The RIFT team posted an update regarding the changes to their organizational structure after a month of transitioning with their new overlords, Gamigo.
As I mentioned back in October, the majority of the development team were let go when Trion Worlds was suddenly dissolved as a legal corporation and its assets were immediately put under the control of Gamigo. That was a conscious decision by Gamigo to let them go immediately and telegraphed the future of the game. If they were serious about continually expanding it, they would’ve retained those key folks since RIFT was a game created by Trion. And it makes little sense to lose that talent and expertise from the start.
This letter only confirms what is old news and while it tries to put a positive spin on the situation, it doesn’t require much reading between the lines to realize that RIFT will end up being like many of the other titles in Gamigo’s library; maintenance mode hell catering to the loyal diehards who will be just satisfied that they’ll still be able to login (and I cannot fault players for that when they have a significant attachment to that title). All of the remaining development teams priorities will be getting those titles (including Glyph), tied into Gamigo’s backend systems (XLGAMES will have to do the same for ArcheAge).
The premise of possibly expanding the RIFT development team again in the future is more of a faint hope there will be a better future under Gamigo’s control (and all it takes is noting how games that were under Aeria’s control before the merge, to become even worse cash grabs after the merger) compared to how Trion was trying every possible method to extract what they could from their players (that was clear with some of the cash shop decisions as well as RIFT Prime).
My opinion on Gamigo hasn’t changed (equal to and worse than Trion Worlds when it comes to how their published titles are monetized). If there is any consolation for players of these Trion titles, it’s the fact that Gamigo hasn’t outright shuttered them from the start, and they have maintained a stable of other games that don’t have much of a player population.
