I am a former employee of Frogster. As you may know, Gameforge has acquired Frogster and one of their first orders of business was to fire 100 employees: http://www.tentonhammer.com/stis/news/gameforge-layoffs-claim-100-jobs-future-of-star-trek-infinite-space-uncertain. This also included the employees of Frogster America, which is now a hollow shell. As of December, Frogster Europe has taken over nearly all of the duties that the employees that Frogster America did; you can see this on website and forums as all the posts are now being made by Frogster EU employees.
I understand why Gameforge/Frogster needed to layoff employees, it's the nature of the gaming industry. One year you are on top, the next year you are struggling. I am not some jaded employee that doesn't understand what must be done. What I do have a very serious problem with (and my reason for this blog post) is that Frogster has apparently decided not to make it publicly known to the players in North America that the Frogster America office is now closed. Runes of Magic is a great game, but it's players deserve to know where the support for the game is coming from.
The reasons for the layoffs are transparent. One of Frogster's games, Mythos, was shut down only 6 months after launching. TERA has been delayed yet again. Gameforge's game, Star Trek Infinite Space, will not see the light of day unless they get help from another publisher. Runes of Magic continues to lose players at the end-game because of the long list of bugs that have been around for years that Runewaker refuses to take the time to fix. All of this information is public knowledge.
To circle back to Frogster America, it is incredibly arrogant of Gameforge/Frogster to think that they can offer the same level of support from Germany that the FAI office in San Francisco provided. The time difference alone makes it extremely difficult.
But as I mentioned before, the main reason why I made this post was to inform the players that FAI is no longer at the helm of RoM in North America. This means that many of the things that FAI enacted that Frogster EU didn't, such as the new Owenstein, will probably never return. Again, the level of arrogance and lack of transparency is just astounding.
You have probably also seen that Runewaker has posted a video for their new project, Dragon Prophet: http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/11/02/runewaker-entertainment-announces-dragons-prophet/ . All I will say here is that a development studio that has it's attention divided among two large games like this... well I'll let you fill in the blanks. I just want to see Runes of Magic get the attention it deserves.
So, why am I remaining anonymous? Because it's just not worth the hassle; most of you probably wouldn't know who I am anyway. There are many things that I could reveal about the inner workings of Frogster and their relationship with Runewaker, but I think it best to stick to what is already apparent to the public.
I am not encouraging the players in North America to stop playing RoM. I just don't want them to have any false hope or expectations of what to look forward to in the future. In most cases, what you see is what you get.
Gameforge is now calling the shots. They are huge in Europe but have only begun to scrape the surface of the North American market. Why they would choose to close their only significant doorway into North America is baffling.
I write this not to vent or complain, but to hopefully provoke thought and change in those that are the decision-makers. Make no mistake, I want a bright future for Runes of Magic and Frogster (what is left of it), but ideals need to be altered if it is to get there.
