Star Wars: The Old Republic: Bioware Rocked By Layoffs

SBFord

According to a new forum post on the official Star Wars: The Old Republic site, Bioware, developers of SWTOR, is in "restructuring" mode, usually PR-speak for employees losing their jobs. The actual number of redundancies is not given.

Hey folks, since you’re reading this you may likely have heard that we’ve done some restructuring here on the SWTOR team. Sadly, we are bidding farewell to some talented, passionate and exceptionally hard-working people who helped make SWTOR a reality. Impacting people’s lives this way is always very hard, but we’re ensuring the affected people are treated with dignity, fairness and respect.

Looking back at launch, we all came together and did something historic. We executed one of the largest, most successful and stable launches of any MMO yet in industry history. That is not an easy feat for any development team or company and we are humbled and honored by our fan community’s strong support both at launch and beyond.

Read the full post on the Star Wars: The Old Republic site.

Kabaal

I'd have thought scaling back after an MMO has launched would be normal practice. I'm just guessing though as i really have no clue.

jdnewell

Isnt this exactly what happened after warhammer launched? game did not do as well as they wanted, so they gutted Mythic and laid most of them off?

Puremallace

This is clearly over compensation from EA trying to approach a MMO like a business and not a developer. This will only weaken the game even more when they need to rebuild and earn respect. This is very typical and similar to waht NCSoft did to Aion.

Hrica

Originally posted by jdnewell

Isnt this exactly what happened after warhammer launched? game did not do as well as they wanted, so they gutted Mythic and laid most of them off?

  ^ this is your crystal ball

Grotar89

Maintenance mod comes soon, exact same things are happening as with WAR. I am glad my prediciton was true, guess many TOR fanboys who flamed me all the time will now realise that TOR is going downhill fast.

This will actually be good for MMORPG genre, devs will realise they cant make lame WoW clones anymore and begin to innovate.

I just hope ppl learened their lesson and wont give money anymore to EA. After all its we / you (since i m not buying their games) who keep EA and its crappy games alive.

ArzhAngel

Just another proff on a BIG FAIL!!!!

Paragus1

Hopefully the people losing their jobs are the ones responsible for the horrid design decisions that killed any chance for lengevity this game had.

WolfClaws

Ummm this is normal.

PyrateLV

Originally posted by WolfClaws

Ummm this is normal.

For a company with multiple failing games maybe

Grotar89

Originally posted by Paragus1

Hopefully the people losing their jobs are the ones responsible for the horrid design decisions that killed any chance for lengevity this game had.

 

Its usually ppl, who just do what big heads tell them, loose their jobs. Look at SOE and Mythic, Smedley is still CEO of SOE after destruction of SWG and Paul Barnett after WAR fail got to work on Wrath of Heroes and he is now calling WAR ''boring crap''.

This is just sad........

bingbongbros

If swtor was doing as swimmingly as bioware lets on then their team would be needed at full strength to keep content and game updates fast paced and regular. Not to mention that those same people that just got layed off would be needes for expansion work in the future since they were part of the machine that helped build this Titanic of mmos.

More likely EA is doing its usual of firing every dev that made thia game possible and will bring in lower paid devs for whatever future expansion they need. If there ever will be one at this rate.

TyvolusNext

Originally posted by Paragus1

Hopefully the people losing their jobs are the ones responsible for the horrid design decisions that killed any chance for lengevity this game had.

 Funny how this always seems to happen to EA ?  I mean, they get stuck with regular employees who have so much say and power in the project, so as to torpedo EA MMOs.  first the regular guys messed up WAR, and they got laid off -- then new guys messed up SWTOR and they got laid off ---   I wonder, if it occurred to you, that maybe its the overpaid suits who sit around in board room meetings who pull all the strings and call all the shots and approve and influence it all are the ones who should be laid off ?  You obviously dont work for a big corporation...and if you do, you need to pay more attention to how the ignorant suits who sit behind fancy desks and collect very large paychecks are the real fools.

bakabröd

Dooooooooom

TyvolusNext

Originally posted by WolfClaws

Ummm this is normal.

 Tell that to TRION.

TheLizardbones

---

Originally posted by Puremallace
This is clearly over compensation from EA trying to approach a MMO like a business and not a developer. This will only weaken the game even more when they need to rebuild and earn respect. This is very typical and similar to waht NCSoft did to Aion.

---

I think this could be close to true. MMORPG don't work like a standard console or single/multi-player game. When it didn't unseat WoW as the top MMORPG out there, I think they shifted focus to stuff where they could possibly be king of the hill. At least, that's how it seems to me.

If they are pulling development resources, it seems unlikely that they'll develop more of the game's strong point, which was the personal story line. Of course, their data might suggest that the personal story line was not a big reason that people played the game. Both of these make me a little sad.

Kabaal

Originally posted by TyvolusNext

Originally posted by WolfClaws

Ummm this is normal.

 Tell that to TRION.

TRION already had another MMO in development by the time they released Rift, many of the Rift staff moved over to there after launch. Unless they have something hidden (which i doubt) Bioware have nothing else under development MMO wise other than the TOR space expansion.

Sourd420

 cough cough EA louse cough cough cough....cough choke.....cough

WhiteLantern

Originally posted by Sourd420

 cough cough EA louse cough cough cough....cough choke.....cough

He has that affect on people. Don't worry, the stench will soon fade and you'll be able to breathe normally again.

jacklo

Originally posted by Kabaal

Originally posted by TyvolusNext

Originally posted by WolfClaws

Ummm this is normal.

 Tell that to TRION.

TRION already had another MMO in development by the time they released Rift, many of the Rift staff moved over to there after launch. Unless they have something hidden (which i doubt) Bioware have nothing else under development MMO wise other than the TOR space expansion.

Getting the game fit to call an mmo and adding new content should keep the development team busy for many more months. Unless of course they're not adding more content.

Actual development appears to be so slow that it seems they don't have enough devs already.

Elikal

"Businesses used to be like Christianity; if you were faithful and obedient, you could obtain bliss in the afterlife of retirement. Now its more of a reincarnation model. If a worker learns enough in his current job, he can progress to a higher level of employment elsewhere."

- Dogbert

GeezerGamer

Originally posted by WolfClaws

Ummm this is normal.

Yep, happens all the time with companies who release crap and their product tanks.

Dredphyre

I just have to repost this from the Officials because I knew it would get deleted, and sure enough it did:

 

 

GrandAdmlStrife: 

 

screw content; one of the ones 'let go' today was my brother-in-law, who worked on the IA class story. Let me tell you something about QA and CS here, they DON'T DO THEIR JOBS. He only found out about bugs in the class story because I was telling him what we saw on the forums here. CS and QA ARE NOT forwarding those issues where they need to go. For instance, the class quest for IA that's been bugged since launch? And was supposedly fixed last week? He did the fix in 20 minutes' time, turned it in to his boss, and it sat on his desk instead of actually being implemented. He told me he even stood in front of a meeting and asked why he was only finding out about bugs from his family instead of QA and CS. Then he gets canned. 

 

Good thing I didn't re-up this month, wife and I are DONE with this game.

 

Good job, BW. Wait til everyone came in to can them. Didn't even let them past security.

 

Cuts were across the board, so I know he wasn't targeted, but now this means understaffed departments doing 2 or 3 or 4 times the workload.

 

 

I've suspected this for a long time. I honestly don't think QA and CS are doing their jobs when it comes to reporting issues and bugs. Anyway, I wanted this post to live on.

Ecoces

hopefully this will teach companies to stop getting in bed with EA no matter how desperate you are.

AvatarBlade

Originally posted by Ecoces

hopefully this will teach companies to stop getting in bed with EA no matter how desperate you are.

Haha do you think the people making these decisions are the ones getting fired?

Loke666

It really depends on how big the layoffs were. Many MMOs do fire some people after they launch but one would expect a company like Bioware to move the people to another project, like DA3 or something.

I wont call the game a failure, at least not now but things could be better for Bioware. Those predicted 2 million players at the end of the year seems further and further away.

On the other hand do the game still have over a million players 6 months after launch so if EA is dissapointed it is because they had too high expectations. Anyone else beside Blizzard would be really happy for those numbers.