Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons & Dragons Online developer Turbine has been hit with a round of layoffs, MassivelyOP has confirmed. The news was originally hinted at by former community manager Rick “Sapience” Heaton and later confirmed in a message from Warner Brothers:
“Turbine is transitioning into a free-to-play, mobile development studio, and as a result we are eliminating some positions. The Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons online games will continue to operate as they do now. Re-focusing and reducing the studio size was a difficult decision for the company, and we are grateful to all of the Turbine staff for their considerable contributions.”
What exactly a pair of aging MMOs has to do with a “mobile development studio” is unclear but you’d have to be pretty optimistic to think it’s good news — especially since the Lord of the Rings license expires in 2017.
Our condolences go out to those looking for new employment this week.
Mobile? Rip turbine.
Pity tho, DDO is one of a kind mmo.
Mobile makes more money then PC. thats why konami kicked kojima to the curb… he was useless to them.
Maybe it does make more atm, but we’ll see whether it’ll last.
Besides mobile trash has way shorter lifespan.
Not a surprise, sucks for employees
this is where greeed got u turbine! …….
if they din’t charge for expansions in lotro that wouldn’t have happened
Maybe someone now will make an Lord of the Rings MMO that is actually good.