Eventually someone will realize that despite the success of games like League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth, and Valve’s DOTA 2, the MOBA genre is not the next line of games where companies can put out any product and simply sit back and watch the money print itself. Originally announced in 2011, Wrath of Heroes was supposed to be a slimmed down version of Warhammer Online. All the fun of Warhammer’s scenarios without the countless hours of boring crap that is required by an MMO. Regardless, the game never caught on as well as hoped, and as a result Mythic has announced that the servers will come down on March 29th.
Wrath of Heroes is perhaps another example on why spending money in a game that is still in beta is a bad idea. Wrath of Heroes will shut down having never left beta status, and Mythic has revealed that none of the gem purchases made by players will be refunded. While we have seen other companies perform partial or full refunds when a game is shut down mid-beta, Mythic has decided to not go down that route. Instead, any player who played after January 1st, 2013, or those who have an outstanding balance of gems, will receive one free month of Warhammer Online as well as a treasure chest with items for the MMO.
Undoubtedly this announcement will fuel discussion as to why a game still in beta was required to hit financial goals.
Electronic Arts has had its fair share of bad news just here at MMO Fallout. Warhammer Online and All Points Bulletin launched and subsequently took a jackhammer to the publisher’s relationship with its investors and partners, and the recent release of The Old Republic was met with major initial sales and just as much controversy over broken content, bannings, and more.
To top things off, Electronic Arts’ employees may be setting up for a class action lawsuit. According to an employee spouse on Gamespot, Electronic Arts currently mandates shifts of 9am to 10pm, seven days a week with occasional Saturdays off. In return, employees are given no overtime or vacation days for this work.
Unlike EAlouse, this isn’t just the ranting of some alleged employee. Gamespot contacted Schubert & Reed, a San Francisco law firm, who confirmed that preparations are in place for a class action suit.
“We are seeking unpaid overtime for a good number of EA employees who weren’t [properly] paid, EA contends they were exempt,” and Schubert added that “we contend otherwise.”‘
Those of you who purchased APB before its demise are likely aware that Electronic Arts, as distributor, is offering out free games if you can prove that you once owned the crashed MMO. Over multiple forums, players are reporting getting everything from Bioware bucks (that can be used to buy full games), EA store credit, and full games of the player’s choosing. If you are one of those players, you might want to check yourself before you email EA about the silent promotion, especially if you preordered APB.
I found out the hard way that Electronic Arts is only allowing people who purchased APB from July 15th onward into the program, and everyone else is out of luck. As the customer service rep put it:
I understand your frustration over this issue but there are a few things to remember. Real Time Worlds was the owner of the servers for this game, as well as the owner to the rights of the game as well, EA is simply trying to help out its customers through goodwill as we have no responsibility to refund or issue free games to customers for something out of our control.
I’ll reiterate an important lesson I brought forward in another MMO Fallout article: It is rarely a good idea to pre-order an MMO. If you just have to preorder an upcoming title, however, ensure you order it directly from the publisher, not from the developer or Steam or other platforms. This way, if the developer goes belly up two months after the game ships, and are unavailable/bankrupt, you can still go after the publisher for a chargeback I mean, compensation.
When Electronic Arts announced that Star Wars: The Old Republic is their largest development project ever, I immediately became worried for the title. In all likelihood, The Old Republic has an enormous budget, more than most other MMOs can shake a stick at, and as a result will have the eyes of EA glaring down on it when it does officially launch, and the resulting post-month 1 subscriber numbers are presented to the bigwigs. As I’ve mentioned before on several postmortem “What happened” episodes, the number one cause of MMO death is not unsubstantial subscriber numbers, but lower than what the developer/publisher wanted.
So a game like The Old Republic will likely require a lot of subscribers to meet that budget they hooked into the title, and EA was kind enough to tell us exactly what that number is to break even: One million. Now, there are only a handful of titles that have over a million paying subscribers. A small handful, a very small handful. For some reason, one million has become the benchmark for success, even though several of the top 10 mainstream MMOs do not have one million subscribers. Not only does EA believe they will hit the one million mark, but they can see the game going up to two million and over.
Unfortunately EA may be setting themselves up not for failure, but for disappointment. Disappointment we can only hope doesn’t translate into EA pulling a Tabula Rasa and shutting the title down a year later. So far the experience from press testers has been positive, so who knows? Titles like Eve Online, Runescape, World of Warcraft, and Fallen Earth are not exclusive to breaking the rule of MMO releases: That the population peaks at launch and, following a sharp decrease after the free month, a gradual decline.
I think that, when The Old Republic does go into preorder, it will be right up there with Age of Conan and Warhammer Online for the most orders of the year. If Bioware can pull a higher than normal retention rate following launch, it will be good tidings for the foreseeable future. High expectations are dangerous, but not guaranteed to end in disappointment. Remember that.
The great part of MMOs that feature some sort of offline mode (Cities XL) is that even if the servers no longer become sustainable, the game doesn’t become a fifty dollar doorstop (I use Tabula Rasa to house my loose change, and Auto Assault became a great coaster for my tasty Starbucks drinks). Being the MMO enthusiast that I am, I often find myself getting into discussions with friends as to the benefits and downsides of MMOs, versus that of non-MMOs, and the major issue that pops up is life expectancy of the title, with said “friends” claiming that non-MMO games last longer because you don’t have to worry about the servers going offline.
That argument is half true, and for the sake of argument we are going to throw the single player aspect screaming out the window and focus on the online, multiplayer portion. Although it was once a normality for games to be run solely through dedicated servers, an increasing amount of Digital Rights Management software ends up requiring players to use some form of online authentication system to play the game’s multiplayer.
Although this system sounds great, it presents a lot of problems down the road. Fast forward two years after a game has been released, and you will understand what I mean: Apart from game sales, that spike at release and generally fade fast, the servers have nothing but the company’s coffers paying for their upkeep. Whatever profit the company made on the game is probably dwindling fast just to keep the servers up, and the game has to be shut down. Garbage in, garbage out.
Every year, Electronic Arts brings the cart around and announces which games it will be shutting down online access to.
Def Jam, PS3/360 (March 2007) [3 years]
The Godfather, PS3/360 (2006/2007) [4/3 years]
Lord of the Rings: Conquest, PC/PS3/360 (Jan. 2009) [1 year]
Mercenaries 2, PC (2008) [2 years]
Need for Speed: Carbon, PSP (2006) [4 years]
Need for Speed: Prostreet , PSP (2007) [3 years]
The Simpsons, PS3/360 (2007) [3 years]
Whereas the following will be taken offline in April:
Burnout 3: Takedown, PS2 (2004) [6 years]
I removed several titles from the April list that were for the original Xbox, because Xbox Live is shutting down in April, making the April 15th shutdown announcement moot. Although there are some that stray further up and down the road, the general life span of an EA Games game is approximately two to four years. The previous line of EA’s games shutting down included a considerable number of the sports franchise 09 titles, including Madden 09, NBA 09, and NHL 09. The most ridiculous sounding takedown on the board is Lord of the Rings: Conquest, which was just released slightly over a year ago.
I’m not questioning the morality of EA Game’s decision in taking these servers down, as a lot of these games are quite unpopulated this far down the line, but if you are picking a game out of the bargain bin, take a look at how old it is and who made it, especially if you are planning on using the online mode. For example, you may pick up a copy of Madden 08 for a cheap online fix, only to come home and find out that the servers have been shut down a long time ago.
I walked into a local F.Y.E store recently to take a look at what sales the store had going on. That particular location was closing down, and had everything on sale. I located a boxed copy of the Sony Station Pass, that was dated 2006, and still advertised The Matrix Online. Further down the shelf I found, what else, Dungeon Runners. It was only ten dollars, but a ten dollar coaster is not appropriate for an electronics store. I later pointed out to a father and son who were there to find Madden 09 on the Wii (“because I can play it online.”) that they were better off finding Madden 10, because the online for Madden 09 shut down earlier this month.
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault and Battlefield 1942 are two games that are still up and running, have outlived most of their successors, and do not run on EA’s online service, despite being EA Games games. In several years, even big hits like Modern Warfare will eventually shut down their service. While games like Ultima Online stay alive for a decade or more despite a smaller community than they once had, they can be assured that the game will stay live as long as it is breaking a profit, whereas non-MMO titles have to worry about how long the publisher “feels like” keeping the title online.
Maybe not death. Perhaps where you accidentally clip your nails to far and you catch your skin and it hurts really bad to touch anything for a couple days.
Back in early January, I reported on news that EA/Mythic would be reclaiming the European grounds of Dark Age of Camelot from their current host, GOA. Electronic Arts, who of course now own Mythic, have decided to take over the operation of the European servers. I did originally mention that the transfer was less marred with controversy than the Archlord transfer last year, and I now have plenty of Warhammer and Dark Age of Camelot players who were very kind (in the context of sending feedback) to explain their grief with GOA and the way they have handled Dark Age and Warhammer in Europe.
Electronic Arts is set to take back the European Dark Age servers in a week’s time, on the 17th, but there are several issues to be taken up. Other than these, the merger is great for Europeans, especially if you are Americans.
All current players will be given a free month of game time.
This free game time is partially due to the fact that billing services will be down during the transition period, during which time it will be impossible to subscribe for new/existing customers
Players may find that their form of payment is no longer accepted under the North American billing system.
Your login name/password may have to change.
Your player will keep all stats, friends, and levels.
Although you may have to change your name, granted this is to be expected.
Initially all of your housing information will be preserved, however once the merger to the North American servers takes place, you are bound to the server transfer conditions. Vaults and property will transfer, as will the value of the house deed, but you will need to buy a new house.
Transfers to Ywain, the North American server, will not be available immediately, as Mythic will be upgrading all accounts to match the current North American version of Dark Age.
In-game Customer Support Representatives will be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
However customer support for all servers will only be available in English
The Herald will only be published in English
New servers are being prepared in German and French, however players on English (UK), Italian, and Spanish language servers will have to choose between Ywain (NA) and the German/French server.
The new European server will be hosted in Germany.
Those are just a consolidated bullet point list, and I will admit deciphering the FAQ was slightly confusing. You can find the entire FAQ here and make of it what you will, but it appears that the Spanish, Italian, French, and German players will all be talking to each other on the same server, and UK players will have to sit through it or transfer over to the North American server.
More on Dark Age of Camelot as it appears. This transfer goes live one week from today, and Mythic expects up to 48 hours downtime, not including the previously mentioned delays with the North American transfer. I am interested in seeing if Warhammer Online will follow suit.
Despite being two years older than Everquest, Ultima Online can only boast half the number of expansion packs. That being said, EA reminds us of the continued investment they hold in the title with today’s release of Stygian Abyss, introducing a new race, new classes, new abilities, and an entirely new facet.
In an interview with Calvin Crowner, he had this to say about the possibility of a new Ultima Online:
Well, I can’t say just yet, but Mythic is always looking at our existing intellectual properties and discussing the best course of action for the franchises.
What do you think? Ultima Online 2 has been tried, and never made it through production. Should Mythic go through with a plan for Ultima 2, they will have to take a good hard look at who they’re going to market the game towards.
MMO Fallout 