to this. https://massivelyop.com/2019/07/10/trademarks-hint-at-big-changes-for-daybreak-game-company/
I wonder if they laid off the guy playing World of Warcraft in the background of their home page photo.
This caught my eye "This will include a realignment of the company into separate franchise teams, which will allow us to highlight their expertise, better showcase the games they work on, and ultimately provide tailored experiences for our players" Which doesn't explain lay offs per se if they are creating separate teams you would think they would need more people instead of sharing staff. But I wonder if separate franchise teams would make it easier to sell parts of the business piece by piece? I guess you could also argue they want to split the profitable parts from the non profitable parts.
And businessspeak to the employees, saying, "Don't make long term plans". I went through a similar situation in a Fortune 500 company. It did not help morale, and in the end, it did not help sales or profits.
Posted on EQ2 forums: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq2/index.php?threads/more-layoffs-at-daybreak.590799/ Best to those affected.
Nowadays a lot of us have been through layoffs and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. All the best to those affected.
My condolences to those that have lost their jobs. If any one needs help writing a resume pm me. I have helped several people with resumes for various reasons. Best of luck and I'm sorry to see it happen.
Will be more. They are giving up on making any new games, and just going to downsize the non-Everquest games as the revenue slows in them, while just focusing on trying to keep EQs going/growing revenue.
Then they need to be better updating us. Less then a month till the new progression server and it's radio silence. Want to focus on EQ/EQ2 then stop ignoring us. We want to plan, gather guilds, and build excitement. Right now we are all wondering if its Truebox or not..which if they plan to make EQ/EQ2 the focus need to throw truebox out the window.
This follows the same practice as movie and TV production but on a longer scale, IT to a certain extent and a number of manufacturing organizations I am familiar with on a first hand basis (clients). Though it sucks to hear that products, particularly entertainment products wind down after a while its also a fact of business life today and follows the predicted business patterns of the future. One of the toughest jobs in American IT has always been in the gaming industries. Regards to those recently separated.
I will say that their social media presence is lacking imo. If nostalgia is their plan moving forward, seems like more could be done to drive interest through social media platforms. What does that look like? I dunno exactly. I would start by using social media as more than just another announcements page. I think DBG should be the ones funding and producing stuff like The Everquest Show. It seems like a really good vessel for connecting with ex-EQ players and driving interest in the community/game. Fading does a great job, but these are things DBG should be coming up with and doing...
That's an understatement. Even doing a better job of using it AS an announcements page would be a good start. I mean they literally don't even sometimes announce TLP expansion unlocks in tweets or on the login screen news. Or events/bonuses. Kinda mind boggling. The fact that the remaining EQ players are so dedicated to the game seems to have allowed them to be kinda lazy about reaching out to the playerbase. It's just been kind of assumed that players will find the information they need regarding the game, usually at their own time and/or effort, heh.
since apparently most of the devs who were let go was from H1Z1(that game even still online? lol) and Planetside 2... Most likely they let go alot of the team they hired to finish they pointless game Planetside Arena since it was supposed to release sooner than it did... Still ain't good news but really not surprising
Not sure if its true but theres a rumor going around that planetside and possibly z1br is shutting down in february 2020, probably not true if they kept 2 devs on planetside but i guess anything is possible with how dbg has been rolling lately. if i was one those 2 devs id probably start applying to new jobs just incase haha
While I'd be very sad if it affected any of "our" people, we seem to keep rolling along and making the company enough money that our devs keep rolling along.
Bad news for Planetside. Good news for Everquest. Fewer expenses siphoning off EQ profits, allowing more to be returned to EQ. Good luck and best wishes to all affected by these layoffs.