Layoffs hit NCsoft's North American offices

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Earlier this morning Massively received an anonymous tip that NCsoft
terminated an undisclosed number of employees at its Austin, Brighton,
and Seattle offices earlier this month. According to our tipster, "many
operations jobs are leaving Austin and being contracted back to Seoul,"
and there were further layoffs in the quality assurance and billing
departments, with "with many more put on 60-day notice."

We contacted NCsoft for an official comment and received the following reply:

"In an effort to put a greater focus on the success
of the Western-developed games from NCsoft, and the long-term services
MMOs require, we announced a global restructuring to our Western
publishing team. To optimize the streamlining efforts, limited
functionality is moving to our headquarters in Seoul, and some
publishing support has been reduced. As a result, there has been a
reduction in force that has impacted less than 2 percent of our global
workforce. We remain committed to fully support the development of games
from ArenaNet, Carbine Studios and Paragon Studios."

We'll keep you up to date on the situation as it develops and as we learn more.