Perfect World Unexpectedly Lays Off 30 Employees

Multiple sources are reporting that Perfect World Entertainment, also known as Arc Games, issued a wave of layoffs earlier in the week. Among the ~30 let go was Community Manager @LaughingTrendy whose responsibilities included Star Trek Online.

See ya later PWE

— M (@LaughingTrendy) February 2, 2017

An official statement from PWE states implies this was a routine action and signifies no change in strategy for the multinational games developer and publisher:

“This week, Perfect World Entertainment did experience a reduction in staff of under 30 employees. Perfect World employs thousands of people from all over the world and decisions like this are always difficult. However, we are incredibly grateful for the contributions of those individuals impacted and will do our best to help each of them through this transition. This reduction in workforce will not impact any of the games published by Perfect World Entertainment.”

Perfect World continues to expand in North America so these layoffs are likely concentrated non-development related positions. In related news, Trion Worlds also made a statement regarding the recent layoff of several employees:

As we come out of our largest launch season in the company's history, we can confirm that we did eliminate a handful of positions to focus our efforts on game development, publishing, and operation.

We always strive to keep everyone following launches and have done so in recent years. While we did bring a number of people into game development positions, we regrettably could not bring all of them. We deeply appreciate their efforts, and their contributions should not in any way be diminished or forgotten.

Hat tip to MMORPG.com for the statements.