Official word from NCsoft on the Austin studio layoffs

We had already sourced information that confirmed layoffs from NCsoft Austin, but formal notification has now gone out of the loss of 21 jobs. David Swofford, Director of Public Relations for NCsoft North America, has provided the following information:

We are announcing that 21 positions are being eliminated in the Austin office of NCsoft in the area of product development. Primarily this is related to products which we have not previously announced and were in prototype phases. We are also cutting some positions on the Dungeon Runners team after deciding not to port the client to other platforms at this time.

Although exact details were not given, we can confirm that 13 out of the 18 Dungeon Runners staff have lost their jobs, following a post by Producer / Lead Programmer Stephen Nichols at the Dungeon Runners forums. Stephen has said that the Dungeon Runners team are 'in shock' at the news.

The remaining staff on Dungeon Runners are now:

• Stephen Nichols- Producer / Lead Programmer

• Scott Stevens - Senior Programmer

• Mark Tucker - Lead Designer

• Brandon Cotton - Senior Designer

• James Cleaveland - Technical Artist

Of the other staff who have lost their jobs, who were working on an as yet unnamed project, we can name only Scott Jennings. Writing about the situation in his blog, Scott states he is moving on to John Galt games.

Tabula Rasa has not been mentioned. It remains to be seen whether the game, which increased its online sales by 7% in the last quarter but also incurred an unprecedented negative royalties figure of minus 1,147%, is going to receive any special corporate attention.

We are glad to see that the situation appears to be less severe than internal sources at NCsoft, who had contacted several gaming websites, had made it out to be. The staff at Massively send our best wishes to those affected by these cuts.