Anyone else see these layoff reports for mythic?

[kennykilleduo]

Many Mythic Men May Have Lost Their Jobs
Jan 19, 2009 at 3:04 PM -BY Andrew Burnes -
An unsubstantiated rumour claims that Mythic Entertainment may have lost many of its Warhammer Online staff:

On Friday, January 16th, we heard through the tubes that layoffs had struck at EA's Mythic Entertainment, currently riding high acceptably with Warhammer Online. Here's what we were told: 21 customer service employees, half of QA and all of the playtest group were let go. We followed up with EA for a statement regarding the matter.
EA's corporate communications informed us that the publisher already announced a "cost-cutting initiative that includes facility closures and a headcount reduction," impacting about 10% of employees. The company doesn't plan to make any further announcements outside of its scheduled earnings report and can't give particular information about facilities.


Source:

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/44057/Many-Mythic-Men-May-Have-Lost-Their-Jobs

More info:

http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=237502

Further:

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/01/19/rumor-mythic-layoffs-affect-qa-customer-support/

 

[AesSedai]

- I'll hit first: Lovely (sarcasm).
Hopefully Marc Jacobs & John Riccitiello realize the diamond in the rough that they are now in charge of, that is UO, which has outlasted many others for ~11.25 years.

All the best to those that got cut by EA's knife, this round.


(Now I go look for any interweb verifications to validate this. I hope it is unsubstantiated, but the US continues to dive into recession, afa I know.)

 

[JC the Builder]

It is quite natural for a company to downsize after the release of a game, especially a MMO. Mythic might have tried to keep more on because they expected the game to be a bigger hit than it turned out to be or they have developed systems making those positions no longer necessary. They are not releasing hot fixes every day of the week anymore, so no reason to have so many QA. The play test group was probably doing QA after the game launched. And as the bugs got fixed, less need for gamemasters to respond to petitions.

In any case, if you have extra workers they are not going to be kept around in the current economic environment.

 

[Gheed]

Well I wish Warhammer all the success in the world. I wish this for any company that owns UO. Maybe Jeremy could come back

 

[Maplestone]

Layoffs are never fun.