Daybreak confirms yesterday’s layoffs and ‘realignment of the company into separate franchise teams’

Yesterday, we reported on the sad news that MMORPG company Daybreak Games had suffered yet another round of layoffs. As developers began weighing in on Twitter and Reddit with their farewells, it became clear that the PlanetSide team had been heavily hit and that the EverQuest or EverQuest II teams had emerged relatively unscathed.

We still don’t know how many people were let go, but Daybreak did finally issue a statement (to Gamasutra, not to its players).

“We are taking steps to improve our business and to support our long-term vision for the existing franchises and development of new games. This will include a realignment of the company into separate franchise teams, which will allow us to highlight their expertise, better showcase the games they work on, and ultimately provide tailored experiences for our players. Unfortunately, some employees were impacted by this effort, and we’re doing what we can to support them during this challenging time.”

The “realignment of the company into separate franchise teams” line should be leaping out at you, as this past summer, the studio registered multiple websites and trademarks for Darkpaw Games, Rogue Planet Games, and Golden Age Studios, plus it registered a new Daybreak Game Studios LLC. MMO players had widely speculated that a split of the studios was on the way.

Interestingly, Theoryforge’s Scott Anderson noted that Daybreak has once again started registering trademarks: Just yesterday, the company set up yet another a new Twitter account and filed a trademark for Dimensional Ink Games.

https://twitter.com/MSandersonD/status/1183128317060440064

Daybreak, as readers know, has been a bit of a mess under its bizarrely obfuscated current ownership after being sold off from SOE in 2015. Just in the last year, it’s suffered multiple rounds of layoffs, project closures and cancellations, a huge esports financial scandal, and investment moves that looked pretty desperate. More recently, it’s been pouring love into EverQuest, EverQuest II, PlanetSide 2, and DC Universe Online; polling for a new fan event; talking up the future of EverQuest; and pushing PlanetSide Arena to early access (though it hasn’t gone over too well).