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Bad news for Fallen Earth

Oi, I’d be a little concerned if I was a Fallen Earth fan. Coming down the gauntlet today (via ITG, via the Escapist), we hear that Icarus Studios laid off a big chunk of its workforce.

Actually, the initial report claimed that they had “closed their doors” but that may not be exactly true. Shortly after the story broke, the company released a statement saying that they were able to keep 28 employees, in addition to GMs and customer service staff. To their own community, they’ve simply said that a “restructuring” is underway.

Anytime people are laid off, my heart goes out to them. It’s a difficult, if not terrifying, period for the newly jobless, and a time of uncertainty for those that remain. What makes it even worse, however, is that I’ve really come to appreciate Icarus Studios as a company. They came out of their corner swinging, releasing lots of updates, and responding to the concerns/wants of the community with each one.

It’s also worth nothing that the game has only been live for about seven months. It’s pretty quick for this kind of thing to be happening.

I’m pretty much floored by this news. Really? The game was doing that poorly? It’s made great strides since the day it launched and the fanbase is one of the most dedicated and supportive around.

But, obviously, this news must mean that the game far underperformed their expectations. These kinds of things don’t just happen, unless there’s a lot of mismanagement and poor decision making going on.

Or your product is a commercial failure.

And is it? It launched to mediocre reviews, even though a lot of us really loved it. It was certainly rough around the edges. But, if this makes sense, it was almost endearing. I mean, plenty of us stuck with it because there was so much good there that we could look past it. We’re we the great minority while the rest of the world simply gave up on it?

I didn’t think so. But maybe I was wrong.

I’ll say it now, Fallen Earth is too good of a game to fail so quickly. I truly hope they keep the game running and at pace for years to come. It would be a near tragedy, like Vanguard, if it didn’t.

Good luck, Icarus. I hope your fans come out in droves.

Edit: I don’t know if it means anything but food for thought: my Fallen Earth guide is second only to the home page of this site and has twice as many views as any other page below it. It knocked my latency guide right off the #2 spot where it’s sat for the last 18 months. Go figure.

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