Is this a sign of business as usual, or an ominous sign of terrible things to come? Only time will tell with Icarus Studios' post-apocalyptic MMO, Fallen Earth

It was a sad day last week for Fallen Earth Fans, as the company announced that a large-scale "company restructuring" was in the works, and was necessary in order to continue to support production and development of Fallen Earth. In a recent interview with Massively, Fallen Earth Marketing Manager Jessica "Circatrix" Orr noted that about 70 employees of Icarus Studios' 110 employees were cut, and this doesn't include GMs or Customer Support Staff.

Now, under normal circumstances, players may take this to mean that Fallen Earth will be dead within the year, but it should be noted that in the MMORPG industry, most of the focus is placed upon getting an initial product out the door, and once the MMO is already out there, that development team can (and often times will) be scaled back because they can simply develop onto their MMO, as opposed to creating a full MMO from the ground up. As well, other companies, like Funcom and Age of Conan, have also announced similar staff cuts in order to continue moving forward and while Age of Conan doesn't boast numbers like Blizzard's World of Warcraft, AoC is still going strong, with a massive expansion already on the way.

So what do you think, readers? Does this spell doom for Icarus Studios and Fallen Earth, or do you think Icarus has the chutzpah to survive through adversity and keep their game running? Perhaps only time will tell!