Carbine Wildstar layoffs and Chinese release cancelled

Carbine, the developer of the the MMORPG Wildstar, has let staff go in what could be the first stage in the MMOs demise.

Carbine had planned to launch the game in China but those plans have now been cancelled and instead they plan in supporting the game in the US and Europe. A full statement was posted on the Carbine forums by NCSoft’s e Omeed Dariani.

Earlier this morning, Carbine Studios completed a reorganization of its operating structure. Moving forward, the studio will focus on operating and updatingWildStar as a live game in the US and Europe. As part of this change, the studio has canceled its plans to bring WildStar to China.

Unfortunately, as a result of these changes, we’ve had to reduce staff. These cuts are directly tied to WildStar‘s evolution from a product in development to a live title, to the cancelation of work to bring WildStar to China, and to the overall performance of WildStar since launch in 2014.

These kinds of decisions are exceptionally difficult. The talented and passionate professionals who are impacted by these cuts have been valuable team members and respected colleagues. We wish everyone well for the future and will be providing severance and employment search assistance.

As for WildStar, we remain committed to the game. Over the next few weeks and months we will deliver a significant update to the game, kick off a variety of community events, and continue our work on new content that we will talk more about in the near future.

Wildstar went free to play in September 2015 is expected to launch on Steam at some point in the future.

Based on what we have seen happen in the past when an MMO is struggling, it usually reaches a point where it’s no longer viable to operate and today’s announcement could be the start of a shutting down process. The comment of “overall performance of WildStar since launch in 2014″ does not indicate that there’s a long-term future for the game.

We know from past experience that if NCSoft see a game floundering they will pull the plug. Cities of Heroes was one such game that fell out of favour with NCSoft.