Given the community backlash they've received over some of their EVE expansion content, CCP has decided to refocus their efforts on EVE and DUST 514

It seems like CCP has been having a baaaad month. A few weeks ago, CCP CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson formally apologized for the controversies surrounding the sale of certain virtual goods in the Noble Exchange store, and this week's announcement comes in the form of a global layoff affecting about 20% of CCP staff; with most of those layoffs coming from their Atlanta, GA office, and a few select losses in CCP's main offices in Reykjavik, Iceland. In their letter to the public, CCP makes it clear that the global layoffs are a result of the company wanting to focus more heavily on EVE Online and the launch of DUST 514. Feeling that many of their mistakes with EVE were the result of a team stretched too thin working on EVE Online, DUST 514, and World of Darkness, CCP had this to say:

For the immediate future, our mission is to enrich the vast EVE Universe by strengthening the continuous development of EVE Online while preparing to bring DUST 514 to market on the PS3. We do this in order to realize our ambitious and challenging plan of joining the two in a cross-platform, truly massive online world.

World of Darkness will continue development with a significantly reduced team. This team will continue to iterate and expand on the gameplay and systems they have designed. We will also redeploy creative teams in Atlanta to support the launch of DUST 514.

Bad news for World of Darkness fans who were hoping they might see this MMORPG sooner than later, but this is certainly good news for any EVE Online players who are eagerly looking forward to the launch of DUST 514. As usual with CCP, this is a bold move to address key problems, so let's hope they work!