Lime Odyssey shutting down in Korea [Updated]

@edgecrusherO0

*unlikely yet*

@(Unverified)

Note: That was me by the way.

@(Unverified)

*Bleep*ing Joystick server mechanic issues trying to sock puppet me!

...me as in Utakata.

@Fabius Bile Agreed.

@Fabius Bile I hate to argue, but what you are saying is simply not true. For every "Asian" (Asia is a huge place) MMO that shuts down, there are quite literally scores and scores of them that are doing just fine and running for years. I can name you 50 or so right now, saved in my bookmarks. The fact is that foreign free-to-play games are still more numerous than the sum of North American or Western MMOs. A game like Maple Story holds world records for concurrent players and literally hundreds more are being released every year.

So, it's not typical for a foreign MMO to shut down like this, it's the opposite. Percentage-wise it's more common for a Western MMO to shut down.

Beau

@Beau Hindman

Also completely disagree'ing with Fabius Bile's disingenuous claim...

...the issue here is that the West put's out more triple A titles with a bigger investment. When they fail, they fail spectaculary...and I suspect, have a far tighter margin of error. Hense why many devs likely choose P2P as oppose to F2P. But this getting into a quality vs. quantity arguement. And I am digressing...

...what I really like to see, is Massively produce a statistical analysis of Western games vs Eastern games; P2P vs F2P's; and triple A's vs B MMO's...so we can all have a better picture of what the scene is like. (The more pie charts the better.) To see whether for example, if there is an upswing of F2P's markets from the East...or if there are signs of that market about to go "pop" as edgecrusherO0 eluded to above. It's no good making any claims and speculations either by Joe Blow commentators or by well heeled MMO journalists until we all get a good healthy look at the numbers. So yeah...and citations would be nice.

@Beau Hindman

THANK YOU.

Most people don't realized that the MMO market in Asia is so much bigger than it is here in the states. I mean it's still an incredibly profitable market here in the states.

I forget the exact data but the % of people with access to the internet inside their homes in Korea is some obnoxious number like 98% while in the states it's like in the 50s or something.

@Utakata

The problem with putting together an analysis like that is that most MMO companies are never going to give up their actual numbers.

Oh sure they'll trot out press releases that tout a million registered accounts or some other meaningless metric, but they won't tell you how many subscribers they have or much money they're making from a cash shop.

The other problem is getting any two people to agree on what a "AAA" game is. Long story short, I'd love to see that type of analysis too, but it's not realistically achievable without insider access to private financial info.

@Jef Reahard

Thanks for explaining that...

...but just to qualify, perhaps I'm not looking for a direct pipeline game companies' financial information. Rather...is there not any 3rd party reliable industry analysis being done on MMO's from both sides of the pond? Something peeps can look at that gives of a general sense of how things are going. And something that is not entirely game brand specific. Such as stating a certain amount of x-F2P's is doing well over here vs. a certain amount of x-P2P's is doing well over there....or something like that. And perhaps Massively could look into those sources and produce their own anlysis...

...yeah, I know...I am stretching it a bit. I think it would resolve a lot of heated debates and wild speculations on all sides. But perhaps my request is simply wishful thinking and too difficult to follow through. :(

@Jef Reahard - agreed, I've been trying for years get even semi accurate information on MMORPG games and it is mostly impossible, other than just some general info on overall trends. Everyone considers actual numbers a trade secret and public owned companies carefully word their investor calls and quarterly reports to be void of anything even remotely accurate; blending in player numbers from beta and "free" weekends, sales from various divisions manipulated to make sure there is no way to determine any single game's actual sales, etc.

It would be interesting to know the real numbers, but I can see how people in general would abuse that. A small dip in players and "the game is dying"; don't have WoW numbers then the game is a failure, etc. Sad.

On topic, I'm was very surprised to hear this about Lime Odyssey. I wasn't really very interested in the game other than the strange name and kinda neat weirdness vibe of the preview vids, but I know quite a few Massively readers were looking forward to this and now it may never make it to release. Shame.

@Beau Hindman Is that really true? I don't know the Asian market, but I heard MMOs drop like crazy of there because they bring out new ones all the time. Then those MMOs that have been abandoned get thrown to us while Asia gets the latest batch of F2P MMOs. That's way asian F2P are practically all the same thing. They are like slot machines there.

@Lenn They were critical bugs for a beta phase that lasted months and months.

@Alex Oglitchkin It was a beta!

@Lenn

The scene has changed a lot in the last couple of years. "Beta" doesn't hold the same sway it used to. Now, instead of being a testing phase, like it's supposed to, it's more of an early access state. This is especially true in the world of F2P. I mean, look at the article. There was a cash shop.... In beta!

'nuff said.

@whateveryousay

It is more like we put 'beta' tag on it so we can release it earlier and it can be unifnished / bugged cause it is 'beta'.
+ this is marketting cause there are reports of 'beta' opening ,stages ,etc

Real betas are preety small & closed & made internally or / and with external frequenly paid beta testers.