Mythic Responds to Job Cut Rumors, Affirms Commitment to Warhammer Online

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Following rumors that Warhammer Online developer Mythic Entertainment lost some staff in the latest round of cost-cutting measures for studio owner Electronic Arts, Mythic VP Mark Jacobs has assured fans that its PC MMO will continue to be supported.

"It's not like we had a small team at launch or even a small team now," he wrote in forum post. "I have a very large team continuing to work on WAR now and going forward and we'll continue to build with that." The rumor claims all of Mythic's playtesters were let go, along with half of its QA team and 21 customer service employees.

While unable to comment directly on "possible/actual layoffs," Jacobs pointed to EA's plan to axe 10% of its workforce by March 31, writing that "all studios are expected to do their fair share." Since the cost-cutting plan was announced, rumors of layoffs at various facilities have circulated, though EA has said it won't provide specifics until February.

Some message board posters fear the rumored layoffs could affect Mythic's ability to address bugs in a timely manner--something that has already come under fire.

However, when asked by a fan about Warhammer Online's "staggering amounts of bugs," Jacobs expressed awareness of the many issues, stating that players will see "lots of incoming bug fixes with the next major patch as well as lots of other stuff."

He also added that Warhammer Online is the only title being worked on at Mythic, and vowed that the studio "will continue to work on WAR for quite a while."

Chris Faylor was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

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  • reply
    January 20, 2009 11:19 AM

    Its nicer to be in a game where you contact CSR you at least hope they can do something for you.CSRs in War always gave a line and were almost never helpful when it came to something major. "We will investigate the issue" = We cant help you.

    Wow GMs area god send compared to that system.

    • reply
      January 20, 2009 11:55 AM

      You're kidding, right? I played WoW off and on since it was in beta until I finally threw in the towel for good when I got in WAR beta. To this day I am convinced that WoW CSR's are nothing but scripted bots. I never got any response from them in-game and at most got a boiler-plate email a day or two later stating they 'understand my concern' or whatever.

      In WAR I've personally witnessed CSR actually fix things (like a bugged BO) while the warband sat there and waited.

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        January 20, 2009 12:00 PM

        I've usually had the opposite encounter with WoW GM's. Usually very polite and able to fix any given problem that I've had.

        • reply
          January 20, 2009 4:41 PM

          I too am surprised. WoW GM's may take a while to get to a customer, but in my experience they generally get the job done.

          Don't know much about the WAR peeps. I am still paying for a subscription, but Lich King dragged me back to WoW full time.

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        January 21, 2009 12:58 AM

        They upgraded the GM services in WoW a lot. They help out with a lot of stuff (even stupid blue heroic dungeon loot).

    • reply
      January 20, 2009 12:54 PM

      I had a the complete opposite on my experience of WAR (On Euro server mind)

      About 2 hours into first playing and a GM messaged me, welcoming me to the game and offering to answer any questions I had with the game. I didnt really have any questions and I was RvRing at the time so it was a short conversation we had but it was cool. It might just be a "scheme" to help players fit in and thus pay more money but it worked for me.

      Really, I'm sure if you named any MMO out there, we can find some CSR horror stories regarding it.

    • reply
      January 20, 2009 7:32 PM

      Ive been stuck a few times and theres always a CSR contacting me within 5mins to move me out of the geometry.

      However my group did encounter a warpblade bug where all the mobs respawned (shit huh) and the CSR basically said there was nothing she could do to fix the problem for us. Fair enough i guess.

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