Jeff Strain Strains My Relationship With ArenaNet, Leaves NCSoft West

So, aside from my day without the internet (that day being yesterday), and a doctor’s appointment that took an hour longer than it should have, I had a somewhat a-okay day. Upon my return to the virtual world, however, I find that all is not well in the land of MMOs. According to an article at MMORPG.com, Jeff Strain and David Reid are done with NCSoft.

NCsoft West Public Relations Director Ryan James had the following to say about the departure of Strain:

“With a successful history creating MMORPG games, NCsoft has made an indelible mark on the games industry. Last year, the South Korea-based NCsoft created a division to follow a vision of bringing AAA MMOs to the West called NCsoft West. This organization was formed as part of NCsoft’s ongoing vision to be the premier global MMO publisher in the world. With that vision, change in a growth industry is inevitable. NCsoft West announces the departure of Jeff Strain, President of Product Development, who has chosen to leave NCsoft under amicable terms and NCsoft wishes him the best in his new endeavor. This does not change our plans or negatively impact our upcoming launch of Aion, and NCsoft remains very excited about the game’s launch on September 22nd in the U.S. and September 25th in Europe. These changes do not influence any other teams, development schedules or other launches.”

Bullshit! This is yelling to me that ArenaNet is slowly dying out, and Guild Wars 2 will soon fall into a “Duke Nukem coma”, while the original Guild Wars withers away in a painful death that has been shared by Tabula Rasa and Auto Assault. With Aion soon to be released in a little over a month, NCSoft had better get its proverbial shit together before it hits the proverbial fan if they want to become a global MMO juggernaut, but, as for me, NCSoft is dying, Aion will not do as well as they need it to over here in North America, and with all the player-hype it has, it only has room to plummet to its death…only to has its heart replaced by a battery and kept alive by shocking itself with jolts of fanboys.

Jeff Strain and David Reid Out At NCsoft @ MMORPG.com [via Massively]