Boston-based developer, Turbine, has reportedly laid off staff for the third year in a row. The studio that is well-known for its online role-playing games: The Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons & Dragons Online is now turning towards mobile gaming, instead.
Turbine’s owner (Warner Bros.) confirmed the redundancies to Kotaku in this statement:
”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 & 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.”
Therefore, fans of LOTRO and DDO should not fear as both games will be kept online. However, there is much less information on Turbine’s other online RPG, Asheron’s Call.
The developer has been in trouble since it’s release of a MOBA based on DC Comics characters: Infinite Crisis, which officially launched in March 2015, and was shut down by Warner Bros. just five months after. This appears to explain both the lay offs and the reasons for the developer’s change of direction.
We checked out Turbine’s website and noticed that they are currently working on two mobile games: Batman: Arkham Underworld, and Game of Thrones: Conquest. It will be interesting to see how this change in direction impacts the developer in the long-run.
