The pain and suffering of MMO shutdowns

Like life itself, the MMO industry doesn't often seem fair -- promising games can die premature deaths while creaky antiques continue to chug along just fine. When an MMO like APB or Tabula Rasa announces that it's closing its doors after only a couple years (or months), the first reaction is usually to ask, "What in Sam Hill happened and why are they doing this to me?" Yet what isn't always considered is the emotional fallout on behalf of the devs.

Over at Kotaku, Michael Fahey examined the fallout when MMOs are shuttered prematurely, using the examples of Auto Assault and The Matrix Online as case studies. NetDevil spent four years developing the former, which lasted a mere fraction of that time -- 16 months -- as a live game. Ryan Seabury testifies to the pain that this causes for a dev team: "I won't lie, it hurts like hell still over four years later... Naturally, if a universe like Auto Assault that you sort of mentally attach to over multiple years suddenly ceases to exist, it's like a part of you dies." He personally points to NCsoft as the reason for Auto Assault's closure, stating that the game might still be in operation if it wasn't for the publisher's lack of faith.

On the flip side, The Matrix Online had a longer run and plenty of time to prepare for the end once word was passed down. Then-Community Manager Daniel Myers says that the decision was a matter of dollars and sense. Still, Myers admits that it continues to affect him: "There are still days that I wish I could log in and see the Megacity again. I don't know [if] that will ever completely stop. I kind of hope it doesn't."

Reader Comments (45)

I'll be honest, I've always found it more then strange that MMO's just shut down.

Especially NCsoft published ones.
I feel they should be given to the community after the publisher decides to shut them down.

I know that statement is a bit on the edge still thats how I feel.

I've always thought that myself. It would be great to make the code open source or at least purchasable by the general public for some reasonable amount.

It's not like they'll be using it at all anyway. I mean, when's the last time an MMO made a "come back"?

Yeah, but they probably see it as then being a competitor to whatever MMO they make next, that will surely succeed where the other failed, absolutely!

The problem with open sourcing a closed MMOG is that they use a lot of licensed proprietary software to function. Stuff that they can not, and have no right to, open source, and whole sections of code would require a rewrite.

but then theres things like why can't they leave the game up on a cost effective server with no future content updates.

just say look we estimate there 30,000 players on at any one time heres the server, this is what it's going to cost us to keep the game going for you Based on our active subscriptions every 3 months we will Running costs/Number of scrips = subscription fee per account for the next 3 month's

There's MMO's i never got the chance to play because i didn't have the time to invest in them and then they were gone

I would love nothing more than to see TR come back to life at the hands of a developer who wanted to take it off NC's hands for a song...

But NCsoft are pretty clever. They're hanging onto those IPs to make absolutely certain that no-one else can take promising games and turn them into competitors. They are a business and their primary interest is not about providing the MMO community with awesome IPs, it's about making sure their existing product line performs strong.

"I'll be honest, I've always found it more then strange that MMO's just shut down.

Especially NCsoft published ones."

NCSoft have multiple, good MMOs. So an MMO that under performs will be shut down much quicker by them than it would some smaller developer, who doesn't have other sources of income. NCSoft, on the other hand, can deem it not profitable enough and write it off without blinking.

FYI - Ryzom is still operating, but the new owners have released its source code as open source. So it does happen. And last time I checked the Shadowbane emulator project was still chugging along.

There was actually a lesser known one in between APB and Tabula Rasa
Cities XL it had a online function that was pretty much an MMO you built a city and could trade with others players by connecting roads to them. It lasted longer than APB but not by much.

But if APB can be Resurrected and a bunch of others are getting Resurrected like Gods and Heroes I just wanna know ONE THING
WHERE
IS
TABULA
RASA?!

Neither Lord Rattail nor NCSoft ever seemed to really care about that game.

It's a shame too because I always thought the core gameplay was a lot of fun, but the rest of it was pretty bare bones as MMOs go.

I loved how random squads of NPCs would attack bases and other points. It actually felt like a war instead of all these games where mobs just roam peacefully or engage in scripted battles with friendly NPCs.

Tabula Rasa isn't being given a second chance because it technically already had one.

I was very excited way back when it was first announced, when it had a pretty unique scifi/fantasy setting, looking almost asian but still playing like a western game. For some reason the decision was made that it was "too weird" (or something similar), and it was retooled to be pretty much a scifi-only game, with the logos being the only thing that remained from the old design - And even that was changed a lot.

I'm guessing Garriott got dissilusioned with the industry after developing TR. They suddenly wanted it to compete with WoW (the design change happened around the time of WoW's release, though the actual thought process behind it eludes me) and thus it changed from a game Garriott and his team wanted to make to a game NCSoft wanted to sell.

I hear ya.

I loved Tabula Rasa, the bases you had to fight for or loose them to the mobs, the sci-fi theme, and expecially the Logos. The time it took to create an entire pictographic language must have been a labour of love.

I still use it to this day for writing 'secret' messages. hehe

I'm saying the same thing, where is Tabula Rasa?!

Poor MMO game devs, now they join the ranks of rest of the development world. Many devs spend years pouring work into projects many of which never even see the light of day and others drag on mercilessly. On top of that imagine if you work support or QA and make a fraction of what a dev does to see the game and your job end. Seriously is this article meant to sympathize with a highly paid already known transient job? The answer to this issue as always is build a better game and realize development is centered around destruction and creation.

"I won't lie, it hurts like hell still over four years later..."

I was a grunt designer on Asheron's Call 2 before it shipped. I watched the design go badly awry, and was powerless to do anything to avert it.

The dev who sees his game die young has one up on the dev who sees his game born a vegetable. I still carry a lot of bitterness towards those I believe were responsible.

I do not remember AC2 being released. I remember playing in the beta about 10 hours maybe. Was it not shut down before retail?

They shut down the real SWG almost 5 years ago as well.

Glad they did, 'cause the new one's a thousand times better.

That depends on a certain point of view. Another is it's now a thousand times worse.

I played Auto Assault in the beta and again for a little while when they invited me back. My impression was always that they wanted to be/tried to make "World of Warcraft, WITH CARS!" and as a recent column noted, people who want to play WoW are already playing WoW and will probably continue to do so.

See, that was never my problem with Auto Assault. My problem with it was the same one I'm hearing from people who played All Points Bulletin: a game that's all about cars, where the avatars just don't feel very car-like: almost completely silent when moving, and with physics completely unlike that of driving. (It also didn't help Auto Assault that the end-game really stank.)

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The pain and suffering of MMO shutdowns

Reader Comments (45)

Posted: Oct 29th 2010 10:10AM Pan1 said

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Posted: Oct 29th 2010 10:48AM SocksForYou said

Posted: Oct 29th 2010 11:15AM ChromeBallz said

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Posted: Oct 29th 2010 11:40AM Pan1 said

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Posted: Oct 29th 2010 10:56AM Stormwaltz said

Posted: Oct 31st 2010 3:49AM Crode said

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Posted: Oct 29th 2010 12:09PM J Brad Hicks said

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