Yesterday, the already announced layoffs occurred at Guild Wars 2 developer ArenaNet. Over 100 employees lost their jobs, including long-time developers and well-known community managers.
Reasons for the layoffs: The Korean publisher NCSoft announced last week that the number of employees at ArenaNet will be reduced.
The reasons are declines in revenues, rising costs in the West, and delays in new projects.
ArenaNet President Mike O’Brien had the difficult task yesterday of carrying out these terminations. According to an insider, O’Brien was very unhappy and paced nervously during the meeting.
What impact will the layoffs have on GW2? As a direct reaction to the layoffs, the studio decided to close yesterday and today.
Therefore, there will be a delay of the announced patch. This patch is supposed to bring a new mount and balance changes.
However, in the long term, according to a forum post by ArenaNet, nothing will change regarding the planned updates and content for Guild Wars 2.
Long-time employees are affected
The wave of layoffs at ArenaNet also affected some very well-known faces in the community. Among those who had to leave were Gaile Gray, Josh Foreman, and Matthew Medina. In March 2000, former Blizzard employees Mike O’Brien, Patrick Wyatt, and Jeff Strain founded ArenaNet.
This is Gaile Gray, a key figure of ArenaNet: In November 2000, they hired Gaile Gray for communication and community management. She was the longest active employee at the company after O’Brien.
Gray was primarily responsible for direct communication with players in the forums and hosted regular live streams with the community showcase.
This is Josh Foreman, the developer of the Super Adventure Box: Most Guild Wars 2 players are familiar with Josh Foreman primarily because he programmed the first version of the Super Adventure Box as a side project alongside his work.
He was also responsible for many special contents, such as the Clock Tower of the Mad King or other jumping puzzles.
Foreman had been with ArenaNet since October 2003 and was hired two years before the release of the first Guild Wars game.
This is Matthew Medina, Story Lead of Path of Fire: Matthew Medina recently celebrated his sixteenth birthday at ArenaNet. He has been part of the team since February 2003.
Most recently, he played a leading role in the story of the expansions Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire.
Other affected employees: A Reddit thread is currently collecting all employees who have been affected by the layoffs:
- Drew Cady (with ArenaNet since July 2008)
- Tyler Bearce (with ArenaNet since July 2010)
- Evan Teicheira (with ArenaNet since February 2011)
- Elan Stimmel (with ArenaNet since November 2011)
- Zach Lute (with ArenaNet since May 2013)
- Pauk Ella (with ArenaNet since April 2014)
- McKenna Berdrow (with ArenaNet since September 2014)
- Shuai Liu (with ArenaNet since October 2014)
- Cameron Rich (with ArenaNet since March 2015)
- Grant Gertz (with ArenaNet since August 2015)
- Benjamin Arnold (with ArenaNet since October 2015)
- Casey Benson (with ArenaNet since January 2016)
- Constance Griffith (with ArenaNet since February 2016)
- Kelsey Pickinpaugh (with ArenaNet since May 2016)
- Aaron Linde (with ArenaNet since June 2016)
- Lily Yu (with ArenaNet since March 2018)
Community shows love and compassion
Under the hashtag #Love4ArenaNet, the players of Guild Wars 2 are sharing their memories and compassion with the developers on social media.
LoveForArenaNet in the Wiki: The employees of the Guild Wars 2 Wiki have also set up a page where players can share words of love with the laid-off developers.
Already, around 100 entries from players, as well as partners and former developers from ArenaNet, can be found there.
