There will be mass layoffs at ArenaNet

Guild Wars 2
ArenaNet will reduce its staff, Kotaku reported.

The Guild Wars 2 developer studio confirmed this information.

This decision was made by NCsoft, the parent company of ArenaNet. Its CEO, Songye Yoon, sent an email to employees. It says that ArenaNet is waiting for restructuring and cost reduction, and its publishing division will join NCsoft.

The reason is a decrease in income from online games and financial losses due to delays in the development of PC titles. In addition, expenses in the West have increased.

According to the company, it won’t hurt to work on Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2. Their teams will continue to create the planned game content, Gamasutra writes. Currently, the ArenaNet staff consists of 400 people.

Last month, the transformations affected another division of NCsoft — Iron Tiger Studios. An “unspecified number of employees” were dismissed. And last year NCsoft closed Carbine Studios, and 50 people lost their jobs.

Recently, massive cuts in the gaming industry have been happening more and more often. Earlier this week, Finnish Next Games fired 26 developers. And before that, Activision Blizzard started layoffs — almost 800 people lost their jobs.

Also on the topic:

• Finnish Next Games will reduce its staffActivision closed two King offices, seriously reduced Blizzard’s staff and did not stop there
• NCsoft fired some employees from Iron Tiger Studios