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NCsoft announced layoffs for their Western publishing staff earlier today and now it looks like GamersFirst has followed suit.

Earlier today now former APB: Reloaded producer, Jon- Enée Merriex, known as Neume to forum dwellers, stated that he had joined the ranks of the unemployed on his Twitter page. As expected, this led to a lot of speculation and eventually GamersFirst responded.

Revoemag posted a response to address community concerns over Neume’s departure announcement and assured fans that all of APB: Reloaded’s core staff are still working on the game.

Hey guys, since everyone went (understandably) crazy over Neume announcing that he is no longer part of the APB:R Project, I'm just going to explain a few things to reassure people.

To explain, G1 has done a slight management reshuffle, and as such Neume has moved on from G1, this has absolutely zero to do with APB:R's financial situation (Which is FINE by the way) or the security or future of the APB:R Project. Neume was one of the producers for APB:R but he was not the only producer, and I believe his position has been filled by someone with equal talent.

At this time there is absolutely nothing to worry about, all the core staff are still here at Reloaded and Gamersfirst. I repeat, there is absolutely nothing to panic about.

We are very sorry that Neume is no longer part of the team, and he will be missed by the RP and G1 team for his knowledge and experience and we all wish him well on his journey.

TechMech added to the post with a few more words confirming that some people were no longer with the company.

Yes it is true that as of today there are certain individuals who are no longer with the company here in California. Clearly under various employment laws there are no way I or anyone else can discuss this with anyone on a message board.

I do want to make it absolutely clear - that APB is continuing, no people from the development studio are or will be affected by these changes, and tomorrow we will have others like Quinzle and her team who will continue running the show for APB community management and general production tasks.

We don’t know the number of people that may no longer be with Reloaded Productions or GamersFirst, but according to a tip received by Massively it could be as many as 32 staffers and possibly the GamersFirst CFO. This information remains a rumor at the moment and while it has been confirmed that some people are no longer with the company, who aside from Neume they are remains a mystery.

As always, we would like to wish those affected the best in their future endeavors.

Update: GamersFirst has posted an update to clarify the recent layoff rumors.

Sources:
via Massively
Neume's Twitter Announcement
GamersFirst Forums