Tag: Shut down

RealU Lays Off Most Staff, Gamigo Seeks New Developer


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Otherland is an upcoming MMO based on the book series of the same name, written by Tad Williams. The game is being developed by RealU, and published by Gamigo. At least it was, recent rumors that RealU has laid off most of its staff were confirmed by a Community Manager over at the Otherland official forums:

Unfortunately we have to confirm that the rumors are true and RealU, the developer of Otherland, has laid off most of its staff. RealU is a subsidiary of German publisher dtp, which by itself is currently in insolvency, and gamigo had and has very limited influence on this decision. We are disappointed by this development and very sorry for the development team.

As for Otherland itself, Gamigo hasn’t given up the ghost yet.

As for the Otherland game: we are still holding the exclusive publishing rights for Europe and North America and we are currently looking into opportunities to finish the title at another location. Please understand that for legal reasons we are unable to comment further on this matter.

Gamigo will keep us updated if they do manage to find a new location.

(Source: Otherland)

Wrath of Heroes To Shut Down, Mythic Denies Refunds


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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.

(Source: Wrath of Heroes)

Bullet Run Sunsetting March 8th


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Back when I reviewed Bullet Run by Sony Online Entertainment, I noted that while the game was fun, it seriously lacked content. At launch, Bullet Run carried just two game modes (Team deathmatch and Dominion) while at the same time featuring a fully fleshed out cash shop. Bullet Run faced the same problem that many other free to play shooters do: There simply wasn’t enough content. The game itself could be functional and mostly bug free, as well as free itself, but in an era where first person shooters are literally a dime a dozen, and the competing free to play FPS titles have an insane amount of content and have long established their user base, the competition is cut throat.

Whether you put it up to a lack of content, an overbearing cash shop,  or some other reason, Bullet Run is coming to an end as of March 8th.

After much review and consideration, Acony Games and Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) have mutually made the decision to discontinue development on the free-to-play FPS game, Bullet Run. As a result, SOE and Acony will sunset the game and end all game services for Bullet Run on March 8, 2013. We would like to thank the players for their dedication and support of the game.

As with any other shut down, players will be refunded for any membership extending past February 1st on a prorated level.

(Source: Press Release)

The Current State Of Gods & Heroes


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I’m writing this in response to a comment recently left here at MMO Fallout by user Sapphic about the game Gods & Heroes:

Well the servers went down in September and according to the website still haven’t come back up, the forums are still down I can confirm. No reply from trying to contact them, no update or reply to messages posted on their facebook page or twitter. Also their other game in development, Minis with enemies has, even tho it was promised in a video on the front page, not been updated since June 2012. Heatwave have gone totally silent in any form of communications about any of their released or in development products. Though I would reply to this in case anyone found this and thought of putting money down for GnH. As I would recommend not doing until Heatwave at least update in some variety of what is happening.

As many of you likely know, Gods & Heroes doesn’t have developers. It hasn’t since January 2012 when everyone was reassigned to other projects at Heatwave Interactive, none of which have show any activity since around July. So what has happened since then? On September 27th, the Gods & Heroes game servers and website went offline for maintenance with no estimated downtime and with the possibility of extended maintenance. As of December 2nd, the Gods & Heroes Facebook still had players reporting the servers as offline. I did my own investigation and found that the servers, when accessed through the game client, are indeed online. I have no method of pinpointing exactly when they came online, but it appears to be sometime in mid-December. They are still online as of this writing.

Heatwave Interactive has been completely silent since September 2012, as far as I can tell. As of this publishing, the forums are not just offline, the URL forwards to a Verizon “page not found” error. The game’s website is woefully out of date, still listing the game as sold via Steam, Gamestop, and EB Games when it was removed from those stores around a year ago. The download client that the website provides via the account management page is completely broken and will return an “out of date” error and instruct the user to download a newer version from the main website.

If you’re still interested in giving Gods & Heroes a play, it costs a $9.99 one time fee on the Gods & Heroes website and doesn’t have a subscription or cash shop, be aware that the active community is just about nonexistent. There are three servers and they are all pretty quiet. So if you do take Gods & Heroes for a spin, bring a few friends or you’ll be going solo.

Hellgate: Global Shutting Down In Japan


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Editor’s Note: Please note that the information is based off of a translated Japanese announcement. Some details may have been lost in translation.

I know what you’re thinking, “Omali, didn’t Hellgate Global shut down like three years ago?” No. Hellgate Global doesn’t make much news nowadays since Hanbitsoft hasn’t done much following the launch of Hellgate: Tokyo way back in September 2011. In a post on the official forums, player Lustar noted an email sent out to players of Hellgate: Global’s Japanese servers. The email discusses Hellgate’s history, from its creation at Flagship to the eventual move over to Hanbitsoft. The notice points out that they did not have full control of data from Flagship Studios, and were unable to upgrade the game to a proper level, and are thus shuttering service.

The game will officially end in Japan on February 27, 2013. You can find more details at the link below, but beware of very poorly translated Japanese.

(Source: Hellgate Forums)

Thanks For The Memories, Glitch


So 11pm Eastern has come and gone, and so has one of the best games to ever release and then quickly de-release and head back into beta. While Glitch may not have been a traditional game, it was still a load of fun to log into and check out the wild and wacky bits and pieces that the developers had added in. Unfortunately, as Tiny Speck had laid out in plain words, while the game was quirky and fun, it didn’t appear to be viable in the market. Still, the game has had a profound impact on its community, who I’m sure will miss it far more passionately than I ever could.

Check out this song by Theremina Lute. It is a fantastic song dedicated to the memory of the Glitchens and the gods.

Additionally, if you want to throw some money toward Tiny Speck, you can check out the Indiegogo campaign to turn Glitch’s art into a hardcover book. $65 gets you the hardcover edition, as well as your name displayed on a thank you page. Check it out at Indiegogo.com.

There are a hundred other pieces I could put up here, but I will close out with the original Alpha trailer to Glitch.

If you have any memories you’d like to share of Glitch, leave them in the comments section below.

End of Nations Postponed Until Further Notice


End of Nations will not be entering open beta at any time in the near future. Trion’s upcoming MMORTS has been in closed beta for some time, and in a post on the official Facebook page, Trion notes that while the beta has offered a lot of good feedback, it has also brought to light some glaring issues that need to be fixed.

“As a result, we have decided to postpone the Open Beta phase of testing until further notice. We will let you know as soon as we have an update. Those players who made an End of Nations purchase should expect to receive a follow-up email shortly. Thank you in advance for your continued input and support. It is greatly appreciated.”

It’s good to see that Trion is refunding closed beta players, and hopefully Trion will be able to fix whatever needs to be fixed in End of Nations.

(Source: Facebook)

Glitch Shutting Down December 9th


What a terrible day. As posted on the Glitch website today, the fledgling MMO will be shutting down forever as of December 9th. The website and forums will remain up until 8pm Pacific on the 9th, during which time the website and all services including mobile apps will no longer be available. The team is heartbroken to have to make the announcement, but according to the news post, Glitch had simply not attained a level of income to remain viable.

Unfortunately, Glitch has not attracted an audience large enough to sustain itself and based on a long period of experimentation and our best estimates, it seems unlikely that it ever would. And, given the prevailing technological trends — the movement towards mobile and especially the continued decline of the Flash platform on which Glitch was built — it was unlikely to do so before its time was up.

All recent purchases will be refunded automatically, while all purchases made since November 11, 2011 will be refunded eventually as they are to be taken care of by hand. According to the FAQ, selling the game is not possible:

It’s complicated, but it comes down to this: if that were a transaction that made sense to the purchaser, we wouldn’t be shutting the game down.

There is a ray of sunshine in this story, however. Even though Glitch will die, Tiny Speck will continue on as a company.

Tiny Speck, the company behind Glitch, will continue. We have developed some unique messaging technology with applications outside of the gaming world and a smaller core team will be working to develop new products. But now is not the time to talk about that. Right now our concern is with the players and our comrades who are suddenly looking for new work.

If you want to get some final memories of Glitch, do it now.

(Source: Glitch Website)

NCSoft Tried Selling City Of Heroes, No Buyers


It’s been over a month since NCSoft announced that City of Heroes would be shutting down, and since then the community has thrown virtually every theory out there as to why there hasn’t been any news from the talks with Paragon Studios.  The question that lays on everyone’s mind is: If NCSoft isn’t willing to keep the game running, why didn’t they try selling the studio/game? As it turns out, they did try. In an announcement on the City of Heroes website, NCSoft offers a small bit of detail on what went down.

We’ve exhausted all options including the selling of the studio and the rights to the City of Heroes intellectual property, but in the end, efforts to do so were not successful. City of Heroes has a special place in all of our hearts, and we want to ensure its reputation and the memories we share for the game end on a high note.

So there is some kind of reassurance that NCSoft at least made an attempt to save City of Heroes. It may not be the answer that they want to hear, but it is an answer nonetheless.

(Source: City of Heroes)

Phantasy Star Universe Sunsets


For Western players, the Phantasy Star Universe has already been over. Originally launched in 2006, Sega first began the MMO’s eventual closure by shutting down the North American and European servers on the PC and Playstation 2 in March 2010. Following, PS2 support in Japan was discontinued in April 2011, and just this month we saw the closure of the Xbox360 servers. Well, yesterday the game has finally come to a close with the closure of Japan’s remaining Phantasy Star Universe servers.

Any remaining Guardian Cash for players will be refunded as Phantasy Star Online 2 credit or as Webmoney AC. The shut down was originally announced at the end of July, and for the last month of service, players were granted access to PSU’s premium course for free.