A former employee of NCsoft Austin tells Edge that he was one of the people axed as part of the company's recently announced restructuring initiative.

"I was part of the layoffs yesterday," said former NCsoft North America PR manager Mike Crouch in a phone interview. He was with the company for four-and-a-half years, working closely with the games media.

He continued, "Honestly, I don't know what's going on. All I know is that they're restructuring to become NC West or something. Part of the consolidation involved moving some of the functions to Seattle, and one of the functions was my function. It's unfortunate, but that's business."

Crouch said he hopes to land another job in the games industry, and would prefer to stay in the Austin area where is family resides.

Reports have indicated that NCsoft's Austin location would suffer 12 redundancies as operations are moved to NC West's new Seattle, Wash. base. NCsoft will still maintain a presence in Austin, Tex., a hub of online game development.

Over 50 NCsoft jobs are also reportedly in danger in Brighton, U.K. NCsoft Austin reps had not returned request for further comment as of press time.

NCsoft's headquarters are in South Korea.