Sony Online Entertainment, of Planetside and Everquest fame, laid off a number of employees in their San Diego and Austin studios on August 28th.
John Smedley, President of SOE, revealed that a number of staff members were laid off through his Twitter account, making a number of tweets lamenting the loss of good employees. However, he also made it a point to say that these lay-offs did not spell the doom for any games in development. Rather, they appear to be “belt tightening” in an increasingly competitive industry, and may include developers from older titles in SOE’s catalog, like DC Universe Online or Free Realms.
Sony Online Entertainment’s largest property at the moment is Planetside 2, which we cover extensively here on TMC. They also recently announced Everquest Next, a fantasy MMO that aims to include next-gen features such as destructible terrain and a truly dynamic world. Their library of titles also includes many smaller games, such as Dragon’s Prophet, the original Everquest, and DC Universe Online.
We have reached out to SOE for comment, and will update if we learn more.
This article originally appeared on TheMittani.com, written by Unknown.
