David Whatley No Longer CEO of Simutronics
Surprised someone hasn't posted about this yet over here. But for those that don't frequent discord, I give you this announcement and posts from Wyrom(Gemstone4) and Lyneya(DragonRealms):
Wyrom's TL;DR Summary:[10:19 AM]Wyrom: The Simutronics team in St. Louis has become somewhat smaller. We are sad to see some of our our friends and family leave, but we want you to know that the same key team is still in place. DragonRealms, GemStone IV, and their communities will have the full support of Simutronics and Stillfront Group, and we will continue to develop and maintain the games with our full focus.
Lyneya's TL;DR Summary:[6:53 PM]Wyrom: Placing all the recent information that was announced here in a single forum post.
The Simutronics team in St. Louis has become somewhat smaller. We are sad to see some of our our friends and family leave, but we want you to know that the same key team is still in place. DragonRealms, GemStone IV, and their communities will have the full support of Simutronics and Stillfront Group, and we will continue to develop and maintain the games with our full focus.
Chris "Skippy" Moore will be taking over as CEO of Simutronics. Skippy has been with Simutronics for over 20 years and was the COO over the company. He is very in touch with DragonRealms and GemStone IV and even started as a DR GM. He has been my direct leadership and we work very well together.
I want to reiterate that both DragonRealms and GemStone IV are the focus of the company and all of the Simutronics staff are committed to that. I know the general thought it that for years, Simutronics put all their efforts into other projects, and while other projects did take the spotlight, we're now the priority.
For us over here, you'll still have Chris in billing and myself working on the game. Chris does get split with DR and works directly with Lyneya, their Product Manager. For the time being, we're working on the transition, so I just ask for everyone's patience as we adjust to these changes. This news comes after Creating Adventure, and I did not know about any of this until this week, but we are still dedicated to everything we stated in that announcement as well. Our GameMasters are still here to continue to work on the game. I might be more behind the scenes, but I am still working around the clock to make sure we continue to have growth.
Budget/Expansion:[12:53 PM]Lyneya: The studio is just IFE-focused now. From the meetings I've had with the SVPs of Stillfront this week, their intent is to give us the focus and support we need to continue being as successful as we have been. The changes were related to development of other games, and the losses were mainly people who did not work with our department at all.
As far as immediate impact - Well, there's going to be a transition period of course. The office in St Louis is very large, and with fewer people needing to be on site there's no need for that amount of space. So I imagine that'll be a thing in the coming months. There's a lot of detangling to do, contracts to end and services to cancel. Additionally, as the engineers we do have left turn their attention more specifically to us, they're going to need some time to research some of the older pieces of our engine. You all may remember that our dedicated engineer retired last year, and his position had not been filled yet.
As far as longterm impact, we can expect that in time we'll have a bit more help and support with some of our legacy issues with the IFEs. As far as other/future projects, at this time we're going to be entirely focused on our existing and successful games. If the studio does take on another project down the road, it will be after the dust has settled, things have sorted out, and we have a handle on what the best foot forward is as a team. If and when we do take on a new project, it will not impact this focus on the IFE games.
[1:06 PM]Lyneya: It's always stressful to know so many people are out of work. There's a bit of survivor's guilt, I'm sure you can understand. But there's also some optimism - Stillfront is invested in me, my team, our game. They were very good about making sure that I (and Mario over in GS) know that what we've been doing is great and awesome and that they want to give us the tools to continue doing it for a long time to come.
CEO Announced:[1:18 PM]Lyneya: It would be premature to make changes to the budget while we're working through a transition period. For the company, this is a big change. For our department, it isn't. We'll have to wait and see what things look like as the dust settles.
[1:24 PM]Maintain: Interesting. Does that mean there's a full-time on-site programmer for IFE now/coming?
[1:28 PM]Lyneya: We have a full-time on-site computer engineer for the maintenance of the engines. We also have a full-time on-site IT guy for compliance, network, etc. We have me. We have Mario. We have Chris. We have a 2D artist for promos and marketing. We have a new CEO (who has been with the company for more than 20 years).
That's what we have today. What comes in the future is not known yet, transition time, yadda yadda, see above comments.
Galahad 3093 Info & Layoff Numbers:[1:31 PM]Lyneya: Skippy is taking the helm for us. Some of you may be aware that he started out as a DR GM in the ‘90s.
[2:21 PM]Vanzok: This a big RIP Galahad, yeah?
[2:23 PM]Lyneya: I mean. It’s there on steam but yeah … no more dev for it.
[2:26 PM]Lyneya: Yeah. My stress right now is surrounding the people I’ve been working with for years who are looking for work today.
[2:28 PM]Lyneya: These changes are good for our IFE games. I’m in a better place professionally than I was last week, and last week my position was already very strong. But I feel crappy for the 30 people who aren’t in that spot.
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Originally Posted by Taernath
