A very suspect report from the Korean Times by Cho Jin-seo cites the NCsoft company’s chief financial officer Lee Jae-ho as saying their will be layoffs at the Austin Texas Studio, along with the characterization of the project as a financial disaster after disclosing an estimated 105 million dollars lost on approximately 5.29 million US dollars in revenue for 2007.
Needless to say given the lack of popularity and credibility for the failing MMO this report is making its rounds among gaming sites, blogs, and forums quoting the article verbatim. Some of the numbers appear inflated, the reporter is also hardly credible due to past reports, but many of the claims in the article smack of enough truth to be plausible but seem cobbled together from multiple undocumented sources.
Here’s a breakdown on the claims made by Cho Jin-seo’s report:
- Tabula Rasa took six years in development before being launched. The project was restarted at least twice, and before the game was was released to retail with numerous bugs and an unfinished end-game. (If I recall correctly, TR was only restarted ONCE 2 years into development. -Scott)
- There will be downsizing of the Tabula Rasa team, Project Managers will stay, additional staff at the studio may be let go. Richard Garriots brother was already replaced by COO Chris Chung.
- Future development is to be done at the corporate level, not locally at the Austin studio.
- Only 5.39 million US dollars in revenue has been realized from Tabula Rasa to date, with only 15 million USD projected for 2008.
- 105 million dollars (estimated) was spent in it’s development, with a claimed 300 person dev team working on the project at one time. (Keep in mind that World of Warcraft’s initial development costs were only estimated at up to 60 million by Vivendi according to their first filed SEC report, saying TR cost more than that.. a bit unrealistic -Scott)
- The Garriott brothers each recieved stock worth nearly 15 million US dollars for signing on.
- NCsoft stock is at an all time low of 38,600 Won or 40.8 US dollars.
Source: The Korea Times
Follow Up: A Tabula Rasa Community Coordinator replied on PlanetTR.com saying “Take the report with a grain of salt.”
What’s your Mythbusters style verdict? True, False, or Plausible?
About the Author
Well, as an ex-Tabula Rasa player, I can totally see this. There is a lot in the game that has a lot of potential, but there is nothing there to grab you and keep you once you hit the highest tier of your class (Also known as level 30). People will join, play for a month, then move on to Age of Conan.
I love Lord British but this is good.