Perfect World Adds CM Offer to Job Board, Strumslinger on His Way Out?

Yesterday we noticed a tiny but significant change on the Perfect World career page that might have an impact on the Neverwinter community. PWE added a job offer for a “Community Manager – Gaming” in its Redwood City offices to the list. It must have been done recently, because an archived version from August 16th does not show it.

New Community Manager or a Replacement?

Now the million dollar question is: Does PWE add another person or do they replace an existing one? Currently PWE employs two CMs: Amanda “akaamandakane” Kane and Andy “StrumSlinger” Wong, both known faces from various livestreams and the latter Neverwinter CM until Julia “nitocris83” Fredrickson replaced him. Julia herself by the way is not likely affected because she works for Cryptic.

Obviously the job posting leads to all sorts of speculation. Unfortunately there are some indications that Perfect World is indeed looking for a replacement. Cryptic games are covered and Andy and Amanda are working Gigantic, Livelock and other titles. So unless it’s for a brand-new, not-yet-announced project, it doesn’t make tons of sense to bring in another body.

Could Strumslinger be on the Move?

We additionally don’t think this is PWE firing someone. We’ve experienced layoffs in the past and they’ve always caught everyone by surprise. Putting up a job posting in advance doesn’t really fit that. If PWE wanted to pull the trigger, we would know by now. So someone might be leaving on their own terms, which brings this suddenly very investigative post back to its headline.

Pointing to Strumslinger admittedly is a total guess. It’s based on the fact that overall Amanda Kane seems to be more involved lately. She went to the Gen Con over the weekend and is co-hosting the Gigantic weekly news format on Youtube. On the other hand Andy is our guy in the Driftwood Tavern Community stream, very recently did a Q&A with Twitch regulars and obviously nobody knows what tasks he’s involved in behind the scenes. Rewatching some streams with him could make you believe that he looked less enthusiastic / more frustrated recently. That however might just demonstrate how confirmation bias work. So yeah, we basically have nothing on that front.

More Personnel Changes

If true though it coincidentally comes only days after we’ve touched on the constant personnel changes and the difficulties that come with it. Strum works the community since three years, which makes him a veteran within the team. That would be a lot of experience leaving the company. Additionally he is a mentor to Julia and what would happen with all those streams the two did together anyway?

As you might have noticed there’s still a lot to figure out and we’re just brainstorming at this point! So don’t be shy to make your own guess what’s the story behind the job posting. Is somebody leaving or will they just add another CM? Share your thoughts in the comments below and visit the corresponding thread on our message board!

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