Turbine Studios

Turbine Studios was hit with layoffs last week. It follows the high profile layoffs at Bigpoints’ LA studio and Zyngas' Austin studio this week. The makers of Lord of the Rings Online, Turbine is seen by many in the gaming world as one of the best examples of a F2P conversion from subscription-only based payment structure. Turbine just released its forth expansion, Riders of Rohan. After a game goes gold there are routine layoffs, as companies will often hire temp workers in the crunch time before launch. If these round of layoffs are merely that then there is little to be concerned about with the regards to the overall health of the company, but if the layoffs are more dire than the gaming world must step back and try to understand if F2P is working in its current iteration.