Massively OP has been contacted by a Cryptic employee — who wishes to remain anonymous and whose identity we have confirmed — about the Perfect World/Cryptic layoffs yesterday that one former PWE staffer called a “slaughter.”
Our source tells us that 18 people were let go from Cryptic itself, approximately 14% of the studio. Half of those were Neverwinter staff, evening out the Neverwinter and Star Trek Online teams (we do know some STO staff, including former City of Heroes lead designer Matt Miller and the game’s community manager, were among those let go). The source believes the PWE Redwood Shores offices were hit significantly harder; our source reluctantly agreed that “yes, PWE is mostly to blame” for the debacle.
MMORPG fans will recall that Cryptic has pulled at least one developer from live projects to work on unannounced games. Those projects will continue: “The secret projects are unaffected,” says our source. “They’re a big focus for the company moving forward.”
Champions Online “is being left to chug along,” our source says. “It doesn’t take much to keep it afloat.” So there’s that.
“There’s an understandably somber attitude around here, but we’re trucking along,” our source concluded. “That’s to be expected when you’re pulled into an ‘impromptu company meeting’ by an email from the CEO the previous day.”
We’d like to thank our source for speaking with us and extend our sympathies to all of those affected by the layoffs. PWE has not yet responded to our requests, although we concede it’s possible that the standard PR rep is no longer with the company as of yesterday.
