Korean developer and publisher NCSoft announced a new round of layoffs as well as the cancellation of various video game projects.
The decision was apparently made due to the company's efforts to reorganize its projects and workers. The games that have been affected include the ultra-realistic-looking thriller Project M and Battle Crush, which never left early access.
NCSoft Suffers Layoffs
The company announced earlier this week that it was shifting its focus onto four of its subsidiaries. Three of these four companies will supposedly act as independent game studios. They are currently only known as Studios X, Y, and Z.
These three studios were made in order to help NCSoft enhance global competitiveness as it focuses on various games, Throne and Liberty, LLL, and Tactan.
The fourth subsidiary of the company is simply known as NC AI. it will instead focus on AI technology development as well as work on expanding the business, according to Eurogamer.
NCSoft also said that the latest strategic realignment within itself will lead to some "internal reorganization."
What this entails is stopping development of several projects as well as the "reassignment of internal members and the implementation of a voluntary retirement program."
Reports also noted that NCSoft co-CEO Taek-Jin Kim and Byung Moo Park reasoned that financial problems were what led to the layoffs. The executives also apparently apologized to the staff who were affected.
The other game that was affected by the recent efforts, Battle Crush, is still in its early access period. The game is scheduled to end service and become unplayable starting on Nov. 29, 2024, Gematsu said.
Financial Troubles
Other titles that were impacted by the company's decisions were Miniverse, a casual massively multiplayer online sandbox housing game, and Doguri Adventure, a casual adventure title.
NCSoft executives also said that the South Korean company was on the verge of falling into a "chronic defect company." They argued that this situation if left unchecked, would have seriously damaged the creative spirit that the studio had originally.
The company signed a deal with Sony last year for a strategic global business partnership. Following that, the two parties partnered together to work on a massive multiplayer online role-playing game based on the Horizon franchise.
The latest layoffs come as the video games industry has seen a number of job cuts since last year. This is something that many fans unfortunately are still seeing right now and do not seem to be stopping anytime soon, according to PSU.
