I’ve noticed a fair amount of traffic coming in on the search phrase “NCSoft layoffs”. The destination is a post I wrote a while back about the last NCSoft layoff on the back of a disappointing Auto Assault launch.
Regular layoffs are a fact of life in the hit-or-miss world of video game development, and I wondered if people in the company were worried about head cutting as this typically happens in the spring and fall. Curious, I searched around and found a report by the Korea Times (later repudiated by the company as inaccurate) that alleges that serious changes are in store for NCSoft’s Austin development studio as a result of the disappointing performance of Tabula Rasa, a game that took over three years to produce. To give you some idea, the typical development cycle for a large scale video game is eighteen months. So, to have a game slip repeatedly and then disappoint in the marketplace is a certain justification for trimming the budget.
It would be easy to play armchair quarterback and second guess decisions made, but since I’ve never been responsible for a large-scale project it’s not my place. I have a lot of respect for anyone that can spearhead a game development project of the scale required for a successful MMO (for example, World of Warcraft has 10 million subscribers). It does bring up an interesting question for companies and investors, however. When a project starts missing deadlines, runs over budget, requires multiple trips “back to the drawing board”, how do you know when to cut your losses? Is it a good idea to give project leaders a second chance or is it more effective to bring in new leadership?