Pink Slip

Let me tell you a bit about myself -- one of my biggest personality traits is extreme loyalty to my friends.  It's why I see red when jerks assail fellow bloggers for posting their opinions, and I never hesitate to leap up to the defense of my friends when they're in trouble.  I'm normally a pretty reserved guy, but if you go after my friends, I will be up in your face like the short little Italian attack dog that I am.

I just got back from an afternoon with my wife and father-in-law, during which we got another ultrasound and got to see my baby boy stick his tongue out as we watched.  It was shaping up to be a terrific day, all things considered.

And then word starts pouring in about the employees that Mythic/EA laid off -- not just QA or customer service folks (although I'm not belittling their job loss at all) but some of the big names, the passionate devs in the company.  People who I've come to know and like and perhaps call friends over this past year.  I've been rooting them on, excited about how open Mythic was with letting their devs contact the public, and a strong advocate of Mythic for making me as a player feel like I was welcome into their home.

The list of people fired (I'm not going to use softer phrases like "let go" or "downsized") is not fully confirmed, although it's pretty easy to find a list on the web now, especially since Massively posted (and withdrew) their names.  Twitter accounts seem to verify this, ex-Mythic employees are spitting mad, and there's a huge negative whiplash going around the community right now.  It's not just a game, today, it's about friends -- and despite years of hard work on something they poured countless hours, often under high stress and pressure, they were fired.

We don't know all the details.  We don't know how hard Mythic management fought for them, if it was more EA's doing, Mythic's decision, or just the soulless call of the accountant shaving people off in the most logical way possible.  We do know that these are some of the very men and women who made Warhammer the game we love today, and that they expected to be with their baby far past a mere half-year post-launch.  And we do know that whoever fired them is an idiot.

See?  I don't have to be diplomatic here.  I really don't.  I don't work for EA or Mythic, I'm not an objective journalist, I'm a gamer and a writer and I calls 'em like I sees 'em.  This is sheer bullcrappery of the highest order, and Mark, you can take that carefully-worded "the sun will come out tomorrow" spin and put it back in your drawer out of respect for the people who should see a company grieving their loss, not giving them a shrug and a middle finger.  Yeah, being in management means you have to make tough decisions, and sometimes there's no way around it, but I'll only believe all these cuts were necessary if you can show me that these devs were underperforming slackers who weren't giving their all.  Anything else is just a pathetic excuse.

I guess I need to cool down and perhaps wait for more info on all of this.  I can tell you one thing, however -- to show whatever little display of solidarity that I can, I won't be logging into Warhammer for the rest of the week, and won't be blogging during this period other than to post updates on this situation and Da Bloody Twenty.