Gaming Company Lets Go 20% of Staff

When times get tough, the gamers get…laid off? Well, at least they do over at CCP Games. Not that gaming has ever been a particularly stable industry, with workers often being hired on for a specific project at let go at its completion. When a game company with an ongoing project lets people go however that is less of the natural order of things and more of a letdown.

CCP Games is best known as the maker of the MMORPG EVE Online, a virtual world that is set in space. The company recently announced that it would be cutting its staff down by 20 percent. CCP Games currently has about 600 people on staff, at its various locations. This means that a 20 percent layoff will put 120 people out of jobs.

While the layoffs will primarily affect the staff that is housed in the Atlanta office some of the cuts will also be made to other offices owned by CCP Games. This means that the layoffs will, in fact, be international.

While the company is not standing on its own, since the company was bought by White Wolf, a pen and paper RPG publisher in 2006. Since then the company has been spending the bulk of its time working on a digital version of White Wolfs popular World of Darkness game. The World of Darkness MMO has yet to be released. World of Darkness is considered unique among the world of pen and paper RPGs not only because of its dark edge, but because once a character is dead it remains dead, with no means of resurrection. For those of you unfamiliar with pen and paper RPGs most of them have a health mechanism that allows users to come back after the character dies. This unique trait may or may not be carried into the MMORPG.

Hilmar Petursson, the CEO of CCP Games told a reporter for Gamasutra earlier this week over the phone that the game creation was progressing more slowly than the company had anticipated. This is one of the reasons for the reduction in staff. Since the game cannot turn a profit until it is completed the extra staff is only a drain on current company resources. The majority of the layoffs will be made in the Atlanta office, which is currently responsible for the making of the World of Darkness game. The Shanghai office which is currently make the Dust 514 game for Play Station 3 will have fewer layoffs.

In the same phone interview he expressed a profound sorrow over the layoffs and the effect that they would have on their employees. He has this to say about it, “This is a major thing, and it’s something which it is my responsibility to avoid.” As you can see, this man actually cares that he has to let go of his staff.

While few specifics on what will happen to the people losing their jobs have been given, the CEO of the company is currently trying to help the soon to be displaced workers find new jobs.