Gamigo has laid off an unspecified number of RIFT devs, says MMO will continue

    
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Yesterday, we learned through a trusted tipster that multiple Gamigo developers situated in the US and working on RIFT had been laid off from the company. The layoffs reportedly included both Kerilar and Acalos, long-running developers on the game, with the assumption that RIFT’s development is being shifted overseas.

We reached out to Gamigo for a statement yesterday morning, specifically asking about the impact on RIFT, Trove, and ArcheAge and whether development was being shifted to Gamigo’s European outfit. The studio did not reply to our polite inquiry [Update: We’ve updated below with the new statement], but a staffer did give a brief update to players on the forums in response to a long and panicky thread discussing the future of the game – the “change in internal structures” line appears to be an oblique confirmation of the layoffs.

“Hey everybody, let me briefly address your biggest concern(s): Rift is not going to be shut down! Most of you already noticed and pointed out a change in internal structures. While we’re not able to publicly address or communicate about those changes in detail, we can assure you that there will be a team responsible for and working on Rift (future development being part of this). If there are still any concerns or worries left about that topic, please feel free to PM one of the CMs at any time. We’ll close this thread by answering the thread’s title (Is Rift Next ?) with a clear NO!”

The news is chilling for RIFT players, who are understandably nervous following the sunset announcements of four other Gamigo MMORPGs two weeks ago. As we noted at the time, Gamigo urged players from those games into Trove and ArcheAge, but not RIFT, prompting fears about the game’s future.

Source: Official forums. With thanks as always to our tipster!
Afternoon update
Gamigo has now responded to our inquiry; the studio says that it will not be “relocating development teams to Europe” and that it “will continue to work hard on [its] core MMORPGs,” though it doesn’t expressly say whether RIFT is included among those. In fact, it specifically told us that it has “numerous new titles in [its] pipeline set to launch this year” and highlights incoming content for Trove and ArcheAge. It also clarifies that the layoffs were not as wide-ranging as originally feared. “It’s understandable that people are worried when they receive news like this,” a spokesperson for the company told us, “but rest assured, we have no intention of slowing down our efforts to make our games better with each update, and are grateful for the support of our players throughout the years.” We’ve sent over additional questions and will report back if we learn more.
Update 3/12
Gamigo has responded to our second inquiry; we’ve posted it in full here.
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