A follow-up report by Next-Generation has NCsoft’s response to what they’re characterizing as “sloppy” and “sensational” article. (To be fair with the criticism, some of their own subscribers may characterize Tabula Rasa as “buggy”, “hyped”, and lacking in the end-game too. -Scott)

While Swofford acknowledged that the game “could have done a little better” and that “there’s a possibility that there could be downsizing with the TR team”, he was keen to counter a number of the claims made.

“The Korea Times English edition story is full of inaccuracies,” he said. “No one at NCsoft said the product is a financial disaster. That came from the writer and is his opinion.

“The TR development did not cost $100 million. I don’t know where that came from. The price tag for the product was much less…a fraction of that cost. Tabula Rasa was not restarted more than twice. It had one overhaul and that came after 2-3 years of development.

“The article made it sound like the TR launch led to some sort of falling out with Robert Garriott. That is so far from the truth. In fact Robert has been promoted to work more with CEO TJ Kim on business development. Yes Robert is out of the day-to-day operations, but he’s still in the office and now travels much more for the company than he did before.

“Yes there’s a possibility that there could be downsizing with the TR team. Some of that is due to the cyclical nature of game development (product is out and the team downsizes). Some is due to the fact that the product could have done a little better. But there is a lot going on with the TR team. They are working on more updates. We are planning a Japan launch later in the year. And the company is planning on investing millions into the product, so it’s not going away and in fact we have plans to grow it.

“The Korea Times story was very inflammatory. The writer is notorious for writing sloppy and sensational articles about NCsoft. Also the Korea Times English edition is not the same as the Korea Times printed in Korean. It’s (the English edition) very low on the totem pole and is not any sort of high standard for journalism in Korea.”

Source: Next-Gen