Archive for the ‘MMO Deadpool’ Category
Posted by Stropp on
April 30, 2008
That didn’t last long.
Back in February Electronic Arts announced that they would be re-badging The Sims Online as EA Land, making it free with a subscription required for additional content, and allowing players to make all sorts of goodies, sort of like Second Life. The idea was to revitalize TSO and (I believe) break into the lucrative kiddies market.
Well, it looks like the kiddies weren’t having it.
According to Massively, Electronic Arts felt that EA Land hadn’t met its targets for continued existence. Consequently, EA will be turning off the servers at the end of July this year.
I find it a little interesting that EA didn’t give the newly branded game much of a chance to meet its targets. EA Land was up against a few other virtual worlds. The biggest of these was Second Life, which was a constant drain on EAs subscribers.
I’m just guessing here, but it seems to me that EA-Land was The Sims Onlines last chance. EA had probably already decided to close TSO down but gave the development team one more chance to pull it out of a nosedive. The rebranding was part of the strategy to do this, but really didn’t work.
Thus EA Land dives into the MMO Deadpool.
Popularity: 2%
Posted by Stropp on
February 12, 2008
It’s now official. The MTV Multiplayer blog has posted the details of a conversation that Stephen Totilo had with Microsoft’s Shane Kim at the recent Dice Gaming Summit. Aside from discussion of game publishing philosophies and the various games in Microsoft’s stable, there was one notable talk-point. That was the confirmation that Marvel Universe Online has joined the MMO Deadpool.
The health of Marvel Universe Online has been a topic of conversation for some time now. The silence from the developers, Cryptic, has been taken by many as a sign that the game wasn’t doing so well.
When Shane Kim was asked the question about the status of Marvel Universe Online.
He said: “I’ll confirm. Marvel and we have agreed to end development on the MMO .It was an amicable decision…. It’s just something that we felt that, for us and for them, it would be better if we ended development. Which is disappointing, because that had a lot of promise. But sometimes you have to make these decisions.”
It is a disappointing decision. Cryptic have already claimed the Superhero MMORPG space with City of Heroes/City of Villains which are very successful games. It’s not like they don’t know what they are doing, and have a lot of experience with CoH/CoV. Simply put, they could learn from their mistakes in the first game(s) to create a superb MMO with Marvel Universe.
But what is more disappointing is that it seems that Microsoft Game Studios simply doesn’t have the balls to develop a MMO.
A bit further down in the interview, after being asked what went wrong, Shane Kim made the following statement.
…When we first entered into the development and agreement of the development of ‘Marvel Universe Online,’ we thought we would create another subscription-based MMO. And if you really look at the data there’s basically one that’s successful and everything else wouldn’t meet our level or definition of commercial success…
In other words, if we can’t compete with World of Warcraft we aren’t even going to try.
Damn, I’m glad other game development companies don’t have the sort of chicken hearted mentality that Microsoft Game Studios appear to possess. If they did, we wouldn’t be seeing games like Warhammer Online, Age of Conan, Stargate Worlds, or even Mythos being developed because they’re not likely to get ten million subscribers or earn a billion dollars a year.
We probably wouldn’t even have World of Warcraft with that sort of attitude in play. After all, before WoW, Everquest held the record. Nobody was more surprised than Blizzard at the extent of their success. What if Blizzard had decided to can WoW because they didn’t expect to dethrone Everquest?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against MGS, not at all, one of my favorite games of last year was Mass Effect which they published. I’m truly looking forward to the sequels. I’ve also enjoyed Fable, Gears of War, and the Halos (not three yet though.) I expect that Microsoft Game Studios will continue publishing games that I will enjoy.
However, this announcement leaves me with the opinion that Microsoft is not serious about the MMO game space.
Popularity: 3%
Posted by Stropp on
January 9, 2008
Massively is reporting on the fate of Arden, an educational MMORPG designed by Edward Castranova and based on the works of William Shakespeare. Unfortunately Arden has suffered the fate of Macbeth and has joined the Deadpool.
The reason given for Arden’s failure is that while it was crammed full of educational content, it wasn’t any fun.
It’s a pity the fun factor was overlooked because the worlds of William Shakespeare are some of the most interesting and dramatic written. There’s a reason his plays have survived through the centuries, and why much of our modern work is derivative of Shakespeare’s work.
Politics, intrigue, murder, magic and the black arts, patricide, incest, and the fickleness of prophecy are some of the themes Shakespeare examined.
I’d have thought at least some of this could be made fun.
Popularity: 2%
Posted by Stropp on
December 31, 2007
It’s an unfortunate fact of life that not everything goes to plan.
Every year, new computer games are announced, some of which will never see the light of day. Business decisions, or simply sucky gameplay can lead to a game being dumped before it is released. This applies as much to the developers of MMO games as it does to any other product. The difference for MMOs is that sometimes the game gets released, only to be closed down a short time later. Earth and Beyond and Asheron’s Call 2 are good examples of this.
For a game to be in the Deadpool does not necessarily mean that it’s not been a success. It’s entirely possible that one of these days the Everquest 1 or even World of Warcraft servers will be finally turned off. When that happens, these games will go into the Deadpool, because they are well… dead. But for much of the foreseeable future, it will be the corpses of unreleased MMOs, or games that were released but failed to meet their publishers expectations.
2007 has seen a number of MMO games fall into the Deadpool.
Gods and Heroes
Gods and Heroes was under development by Perpetual Entertainment and was recently put into indefinite hiatus (read cancelled) so that they could concentrate on the development of their other MMO, Star Trek Online. Unfortunately, what looks like dodgy dealings has led to a lawsuit that also involves the STO licence. It’s looking like STO will be a member of the 2008 MMO Deadpool.
Auto Assault
Auto Assault was inspired, in part, by the Mad Max films; featuring vehicular combat in a post apocalyptic setting. It was released in 2006 by NCSoft and barely made a year before the announcement of its closure on the 31st of August 2007.
Citizen Zero
Big World: Citizen Zero was announced years ago (2000) by an Australian company: Micro Forte and was said to be a SciFi MMO set on a planetary penal colony. The last real information released on the game was in 2004. However, this year Micro Forte announced it cancelation to make for a Spy MMO, and I believe the Big World engine was also being licenced to other developers.
Monato Esprit
Monato Esprit was a free Korean fantasy MMO based in a Sprite dream world. It was shut down in 2007, however the Wikipedia entry mentions that there is an English version of the game in beta. This may be one that gets resurrected.
The 2008 Deadpool: Predictions
It’s probably too early to make any real predictions for the 2008 MMO Deadpool, with one or two exceptions.
Star Trek Online: As mentioned above, I expect Star Trek Online will fall into the Deadpool. My guess is that this will happen in the first half of the year, possibly but unlikely before March. It will depend heavily on the progress of the lawsuit.
Fury: This game completely failed to meet Aurans expectations. So much so that the company is facing bankrupcy. If they can’t pull themselves out the mire, Fury may close. The other possibility is that it will be acquired by a company like SOE and added to their stable of games.
Dredging the Deadpool
It’s likely that I missed a few games that were closed or cancelled in the last twelve months. If you know of any, please let me know in the comments.
Credit: The term Deadpool is used on the technology blog Techcrunch generally for internet technology companies or products who have made big announcements and have subsequently failed and closed down. The expression is just as valid for our particular industry which is why I’m using it here. But credit to whom credit is due, in this case Techcrunch.
Popularity: 10%
Posted by Stropp on
July 7, 2007
Last weekend while I was trawling around the internet, I came across a free fourteen day trial for Auto Assault. Never one to pass up something free, I decided to give it a go. Mmmmm. Free.
After downloading it and getting the game all set up, I had a bit of a bash for a couple of hours. It’s an interesting game, very fast paced, and running over enemy pedestrians… well that never gets old.
The world wasn’t empty while I was playing, as is normal due to the Oceanic timezone I’m in. There were quite a few players that I came across that first evening, far more than I ever encountered in Vanguard. I was even invited to a group within a few minutes of entering the world. I was able to mow down pedestrians at a frenetic pace while grouping, even if I didn’t know what I was doing. Fantastic.
Two days later, I see an announcement that NCSoft and Netdevil are closing Auto Assault down at the end of August this year after only sixteen months of life.
I’m definitely a little surprised at the announcement considering how short of a time AA has been in operation. The general comment from the developers seemed to indicate that they believed that nothing could be done to revive the game and that it was costing more to keep it going than it was bringing in.
Auto Assault is a different type of game. While I haven’t really experienced all it has to offer, (and won’t now) it does seem to fill a niche. The fact that I saw more players in the newbie area in AA in my crappy timezone than I encountered in several sessions with Vanguard indicates that people like playing it.
The closure of Auto Assault is obviously a business decision for NCSoft. After all they are a business and need to make a profit. But I think it’s a pity that a niche game like Auto Attack is being closed after so short a time.
Popularity: 6%
