So here’s another fun annual Daily Grind that always gets people good and angry. And believe it or not, I’m not going to nominate a specific game here. This year, I’m going to nominate a company – multiple companies – all the companies that laid off thousands of game devs in 2024. Microsoft, Activision-Blizzard, Sony, Daybreak, Tencent, NCsoft. All of them. Maybe worst and most explicit of all is Embracer, whose callous layoff of everything left of the Cryptic Studios team essentially cast two top-tier MMORPGs, Star Trek Online and Neverwinter, off to a rookie team at a rookie studio that just can’t possibly have the funding to support them as we’d hope.
Folks, without a pipeline of developers, the braindrain is going to hurt our genre most of all. We need those people. They represent the collective knowledge of decades of MMO development. That’s why these companies, especially their executives who made the bad gambles in the first place, get the stink-eye today.
What do you think? Which game or studio made the biggest contribution to killing the MMORPG genre in 2024?
At the turn of every calendar year, the MassivelyOP team assembles a traditional feast of annual content for your table. We recap the year, issue awards, highlight our favorite (and least favorite) stories, and gather your opinions together to send off the last year and welcome the new one. Grab a plate and take a bite out of this year-end Daily Grind!
