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Perfect World reassures players regarding the future of RaiderZ
There are certain things that trigger instinctive fears from MMO players. Things like having your game of choice shut down in its country of origin, which rarely bodes well for the future of the game as a whole. RaiderZ has shut down in both South Korea and Europe, but Perfect World Entertainment's senior product manager Mark Hill insists in a recent interview that this does not mean the title is in any risk of shutting down in North America. Hill states that the game is still developing a new expansion for release in the near future and that the development team is in close contact with the North American staff. He also points out that the game is not region-locked, allowing players to still register and play for the American version regardless of their countries of origin. While this doesn't mean the game is invincible in this market, it should help make current players a little more comfortable while playing.
Warhammer Online to close December 18th
Today is Warhammer Online's fifth anniversary, but instead of getting a celebration, the players are getting a pink slip from Mythic. The studio announced that it will be shutting WAR down as of December 18th because its licensing deal with Games Workshop has come to an end. The official statement gives the important details: "We here at Mythic have built an amazing relationship working with Games Workshop creating and running Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning over the last 8 years. Unfortunately, as with all licensing deals they do eventually come to end and on December 18th, 2013 we will no longer be operating Warhammer Online. As such we will no longer be selling three-month game time codes or have the ability to auto renew your accounts for three months as of September 18th, 2013. From all of us here at Mythic we thank you again for your dedication and support over the last five years." Producer Carrie Gouskos also posted her own memories of the game on this somber occasion, including the revelation of a now-cancelled Asian F2P edition of the game and a vampire-themed expansion. "It has been a tremendous honor to work with Games Workshop and even though we may be parting ways, our relationship with them remains strong," she wrote. "And now, hopefully, because this may be the last thing I ever write about Warhammer, I'll be allowed to acknowledge the existence of Chaos Dwarves. Or maybe not."
Diablo III shutting down auction houses next March
The Diablo III auction houses are being prepped for demolition next year. Blizzard announced that it will be taking down both the gold and real-money auction houses on March 18, 2014, stating that "they ultimately undermine Diablo's core gameplay." The studio is giving a heads-up now so that players have enough time to prepare for the change, although specific details regarding the shutdown process are still forthcoming. This announcement comes as Blizzard has been making noise about an improved "Loot 2.0" system to put more of an emphasis on killing monsters for one's gear. The auction houses will come down at the same time, and after they do, players will be able to trade with each other only through the trade window. You can watch the developers explain their reasoning behind this decision after the jump.
EA shutting BattleForge down in October after four years of service
Free-to-play RTS BattleForge will shut down on October 31. An update on the game's official site notes that those with a remaining balance of in-game currency are "encouraged to spend it" before it is unavailable to play. BattleForge's developer, EA Phenomic, closed in July, resulting in 60 layoffs. The game first launched in an open beta phase in March 2009, prior to receiving a price drop and subsequently a free to play edition.
Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean Online sunsetting in September
It looks as though Disney is going on a good old-fashioned reaping today and culling some of its less-profitable MMO properties. In addition to shuttering Toontown Online, the Mouse House is sunsetting Pirates of the Caribbean Online on September 19th. The official announcement informed players today of the sad news and explained the decision to cancel this title: "The Walt Disney Company is committed to offering high-quality, entertaining play experiences in both online virtual worlds and mobile apps. At this time, we are shifting our development focus towards other online and mobile play experiences, such as Club Penguin and a growing selection of Disney mobile apps." The upshot of this is that the final month will be playable for free to anyone interested, and any players who paid up past August 20th will receive an email with details regarding refunds.
Kogan Mobile to wind down after wholesale provider ispONE goes bust
Virtual carriers are only as healthy as the companies that provide their services -- and Australia's Kogan Mobile is learning this the hard way. Its wholesale cellular partner ispONE has just entered administration following a contract dispute with Telstra, ending all its deals for prepaid 3G services and leaving Kogan Mobile no choice but to wind down. Customers have already lost the ability to add or replenish services; they'll have up to 60 days after a Telstra notice to use any credit they have left, and 180 days to port their numbers elsewhere. While Kogan's shutdown may only affect about 100,000 people, it still represents an unfortunate loss of competition in a country with few major providers.
GDC Europe 2013: SOE talks game shutdowns, The Matrix Online
Sony Online Entertainment's Linda "Brasse" Carlson took the stage at this year's GDC Europe to talk about SOE's approach to community management, and in the process delivered a little insight into how studios can (and should) approach shutting down MMOs with waning or nonexistent player populations. Carlson used Monolith Productions' The Matrix Online as an example, explaining that the game's population had dipped down to fewer than 500 players by the time the decision was made to take it offline in 2009. The breaking point where cost of maintenance just to keep the game up was ridiculous. Sometimes you just have to shut these games down. Determining when and how to sunset an MMO is never an easy task; Carlson noted that a studio should never "belittle the people who are deeply emotionally upset" about their favorite title shutting down. The talk wasn't all about shutdowns, however; Carlson also discussed Sony's community management philosophy, which includes showing empathy to players, protecting developers from abuse, and using the player-driven community council to make more educated and agreeable decisions about the future of its games. Gamasutra has a nice collection of quotes from the presentation, if you're into that sort of thing.
Xbox Live Family Plans get converted to individual memberships starting August 27th
Microsoft just detailed how the Xbox One's "Home Gold" will spread the Xbox Live Gold love across multiple users of a particular system, but what about those with the current generation's Xbox Live Family Plan? The folks in Redmond stopped accepting new subscribers to the $99 / year package back in March, and now users are receiving an email (included after the break) with details about what happens next. First, the good news: As of August 27th, if you have the family plan then each one of your activated subaccounts get full Xbox Live Gold status for the duration of your remaining subscription, plus three extra months. Prior to the conversion, you can still add sub accounts to the maximum total of four, and if you're set to auto-renew prior to conversion then that will still happen. The conversion may not happen exactly on that date, but subscribers can expect another email a week before it actually occurs. Now the downsides: Activity reports and Microsoft Points allowances are going away, with reports disappearing at the time of conversion and the latter with the next system update. Another issue will apply to those who used it to game on multiple consoles in or across multiple households, since they'll need multiple individual XBL Gold subscriptions to do so -- one of the big problems the Family Pack resolved when it launched back in 2010. That could make sticking with the Xbox 360 or upgrading to an Xbox One more expensive going forward, check out the FAQ for all the details and run the numbers for yourself. [Thanks, Corey]
Webzen puts Arctic Combat on ice
Longevity in free-to-play games is odd. Some seem to last forever while others barely make it to one year. Arctic Combat was well on its way to the one-year mark after launching in December of last year, but Webzen has announced that the game will be closed completely as of September 2nd. The gradual shutdown started on August 2nd, with the item shop and downloads disabled, but service will continue for players still in the game until September. Players looking for compensation will receive money for use in other Webzen titles and are eligible to pick up special compensation packs in several other titles, including MU Online and Allods Online. Direct refunds are not offered. Our consolations go out to all players and staff members affected by this shutdown. [Thanks to Dengar for the tip!]
Death knell sounds for RaiderZ EU
In a move that apparently doesn't surprise some players, RaiderZ Europe is shutting down for good. Gameforge announced the closure today and posted a brief FAQ covering the the when, why, and what's next for players. The game is being shuttered because, "The success of RaiderZ did not meet our expectations and as we saw no other potential alternatives to the discontinuation of the services, unfortunately we were left with no other alternative than to take this step." In response to the announcement, players noted a lack of updates and content surely had some bearing on the lack of interest in the game. The servers will remain open until August 30th, at which time any players who wish to continue to play the game will have to move to a different publisher (i.e. Perfect World) and start from scratch. [Thanks to Skurvel for the tip]
InnoGames shutting down pirate-based browser game Kartuga
If you've loved the chance to have nautical pirate battles right in your browser courtesy of Kartuga, we've got sad news for you. InnoGames announced today that the the game has not managed to meet the company's standards for quality. The game also fails to meet the company's standard for cross-platform games, and with no way to bring it up to speed in an appropriate timeframe, the decision has been made to shut the game down in the very near future. Players with existing cash shop currency will be able to transfer that currency to another title run by InnoGames by August 14th. No exact date for the server shutdown has yet been established, but the official announcement specifies that the game will be available for a few more weeks. Our consolation goes out to all players and any development team members affected by this unexpected cancellation. [Source: InnoGames press release]
Remanum announces impending shutdown
The idea of an MMO centered entirely around establishing a trading empire is unique, as are games set in the time of ancient Rome instead of a more traditional European fantasy. But Remanum had certain problems, problems that the developers didn't see a way to change without massive rewrites. In a letter released to the community, the game director admits that without any further options, the team is going to shut down Remanum in the near future. Development and bug fixing have already stopped. On September 16th, all servers except for the most recently opened server will be taken offline, with the newest server allowed to run a bit longer. Players can transfer to the last server starting now if they want to keep playing as long as possible. While this is a German server, support will be offered for all languages until the final shutdown, and any gold purchased on other servers will be transferred to this last bastion. [Thanks to Arachnella for the tip!]
Netmarble announces the shutdown of Arcane Saga
It can only be hoped that during your brief time with Arcane Saga you have not gotten too attached to it. The game relaunched in the US just over a month ago, and now the game has announced an impending shutdown later this year. Somewhat unusually, the actual shutdown date is September 16th, meaning that the game will be waiting for the final shutdown longer than it was running normally. Netmarble has already closed up the cash shop; players are able to spend any remaining cash shop currency on the company's other titles. According to the announcement, the game simply wasn't taking in enough money to remain profitable. Arcane Saga was a relaunch of Prius Online, which had already been shut down once before. Our condolences go out to any gamers who had hoped for a long and fruitful future with the game.
PSA: Astrid task management service shuts down on August 5th
When Astrid was acquired by Yahoo in May, it warned us that its task management service would close within 90 days. Today, it has a more specific date: customers have until August 5th to export any data they can't afford to lose. Astrid suggests alternative services like Any.DO, Sandglaz, Wrike and Wunderlist for those who want to import their tasks and pick up where they left off. The firmer schedule won't ease the pain for Astrid loyalists, but it should prevent any rude surprises in the weeks ahead. Check out Astrid's email to users after the break. [Thanks, Alex]
Boxee Cloud DVR to shut down following Samsung deal, goes dark July 10th
If you're like us, you were wondering what impact Samsung's acquisition of Boxee would have on Boxee's Cloud DVR service. Unfortunately, we don't have good news. Boxee is shutting down the service on July 10th, and customers will lose access to their TV recordings at the same time. We're not surprised by the move, but it effectively shuts the company down within the space of a week. When Boxee's apps, the Boxee Box and the Live TV add-on are either gone or on their way out, there aren't really products left to offer -- it's all Samsung from here.
Snapjoy photo sharing service shut down following Dropbox aquisition
Snapjoy has announced that it'll be shuttering all of its services a mere six months after being acquired by cloud colossus Dropbox. In a blog post, the company said photos can no longer be imported into Snapjoy and the iPhone app is henceforth unavailable. If you've got images stored on the site, you'll have exactly a month to get them downloaded, since after July 24th, "all photos and data will be permanently deleted." The same thing happened to Audiogalaxy shortly after its acquisition by Dropbox, and of course other big fish like Google and Twitter are well known for similar behavior after eating smaller fish -- though at least we saw the #Music fruits of Twitter's buyout shortly after it happened. On the other hand, we've yet to see Dropbox do anything with Audiogalaxy, so we hope the defunct apps will be resurrected in some form soon.
TuneWiki social music player to shut down on June 28th
If you've been interested in social music listening, there's a good chance you've heard of TuneWiki's lyric syncing and discovery services. Unfortunately, you won't be hearing about them for much longer -- the company is shutting down on June 28th. The firm hasn't explained its decision, but we wouldn't count on any content working after the cutoff date. We've reached out for more details; for now, the only certainty is that lyric lovers will have to scramble for alternatives.
Feedly RSS reader launches cloud service
Feedly is a service that's risen in popularity recently for the most part because the much-loved RSS service Google Reader is coming to close on July 1, but the company is definitely doing its best to make a space for itself as something more than just an alternative. Today, Feedly released the Feedly Cloud, which not only creates a standalone web-based RSS reader app, but also hooks all of your feeds into the cloud, which developers can then hook their own APIs into for various purposes. Just like Google Reader's API, the idea is to allow Feedly's work to power other readers, and in fact the service is connecting into IFTTT right away at launch, and opening up other options for future apps and tools. This also means that Feedly is available right inside your web browser (previously, the app required a plugin or extension in your browser to work correctly), and can be pulled up from anywhere. Personally, Feedly has become my reader of choice, partly because it works so similarly to Google's service, and partly because it's so easy to migrate from one service to the other. If you use Google Reader and haven't yet chosen a new service, you're running out of time, as Google is finally shutting everything down on July 1. Feedly is the best alternative I've seen so far, and this move to the cloud shows that the company is very interested in not only grabbing Google's refugees, but keeping their patronage for as long as possible.
Jukebox Heroes: Tabula Rasa's soundtrack
It's a well-known fact that the ghost of Tabula Rasa haunts the Massively offices. I think it's because Shawn keeps feeding it ectopellets because he's not quite ready to let his beloved MMO go. The ghost is driving the rest of us crazy because it's constantly switching the labels on our lunchboxes and whistling the Tabula Rasa theme through the air ducts while we're trying to get honest work done. So while the MMO no longer exists outside of a few forlorn collector's editions picking up dust on store shelves, the music persists. Tabula Rasa boasted a strong score thanks to the work of Tracy W. Bush. Bush is a name you should know when it comes to MMO soundtracks: He had a huge hand in the World of Warcraft score and contributed to several NCsoft titles (which are all dead, but that's probably not his fault). [Edit: Several readers wrote in to let me know that Curse Mackey, Stacie Cline, Chris Vrenna, and Clint Walsh also contributed to the score. Thanks!] I find that sci-fi MMOs, particularly shooter-based ones, tend to elicit heavier tracks and more synth work than orchestral, and they are sometimes relentlessly grim. All of the above certainly can be applied to Tabula Rasa, up to and including its final surprising track.
ESPN 3D to shut down citing 'limited viewer adoption', makes room for 4K sports
A lack of interest in 3D viewing at home has claimed one of its first major victims today, as ESPN announced its 3D channel is going to shut down. ESPN 3D launched back in 2010 with coverage of the FIFA World Cup, but it will not make it to the next one, or to see ESPN's new Monday Night Football deal. In between it's broadcast everything from golf to the X Games to the NBA Finals, along with college football national championship games and and a one-off news spot on E:60. AT&T's U-verse dropped the channel in August 2011 after being one of the launch partners, but said it would come back due to a new agreement signed earlier this year. ESPN overcame many technology and cost hurdles to broadcasting 3D over the years, but in the end the chilly reception from the marketplace for 3D at home appears to have been too much to overcome. Another element that likely affected it were recent layoffs by parent company Disney, that Multichannel News reports included some jobs associated with ESPN 3D. So what's next for ESPN? According to a statement, "committing our 3D resources to other products and services that will better serve fans and affiliates." That should include the 4K capabilities planned for its new facility in Bristol, but we'll have to wait until it opens next year to find out. For now ESPN says it will be ready to provide 3D content again "if or when" the viewing format takes off -- the release of another Avatar flick or TVs that don't need glasses for 3D might help -- now the question is if / when other early efforts like n3D and 3net could also be shelved. [Thanks, @defiance]
