The Secret World developer Funcom recently suffered layoffs, resulting in some concern for the MMO and a delay of issue two. But according to new CEO Ole Schreiner, the silver lining to this cloud is that the game became profitable in the process.

"After the recent re-structuring of our internal teams, The Secret World is now a profitable operation and we expect it to be so for the foreseeable future," Schreiner told Games Industry International. "That's also why we are committing to the ambitious post-launch update plan. Of course, operating in the MMO business means you have to stay adaptive and evaluate yourself, your community and your competition, so we can't rule out a change in direction somewhere down the line. But we're quite comfortable with where we are now and what we're providing our players."

Schreiner also remarked that the game would have been designed differently from the start if it had been planned as a free-to-play game. Still, he says the they "definitely have the tools to turn The Secret World into a free-to-play game - or even a hybrid - should we decide to do that somewhere down the line." He acknowledges the shifting marketplace and says this could impact TSW and future games from Funcom.