Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Turbine reportedly cuts staff levels

By Mass High Tech staff

Game developer Turbine Inc. has cut staff levels at both its Westwood headquarters and its new California studios, according to online reports.

Turbine, which just last month released the Mines of Moria expansion pack to its Lord of the Rings Online massively multi-player online role-playing game, didn’t release details of the number of employees or the positions, but one of the online reports, from GamesIndustry.biz, says that it believes the positions were in QA and account management.

In early October, Turbine opened a West Coast studio in Redwood City, Calif. The new creative unit features former Flagship Studios co-founder Dave Brevik as creative director, Jeff Lind from Ping0 as engineering director and Matt McKnight of Sniper Studios as studio director.

Later in the same month, Turbine announced it had leased new space in Dedham. At the time, the company said it was hiring, and in its article today GamesIndustry.biz quoted a Turbine spokesperson as saying the company is still hiring and planning for growth in 2009. The spokesperson said that Turbine was adjusting its resources now that Mines of Moria is on the shelves.

In April, Turbine landed $40 million in a third round of venture capital funding. Granite Global Ventures led the Series C financing, which included previous investors Highland Capital Partners, Polaris Venture Partners, Tudor Ventures and Columbia Capital. Granite Global managing partner Hani Nada has taken a seat on the Turbine board.