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Discussion Thread: ArenaNet News of 21 February 2019 [Merged]


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@Dami.5046 said:

@Flower Lyssa.8012 said:If you look at Twitter, people are starting to post whether today's their last day at ArenaNet or not. It must be heartbreaking for all involved.

Yes I didn't like to say, but i had noticed it. very sad day.

This is extremely disheartening, disappointing and tragic. A huge loss for ArenaNet. These people were some heavy hitters at this company. Very depressing...

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I am very sad right now. When an article poped up saying that the lay offs were "from people working on other projects" still felt bad for the people but was relieved that at least key people from gw2 were safe. A complete lie. I love gw2, the story the characters, roaming, combat, everything. It's an amazing game. But now more than ever, I am worried about everything.

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What's funny is Iron Tiger studio the ones that make the mobile games for NcSoft is also taking a huge hit in the staff reduction department. Maybe their games are less successful than what they seem. I really do not want Anet to make any game that uses the cell phone. I love my 32 inch curved screen. I paid alot for each PC I have and I want it for my enertainment along with the other things it can do. Yes cell phones can do it all and are very powerful but most screens are 5-6 inches good for you tube videos in a pinch but not good for playing MMO's. Also remember Anet collaborated on other projects in NcSoft like Aion so maybe that part will no longer happen and Anet can do what it does best make GW and GW2 better for all of us.

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@Bloodstealer.5978 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:OP.. I have already posted comments to the kind of posts like yours that appeared in other threads, but I will give it another go..Set up your own business launch a product and sit back and hope that product keeps you afloat and moving forward forever.. maybe then you will realise ANET have a responsibility to their business, their employees, shareholders and maybe even a little to us players to ensure that the business remains viable. That means new projects need to be identified, new ideas tried out. Some will work and many wont, that is how it works. Do you think GW2 was just bank rolled by ANET off the back of a previous product that was beginning to show signs it had seen to many winters, what do you think should happen when blips occur in revenue do you allow it to become not just a blip but potentially a growing trend..Do you -

A - Go bury your head in the sand and hope by tomorrow all will be good again in the world, business as usual.B - Ask anyone and everyone to offer you charity in the hope it plugs the deepening hole that the revenue stream is pouring down.or maybeC - Plan ahead, take action, look into other ideas and new products that the company can add to its portfolio that might generate new additional revenue streams so as to not to continue to place so much reliance on a 6yr old product that is inevitably going to be faced with decline if it hasn't already.Sorry but the worst thing any business can do is stand still imo and trust to luck.

As for your hard earned dollars.. yep they are hard earned, but you chose to use them to buy something which you deemed of value to you.. that hard earned dollar isn't yours any longer it is ANET's.. cos you know they also worked hard to earn it... believe it or not ANET is a business with overheads, as is NC Soft, they are not charities set up to provide you with your fun fix and from the point you agreed to buy anything from them that is the last time you have any say in what the business does with that dollar.You may not like any particular facet of the business, whether that be NC Soft, ANET, Blizzard, Activision, Turbine or whatever/whoever, they may not like you but you choose to put money into the coffers, it is up to ANET/NC Soft as to how it gets spent, what it is spent on and that includes GW2 related content or other potential projects.. you are supporting the business that provides you access to GW2. without revenue you don't get to play GW2 period. Similarly if the business cant remain viable cos a 6yr old product is beginning to show signs of decline those other projects might just of been a lifeline to many employees throughout ANET/NC Soft and vice vera.. some of them proved to not be viable, others may still be in the pipeline.. we have no idea how or what effects they may or may not of had on GW2 other than the fact that if new products were never to be looked into there wont be a GW2 anyway cos they all have relevance to the business viability as a whole.

I disagree. Lately and its an increasing trend, companies in the gaming industry are chasing new markets ie. Mobile, Battle Royale, Card games and that's their prerogative it needs to be done to secure new revenue streams. But they need realize that if they are not re-investing in their core market they may lose that market while trying to chase the bird in the trees... pretty simple but you see it with EA, Activision/ Blizz and Square and I would say most likely Anet as well with this news. You can defend it all you want but the proof is in reality of the current layoffs in the game industry. If your just doing the bare minimum ie. sliding in a LS every 3 months and releasing new cash shop items while funnelling most of your resources some where else.... you may not be doing enough to keep the customers you do have happy. Gaming companies have been failing miserably at striking a balance in new projects and keeping their core market happy for the last couple of years and the result has been layoffs across the gaming sector. I'm not telling them how to spend their money... i'm telling them how to keep me and others like me and this content cadence is not enough sadly for me. The fact they have those resources available but aren't allocating them to keep their current player base happy is a shame. They can do what they want I don't really care and if its good enough for you that's great but I go where i'm having fun and that may not be this game the way things are going. They can care or not but that's my honest feedback.

But that's just it.. you or I have no idea what is being re-invested into the core product, we don't know what is/was/will be planned in for the future of the product beyond what we have already been told.The gaming industry is not immune to all the pressures that affect any other business in any other industry. Placing heavy reliance on a single product that is reaching a 6-7yr lifespan will always mean requiring to seek new opportunity in order to maintain the company's viability.Unfortunately for ANET they are also part of a larger entity, that must also push those same objectives to identify new areas of revenue if they and by association ANET are to remain viable going forward - if they don't all stand the chance of falling by the way side and we the players don't get those nice things to throw our time into either.The unfortunate thing is that sometimes those projects, those ideas don't pan out, get shelved and look to be a waste of resource, but the alternative would be to do nothing and sit back and watch the business recede just the same maybe quicker, because as I have said time is the killer of all things and GW2 is not immune to it.

We do know in so far as we see the living story episode every 3 months and its not enough. We see what they are working on because that is all that is being released. If they come out tomorrow and say hey we have an expac coming out to combat Shadowbringers and Elswyr than great they need to be transparent on that. But if they think season 5 one episode every 3 months is going to tide players over then they need to tell us where they are at with that and give us a proper road map. Its my favourite game and ive sunk more hours into it than EQ and WoW combined now but i'm running out of things to do unless I want to start raiding. I consider myself a casual I can imagine if I was a hard core player. As I said that's great and all power to them exploring alternate revenue but no content for your core business is also a killer.

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Hugs to everyone affected, those who are leaving and those who remain to carry on. I've been there in both situations and I know how hard it is. Thank you all for your creative and technical work and know that you've made my life brighter by making this amazing world that I get to spend time in. Love to all.

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@Rabbi Rick.3194 said:

@"JustTrogdor.7892" said:Josh Foreman is leaving Anet. :(

Yep, and with that, Anet will not receive another dime from me. ESO looks like it has some great content coming out this year.

So the man responsible for Mad King clock Tower, many of the jumping puzzles and Super Adventure Box is gone..... not good.

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@"eduardo.1436" said:I am very sad right now. When an article poped up saying that the lay offs were "from people working on other projects" still felt bad for the people but was relieved that at least key people from gw2 were safe. A complete lie.

Technically it wasn't a lie. They were no longer focused on GW2 and had been moving people off of it, so we don't know who was actually still there. Some employees are also bailing, as ArenaNet seems to have been critically affected by this.

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To be honest, I find people's lack of empathy more tragic than the lay-offs. To players it's a game, to the people working it's their livelihood. How can people just sit there and throw crap, sitting safely in their chairs/beds/whatever while other people's families may be going without dinner? I know it sounds a bit extreme, but in some cases a job like this is the only source of income. We have no idea the conditions of the devs lives; we don't know their hardships and we don't know their stories. I'm really starting to lose faith in people.

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With the latest article stating that the game will not be “affected” but will have less developers working on it I think that’s either a hint that we will probably getting some pretty drastic delays with more than just the wvw mount patch. And with so many veterans leaving, likely due to volunteering, I fear that this game while undoubtedly continuing one way or another, will just devolve more and more until it’s merely a shell of its former self.

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@"Witch of Doom.5739" said:Gaile Gray just posted a goodbye. I'm so sorry for her and others who may be "moving on involuntarily." This combined with the notice that the new WvW mount is delayed until 3/5 is making things look pretty bad IMO. :'(

According to one article they're closing the studio today and tomorrow to give people time to process what's happened and sort stuff out, so it makes sense they wouldn't want to put a release out tomorrow.

I can't imagine what it must be like over there. I thought I'd been through things like this myself, but that was always in the UK where people get weeks or even months to prepare before they leave, I imagine it's very different when you only find out on the day you're leaving.

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@Elric.4713 said:This is Wildstar all over again.

WildStar was failing from the start. ArenaNet has hired over 100 employees since launch and has talked about having several unannounced projects over the years, but has had nothing to show for it. It's really no surprise that NCSoft finally told them to stop, and thus they're expected to lose at least 33% of their workforce. ArenaNet should theoretically be back to normal after this, but the problem is, the news alone could kill the game as people bail on it.

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@psyt.9415 said:

@Bloodstealer.5978 said:OP.. I have already posted comments to the kind of posts like yours that appeared in other threads, but I will give it another go..Set up your own business launch a product and sit back and hope that product keeps you afloat and moving forward forever.. maybe then you will realise ANET have a responsibility to their business, their employees, shareholders and maybe even a little to us players to ensure that the business remains viable. That means new projects need to be identified, new ideas tried out. Some will work and many wont, that is how it works. Do you think GW2 was just bank rolled by ANET off the back of a previous product that was beginning to show signs it had seen to many winters, what do you think should happen when blips occur in revenue do you allow it to become not just a blip but potentially a growing trend..Do you -

A - Go bury your head in the sand and hope by tomorrow all will be good again in the world, business as usual.B - Ask anyone and everyone to offer you charity in the hope it plugs the deepening hole that the revenue stream is pouring down.or maybeC - Plan ahead, take action, look into other ideas and new products that the company can add to its portfolio that might generate new additional revenue streams so as to not to continue to place so much reliance on a 6yr old product that is inevitably going to be faced with decline if it hasn't already.Sorry but the worst thing any business can do is stand still imo and trust to luck.

As for your hard earned dollars.. yep they are hard earned, but you chose to use them to buy something which you deemed of value to you.. that hard earned dollar isn't yours any longer it is ANET's.. cos you know they also worked hard to earn it... believe it or not ANET is a business with overheads, as is NC Soft, they are not charities set up to provide you with your fun fix and from the point you agreed to buy anything from them that is the last time you have any say in what the business does with that dollar.You may not like any particular facet of the business, whether that be NC Soft, ANET, Blizzard, Activision, Turbine or whatever/whoever, they may not like you but you choose to put money into the coffers, it is up to ANET/NC Soft as to how it gets spent, what it is spent on and that includes GW2 related content or other potential projects.. you are supporting the business that provides you access to GW2. without revenue you don't get to play GW2 period. Similarly if the business cant remain viable cos a 6yr old product is beginning to show signs of decline those other projects might just of been a lifeline to many employees throughout ANET/NC Soft and vice vera.. some of them proved to not be viable, others may still be in the pipeline.. we have no idea how or what effects they may or may not of had on GW2 other than the fact that if new products were never to be looked into there wont be a GW2 anyway cos they all have relevance to the business viability as a whole.

I disagree. Lately and its an increasing trend, companies in the gaming industry are chasing new markets ie. Mobile, Battle Royale, Card games and that's their prerogative it needs to be done to secure new revenue streams. But they need realize that if they are not re-investing in their core market they may lose that market while trying to chase the bird in the trees... pretty simple but you see it with EA, Activision/ Blizz and Square and I would say most likely Anet as well with this news. You can defend it all you want but the proof is in reality of the current layoffs in the game industry. If your just doing the bare minimum ie. sliding in a LS every 3 months and releasing new cash shop items while funnelling most of your resources some where else.... you may not be doing enough to keep the customers you do have happy. Gaming companies have been failing miserably at striking a balance in new projects and keeping their core market happy for the last couple of years and the result has been layoffs across the gaming sector. I'm not telling them how to spend their money... i'm telling them how to keep me and others like me and this content cadence is not enough sadly for me. The fact they have those resources available but aren't allocating them to keep their current player base happy is a shame. They can do what they want I don't really care and if its good enough for you that's great but I go where i'm having fun and that may not be this game the way things are going. They can care or not but that's my honest feedback.

But that's just it.. you or I have no idea what is being re-invested into the core product, we don't know what is/was/will be planned in for the future of the product beyond what we have already been told.The gaming industry is not immune to all the pressures that affect any other business in any other industry. Placing heavy reliance on a single product that is reaching a 6-7yr lifespan will always mean requiring to seek new opportunity in order to maintain the company's viability.Unfortunately for ANET they are also part of a larger entity, that must also push those same objectives to identify new areas of revenue if they and by association ANET are to remain viable going forward - if they don't all stand the chance of falling by the way side and we the players don't get those nice things to throw our time into either.The unfortunate thing is that sometimes those projects, those ideas don't pan out, get shelved and look to be a waste of resource, but the alternative would be to do nothing and sit back and watch the business recede just the same maybe quicker, because as I have said time is the killer of all things and GW2 is not immune to it.

We do know in so far as we see the living story episode every 3 months and its not enough. We see what they are working on because that is all that is being released. If they come out tomorrow and say hey we have an expac coming out to combat Shadowbringers and Elswyr than great they need to be transparent on that. But if they think season 5 one episode every 3 months is going to tide players over then they need to tell us where they are at with that and give us a proper road map. Its my favourite game and ive sunk more hours into it than EQ and WoW combined now but i'm running out of things to do unless I want to start raiding. I consider myself a casual I can imagine if I was a hard core player. As I said that's great and all power to them exploring alternate revenue but no content for your core business is also a killer.

Gees some people are never satisfied.. how much do you think can be developed and pushed out every three months... LS was content "free content" to all those that logged prior to the next chapter... add to that the balance passes, the bug fixing, the QoL stuff oh and the gemstore fluff required to maintain a revenue stream. do you not understand to push out content costs money and takes time…. do you think it would be possible to push out a full expac every three months instead. C'mon get real.LS is a gap fill in between expacs and a chance for ANET to generate necessary revenue in which to plough into new content pay bills, keep employees paid. It also sets to further the game from a story and events perspective, but seriously, start up a business and run it your way, try to push out the same level of content on the same cadence whilst maintaining the business and trying to expand your portfolio.. then maybe you will begin to open your eyes to just how unrealistic your notions are, cos honestly I don't think your playing in the real world.Then again it wouldn't matter if ANET did push out an expac every three months, that would not be enough to satisfy the "it's not enuff self entitled crowds" anyway and you will soon revert back to your above poorly thought out "its not enough content" ideology again no doubt.

EDIT - BTW II personally find a LS update plus some bug fixes, QoL and balance passes every three months enough to keep me happy and occasionally I might see something in the gemstore I like as well... .. guess we all have differing views and opinions on that kind of stuff, much like whether you or I might differ in the quality of any such content. Don't get me wrong though, I have not been overly impressed with ANET this past 6 months, but I do appreciate content does not materialise out of thin air and cost nothing to produce.

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So...

https://twitter.com/StillNotSam/status/1100133669828648960

Over a hundred people were laid off.

This article:https://massivelyop.com/2019/02/25/guild-wars-2s-layoffs-has-begun-as-arenanet-devs-tweet-their-departures-and-fans-express-loveforarenanet/Lists some of those who are gone, such as: Gaile Gray, Josh Foreman, Aaron Linde, Casey Benson, Matthew Medina, Kelsey Pickinpaugh, Connie Griffith, Benjamin Arnold, Grant Gertz, Shuai Liu, Lena Raine.

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