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Lego Universe will end in January 2012, offices closing
Lego Universe has run out of those skinny, flat, four-pronged pieces that are necessary to hold entire structures together, but that there never seem to be enough of in the Lego bin, probably because you lost them all and that's what happens when you don't take care of your things -- now go to time out and think about what you've done. Lego Universe's problems actually run much deeper than missing pieces -- it's missing players. Since going free-to-play in August, "it has not been possible to convert a satisfactory number of players to paying subscribers," The Lego Group said. Lego Universe will officially close Jan. 31, 2012. Developer Play Well Studios in Louisville, Colorado, and the marketing division in Billund, Denmark, will be closed, affecting 115 people. We hope they'll be able to build new, better careers out of this.
LEGO Universe shutting down January 2012
Playtime's over, people -- time to pack up your LEGO bricks and move on. The word's come down from the LEGO Group that LEGO Universe is closing its doors on January 31st, 2012 due to a lack of paying customers. While the game has been free-to-play for a while, apparently not enough players were interested in dishing out cash to keep the MMO operational. The news was posted just moments ago on the official forums along with a more in-depth FAQ: Hello Adventurer, today we are very sad to announce that LEGO Universe will be closing on January 31, 2012. This was a very difficult decision to make, but unfortunately LEGO Universe has not been able to attract the number of members needed to keep the game open. We are thankful to have had the opportunity to share this adventure wiith an amazing community of players. We hope you will continue to enjoy LEGO Universe for the last few months. As a thank you, if you are a paying subscriber on December 31, 2011, we will provide you the full game for the final month for free. Again, we want to thank the fantastic community of players who made LEGO Universe such a vibrant, fun and creative experience. Sincerely, The LEGO Universe Team Unfortunately, this closure means that the associated studios, including one in Colorado and one in Denmark, will be shuttered and 115 employees will be affected. LEGO Universe launched in October 2010 and converted to a free-to-play model this past August. We've included the official press release behind the break.
webOS brick-and-mortar stores close forever, may they rest in peace
It's with broken heart that we announce that the doors have officially shut for good on all remaining webOS retail stores. The news likely won't come as a shock to many, given HP's intent to scrap the operating system from its future plans. This isn't the first physical manifestation of the company's announcement, when factoring in the plethora of layoffs taking place; nonetheless, anyone affected or touched by a Palm device over the last 19 years may likely mourn the loss. That said, at least the stores went out with a bang: Veers were cleared out for $50 each, the Pixi was sold for $25 ($15 if you purchased four or more) and the Touchstone could be had for a cool $2.50. The retail outlets may now be a thing of the past, but the memories of the products sold in them will hopefully live on forever. Never forget.
Mytheon closing up shop
Faxion Online wasn't the only UTV True Games project to be axed following the company's acquisition by Disney. It turns out that Mytheon, too, is in the process of closing down for good. In the sole announcement on the Mytheon forums, the team posted a note that the game would be spinning down starting this past July 27th in preparation for a final shutdown at an undisclosed date in the near future. Players can no longer register for the game nor download it. Mytheon planned to launch in 2010 but was kept in beta testing far past the projected release date. This announcement ends on a bittersweet note: "Finally, we'd like to send out a huge thank you to all our players who've joined us on this journey. Keep challenging fate, The Mytheon Team." [Thanks to Paul for the tip!]
Faxion Online closing the doors of heaven and hell
It may not have had a long life, but Faxion Online's certainly was memorable. The PvP-centric MMO with the unique heaven-and-hell theme has announced that it is closing its doors within the month, following rumors that the entire team had been laid off. In a brief statement posted on the forums, players were notified of the game's closure, which will occur in a couple quick stages. This week, players will not be able to register for the game, download it, or use the store, while the servers will be powered down within 30 days from today. "We're eternally grateful for all the support, feedback, and competition our players have provided through thick and thin," the announcement stated. "Faxion's development was a Herculean effort that some said was impossible given the timeframe and resources we had, and we're proud to have delivered a PvP-driven experience that people could enjoy. Alas, all good things must come to an end." Faxion Online launched on May 26th this year, making this one of the quickest demises of an MMO since last year's All Points Bulletin. We at Massively wish the best for Faxion's staff in the coming months.
Walmart closing down its digital music store
Walmart is shuttering its digital music store on August 29, the company announced this week. The store was introduced to the public on March 23, 2004, and made a valiant effort at competing with iTunes, often offering up songs for even cheaper than Jobs and Apple were able to make them on iTunes. Unfortunately, Walmart stubbornly clung to the Windows market, offering songs as WMA files laden with Microsoft's DRM, unplayable on the iPod even as that music player saw astronomic growth. Walmart's always been a huge player in terms of music sales, but with digital music growth higher than ever and physical media at an all-time low, the company's influence has waned quite a bit. And closing down the digital store means they're more or less surrendering to iTunes' superiority. Not that Walmart itself is in trouble at all -- we hear they still sell a lot more than music.
The Soapbox: Be here now
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. Games die. It's an unpleasant reality but a reality just the same, with the highest-profile death on the horizon being Star Wars Galaxies. Business decisions get made, and unfortunately, sometimes those decisions boil down to "this game is no longer worth the money to keep it running." If you're lucky, the announcement comes with a great deal of time for you to wrap up what you've always wanted to do in the game; if you're unlucky, you might have a couple of weeks before the servers go dark. So what do you do as a player? How do you cope with the fact that the game is shutting down? There are a lot of approaches, but I think it's unfortunate that most of the reactions seem to center around some last-ditch effort to save the game from oblivion. It's entirely missing the point to try and pull the game back from the brink of death, and it does a disservice to both the game and the players when you spend your last days desperately fighting a foregone conclusion.
Viliv, UMPC and MID proponent, reportedly exiting the ultramobile game
Last we heard from Viliv, one of the OGs of the MID and UMPC world, it was throwing its hat in the tablet arena with a pair of Android slates and a Wintel slab at CES. Now, rumor has it, the company is prepping to close up shop and make a graceful exit from a market segment it helped pioneer. This is according to sources talking to UMPC Portal, but there have been other clues. The manufacturer was conspicuously absent from Computex in June and, when we reached out to its PR line, our emails we're bounced back as undeliverable. We're not quite ready to start digging Viliv's digital grave just yet but, in the face of competition from the likes of Samsung and Apple, we'd say the writing is on the wall.
Microsoft shuts down utility monitoring service, proves you can't go Hohm again
Is there anything more tragic than a broken Hohm? Microsoft announced this week that it will be shuttering its utility monitoring service at the close of May 2012, citing a lack of consumer adoption. The news comes a week after Google announced the closing of its competing PowerMeter service. Despite the shutdown, however, Microsoft assures us all that it's still in the business of developing energy solutions for cities with a wide-ranging list of partners. Hohm itself will continue to operate through the end of May 2012, at which point its users will be rendered Hohmless. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Google 'retires' Health and PowerMeter, lets you save your vitals through 2012
Remember that Withings blood pressure monitor for iOS that we went hands-on with last week? It integrated with Google Health. The search giant's health management portal also paired with dozens of other services (a heaping handful can be seen in the image above) to aggregate and track all of your data, and share it with family members, friends, and doctors. The service didn't have the widespread impact that Google expected, however, so it's taking Health offline after the clock strikes midnight on January 1, 2012. You'll have another year to download your info, or send it directly to competing services. Also on the chopping block is PowerMeter, a free energy monitoring tool that pairs with smart power meters and other energy monitoring devices to help users better understand consumption habits and ultimately reduce costs. That project will get the boot from Mountain View on September 16th, but you'll be able to log in to your account to download a CSV file. We imagine Health and PowerMeter are already plotting their trip down south, to get in a few thousand rounds of golf with Video Store at Pebble Beach. Perhaps to be joined by Buzz and Wave, in the not-so-distant future?
Microsoft shutters Pioneer Studios, we pour one out for J Allard
It's been about a year since he left Microsoft, but the J Allard era came to a more definitive close yesterday, with the shuttering of his brainchild, Pioneer Studios. Microsoft opened the incubation lab more than three years ago as an entrepreneurial space where designers could toy around with new consumer technologies. The tragically shelved Courier tablet was first developed within Pioneer's exposed brick walls, where Allard and his Alchemy Ventures team also worked on the Xbox, Zune and Windows Phone 7. Now, however, a Microsoft spokeswoman has confirmed that the downtown Seattle office is no longer occupied, telling CNET that many of the lab's employees have either left, or moved on to different positions within the company. Pioneer co-founder Georg Petschnigg left Microsoft in April to pursue an "undisclosed new venture," while fellow godfather Jonathan Harris is still at Redmond, where he serves as "principle experience director," according to their respective LinkedIn profiles. The spokeswoman didn't offer a specific reason for the decision, but in a now-ominous video posted to Microsoft's developer site back in October, Petschnigg acknowledged that the unit's innovative spirit would frequently lead to dead ends. "Often times our work just doesn't go anywhere," he explained, adding that Pioneer would only pursue projects expected to bring in more than $100 million a year. "That's one of the perils of being an entrepreneur." See the full video after the break.
Cisco phasing out FlipShare: 30 days to save your videos
Many Flip fans are already sporting black arm bands with little red spots in honor of the dying brand, and the New York Times reports there's more bad news coming. Starting May 12th, all videos uploaded to FlipShare will expire 30 days after they've been posted. This applies to videos you've already uploaded as well --- so you've got till June 11th to follow the lead of Google Video users and back up your collection of clips before they disappear into the digital ether. The FlipShare service will continue to live on for another two and a half years, if you don't mind the one month limit, but clearly Cisco wants users to move on with their video-sharing lives. Check out the more coverage link for instructions on how to export your videos, and let's have one more moment of silence for the tiny camcorder that could... at least until it couldn't.
Modu closing up shop in February
Looks like the bad news just got worse for Modu fans. According to reports from Israel, Modu, maker of impossibly small modular handsets, will be forced to close its doors in February as it attempts to payback debt and the salaries owed to its workers. Ironically, the news will likely spark an increase in demand as nerds battle to curate an elusive Modu W for their vintage gadget collections.
Warrior Epic closes its doors
After a year and a half in service, Warrior Epic looks to be destitute. The free-to-play MMO had its service shut off on Friday by ijji, which posted the following announcement in the company's forums: "As of November 12th, 2010, Warrior Epic will no longer be serviced through ijji.com. The ijji Warrior Epic team would like to thank you for your support during this journey. As a token of our gratitude for your loyalty, we would like to reward you an ijji loyalty package. If you had registered for an ijji Warrior Epic account, you will receive an email with full details on this loyalty package. Thank you again for your support, and we look forward to seeing you in our other exciting games!" Details of the loyalty package can be found on this thread, where ijji promises to hand out items for former Warrior Epic players if they register for GunZ or Lunia. Warrior Epic was developed by UTV True Games, the same studio behind Mytheon and Faxion Online.
Xmarks calls it quits
I've been a big fan of Xmarks for a while now -- I work on a few Macs and PCs regularly, and while MobileMe is nice, I've always appreciated Xmarks' ease of use (after a one-time setup, it basically worked automatically) and compatibility across whatever browsers I happened to use. That's why I was disappointed to hear yesterday that they're calling it quits. Around 90 days from now, the servers will shut down, and Xmarks will be no more. Co-founder Todd Agulnick goes through the story of the service on that blog post. It was originally developed as Foxmarks, and it was designed to work directly with the Firefox browser to sync bookmarks there. Eventually, they brought in large numbers of users with tons of bookmarks in their browsers, but the company struggled to try and find a way to make money off of those numbers. Search became a main target, and if you're an Xmarks user, you'll know the 'tags" that would appear on Google Search pages in the browsers. But despite initial interest, that never took off, and after unsuccessfully finding a buyer for the company this past spring, Agulnick says the end has come. Fortunately, there are bookmark syncing alternatives, and most of the browsers these days have options built-in (which is why Xmarks won't move to a subscription service -- hard to sell something most browsers are offering for free). But I'll pour some out for Xmarks -- it was an excellent service. I'm just sorry it couldn't find a profitable place to settle down.
Nokia's New York flagship store closes today
Imagine our luck: we just happened to stroll into Nokia's New York flagship store today on 57th between 5th and Madison Avenue, only to discover that it was practically torn down and set to close permanently today, a move that Nokia announced late last year. A representative approached us as soon as we entered and said, "the only phones we have are from this point forward; there's nothing else in the store." Interestingly, a call over to Nokia's other North American flagship in Chicago confirmed that it isn't closing today and no date has been set (at least, not a date that anyone is talking about) -- so there's one more outpost in the States if you want to get your Nokia on one last time. Needless to say, the overwhelming majority of Americans won't be shedding any tears over the closure, but it's always disappointing to see a neat and beautifully-designed place to geek out go belly-up. And where are we going to play with an N8 before we buy now, anyway?
GameCrazy store liquidation starts today, everything 20% off
Moving right according to schedule, GameCrazy today officially began liquidating outlets across the US, with remaining inventory in stores reduced in price by 20 percent. An internal memo we received details the liquidation proceedings, confirmed by multiple calls to remaining GameCrazy outlets across the East Coast. "Beginning May 21, your store will introduce a special sales strategy featuring 20% OFF sale on all software and hardware items," reads this particular store's notification. Apparently "The Great American Group" -- an auction, liquidation, and appraisal contractor -- will be handling oversight of the liquidation, advertising as much on its website (as well as being mentioned repeatedly in the notice we received). It also appears that the group has yet to finalize an incentive plan for remaining employees, though the document assures that they'll hear something "next week." A list of remaining Movie Gallery, Inc. outlets, including many GameCrazys, can be found here (warning: PDF link).
NIDA Online shutting down tomorrow
In what must be one of the fastest closures we've heard about, it would appear that GameKiss has decided to shut down their "action MMO" Nida Online tomorrow -- just short of 8 months after it launched into open beta. While they don't give specifics as to precisely why they've opted to shut down the game, MMOCrunch is citing financial issues as the reason that GameKiss has decided on this course of action. In either case, while it's never good to see any MMO community lose its home, we suspect that Nida Online players will likely bounce back. After all, there are a great many other free-to-play games with solid populations to choose from -- and a new one launching (seemingly) every other day.
Near Death Studios closes down
If 2009 hadn't claimed quite enough lives for your tastes quite yet -- in terms of companies, jobs, and games -- you might have a bit of a morbid approach to things. We're just over the border into the new year, but it looks like there was one last item on the chopping block. Near Death Studios, the team behind Meridian 59, is no longer simply "near" death, but over the line into pining for the fjords. Brian 'Psychochild' Green broke the news on his blog yesterday, announcing that while the game wouldn't be going anywhere, it would no longer be a commercial venture run by the now-defunct company. So what went wrong? As Green puts it, while Near Death Studios was able to raise the money and the operational talent to get the game running and keep it in maintenance mode, the game never really grew -- the one shot it might have had at attracting new players was unfortunately timed right around the launch of World of Warcraft. He's not bitter about the experience, however, and he's glad that he had the chance to keep Meridian 59 running for such a long time and help shape something people really enjoyed. It's a sad announcement for a venerable game, though, and we can only hope that this is the last of the fallout we see from the closing-filled year.
Metaplace announces January 1st shutdown
The Metaplace development team made the announcement today that no fan of a game likes to hear: "Today we have unfortunate news to share with the Metaplace community. We will be closing down our service on January 1, 2010 at 11:59pm Pacific." The bottom line to the reasoning behind the decision is that Metaplace simply is not making enough headway to be a viable (read: profitable) product. Fans will surely have a number of questions about this, and the community team has provided a FAQ to answer most of them. While it's sad news for both staff -- a significant number of whom have been laid off due to the closure -- and fans of Metaplace, the community team is holding their heads up and maintaining an optimistic outlook. The goodbye party on January first is being treated as a celebration of the fun that's been had, rather than a gathering to mourn the ending. Community Manager Tami Baribeau also shared some hopeful news in a blog post: "Metaplace, Inc. as a company (and as a tool) isn't going away. We have whole new shift of focus ahead of us and a smaller team set out to accomplish some big goals." Our sympathies are with the staff members affected by this, and with everyone who has invested their time, creativity, and effort in Metaplace. However, we join their team in looking forward to the good things anticipated by the company.
