Is Rift Heading for a Bleak Future

Rift, to date, has been among the best gaming experiences I've ever taken part in.  Never in my lengthy history of MMO gaming had I been so excited for an expansion as I was for Storm Legion.  Since Storm Legion's release, however, a gradual change has taken shape and cast a looming shadow atop the game I knew and loved.  This isn't to say Rift no longer appeals to me - it certainly does - but rather calls attention to the many inconsistencies and issues myself and countless others have witnessed over the last few months.  Is Rift heading down a bleak and overcast path or should the proverbial tinfoil hat be tossed aside?  I'm actually hoping you can help me with that decision.

In December, just one month after Storm Legion shipped, Trion did a layoff of quite a few people.  Initially the speculation ran rampant.  In one camp you had those who believed the layoffs were due to a release of QA and temporary help after Storm Legion was out the door and that this should be expected and no reason for worry.  In another camp you had those who were troubled by the news and believed any layoff of this magnitude surely meant that, at the very least, Trion itself wasn't doing all that well and, therefore, Rift may be at least part of the problem.  Speculation continued until some handy internet sleuthing by TehFrank pointed out exactly who was included in the layoffs.  For clarity, the use of the word "Round" in the links below does not imply multiple rounds of layoffs but rather was used by TehFrank to denote his "rounds" of results:

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Perusing the names and titles, it immediately becomes clear that while some of the employees let go may very well have been "temporary" help to get Storm Legion out the door in a timely manner, the majority were most likely not.  Systems Engineers, Content Designers, Character Animators and many members that would be considered "core" to MMO game development were among the casualties.  While it's possible that even some of these were "temporary" help, a cursory glance at the tenures for each former employee immediately strikes that argument down.  In other words, this absolutely wasn't a layoff simply to let temporary help go after the product has shipped.  This was a layoff that gutted a significant chunk of Trion's core staff.  So what is left unconfirmed (although not entirely), is just how many of these fine ladies and gentlemen were directly involved with Rift?

Fast forward to January and we see the news break that Scott Hartsman is leaving Trion Worlds, Inc.  Everyone has read the post so I won't share it here.  Scott, who had been an enthusiastic and much-loved driving force behind Rift since before it even launched, was stepping down.  His departure from Trion came at an already tumultuous time given the layoffs just a month prior and the tinfoil hats were adorned in full force:  Trion was not doing well and neither was Rift.  Conversely, arguments were made stating that Scott was simply making a standard industry move of bowing out after a 2-3 year stint.  Others argued that Scott's vision for Rift no longer aligned with its future direction and therefore he decided to part ways.  Regardless of how you look at the situation, it's always troubling to see a game's visionary and central face decide to move on.  What could this departure mean for the game, especially considering the sizable layoff that took place just a month prior?

Shortly after Scott's departure, a "State of the Game" was released.  This is consistent with what most MMOs do and was a follow-up to the very lengthy and rather detailed "State of the Game" entries offered up by Scott Hartsman in 2011 and 2012.  The new face of RIft was revealed and Daglar, whom, like Hartsman, was also a household name in the Rift community, offered up the 2013 "State of the Game".  To be blunt, his offering was very short, extremely vague and offered little to no information that wasn't already public knowledge.  For some, it was a state of the union born of rapid preparation given the departure of Scott Hartsman.  For others, it was an unacceptable dodging of any meaningful communication and a slap in the face to those who had just purchased a year long subscription alongside Storm Legion.  Was Daglar's brevity in the annual address due to a hasty departure of the man who would normally write it or was there truly no worthwhile information to share at that time due to a cloudy and bleak future?

Still not done, we turn, yet again, to TehFrank's internet sleuthing skills to find that more departures from Trion have taken place recently:

VP of Development

Senior Software Engineer who Implemented Warden and Streaming Client

And they have now hired:

Outsourcing Manager

Having worked in the gaming industry myself as a developer and character modeler, I can attest to the fact that outsourcing is a fairly common thing for large gaming companies.  In fact, the company I worked for was rather often the beneficiary of outsourced work from significantly larger studios.  However, while common, what of the timing for this acquisition?  Is it merely coincidence that an outsourcing manager has been brought on board at this time?  On one hand, the use of outsourcing could be a construed as a good thing.  For example, Trion may be looking at outsourcing certain tasks in order to maintain an aggressive patching schedule.  On the other hand, this could be tell-tale evidence of a more "hands off" approach from Trion with respect to one or all of their own games - something that is often done to cut costs in lieu of dismal bottom lines.  Even still, the acquisition of an outsourcing manager may have absolutely nothing to do with Rift and is, instead, intended for End of Nations, Defiance, or both.

Going further down the rabbit hole, however, yields some troubling images.  The first of this was brought to our attention by, yet again, TehFrank.  Found in the comments responding to a RiftJunkies article, apparently some former Trion employees (or folks who have at least worked with some current or former Trion employees) had choice words in reference to Rift and the Trion Worlds, Inc team working on the game.  Accusations of untrained, fledgling developers consistently missing deadlines and regular use of bullying/political tactics rampaged about.  What's even more intriguing is that, as it appears, Walsingham himself chimed in with a professional response while not refuting a single word of the aforementioned accusations.  Certainly this could be a few disgruntled ex-employees spewing nonsense but could it, in fact, be the truth?  And as if that wasn't enough, Spaceboots discovered some very poor reviews of Trion over at job review site glassdoor.com.  What's scary is that much of what's covered in the reviews, corroborates what was mentioned in the comments over at RiftJunkies.  Now, of course, this could all be nothing more than overblown garbage being thrown about as every disgruntled former employee (especially one that was laid off) might be inclined to rip on their past employer when given anonymity but can everything mentioned in this post follow suit?

For me, the writing seems to be on the walls.  While I've no idea whether or not Trion could recover from something like this and proceed onward with an exceptional gaming experience, everything ties together a bit too nicely for my tastes.  Rift has been my game since February of 2011 and will remain my game for the foreseeable future but the results of countless, curious internet denizens certainly paints anything but a rosy picture.