Pathfinder Online Layoffs; Ryan Dancey Leaves Company

Paizo CEO Lisa Stevens has announced that Goblinworks has had to lay off nearly the entire staff of Pathfinder Online. "We knew we needed a certain amount of money to finish to build the game, and we came really damn close, but we just couldn’t find the last bit of funding that we needed. […] Last Friday, we had to lay off most of the staff. […] I couldn’t pay them anymore. We gave them lots of warning, so they all knew this was coming." Not only that, apparently Ryan Dancey left the company two weeks ago! That leaves three employees (who are continuing work on the game), who are being moved to the Paizo offices; the Goblinworks offices are being closed. The company is seeking $1-$2 million from other investors to finish the game.

Pathfinder Online was being produced by Goblinworks, a new company spearheaded by Ryan Dancey and Lisa Stevens, amongst others. It has had two successful Kickstarters already - one for a million dollars, and the other for a $300K technology demo.

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Here's the full announcement from Lisa Stevens:

To the Pathfinder Online Community

From the beginning of the three year journey to create Pathfinder Online, the one constant has been the support of our community and for this I thank you. We have had ups and downs including heated debates on design, implementation and overall gameplay. We have literally battled together (or against each other) and I know you enjoy playing the game as much as I do. I also know that the community comes together during tough times, and it is probably no surprise that we are currently in a tough spot right now. There are a number of things that have occurred in the past two weeks that you need to be brought up to date on.

As we have been on this journey to create Pathfinder Online with you for over three years now, we have striven to be as transparent as possible with you. We just shared the following message with the community during our weekly Keepside Chat. In full transparency, here is a quick run down of the state of our game:

EE10.2 is on ZOG for final testing and should roll out to live on Thursday or Friday morning.

EE11 is targeted for the end of September

Ryan Dancey has had to resign from the company for personal reasons (Lisa Stevens will be acting CEO)

Finances are tight at Goblinworks, which has resulted in the layoff of the majority of Goblinworks staff

CTO Mark Kalmes, Art Director Mike Hines, and Designer Bob Settles continue to push the game forward (your monthly subscriptions are what keep these three employed and the server up)

Goblinworks is in talks with multiple game publishers to take the game on and bring it to Open Enrollment

I know that is a lot to take in, so I will share what details we can below:

Game status (EE10.2 and EE11)

We are in final testing before pushing EE10.2 to the live server with its fully revamped and improved new player experience, buy orders for the auction house as well as auction sales histories, settlement chat, and the new crystal ogres monthly event, as well as turning the previous event (The Wrath of Nhur Athemon and its Shadow counterpart) into an ongoing escalation, and making a bunch of bug fixes and improvements. The team has been working hard on this and on EE11 for most of July and August. EE11 is done in design, almost entirely done in art, and just needs a bit more programming to get it to the point where we can test. It will take settlement activities to the next level by allowing you to customize and build your settlements the way you want to. Building a settlement will be a large group task, with lots of raw materials to gather and refine before buildings can be erected. We will also have the dark elves monthly event ready, providing more PVE content for those who are focused on that aspect of the game. The core team has the goal of shipping EE11 by the end of September, and we'll keep you updated on our progress.

Ryan Dancey

Ryan Dancey needed to resign from the company for personal reasons. We were very sad that he needed to leave us, but supported his decision because it is in the best interests of Ryan’s life outside Goblinworks. In Ryan’s absence, the board of directors has appointed me Acting CEO.

Finances

We have always known that we would need a certain amount of money to make Pathfinder Online a reality. Some delays in getting the game to market coupled with some anticipated funding falling through have left us about 75% short of the money we need to finish the game and bring it to Open Enrollment. We knew that we could cut our burn rate (the rate at which expenses burn your cash reserves) by having folks participate in Early Enrollment and that was always the plan, though we never thought that the Early Enrollment subscribers could carry the company to Open Enrollment. We knew we needed that full investment amount to do that. We had numerous times this year where the full funding was dangling in front of us only to be snatched away at the last moment. Very frustrating, but we moved forward and kept looking for somebody to come through with the money we needed to see the game through.

Due to the commitment that you have made to the game, your current subscriptions are able to keep the core team employed and the servers live. We will continue to move the game forward with that team and keep the servers live as long as the continued financial support from the community is there. But that means we need you, the Pathfinder Online Community, to continue to support us with your monthly subscription fees. They are very literally what is keeping the servers paid for, and keeping our core team employed, working on EE11, and talking with various potential partners about purchasing the game so they can finish it. If you wish to see the game through to its finish, we need you to support it financially for the next few months, and if you know people that want to support it, encourage them to subscribe now. (During this period, we will offer only month-to-month subscriptions.)

On August 28, we had to lay off the majority of the Goblinworks staff. Continuing to push the game forward are CTO Mark Kalmes, Art Director Mike Hines, and Designer Bob Settles. We have been keeping the staff abreast of our efforts to find funding for Pathfinder Online and that we would likely have to lay them off on the 28th. We felt it was super important to give our employees warning so they could plan their lives accordingly. Their efforts to line up new jobs led to some of the rumors about layoffs. So why didn’t we announce this earlier? Because there was and still remains a chance for Pathfinder Online to get its funding and continue forward, so it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that we would have to lay the staff off until Friday, the 28th.

Future

For the past few weeks, we have been shopping Pathfinder Online to a number of other game publishers, looking for a good fit to take the game on and fund it over the finish line. There have been quite a few companies coming out of the woodwork to discuss this with us and we are in ongoing talks with a number of them about the possibilities. More companies enter the fray every day. These kinds of things take some time, though we are motivated to see them through as quickly as we can. At any moment, one of these publishers could agree to buy the game and we could quickly ramp up to full tilt again. Due to confidentiality, we can’t provide information on these negotiations. Rest assured that you will be the first people we tell when there is news we can share.

This isn’t a super rosy picture, but we aren’t dead yet! The Goblinworks team and the Pathfinder Online community have been underdogs for pretty much the entire project’s history. But we have persevered and survived. Sometimes it is darkest right before the dawn. When I was at White Wolf, we were close to having our electricity and phones shut off in the month before Vampire: The Masquerade released and became a huge hit. At Wizards of the Coast, we had to lay off the entire staff for 9 months before Magic: The Gathering launched and became one of the most successful games in history. You have my word that I will work relentlessly to find the right partner to take Pathfinder Online through to the finish line. The team has brought the ball down the field to the red zone, and now we just need somebody to punch it over the goal line.

I will be hosting another Keepside Chat on Wednesday, September 8th at its normal time of 5pm PST. You can join the chat live by going to:

Golarion.mumble.com

Port 3093

The ability for us to make Pathfinder Online has always been entirely dependent upon you, the Pathfinder Online Community and the support you have given us. I would like to thank the Pathfinder Online community for your fierce dedication, support, feedback, and drive to see this game made well. The only reason to make Pathfinder Online is you, our customer. I hope you will stay with us over the next few months as we search for that proper partner to finish the game. It is your support, literally, that will allow this to happen. Without you, there is no Pathfinder Online.

You have my eternal gratitude,

Lisa Stevens
Acting CEO
Goblinworks Inc.





Original post:

Goblinworks has laid off all but three of the Pathfinder Online staff.

 

[Dannager]

Where are the usual people who seem to enjoy posting how D&D 5e is failing and WoTC is going under when they lay off people? Under their same stupid mindset and comments, Paizo is minutes away from going under.

To be fair, this isn't Paizo. This is GoblinWorks. My understanding is that they are entirely separate entities. There is obviously a lot of overlap between the two in terms of IP and creative input, but Paizo spun GoblinWorks off deliberately in order to minimize the impact on their core business should an outcome like this come to pass.

I certainly don't agree that WotC deciding to lay a couple people off is indicative of anything in terms of product success, but I also don't think this is an analogous situation. Imagine if Turbine laid off most of their staff. Who would take that as an indication that D&D as a product line is failing? Pretty much no one, because Turbine is responsible for Turbine's product.

 

[EthanSental]

I think that's my point in that people just jump feet first and think the world is ending due to a layoff without much thought or care put into their posts.

I initially thought PF online would be a great system, sounded great and I was enjoying PF then as well. I do think they overstepped their ability to deliver and know it about a year into it.

 

[Feeroper]

I really wanted to like this game. I backed both KS's and hoped that it could grow up from its proposed humble start. I'm sad to see it turned out this way and hope anyone affected by the layoff finds new work quick.

Having said that, I used up my early enrollment allotment from the KS, and I just could not get into it. I had hoped to see some significant improvements to jump back in, but it just seemed to stay the same. I think the reliance on subscriptions during the alpha/beta phases was a bad call. I understand that they needed the funding, but the expectations will be different from the customer now if they are paying month to month. The game was not much of a looker too. They had a booth at Gen Con next to the Paizo booth that was running this game, but it looked pretty rough still.

Hope their luck changes.

 

[Koloth]

This illustrates why companies often create subsidiaries when doing new projects. If the projects succeeds, the subsidiary gets absorbed back into the main company or sold off for a large profit. If if fails like this, the damage is limited.

I was a backer of the 2nd KS. The other stuff included with the KS makes it hard to classify the KS as a bad loss. IMO, the game graphics were right out of the mid 90s at best. The game mechanics and training missions seemed rather clunky and crude. It didn't help that during one of the training missions, the game ate the pack of 'special' stuff characters received near the start. Lost interest soon after that. Even after many years of playing, 10 year old Guild Wars 1 is still a better game with better graphics.

Hopefully, they can find a partner or buyer to complete the game to modern standards and then offer all current and past subscribers and KS backers some number of free trial months in the completed game.

 

[TheSwartz]

I might be the oddball. I don't like pathfinder at all, I actually backed the (second) KS cause I had hoped it'd live up to it's hype.

That being said, I'm not surprised at all that it failed. Within 20 seconds of playing the game after it finally came out was an enormous disappointment. In my opinion, they need to cut their losses and completely give up now. It's seriously the worst game I've played in over a decade.

 

[Queer Venger]

Pathfinder having layoffs?!?!? Hmmm....

 

[MoonSong]

I feel bad for those affected by this, but honestly, I felt bad for everyone involved with the Kickstarter back when it first appeared.

Man, poor Dancey isn't exactly batting 1.000, is he?

d20 licence leads to d20 bust
D&D OGL leads to Paizo taking over market share
CCP's WoD MMO crashes and burns
now Pathfinder Online...

At least he helped fund L5R's start. I forgive him the rest of that stuff, because 5 Rings is awesome.

You know, 1 & 2 kinda look like successes to me...

 

[Dannager]

You know, 1 & 2 kinda look like successes to me...

If unintended, adverse outcomes for your employer at the time can be considered "successes", sure.

So on that note, I mean, sure, it's possible that PFO's present turmoil will lead to a positive outcome for the wider RPG community down the road, but it's certainly not the outcome the stakeholders were hoping for.

 

[rknop]

d20 licence leads to d20 bust
D&D OGL leads to Paizo taking over market share

You're wrong about these.

People seem to remember the glut of mediocre d20 products and the crash that followed. But that's not all that happened. There were some real gems in there, and an entire industry that wouldn't have existed without the whole OGL/d20 thing. It's analogous to the dot-com bust of the late 1990s. There was a LOT of crap produced (in both booms), and eventually it crashed because people realized it was crap and wasn't worth it. But some things persisted. Would you say that the entire public coming-out of the Internet, as represented by the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, was a bad thing? Things like Google, Amazon.com, and the entire web ecosystem we have right now-- including ENWorld-- either where the gems that survived that crash, or things that came out of what the boom built.

And. Paizo taking over the market share. That was the OGL functioning as intended. If you read what Dancy said about the OGL when it first came out, part of the purpose of it was so that one company couldn't kill the core roleplaying game by either going under, or by making bad decisions. it almost happened with the TSR nightmare of late-2e era. And, it would have happened, with 4e. Yeah, a lot of people liked 4e, but more people didn't, and Hasbro/WotC mishandled it pretty seriously. Yet, D&D didn't die-- because the OGL allowed it to continue, in the form of Pathfinder (and some other 3e derivatives). The purpose of the OGL was bigger than just a business push for WotC, it was for the health of gaming. And it worked in spaces. Yeah, PO has been pretty much a disaster that a lot of us saw coming for a long time. But all of us owe Dancy a debt for having pushed the OGL through WotC back in the 3e days, because that was a huge boon and a huge gift to our entire hobby.

 

[Zil]

Pathfinder having layoffs?!?!? Hmmm....

The layoffs were at Goblinworks. It's a different entity from Paizo, but Lisa Stevens is the CEO of both (she was appointed acting CEO of Goblinworks after the departure of Ryan Dancey).

From the FAQ section of the release today:

Q: Is Paizo taking over running Goblinworks?
A: No. Goblinworks is a licensee of Paizo's. While Lisa Stevens is also the CEO at Paizo, Paizo is not "taking the reins" or increasing its involvement in Pathfinder Online in any way (they are busy enough as it is!). Goblinworks is currently seeking investors or an acquisition to move the game forward. Paizo itself is focused on their tabletop offerings.