RIP Guild Wars 2

[olivermoss]

Gamers are pathologically obsessed with calling games 'dead' or 'over'. People have been calling GW2 'lol ded game' for years while the player base was healthy, the devs were putting out amazing content, people were begging for the game's music to be released on more platforms and the studio actually bought itself back from it's publisher. How often do you hear that a studio owned by a publisher has gone at least semi-independent from it?

The game was super healthy not that long ago. It lost a few key devs in a stupid drama fueled by Outside Outrage Merchants. That was a blow, but a tolerable one. Something happened, some side project outside of GW2 had tanked and it's taking the company with it. It's not closing but they've lost Jessica Teddy Croft, Josh Foreman, Gaile Grey and many, many others. These aren't the PR people or low level designers. Josh Foreman's designs are so loved and distinct that many vet players in the game can tell you which work was his. The blows to the narrative team, the environmental design teams, and other key teams is staggering. Even when the lay offs were announced, no one expected this.

The details on who is out are still coming in drips and it's bad.

Aaannnd almost no one who follows me here knows much about gaming so here is a tl:dr 'The MMO I played was awesome, innovative and had canon gay and trans characters. That game pretty much died today because it lost all the key designers who made it what is was.'

I really need to get better at art so I can make a proper drawing of my avatars hanging out. I may also commission one, idk.

Comments

[sylvaine]

I really hope GW2 doesn't die as a result, augh :(

[olivermoss]

I hope not, but it looks grim.

Most of the freak outs and worries in the past all turned out to be silly. This is the first one that's made me worried.

[kabal42]

I'm so sorry. I never did get into MMOs, but I do understand something of what they mean to people by experience with other forms of gaming. And I hope your game can stay awesome despite the massive blow.

[olivermoss]

I hope the game stays good. I will be happy to be wrong, but they just fired nearly every person that people assumed would be safe from firing. 1/4 of the staff.

[mistressofmuses]

I never played GW2, but I'm sorry to hear it's had a nasty shakeup. I hope that things work out and it remains good and high quality and recovers from the issues, but I understand the worry. Losing so many key people out of a creative team is rarely a good sign.

[olivermoss]

Turns out, a 3rd of the company is gone. Sounds like due to a money problem they wound up back under publisher control and the publisher gutted the company. It's hard for me to want to support a game by a publisher that dunks so hard on job security.

We'll see what happens. Hopefully the game remains good and doesn't lose its vibe.