Those affected include developers, artists, and designers of the game. Trion confirmed the layoffs today saying this was "in response to market conditions, product timelines and the natural evolution of our company."
This comes roughly one month after the first major expansion for Rift was released as a paid product. It was later turned into a free expansion just one month later.
(Editor's note: It's always sad to hear about layoffs from any company. Rift is an amazing MMO and it's honestly a shame to see it possibly going the way of other recent MMOs that have come and gone in the past few years.)