Hey everybody,
So, here's the skinny, briefly:
1. Due to the need to continue to polish this game, in particular the clarity of things and the battle mechanics in general, as WELL as the need for proper time to do marketing, I've decided to push the release date back by about a month.
2. If you're looking to be a tester, this is actually good news, because there will be more slots over a longer period of time, now.
3. In terms of how this affects our staff, our fulltime staff is shrinking from 7 to 4. Josh (tigersfan) is no longer with us as of today, and anything that you would normally send to him, please send to me instead. Two other members of the staff are also affected (Erik and Cath), but this will not affect our ability to produce games. As income hopefully rises in the future, we hope to be able to potentially shift back up to a fulltime staff of 5, with everyone being production-oriented in their job role.
4. I had hoped to stabilize ultimately at a company size of 8, but for now we're looking at 4. This is something that we can still do a whole lot of work with, and it's a lot more stable for us financially. As much as it hurts to let people go who have been a vital part of this company, purely looking at this from a job function standpoint, the needs of Arcen have been slimmed down and focused some with this layoff, so from the company's side it is sort of a good thing. That said, we're losing some damn good people, which hurts no matter how you cut it. It's just the reality of what sort of jobs are fully needed at the company at our current size and community level, and that whole income vs expenses curve, basically.
5. We shall see what the future holds, but unlike in 2010, please don't take this as a "the sky is falling, we need help" sort of event. This is just... one of those things that is unfortunately a part of business. I hate it, it's been very hard on me (and infinitely more hard on those laid off), but it's part of refining the business, not closing up shop or something. Ever since Arcen's inception in 2009, we've been on a growth curve, always trying to grow our capabilities as our income also grew. Our expenses often grew a bit faster than our income, or the two struggled to stay neck and neck. We've grown enormously in income, at least 13% to 20% every year except 2012, but the pressures of a larger staff were such that we still were always teetering on the edge.
6. Now we're hitting a new stage of life as a company, where instead the focus is on stability and building up savings so that we can weather bumps and lurches without wondering where money is coming from next month or the month after. I had hoped to enter this phase of our company's life with a total staff of 7 or 8, as I mentioned above, but ultimately the only number we can support right now is 4. With the core team of myself (mainly design and writing, and programming secondarily, plus support and all the business stuff, and some bits of art), Pablo (music, and now once again sound), Keith (programming, and some design secondarily), and Blue (art, plus managing any art contractors we wind up working with), we're in good shape to be able to continue to make the sort of games we want to make. The hope is to be able to bring Cath back into the fold at some point, but we shall see what happens. Erik will still be involved with us for PR, but not on a fulltime basis; this mainly affects our social media presence more than anything else, but with my focus on also personally doing more blog posts and videos this should more than balance our in our favor.
7. All in all you don't need to worry about us. It's a very sad day for us because the staff here has been very close despite a lot of us never having physically met (due to being geographically remote from one another). But ultimately, for the company, this was the right move for a lot of reasons. We won't have to rush around so much as we have in the past, which is a really big deal, for one. Money won't be so much of a pressure, and if we can build up savings then that will be even less so. That in turn will let us focus more on the actual creation process (which it's not like we didn't before, but still) rather than sometimes being distracted by "well, we have to hit X date because otherwise kaboom."
8. Just because our fulltime staff has shrunk to 4 doesn't mean that's all the support we have. Erik is still going to be involved bigtime in all the important PR events, where he has had such a large impact; and he also occasionally contracts for doing some writing or other similar production-related things. Kevin remains our go-to guy for trailers when we need them. We have a variety of voice actors and musicians we work with from time to time. We have an even wider variety of other artists that we work with from time to time. We have a contract accountant, and a lawyer for the very rare times we need one, and both are very good. And so on. There's a wide support network that we have, but it's a big difference having people with a few hours here and there on an as-needed basis, versus people who are fulltime unavoidable monthly expenses; that latter category can be absolutely killer when there is the prospect of a project running even one more month, for instance. All in all it really does take a village to make these games, and there are a lot of people you don't necessarily see, but who have been periodically involved for years. All that remains the same, but our core staff is now entirely production-focused (aka, focused on the making of games).
Right now we're looking at the 24th of March as our target release date. We're working on revised combat stuff, but it's been... a rather off weekend and day today, to say the least. So there is more good stuff coming really soon regarding combat, but you'll have to wait a bit more for details and to be able to play it. Those patience cards are going to get a bit more wear on them, but it's for the best.
Thanks for your understanding and for your support during this difficult transition time for us. Please continue to offer us your feedback and suggestions on the game as if nothing has changed, however, as from a practical standpoint of how we need to finish this game, nothing has (aside from the fact that we now have an extra month of time).
