Remember that player lawsuit lodged against Trion Worlds back in 2015? The one where ArcheAge players Aaron Van Fleet, Paul Ovberg, and James Longfield alleged that Trion violated consumer laws, falsely advertised a 10% founder perk discount for its cash shop, and broke California’s illegal lottery law? It was still going as of this past summer, but as MMO Fallout noticed, it’s hit a snag: the fact that Trion Worlds no longer exists, as it sold off its assets and let go its staff last week.
Defense attorneys representing Trion in the lawsuit filed paperwork last Friday noting that their client had “suddenly disbanded” and that “all of the employees of Trion have been terminated effective October 22.”
“The board of directors, officers, general counsel and employees 0f TWI resigned effective October 22, 2018. It is the undersigned’s understand that TWI is to formally dissolve as corporate person within the next 60 days. It is also the present understanding of the undersigned that TWI assets have been purchased from TWI—ABC by Gamigo, Germany-based game publisher. Defense counsel first became aware on October 18, 201 of the transfer of assets of TWI to take place on October 22, 201 and the corporate dissolution of TWI t0 follow shortly thereafter.”
Previously, Trion Worlds representatives had implied that a small team – reported to be around 25 people out of the 200 or so originally employed – had been retained through the layoffs to (we assumed) aid with the transition of the games to Gamigo. (“Transition” was the word used by Brasse.) For these documents to be accurate, that transition team would have to be under the employ of Gamigo, not Trion, meaning that everyone at Trion was technically laid off last week.
As we’ve previously reported, ArcheAge is potentially the game most at-risk, as Trion was merely its western publisher and not an easily transferable asset. The game’s lead producer at Trion, who was apparently one of those kept on, has told players that negotiations with the game’s South Korean owners at XL Games continued as of October 25th.
“In-person meetings are taking place between all administrative parties; transactions of this nature are a lengthy process–and are complicated by the distance–but we continue to move forward. We’re working to reach agreement between all groups by early next week. Identifying a new release date for the 5.0 Relics of Hiram update will be our immediate next priority. We regret that we aren’t able to provide more frequent updates. This is due to us wanting to communicate concrete information instead of addressing speculation while mid-negotiations.”
The Trove Twitter account remains active as well; the last post from the community manager was just a few minutes before this article was published.
MMORPG players will recall that Trion games were hit with layoffs this past summer, after which the studio vigorously insisted that the company was fine and that the games had long-term prospects. Similarly, in August, when we were tipped off that large numbers of staffers at the company were being furloughed, Trion told us it was an “administrative” issue and nothing to worry about. Studio reps did not return a request for comment last week.
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