Funcom, the developer behind Dune: Awakening and Conan Exiles, has announced a restructuring process that will result in layoffs at the company, and that current CEO Rui Casais will leave Funcom once the reorganisation is complete.
The decision comes after a shift in direction at Funcom, whereby the studio will focus wholly on supporting its existing survival RPGs. In a statement (via GamesIndustry.biz) Casais said that Dune: Awakening was “the biggest project we have ever undertaken, requiring many years of significant development resources across our studios”. He continued that “moving from full production into long-term post-launch development and operations requires a different organisation.
“While we would have wanted everyone who helped build Dune: Awakening to continue with us, we cannot sustain the size and structure required during peak development as we move into this next phase. My focus now is ensuring the process is as supportive as possible for everyone affected, and to treat our colleagues with the respect and transparency they deserve.”
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Dune: Awakening was a big hit for Funcom when it was released in June last year, with the survival MMO shifting a million copies in two weeks to become the fastest-selling game in the Norwegian developer’s history. Despite this initial success, however, the longer-term performance of the game is harder to gauge.
In the months following release, Awakening’s player counts dropped substantially, with the game’s PvP elements and faction-based endgame receiving a mixed response from the community. Funcom enacted a round of layoffs in October last year, while last month the studio overhauled Dune: Awakening to pivot away from its MMO elements, adding both solo play and PvE exclusive modes (though the game does still support more competitive multiplayer).
Alongside the changes to Awakening, Funcom’s other survival game Conan Exiles also received a substantial upgrade this year, getting a new engine, a major paid expansion, and an “enhanced endowment slider” for fancier player-character genitals.
Now that both those reworks are complete, Funcom’s plan seems to be to rest on its games for the foreseeable future. In a chat with GamesIndustry last month, Funcom’s Chief Creative Officer Joel Bylos said the studio is “not ready to start a new game” and that any plans for future projects amounted to “wispy thoughts in the back of our heads.”
Funcom did not share the number of employees affected by the layoffs. But in a press release, the company stated that restructuring “begins now” and that it will not share additional details until after the process has concluded “out of respect for the employees involved.” Once the reorganisation is complete, Rui Casais will be succeeded by Scott Junior, Funcom’s Chief Product Officer and Executive Producer on Dune Awakening.
