![turbine[1]](http://casualstrolltomordor.com/files/2012/10/turbine1.jpg)
The site Boston.com is reporting that today (and on the Boston Globe) Turbine has laid off a number of individuals have been laid off as a “part of a restructuring at its parent company, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.”
“As part of the continual review of our business operations and fluctuating market conditions, we have had to make reductions in our Turbine workforce,” said Remi Sklar, spokeswoman for Warner Bros. Entertainment Group, in an e-mail. “The group continues to remain an integral part of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.”
No specifics have been given as to how many individuals have been laid off or what departments were “reduced”. We also know that Turbine works on several games including Asheron’s Call, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Lord of the Rings Online, and probably other projects we don’t know about so it’s hard to know how this will affect our favorite MMO specifically.
The odd thing about the timing of such a lay off is that just a few days ago it was announced that they hired several new people to fill leadership roles. We also know that just last May they were attending a Job Fair to fill 50 roles at the company.
The lay offs could be related downsizing after large releases. LOTRO just experienced a large expansion, Riders of Rohan, and DDO also had an expansion this summer but that could be mere coincidence. We have not been told a specific reason for the lay offs. Either way, it was very much a shock to hear this horrible news.
So while we don’t know how many people from LOTRO team have been let go (we know at least one from the LOTRO Community Team has been), our deepest sympathies go out to the ones who did as well as all the other employees of Turbine.
October 25, 2012 at 3:19 pm
RoR sales at the high prices didn’t go as well as hoped?
Truly empathetic to all involved.
October 26, 2012 at 5:24 pm
My man
November 8, 2012 at 4:59 pm
I don’t know how you can come to the conclusion that the sales of RoR has anything to do with the layoffs based on the little blurb quoted here. Looking at the link to the article, it seems to me that they might be more focused on the mobile game market and want to invest more into that then on MMORPGS. I personally despise mobile games. They’re not challenging at all and just basically a time sink. Hopefully the gaming culture will wake up and shift back to PC and console games.
October 25, 2012 at 3:23 pm
Yikes! My thoughts are with anyone on the receiving end of these layoffs.
October 25, 2012 at 3:30 pm
I cry, but I make no sound
/cry
Empathy to all affected
it is a rough ecconomy
and there is noting to be said by me
that can make things better
Best wishes for a speady re-immursion into the workforce
Our thanks for the time & hard work you have put into our second home
Wyllo & Gruffi
Middle Earth Pest Control Co-Operative
October 25, 2012 at 3:42 pm
Bad enough Zynga just closed their Boston branch and all those folks are also looking for game jobs in Boston. Hate seeing this so soon after a major hiring spree just earlier this year.
October 25, 2012 at 4:03 pm
I hope it was those lazy GM’s that doesnt do anything for us anyway. Hopefully those spots will be filled with people that has good social and communication-skillz in the future!
October 25, 2012 at 4:06 pm
…I play a dwarf tank. I should work on my empathy as a tank, but I role-play my dwarf too much.
October 25, 2012 at 5:52 pm
They let go of Clover, one of their people with good social and communication skills (she was a community specialist).
October 25, 2012 at 5:41 pm
I kinda knew that the recent token grab with RoR cosmetics was tied to quarterly earnings… I just didnt know how bad it was. As someone who has watched
past games I played close doors, it puts the new token grab in perspective and I hope it works.
Whatever they gotta do to keep lotr out of the Dark Lord WB profit/loss radar..
October 25, 2012 at 6:30 pm
Not Clover!
October 26, 2012 at 9:16 am
Not knowing who else was let go ..
I can say this for sure…
They lost a GEM here, by releasing Clover back into the wild
!!!!!
Will miss Clover Greatly
/cry
October 25, 2012 at 6:31 pm
“The odd thing about the timing of such a lay off is that just a few days ago it was announced that they hired several new people to fill leadership roles. We also know that just last May they were attending a Job Fair to fill 50 roles at the company.”
Not that unusual. Actually, it’s pretty much standard practice. Hire new bodies at a lower price than the current bodies, keep both groups around long enough to get the newbies trained, then dump the old reliable employees just in time to make the quarterly reports like nice and pretty for the shareholders’ meeting.
It’s disgusting and disgraceful, but the assholes in charge can afford enough champagne and Ferraris to silence their guilty consciences.
October 25, 2012 at 6:59 pm
“part of a restructuring at its parent company, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment.”
Is this a Turbine thing or Time Warner thing?
I sense it’s above Turbine themselves and more corporate ties to bigger business. Never been a fan of Time Warner, I was worried when I heard they bought the rights to LOTRO.
October 25, 2012 at 9:14 pm
Hmmm…lets see: Overpriced and buggy Rohan expansion, Price gouging on war steed dyes, price hikes in Turbine Store, and now layoffs. I’d say things aren’t looking good for Lotro. Its days may be numbered.
October 25, 2012 at 9:27 pm
Really sorry to hear this news. Good luck to everyone who was affected.
October 25, 2012 at 11:01 pm
Without any specifics, anything, whether positive or negative is just speculation. The way it goes is they make a huge investment in something like the ROR xpac and the bulk percentage of that cost is set to be recovered by the initial purchases of the xpac. I’ m guessing they fell below thet expected threshold they were aiming for and adjustments had to be made. It hurts to think of these people who make the game I love get fired and I wish them the best and gl with transitioning to another job. LOTRO really was a standard bearer for how a premium mmo could make the transition to a FTP model and suceed. Seeing how this is the trend in the MMO market, I’m sure having worked at LOTRO will actually be a very positive thing on they’re resume if they stay in the industry. As a side note to some of the other comments about rich people wanting to be richer, while I don’t disagree with you, this is one of the ways you stabilize a troubled asset. I do really hope they got rid of the CM who, on the day they announced ROR was going to be delayed a month+, said ” The BETA was a great success” in a Turbine post. I still shake my head in confusion with that one. Anyways this really could be a positive thing for lotro. The game development has gotten really tired and a bit repetitive for the last few years. Lets hope for the best and for the love of Bilbo BUY SOMETHING IN THE LOTRO STORE:)
October 26, 2012 at 3:35 am
It leaves a doubt here on the freedom of action of Turbine under the economic view of WB…
The one explaining why there was a lay off is a representative of WB, not Turbine. So i would doubt that Turbine has take the decision.
Dont forget that Turbine while a branch of firm, is more a group of passionate people devoted to their fans. They probably also made some choice answering to the community which probably not pleased WB. Those last dont enjoy losing money for a bunch of fans. They are not passionate they are business man.
I still miss the time where Turbine was Turbine, before they sold to WB.
October 26, 2012 at 8:41 am
It seems that Graalx2 is gone as well.
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?485827-The-Road-goes-ever-on-and-on….
October 26, 2012 at 9:08 am
And right after a major guardian revamp too :/
October 26, 2012 at 9:14 am
This is why I’m glad my day job is “Mother”. I can never be replaced.
October 26, 2012 at 11:31 am
When I read this I had the scene from good morning vietnam pop into my head where he’s reading the heavily censored news which comes from the supposed free peoples.
RoR has done a fair bit to shake up the standard mmo fare with the addition of a mounted combat that does it so much better than other games. I really hope for the sake of the game that they’ve not laid off the real brains behind it all. The main standout feature of LOTRO is the community so to lose a staffer like Clover could hurt that more than warner realises when they skim the numbers.
If on the otherhand it was a numpty like that GM who told weatherstock performers to stop spamming thanks to a trolls tickets then I’m maybe less sympathetic.
October 26, 2012 at 8:06 pm
Keep in mind that “Treehouse Sues Turbine over Patent Issued in 2012″
http://gamepolitics.com/2012/10/11/treehouse-sues-turbine-over-patent-issued-2012#.UIsk8oYrXis
These tree hugging maniacs are just out for money.
Now said, they didnt get it yet.. but still…
October 27, 2012 at 5:02 am
Kinmates tell me that Clover was a gem to the community. I wished I knew her better and had met her at this year’s Gamescon in Cologne, Germany.
All the other CM’s do is ignore your PM’s and your threads and your opinions. You are pressed into keeping it nice while suffering all of that.
Oh, and that hour long interview with nothing to say and then trying to make fun out of those who really want to know things. If you don’t have to say anything then just shut up and don’t say anything. And especially don’t make fun of your own community. That was a really bad move and it makes you look very very bad.
As if people won’t get it.
October 27, 2012 at 9:24 am
The game has been an absolute mess lately. Incredibly bad PR, little to no in game support, and releases with poor prioritization, and large numbers of bugs.
I’d like to think that they might manage to get rid of some of the idiots at Turbine with this layoff and actually turn things around for LOTRO, but I suspect that the company’s ethos is too strongly ingrained for them to start treating their customers with respect, and the game’s code base is probably such a mess that we will always be discovering new bugs.
October 28, 2012 at 10:50 am
>> I do really hope they got rid of the CM who, on the day they announced ROR was going to be delayed a month+, said ” The BETA was a great success” in a Turbine post.
You hope they JUST got rid of the CM for saying something you didn’t like in a forum post? That’s not nearly enough–”getting rid of them” just causes the CM (and their family) to lose their security, insurance, perhaps their home. But THEY SAID SOMETHING YOU DIDN”T LIKE!!! More must be done!!!
That CM should of course be executed.
October 30, 2012 at 8:58 am
A little dramatic ? I was trying to make a point and it has nothing to do with hearing something I didn’t like. It was a false statement , period. By the by I’m just gonna take a random guess and say you have little to no experience with being a CM and don’t have much of an idea on what type of income bracket this job is in. There wasn’t much security to start with . But yeah , relax. The truth is rough sometimes but its a place to start working forward from.
November 3, 2012 at 4:32 pm
Ah yes, but the beta technically WAS a success in and of the fact that it allowed them to identify that there were problems with the game that required re-tooling rather than just rushing it out to beat some stupid pandas to retail. In that sake, it WAS a success. Betas are for testing, and finding bugs defines success.
October 28, 2012 at 2:50 pm
This is just devastating news. My heart and thoughts go out to Clover, Graalx2, and any other Turbine employee affected by this layoff. You all did a fantastic job on lotro and for the community, you definitely didn’t deserve this. I hope you all find good jobs soon.
October 30, 2012 at 4:30 pm
The General Manager of Turbine needs to properly cut staff so he can afford to pay his underqualified friends that he has put into high level executive positions. If you think customer service is bad now, just wait and see how much worse it can get.