In an interview, the people from Gamigo commented on the future of the MMORPG ArcheAge. The outlook for 2019 seems to be quite good. However, for other former games from Trion Worlds like Rift, the prospects are not so rosy.
This was the big news: The MMO developer Trion Worlds was dissolved in October 2018. Many employees were laid off – it is said that Trion Worlds parted ways with up to 75% of the staff. The industry site Gamasutra learned from anonymous sources that 175 out of 200 people were fired.
The games and other assets were acquired by the German company Gamigo (Fiesta Online, Last Chaos). They also want to continue operating the online games of Trion Worlds. However, Gamigo did not acquire Trion Worlds itself, but only their brands – not the company itself.
Here were the reactions to the deal: This was a surprising and swift deal that no one saw coming.
- Players of games like Rift, Trove, and ArcheAge reacted in shock to the news.
- Many well-known employees from Trion Worlds announced their departure in forums or via social media.
- Even the creators behind ArcheAge, the Koreans from XL Games, were surprised. They had not been informed in advance.
Now Gamigo speaks in an interview with the site MMO Bomb about the future of the games.
That’s why Gamigo was so quiet: The interview states that everything had to happen quickly. Time was a critical factor.
Therefore, they focused all time and energy on keeping the teams and the games stable.
The most important thing was to avoid downtimes.
In the future, communication with players should return to normal. They significantly increased the number of community managers and will also deliver messages in German and French.
Big Plans for ArcheAge – Team Intact
This is what the future looks like for ArcheAge: The MMORPG ArcheAge is especially highlighted in the interview as a game for which big plans are made in 2019. The head behind the MMORPG, Jake Song, has returned to a leading development role in the development studio, and ArcheAge is experiencing a small renaissance in its home country.
From Gamigo, it is said that they have reached an agreement with the Korean developer XL Games and will continue to operate ArcheAge in Europe and North America.
It is further stated that a large part of the old ArcheAge team is still with the company and that the team has even grown. However, exact numbers are not provided.
2019 will be an interesting year for ArcheAge, and they will implement the plans that Jake Song has devised in Korea. The development of ArcheAge should continue at the same pace in 2019 as before, and they want to remove some “old restrictions”.
No Major Expansions – “Smaller, More Agile Teams”
What about other games? The employees do not go into detail about other games. They only say that they want to continue all titles.
The interviewer mentions that according to reports, they lost 75% of Trion Worlds’ workforce during the acquisition. To this, Gamigo representative Mervin Lee Kwai does not respond directly. However, it is mentioned that it was difficult to let so many dedicated people go. Last month, however, they re-hired about a dozen employees.
However, it cannot be denied that development capacity was affected. This means that it will be more difficult to manage major expansions in the near future. The smaller teams, however, are more agile.
They want to rebuild each individual team in 2019. It is said that under Gamigo US, they are capable of delivering great content for the coming years. Currently, each team is building and planning its roadmap for 2019.
In 2019, they want to bring smaller updates, but more frequently. They also promise to deliver much-needed structural improvements and to move away from aggressive pay-to-win ideas, though without providing specific examples.
This is what’s behind it: It sounds between the lines that Gamigo has good news for ArcheAge players, but rather sobering news for all fans of the other MMOs and MMORPGs that previously belonged to Trion Worlds.
Gamigo employees were specifically asked about the future of Rift, Trove, Atlas Reactor, and Defiance and where the games might stand in a year, but they sidestepped the question.
Players of Atlas Reactor, Defiance 2050, Trove, and Rift should prepare to tighten their belts. The teams seem to have been significantly reduced. A development pace as before the acquisition or even during the glory days should not be expected here anymore.
Because if 75% of the employees were laid off, but the ArcheAge team is almost intact, it follows that there is hardly any workforce left for the other teams. But perhaps Gamigo surprises us. One can only hope so for the fans of the games.
Why Did Trion Worlds Fail?
These are the titles in question: The titles from Trion Worlds were mostly in poor condition just before the acquisition by Gamigo:
- In 2014, the Korean MMORPG ArcheAge was briefly a hit, but the studio could not maintain the success – Trion Worlds was not the developer here, but only the publisher – however, Archeage has been undergoing a directional shift in Korea for some time.
- The MMORPG Rift has aged. In the last months, prime servers have been making headlines. These turned the free-to-play MMORPG into a subscription game.
- The action MMO Devilian was shut down in its home country of South Korea just as Trion Worlds was bringing it to the West.
- The MMO shooter Defiance arrived too late for PS3 and Xbox 360, with the relaunch 2050 appearing to struggle.
- The genre mix Atlas Reactor did not manage to gain a foothold.
- As a successful game, only Trove is really considered, targeting a younger audience.
It will be interesting to see what news emerges in the future about the MMOs and MMORPGs that once belonged to Trion Worlds.
