When you forget why your company exists, the customer. Upper management at this company has very obviously been barring their developers from doing what is best for the game. This is what happens when you prevent your people from doing what they need too, non utilized talent is a waste. You people in upper management know this. Turns out “creating patterns” of crappy, dumbed down content and horrific ability spamming PvP sandboxes has driven the voice that matters, your customer’s; to other places. This game isn’t a drug that millions are stuck doing, people will spend their time doing other things if your product sucks. The “live service” means that you need to deliver, not that the customer is to deliver you money. This is a clear misconception that you have in management over there. Your devs have been telling you this, and people have been clearly fed up. The customer pays your bills, not your ego or honestly terrible production philosophies. At the end of the day it is awful that your developers have to face layoffs because of your incompetence. Shame on you guys, treat your employees better by listening to your customers in the future.