Earlier in the week when Mythic announced that they'll be shutting down 63 Warhammer Online servers, it was clear that things with the game are getting progressively worse.

Over the course of our lives, I'm sure we've all said things that, given the chance, we'd really like to take back. Marie Antoinette would probably like to rescind her cake-bread faux pas (historical legitimacy aside), George W. Bush might wish that he hadn't talked to the press at all (although you could argue that incoherency is a valid tactic), and while Republican Chairman Michael Steele is hilariously adroit at saying things and taking them back, even he suffers from the consequences of both.

Looking to our own MMO world, perhaps another individual who would like to join this list is Mark Jacobs, VP of Mythic and lead designer of Warhammer Online. You see, way back in August of '08, Jacobs granted an interview to MTV Multiplayer, where he went on to say:

"The corollary to that is if you've seen a game consolidate servers, you know it's in deep, deep trouble - that's not a healthy sign for an MMO," he said, citing Sony's January-released "Pirates of the Burning Sea" as a recent example. "It will be the same for 'Warhammer.' Look at us six months out. Look at us six weeks out. If we're not adding servers, we're not doing well."

Well, it's been six months now, and in a coincidence of both awkward and epic proportions, Mythic has announced the closure of 63 Warhammer Online servers, 43 in North America and 20 in Europe.

Ouch.

While Jacobs has managed to defuse troubling layoff numbers - attributing the staff reductions to the "move from a pre-launch to a post-launch size" - getting caught by his own words is probably going to prove more difficult to parry.

Is this an indication that Warhammer Online is in trouble?

In the '08 interview previously mentioned, Jacobs also said that he wanted WAR to be "no less than number two" in the MMO industry, but numbers indicate that Mythic's latest MMO is about 200,000 shy of old-timer FFXI's 500,000 subscriber base.

Massively.com's Brook Pilley has also argued that, despite Jacob's sugar-coated "State of the Game" address, it's a little bit bizarre when "someone can spin nearly 1,000 bug and polish fixes into a good thing (especially at the six-month point in the game's life cycle)."

Finally, as any former WAR player ("Pwyffy Pwyfftastic of Order!") may have seen, Mythic has been emailing players who left the game more than 30 days ago, enticing them with 10 days of free game time, free items, bonus XP and renown, and the opportunity to "see why WAR is better than ever."

In the end, while Mythic's behaviour is indicative of a company which is "in deep, deep trouble" (according to Jacobs), at least their 300,000 subscriber mark is well above other floundering MMOs. On the other hand, while I'm relatively certain that a team backed by EA is not going to die, if Mythic's latest attempt at bolstering their player base does not succeed, Jacob's own words may soon prove to be prophetic.