The MMOs Star Trek Online and Neverwinter are affected by layoffs from publisher Perfect World. Both free-to-play MMOs are developed by Cryptic Studios.
Yesterday, it was already making its rounds on social media. A former employee of Star Trek Online tweeted a greeting to the old colleagues at Cryptic, who would now have been laid off. Other than that, nothing was heard. Then fans kept an eagle eye out for signs: A community manager at Star Trek Online lost their “Dev” designation in the forum, and others seemed to no longer be working at Cryptic.
Every seventh had to leave at Neverwinter and Star Trek Online, says anonymous source
Now a Cryptic employee, who wishes to remain anonymous but whose identity is verified, has reached out to MassivelyOp. He informed the US MMO site that a total of 18 employees had to leave the Cryptic Games studio. That is about 14% of the entire studio. The lead designer of the ill-fated City of Heroes, Matt Miller, is also among those laid off, as MassivelyOp notes.
The teams working on Neverwinter and Star Trek Online are equally affected, the source reports. They did not cut “Champions Online,” the third game, which is still running and requires “barely anything to keep it alive.” Some still-secret further projects are, however, being developed by Cryptic at full speed. This is where the studio’s focus lies.
More impacted than Cryptic is the publisher Perfect World’s branch in Redwood Shores.
Layoffs were on the horizon, despite outwardly positive signals
In November 2014, there was a statement from Perfect World. The Chinese MMO specialists had already announced back then that the “US operations” were falling short of expectations. They also viewed the future prospects for the existing US games critically, but held high hopes for the “upcoming games.” These now seem to be the consequences of that. The information from the anonymous source confirms the statement from November.
In the MMO scene, some fans accuse Perfect World games of having a strong tendency towards pay-to-win, which especially applies to the games developed in Asia. Just recently, Star Trek Online managed to escape this stigma. They proudly reported, how well it was performing and that STO was even gaining players. Neverwinter also has momentum with the release of the next expansion Elemental Evil and the launch on Xbox One.
