GotMMOG?

At 12am CST, the admins pulled the plug on the final server, Hydra, which was the only US server left. I missed the final attack event that was advertised for 8pm CST but I can’t say there was much to see. This wasn’t the same as the end of beta in AC where they actually changed the world, destroyed cities, etc.

Still, it was sad to see it go…despite the minimal hours I’d spent running through its hallowed halls. I FRAPSed the last minutes but there isn’t much to see. General chat was spammed to hell with people saying good bye amongst other things. The handful of players in each zone gathered in different places, emoting, shooting, and otherwise screwing around until the end. As you’d expect, the people who were there really loved the game but obviously, per NCSoft’s decision to close the game down, they didn’t add up to a lot of profit.

And, so, it’s the end of another era. Or maybe the beginning of one. This likely will mark the beginning of the end for some of those MMOs that have been hanging on to what little remained of their player base. I’m curious to see how SOE handles it’s catalog of left over games (EQ, SWG, and Planetside). They are alive due to a small but dedicated group of people but in these economic times, is that going to be enough? Some games really ought to go (Vanguard, I’m looking at you) mainly because they failed to do what they set out to do and because they’re already looking like failures, pure and simple.

Funcom’s not having a good time so it’ll be interesting to see if their games (Anarchy Online, Age of Conan) survive this year.

It’ll be an interesting year. It may be a recession but look at it another way: if a game sucks, it’s not going to survive long. Think of this as a filter for crap so that ideally when all is said and done, the better games will have survived for your MMOGing pleasure.

g afk

So, it comes at no surprise that more and more information is coming to light about Age of Conan’s lackluster performance and how much Funcom is suffering for it.

Gamasutra posted a news article about the Funcom CFO’s resignation in light of massive losses in the last quarter. Despite posting a 400k+ subscriber number a while back, the article touches on it but you also know that that number of regular subscribers is down substantially.

I guess the big question is, could they have realized how fubar their game was during development? Maybe being hidden away in Norway isn’t the best way to keep in touch with the bulk of the gamers out there. Considering the fact that European game developers have a track record of not giving a shit about their customer base after a game’s release, is it suprising?

I didn’t beta test the game (unless you count the play time post launch) so I can’t tell you if everything was last minute which might explain why no one told them or they never realized how broken the game was. Innovations aside, you can’t toss out the basics just because you’ve got some cool features (or what you consider to be cool features). It’s a hard lesson to be learned, unfortunately, but I guess it’s what happens when you don’t both rush a game and listen to the wrong people. Look at Vanguard. I’m surprised it’s still around at this point. Built for the hardest of hard core types and squeezed out way too early (because they needed the funds)…there’s no problem with building for the hard core MMOGer but just be ready to realize you’re going to cater to a small percentage of the market and thus will only make so much money…no pot of gold here.

Anyway, I expect Funcom to announce a shutdown of the game within six months. There’s no way they can lose that much money and consider it sustainable for much longer.

g