Last week, rumblings came out about some layoffs to The Old Republic team. BioWare did confirm a reduction in staff after people started to hear about it, and now they spoke to PC Gamer about why they had to layoff so many people.

“The MMO is the toughest part of the game industry without a doubt and we live in tough economic times in general,” he said. “So that’s very unfortunate, and on a personal level it’s quite difficult to to have people that you’ve been working with for a long time that you know personally, you go to their barbecue and you meet their families and it’s never easy. I doubt it’d be easy in any industry for anyone, but it happens.”

With the recent implosion of Curt Schilling’s 38 Studios surrounding Reckoning and the Amalur MMO, it’s pretty obvious how difficult MMOs are to get right.

One of the big names apparently let go during this round of layoffs was Stephen “Rockjaw” Reid, who TOR fans would recognize as the public face of the game throughout beta and launch.