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.

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.

 

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Nylanfs

Hero
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.

Oathbound
 

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Just a point of fact that while Paizo is connected here, they deliberately set up Goblinworks as the company to handle Pathfinder Online, most likely (I suspected) to isolate the costs and liabilities from Paizo proper....which was a good decision. So while this is clearly the death-spiral for Goblinworks, I think Paizo has made sure it doesn't get impacted.
 

Greybird

Explorer
An MMO wouldn't have been a bad choice, if they make a PvE Pathfinder MMO which actually fits the tabletop game, ie. you are adventuring in groups and fighting monsters instead of each other. But no, they had to go with a PvP fantasy EVE clone.

It wouldn't have been a bad choice, but it wouldn't have been the best choice. Pathfinder is a household name amongst pen-and-paper gamers, but it isn't amongst video gamers. They needed to have a well-received game or two to get their brand name into the video gaming market before embarking on a project in an oversaturated portion of that market that would have required brand recognition to get a foothold.

As to the developers - I feel sorry for the staff. I feel sorry for the coders, the artists, and the writers who suddenly find themselves out of a job. I do not have much sympathy for the project leads or Paizo, though. They made a series of terrible decisions, and were told - repeatedly, and from many sources - that they were making bad decisions and had little chance of success. They ignored all of that and insisted that doing it anyway. The knowingly took this route, wasted investors' money, and destroyed the company. That isn't something I feel deserves sympathy.
 

I wanted to like this MMO. The idea of a player driven one was cool. But the game just failed to grab me and I felt lost half the time. There's sooooo many skills and it's not clear what does what or how to advance.
 


Henry

Autoexreginated
Oathbound

To this I would add:
Mutants & Masterminds
The OSR movement
The Fate RPG (by virtue of FUDGE's OGL adoption)


And two of my personal favorites:
True Sorcery by Green Ronin
Grim Tales RPG (which sadly very few people use any more since Savage Worlds became popular)

Quite a few gems indeed.
 

Henry

Autoexreginated
Just a point of fact that while Paizo is connected here, they deliberately set up Goblinworks as the company to handle Pathfinder Online, most likely (I suspected) to isolate the costs and liabilities from Paizo proper....which was a good decision. So while this is clearly the death-spiral for Goblinworks, I think Paizo has made sure it doesn't get impacted.

Yeah, people shouldn't get the two confused - though I am sad to hear it, I also wasn't terribly surprised. All the video demos i had seen really left me underwhelmed, kind of like that old game Shadowbane? It was lacking the polish of even DDO (which i didn't consider very sharp for the short time i played it).

Also, when Lisa was standing in for all the MMO talks at Gencon, and Ryan was never mentioned, it gave me suspicions that all was not well. Unfortunately, it appears I was right. :( hope he's OK, and the personal issues get resolved.
 

mosaic

Explorer
Too bad. I supported both Kickstarters, got some nice limited-release Pathfinder books, maps and minis as rewards. I played Pathfinder Online for a while, had fun, but realized I'm more of a pen-and-paper guy myself. But I certainly don't feel ripped off or like the Goblinworks team failed me. It was always an experiment, one that everyone knew was going to be expensive. Had it succeeded, it would have been something really, REALLY fun. I guess it didn't end up being fun enough for a critical mass of people. Bummer. But I am in no way bitter, nor does this in any way diminish my respect for any of the developers or the Pathfinder brand. Not everything in life succeeds, folks, and if you don't try something new or take any chances, you end up doing the same mediocre thing forever. The glee and gloating "I told you so's" with which some folks are greeting this news - news that is a setback for our RPG community as a whole, and news that means a group of folks who wanted to take RPGs to a wider audience are now out of work - saddens me. I've never understood why some people seem to need to see someone fail to find their own validation.
 


neobolts

Explorer
Even people I know who are big Paizo/PF fans were confused by this game when it was announced. A combat system not rooted in 3e, an older MMO model, and a PvP focus made it confusing from the start. It's never good when companies in this hobby have setbacks...but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't skeptical from the start.

I feel bad for the KS backers. It's always 'buyer beware', but when backing a big gaming brand like PF no one thinks about it failing once funded. The risk level is presumed to be very low.
 

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