By Alec Meer on September 16th, 2010 at 5:16 pm.
Perma-troubled MMO APB is preparing to see its last cop shoot its last robber. While bankrupted developer Realtime Worlds’ second project, the social game Project: My World looks to have been rescued by a mystery US firm that may or may not be headed up by former RTW bossmen, All Points Bulletin has not been granted a similar second wind. Its impending closure has just been officially announced.
Quoth the community officer:
APB has been a fantastic journey, but unfortunately that journey has come to a premature end. Today we are sad to announce that despite everyone’s best efforts to keep the service running; APB is coming to a close. It’s been a pleasure working on APB and with all its players. Together we were building an absolutely amazing game, and for that, we thank you. You guys are awesome!
From all of the Realtime World staff we thank you for your continued support.
The servers are still up, so join the party and say goodbye.
Following poor reviews and poor sales, it’s unsurprising. But it’s never a happy day to see an ambitious project that an awful lot of people poured their hearts and souls into be so cruelly crushed. Perhaps, given time, APB could have corrected a lot of its problems. Perhaps it couldn’t. It’s still sad news for its creators, and for those who did enjoy the game.
Best of luck to all those affected by this.
EDIT: I was going to add this to the Sunday Papers, but since it’s relevant now, Ex-RTW-er Luke Haliwell’s blog is going through a multi-stage post about how it all went wrong. It’s just fascinating reading. On a personal note, while I feel for the RTW-ers, I can’t help but think about the consumers. Has an MMO ever burned out this quickly? As in, less than 3 months? This strikes me as one that’s going to be pivotal in terms of how people view MMOs now. Even the life-time subs to Hellgate got over a year of playing. – KG
16/09/2010 at 17:24 Bald Space Marine says:
“Together we were building an absolutely amazing game”
No, not really….
16/09/2010 at 17:32 SquareWheel says:
It’s not like it was done. =|
16/09/2010 at 20:31 Heliocentric says:
Amazing world? Apb developers play minecraft- confirmed.
16/09/2010 at 20:41 ScubaMonster says:
Perhaps if the game was fully built before release they might not have to close shop. I have no sympathy for half assed, rushed games that fail.
16/09/2010 at 20:43 Heliocentric says:
How long do you figure before HMV stops trying to sell copies of apb for £30?
16/09/2010 at 20:51 Howl says:
It was painfully apparent to anyone that touched the beta for a few seconds that the game handled like it was written in flash. I’m amazed the project wasn’t canned long before release.
16/09/2010 at 17:24 Malibu Stacey says:
I wouldn’t be surprised to see this or something similar be resurrected in the near future TBH.
I reckon if they’d tried to make it more like EVE in it’s gameplay it would’ve gotten a better reception. Counter-Strike on huge maps with a handful of people to shoot at isn’t fun. Make a proper open world in the EVE mould where nowhere is truly “safe” & people fight for territory etc & it’ll be a start.
16/09/2010 at 17:25 zipdrive says:
Alec, it’s also never a happy day seeing people who paid for a game get left with a useless box.
17/09/2010 at 00:15 Forch says:
I hope they add a final patch that allows you to make characters and mess around with the character customizer all you want with everything unlocked.
Oh well.
16/09/2010 at 17:25 Tei says:
Very sad news.
APB is one of the few games that are not about generic tolkien worlds mixed with high fantasy. Is a action MMORPG, I know is a niche too small but one that really make me happy.
MMORPG games are a unique thing. Wen the server close, is forever. You will never be able to experience APB again. With singleplayer games, theres always abandonwarez versions, emulators, or some happy hacker implementing some gitzmo to enable these games to live again. But wen a MMO dies, everything about it dies forever. You will never experience again his unique features.
Wen a MMO die, is like something that we will never have again die with it, forever.
I have player about 400 hours with APB, is the fist MMORPG game that has made me stay long enough to get to “top” and complete a character.
I salute you, APB.
o7
Have a nice night.
16/09/2010 at 20:58 Howl says:
MMOFPS is not a small niche. It’s a gigantic market that’s waiting for just one decent game to come along. Someone like Blizzard will do it and will make more money than God.
Give me a MMOFPS with vehicular and infantry based combat, set post apocalypse, with player run gangs holding territory a la Dark Age of Camelot, in a persistent environment, with AAA shooter mechanics and I will hand over my credit card details faster than you can shout, “kerchiiing!”
17/09/2010 at 11:47 Harlander says:
You never know, Tei – you might see a server emulator some time.
16/09/2010 at 17:25 protobob says:
I feel a great disturbance in the internet, as if millions of aim-bot hackers suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.
17/09/2010 at 10:47 adonf says:
oooooh… you’re quoting harry potter, right ?
16/09/2010 at 17:30 airtekh says:
Well bugger it anyway. I thought they might be able to pull through.
I’m still hoping out for an online GTA-a-thon. Hopefully somebody might pick it up again, like with Hellgate: London.
16/09/2010 at 17:30 Vinraith says:
Whether I care about it or not, there’s never any joy in a bunch of people losing access to a game they’ve invested money, time, and enthusiasm in. One of the worst things about MMO’s and other multiplayer-dependent games, actually, is that other people, actively or passively, can deny you access to fun you already paid for. My sympathies to the fans.
16/09/2010 at 17:31 Longrat says:
How sad, on so many levels.
16/09/2010 at 17:33 KindredPhantom says:
This is odd, it was only yesterday they announced a patch for today which introduce a new server one without upgrades. It is a bit odd for them to announce a patch and then oh wait we’re closing the game kthxbai.
The server are already down and so are the forums.
I do wonder if they have sold APB to another company, maybe a korean one that will turn it into a grindfest.
16/09/2010 at 17:33 LewieP says:
Had I bought it, I’d be asking EA for a refund or a free game of my choice.
16/09/2010 at 19:11 Jockie says:
EA were only a distribution partner, they had little responsibility for the game, other than to help market and distribute it.
16/09/2010 at 17:33 Starky says:
And this is why any MMO or MMO like game has the following rule for me (a rule I put into force after Warhammer online)…
Wait 6 months before you even think about buying it – and only do so after playing a trial. No trial, no sale.
Simple.
Either that or if it if F2P I’ll give it a shot – subscription MMO’s just require too much investment, in time and money.
16/09/2010 at 17:39 Alexander Norris says:
And this is why MMOs are shit.
16/09/2010 at 17:52 DrGonzo says:
@Alexander
You are so very, very wrong.
16/09/2010 at 17:57 Vinraith says:
@Alexander
I find your oversimplification disturbing. MMO’s are shit for lots of reasons.
16/09/2010 at 18:51 Xercies says:
Of course with MMO players basically being jump shippers usually playing soemthing for 2 months and then hailing it as shit and moving onto the next MMO or some occasinally staying there. Even if its a great game 6 months down the line theres hardly any players.
16/09/2010 at 18:56 Alexander Norris says:
@Vinraith — you’ll note I didn’t say “this is the only reason why MMOs are shit,” or even “MMOs are always shit.”
The fact that the publisher/developer can just close the servers down X months in and leave you with nothing to show for it is one of the reasons MMOs are shit. None of the other reasons why certain specific MMOs are shit have anything to do with how MMOs actually work on the technical side, and as a result, none of them are universal reasons.
It wasn’t a particularly a) ambiguous or b) contentious statement, unless you happen to think that all MMOs are shit forever, or something.
16/09/2010 at 19:19 DrGonzo says:
That would be true if it was, this is why MMO’s CAN be shit. But I’m just being an arse really.
16/09/2010 at 19:19 Vinraith says:
@Alexander
That was meant to be a tongue-in-cheek agreement. Conveying tone through text is a bitch.
16/09/2010 at 21:01 Rii says:
@Vinraith:
Well, I laughed.
16/09/2010 at 21:18 Alexander Norris says:
@Vinraith — I didn’t take it as an insult, either. :D
16/09/2010 at 17:35 Freud says:
My sympathies to all the customers.
16/09/2010 at 17:36 Ovno says:
Such a pity, I was really excited about what this game looked like it was going to be, its a pity it never was…
16/09/2010 at 17:37 Maxheadroom says:
Hats off to them for trying to be different though. I’ve had it up to here *waves hand around neck height* with elves and wizard WoW-alikes.
Sad thing is the suits will see the failure of things like this and Tabula Rasa and make even more Wow clones
16/09/2010 at 17:38 Losty says:
Not sad to see that rubbish go, so badly balanced and unfinished it was. One of the only few games that REALLY got me worked up while playing it. So obviously broken.
16/09/2010 at 17:39 Leelad says:
That sucks…was on my “once i’ve cleared out all the crap steam sales forced me to buy i’ll give it a go” list
Kinda felt inclined since I played WoW for a while with a genuinely fucking great guy who worked on the art for the game. (miss you Oom!!) He did some stuff on crackdown too. Sad to think too that He’ll probably be out of a job he enjoyed.
Sad days!
16/09/2010 at 17:40 Cooper says:
Re: Short lived MMO games
Spare a moment of rememberance for SeeD:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_70/407-Seed-on-the-Road
An MMO from 2006 which shut down very soon after coming out of Beta. Released too early. But, unlike APB, it really did have something to add to the MMO field – a non-combat (though there was lots of PvP) MMO based entirely around player interaction (NO NPCs at all). It was incredibly promising, and there has been -nothing- like it since.
16/09/2010 at 17:55 DrGonzo says:
I think APB really did have something to add to MMO’s. It was actually fun for a start, unlike pretty much any other MMO I’ve played outside of Guild Wars. Yes it was horribly unfinished, but it really could have been something amazing one day. I hope it’s been bought out by a western developer who sees the potential and not a Korean dev who can see the micropayments.
17/09/2010 at 11:51 Harlander says:
Oh, man, I remember Seed.. I was actually in the beta.. so.. uh, I guess it was my fault it wasn’t ready for release.
Sorry about that, folks.
16/09/2010 at 17:42 Dean says:
With that short a time period… I mean the legal waters are murky but surely there’s an argument for returning the thing to whoever you bought it from under the Sale of Goods Act?
16/09/2010 at 17:50 qrter says:
There will undoubtedly be something to intercept that in the EULA that people will have had to agree to while installing the game.
16/09/2010 at 18:10 Starky says:
EULA’s cannot in any way counter act written law. In the UK at least, any contract or agreement that breaks, or voids laws or rights, is valid. For example you can’t sign a contract to make it okay to physically harm someone – even if it is consensual (not talking about kinky sex here, but actual bodily damage).
Simply put there is nothing in a EULA that can ever deny you your basic rights as a consumer as detailed in sales of goods acts and consumer protection laws.
So yeah, there is a serious case to be made for demanding a refund under it being a faulty good or service.
The problem is where software falls in such a law is very, very muddy – generally it’s assumed a boxed product (the DVD/manual itself) is a product, while a downloadable game is a service – but most online software mixes both.
There’s not much case law to help clarify it either.
For example, if a good fails to meet expected quality you have th right to return it for a refund within 6 months of purchase basically automatically – this is mainly for physical goods, any fault developed in the first 6 months is assumed to be a manufacturing fault and so refundable.
It’s why law required any electrical good to have a 1 year warranty. The law applies though to all goods, a chair you buy from ikea that breaks after 3 months of general use would be something you cold get a refund on.
This is a game that has broken after 3 months of general use – through no fault of the consumers, the product is broken (it won’t work without servers) and the service is ended.
Still it isn’t simple, they could argue that your £30 for the game was for your first month only… or your playtime that you get with the game, if you used that you might get nothing.
If you have playtime left fro that initial purchase though, or any play “hours” left at ALL, you might be able to get a partial refund on that.
Simply put if you paid for 10 hours, and only used 5, you should be able to get a refund for those 5 you can no longer use.
I’d be shocked if this the publishers didn’t get a few class action suits in the US over this also.
16/09/2010 at 18:13 Starky says:
Bleh I want edit function back, you can proof read a post to yourself and still miss mistakes and then… bleh.
16/09/2010 at 19:02 Alexander Norris says:
@Starky — if the contract says “we’re not selling you a game, we’re selling you a license to use a game until we decide we don’t want you to use it anymore” I’m fairly sure pulling the plug isn’t illegal, no matter how soon or late it happens.
Depends on the language of the EULA and I’d like to hear what an actual lawyer has to say about it, but I don’t really see how this is legally wrong.
16/09/2010 at 19:46 Starky says:
The problem is that under UK law at least consumer rights protect a service too – for example if you take a mobile phone on pay as you go, they also have in their terms of service that they can dump you at any time – but if you have credit left on that phone when they cancel your account, you can demand a refund for that mobile phone credit, as they are failing to provide the service (£10 worth of phone calls).
Or with a year long contract phone, if you end it 6 months in you have to pay the remainder – if they cancel it, you don’t. They might try and bill you for it, but if they cancel your contract they free you from it, simple as that.
Again people have a claim with this games specific payment model because they might have hours left on their account – which have a £ value which might be reclaimed.
Same way that if a store cancelled it’s gift certificates as valid, you can put in a claim for a refund (but only if they go against what the gift card itself says, for example if the card says you have a year to use it and they shut down all gift card usage/sales 6 months later – you have the right to a refund.
Stuff like that doesn’t happen often, but big companies rely on people not having a sodding clue about their consumer rights when it comes to returns and sales. Like so many people will accept a gift card, or accept that jewellery and such cannot be returned. Which is a lie – many stores won’t accept a return of say ear ring because you don’t like them, but if they break due to being faulty you can return them and demand a refund by right.
Some stores even train their staff to lie about statutory rights when it comes to returns, or teach them “company policy” like it overrides law – which the staff are probably ignorant about anyway.
16/09/2010 at 21:59 Dean says:
Yup, plus there’s an entire unfair contracts issue with the EULA too…
I mean, this is an unfortunate situation, with APB, but if this is legal, and there are no recriminations, then it’s only a matter of time before someone exploits this to rip people off.
16/09/2010 at 17:42 mondomau says:
Son of a-
I’ve still got 30-40 gametime hours left, having sunk a lot of my playtime into the PTW test server. I wasn’t a massive fan of the game, but I thought it had promise – with a little more care on the balancing and match making, they could probably have maintained a decent sized following.
Oh, and they announced a new patch this morning. WTF.
16/09/2010 at 17:42 Navagon says:
I wonder if their over-commercialisation of it was due to their desperation to recoup their apparently inescapable debts? I think that’s what went a long way towards killing APB off.
16/09/2010 at 17:49 Mac says:
That, and it being shit …
16/09/2010 at 18:05 Zogtee says:
I’m sure it had something to do with that and also with being released too early. It’s sad for the people involved, but everyone is so fucking eager to get an MMO up and running, and surprisingly many haven’t figured out yet that the attitude “ship it broken and fix it later” doesn’t hold anymore. Some manage to claw on to a minor user-base (you don’t have to topple WoW to be successful), but APB didn’t even do that.
But yeah, it’s the shortest run I’ve seen. Even crap like the Star Wars MMO is still running and that was broken as fuck when it was released.
16/09/2010 at 18:11 Navagon says:
The better MMOs evolve over time. They could have completely overhauled the whole game a couple of years from now. But of course, now we’ll never know.
16/09/2010 at 18:16 DrGonzo says:
I don’t know why all these people keep saying it’s shit. Even in it’s unfinished state it was way more fun than WoW. I’m guessing these people have never actually played the game. But feel it’s okay to say it’s shit anyway, because of the reviews, which you know, actually averaged out at above average. But no, anything that doesn’t score in the 90s is shit.
16/09/2010 at 18:30 Navagon says:
I think that reviewers are partly to blame for that. If they score most games highly then give one average score then of course that game is going to be seen as crap. (And for the record I haven’t played APB myself, which is why I’m largely neutral on the matter.)
But, that said, I think that MMOs are very tricky things to review anyway. Of course they’re going to be much worse at launch than they are going to be 6 months down the line. But you can’t exactly say “well there’s all these problems, but they’ll probably have all those fixed soon enough”. You’ve got to review what you’ve got in front of you.
16/09/2010 at 19:10 Jimbo says:
I don’t know which reviews you’re referring to exactly, but APB’s metacritic score is 58, whilst the average metacritic score for a game is ~70. 58 is train wreck territory.
17/09/2010 at 03:40 Hallgrim says:
I played it and I think it was shit…
16/09/2010 at 17:42 LunchBox says:
I’ve only subscribed to two MMORPGs, Auto Assault and APB, and they both met an untimely end. Boy, I sure can pick ‘em.
16/09/2010 at 17:42 Freud says:
On another note, another action MMO bites the dust. Planetside, Tabula Rasa, APB. There are some that are going F2P (Firefall). It seems these games perhaps can’t handle the free competition of TF2, CS, MW2 and so on.
16/09/2010 at 18:41 Film11 says:
Planetside isn’t dead! Admittedly there is only one server, and the population is in the hundreds, if that. But it isn’t dead! (not yet at least)
16/09/2010 at 21:46 TotalBiscuit says:
Planetside is better than all of those games, is still running after many, many years (albeit has a very small playerbase) and is getting a sequel. Certainly a step up from the other action MMOs present and past.
16/09/2010 at 22:45 Freud says:
I wasn’t claiming they were failures from a gameplay perspective. But from a commercial perspective they absolutely were if if there is a microscopic community still playing them.
I am glad Planetside is getting a sequel. This kind of MMO, if done right, could result in an amazing gameplay experience.
16/09/2010 at 23:05 Kdansky says:
Planetside isn’t a bad game. But it is basically TF2 with monthly fees. MMOs are very big on demanding monthly money, but most of them are really shitty at providing monthly content, even WoW at times (before expansions, such as right now). A “persistent world” (aka Savegames on a server) is really not enough for subscription fees. It’s just that all publishers wanted a piece of Blizzard’s gold-shitting Tauren, and found out the hard way that a game does not become a good MMO by being more expensive.
Instead of playing one MMO, you can just about buy a game a month (Indie or Steam sales vs fee + game + expansions). The last four games I bought were all cheaper (or at least similar) than 1 month of WoW, and I missed KoToR for 2.50€ on steam yesterday. And they have entertained me way better than WoW ever has.
APB biting it is quick, but after what I’ve read about that game, it’s hardly surprising.
16/09/2010 at 17:43 mondomau says:
Son of a-
I’ve still got 30-40 gametime hours left, having sunk a lot of my playtime into the PTW test server. I wasn’t a massive fan of the game, but I thought it had promise – with a little more care on the balancing and match making, they could probably have maintained a decent sized following.
Oh, and they announced a new patch this morning, now the site has crashed and the forums are down. So I’ll be surprised if the servers are functioning much longer.
16/09/2010 at 18:21 Starky says:
Get proof of that time NOW.
Screen shot, receipt, whatever you can…
Because you might be able to demand a refund from whoever you buy that through (EA?)…
That said, if you buy it direct from real time worlds you’re probably boned, as bankruptcy will protect them from most refund claims.
16/09/2010 at 17:47 Evernight says:
I think we will still see non-fantasy MMOs come out, but they need to achieve the addictiveness and polish of WoW; things most MMOs have failed to acquire… even WoW clones.
17/09/2010 at 03:44 Hallgrim says:
WoW wasn’t polished when it was released, but it was at least functional, and they worked rapidly to improve/balance/add content.
If a game twice as good as vanilla wow came out tomorrow, WOTLK wow would kick its ass.
16/09/2010 at 17:48 Sagan says:
I would have eventually bought it had it been patched. I liked it in the beta.
Still it’s just a shame. Let’s hope they do something else with the customization tools, because they deserve a second chance.
16/09/2010 at 17:51 KindredPhantom says:
It had a couple of small patches and one big patch with another scheduled for today.
16/09/2010 at 18:50 Sagan says:
What I meant to say is, had it received enough patches that people say “the problems I had at launch are fixed.” So better combat, better driving, more gameplay variety.
16/09/2010 at 20:46 KindredPhantom says:
Well the big patch fixed the driving and added recoil to the weapons, two day one problems fixed but the upgrades system wan’t changed. They were planning on adding skill servers today, servers where upgrades aren’t there but instead they announced APB is dead.
16/09/2010 at 17:51 Lukasz says:
Bye.
16/09/2010 at 17:56 Stijn says:
That’s a pity. I had a few fun hours in the game and while lately Starcraft 2 and Borderlands have been claiming my time, I was intending to go back to it after a few patches. I would’ve liked to roam the streets of San Paro once more, but alas.
16/09/2010 at 17:59 Robin says:
Damn shame. I hope this isn’t interpreted by publishers/investors as “non-fantasy MMOs are too risky to attempt”.
Also, that someone patches the avatar editor to work offline.
16/09/2010 at 18:00 Goronmon says:
I thought it was a fairly enjoyable game. There were definitely some issues, but I’ve seem much worse games last longer.
16/09/2010 at 18:03 Vague-rant says:
You know, I thought they’d try a steam sale before this. Something like 7.50 or 10 pounds would’ve definitely got some sales, at least from people just wanting to give it a go. Even if its not enough to sustain a community, they still get some cash. Or is that just too cynical?
16/09/2010 at 18:19 Starky says:
Not a chance, they’re 80 million or more in the hole from this project, there is no coming back from that – better for the company just to go bankrupt and everybody to walk away as fast as they can.
Sucks for the investors, and I can see some legal action over this whole thing kicking off…
The bottom line is though that investment might as well have been money burned.
17/09/2010 at 17:17 Kadayi says:
@Sparky
In the hole would imply they are in debt to the sum of $80 million which isn’t the case. An investment is not the same as a loan.
17/09/2010 at 19:03 Starky says:
True, so the investors are 80 million in the hole – sucks to be them.
16/09/2010 at 18:04 teo says:
One word: lol
I have no sympathy. If they can’t make a decent game then why should they keep getting paid to make games?
16/09/2010 at 18:11 DrGonzo says:
It was a decent game. It wasn’t an amazing game. But it was decent.
16/09/2010 at 18:04 Solivagant says:
Now we can go back to discuss the
16/09/2010 at 18:05 Solivagant says:
the REAL APB.. I tried a link but it didn’t let me :( I was talking about the old Spectrum game.
16/09/2010 at 18:21 Nick says:
Arcade version was the best! Steering wheel action.
16/09/2010 at 18:10 Tupper says:
@qrtr
The EULA can state anything it likes, but it doesn’t necessarily mean anything in the real world: the UK Sale of Goods Act (also known as ‘statutory rights’) cannot be superseded if a court determines that a service or purchase has not been fit for purpose.
16/09/2010 at 18:16 Starky says:
Indeed, a court could even throw out an entire EULA and declare the whole thing void for attempting to do something such as trick a consumer into thinking their statutory rights do not apply.
Which I wish they would one day, because it would make an amazingly powerful precedent for shrink wrap contracts.
16/09/2010 at 18:22 Lukasz says:
Indeed.
Read Eulas everyone. They basically say:
“You have no rights, we don’t own you anything and we are not responsible for anything”
“Unless:
You do have rights, we do own you something and we have to be responsible”
EULAs and similar things are a way for companies to protect themselves in case when a law is not so clear on the issue.
They are not rules, they are not law. They are just a lavage a company can use in case of some legal troubles.
So APB eula can say they can close the game anytime and you had to agree to that. Doesn’t matter. Life-time subscription of course does not mean literally life-time. It is reasonably tough to assume that subscription would last longer than 3 months.
Money are too small to care and it would cost you more than the subscription but if you want to you could fight for a refund in the court and win it no matter what EULA says.
17/09/2010 at 14:06 bill says:
It’s true in the UK. It may not be true in the USA anymore. You can’t sell your games because the EULA says you can’t: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/09/first-sale-doctrine/
16/09/2010 at 18:14 manveruppd says:
This game was amazingly unique and a lot of fun. Sure, there was a lot wrong with it, but nothing that wasn’t fixable – nothing unless you were expecting a Counterstrike-style shooter, or GTA Online, or WoW with guns and cars – in short, something which this game wasn’t: a rollicking, silly, fun ride in wonky cars and team-based shooting with paintball guns!
I was having silly amounts of fun with it, never played another game where there was so much uncontrollable laughter over voice chat, and it’s sad to see it go :(
16/09/2010 at 18:15 Unaco says:
Ratio of Dev Time to Live Time < 1.0
I'm classing this as a fail. Maybe this will make developers stop and think a while before they try to make the next WoW or EVE… they need to do something different.
16/09/2010 at 18:17 Starky says:
This isn’t just a fail, this is probably the biggest fail of the entire gaming industry to date… with possibly only Duke Nukem Forever above it.
16/09/2010 at 18:21 Unaco says:
@Starky
You don’t remember Daikatana then?
16/09/2010 at 18:26 Starky says:
Oh I remember it, but Daikatana failed hard, but it didn’t fail 100 million in the hole, company bankrupt, everyone fired hard.
And apparently it returned it’s investment in the end, maybe didn’t make a profit and the game sucked ass – but it sold 200k copies.
Hell the history of gaming fails probably ranks…
DNF
APB
then Daikatana.
16/09/2010 at 18:26 Unaco says:
Or Psychonauts, or BattleCruiser 3000AD, or The Last Express?
16/09/2010 at 18:27 Kieron Gillen says:
Yeah. And, fundamentally, people can still play Daikatana if they like it.
KG
16/09/2010 at 18:29 Starky says:
None of those were even close – they all failed, but again not 100 million, company bust epic fail.
16/09/2010 at 18:44 Unaco says:
Last Express killed it’s devs, and forced Broderbund (devs parent company) to be sold off, closing their recreational games development.
Psychonauts led to class action lawsuits against Majesco, massive run on it’s stock, forced them to switch to budget/value games, and it’s (ex)CEO spending a lot of time staring down out of a window on the 87th floor.
BattleCrusier 3000AD was an absolute disaster… but worse, it just made Derek Smart stronger and angrier and even more determined to make games, and persistent!
Daikatana ruined John Romero’s career and closed Ion Storm Dallas.
They’re all pretty much Epic Fails. I’m not saying APB isn’t a fail… it is… it’s an Epic Fail, company Bust fail. But so were all of these.
APB just doesn’t seem, to me at least, the hands down most epic, crushing, fail of a game/dev since DNF. It’s bad, but I think there have been worse.
16/09/2010 at 18:51 Cyrenic says:
Of all time? Is everyone forgetting the E.T. game? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T._the_Extra-Terrestrial_%28video_game%29
I don’t think APB is going to cause the entire industry to crash ;).
That said it’s a pretty spectacular failure.
16/09/2010 at 19:14 Lukasz says:
@Unaco
two of the games you mentioned really saddens me. I knew Psychonauts didn’t sell well at first but i didn’t expect it to flomp so badly. Although I did not yet played it myself (I do own it tough) I hear so much good about this game it is sad to hear that a great game like this was such a monetary waste. Wonder how much digital sales helped.
the other one is last express. Also I have never played it yet wanted since its release. waiting patiently for it to appear on steam or gog or d2d. Heard about it, how unique and groundbreaking it really is. it also cost a company?
:(
Im sad.
16/09/2010 at 19:43 Kadayi says:
@Unaco
They weren’t making the next WoW or Eve, they did make something different.
16/09/2010 at 19:49 Unaco says:
@Lukasz
I think Psychonauts somewhat redeemed itself with the advent of Digital download sites, but too late to really overcome the damage it did.
As for The Last Express… You’re unlikely to see it rereleased on Digital download sites… when Broderbund where bought up, the buyers were only interested in their educational software, so didn’t buy any of their recreational games, and so it stopped being published. Interplay did pick it up, but, alas, they have also died, so I don’t know who has rights to it, or if anyone is offering it other than used copies.
16/09/2010 at 19:55 Starky says:
Again though as Kieron said all those games as hard as they flopped, as much as they sucked, and even though they crashed their companies too are still playable today.
They might be hard to find, and run, but they can be.
APB on the other hand is just gone, any disk is a useless bit of plastic – no matter how bad it is you can no longer play it at all.
It is a game that flopped so hard that it will vanish from existence.
Some of those games might even have made some of their money back over the years, on the long tail in bargain bins.
APB never will.
The only way that APB could have failed harder is if it had the media/industry hype of something like Dai, or DNF.
16/09/2010 at 20:22 Man Raised By Puffins says:
@Unaco:
Double Fine are still going you know. Lord knows how though, as Brütal legend didn’t sell particularly well either.
16/09/2010 at 23:10 Kdansky says:
I didn’t even know Psychonauts failed so hard. I’ve only heard of it through Yatzhee, and immediately afterwards, it was on a Steam sale. Why did it fail? It is a really great game!
16/09/2010 at 23:53 Xercies says:
Because Great Game sometimes does not equal sales. Especially if you put it in a season with heavy hitters and it looks a little..weird.
All that can happen is that it becomes a “cult classic” like al those great movies that weren’t very popular when they came out in the cinema but became popular on home video and the like.
17/09/2010 at 16:36 Lukasz says:
http://www.gametap.com/video-games/The-Last-Express-20000245-14.html
last express is on gametap so i wonder why its not on steam or gog.
16/09/2010 at 18:17 myros says:
I too was fairly excited when I first heard about APB. The more details that came out about how the game systems actualy worked the more I lost intrest. Towards the end of the build-up to release it seemed to me that a classic distraction tactic was taking place … “look a shiney thing” and made me really suspect that the gameplay and world systems were sub-par.
It’s to bad, the ‘shiney’ stuff in character building, tatoo creating etc were really good … sadly they were attached to poor final product.
16/09/2010 at 18:21 The Juice says:
Hard to stay afloat when the only quality piece of game play is customization.
16/09/2010 at 18:28 Simon says:
What a sha– No, I can’t just be pithy about it. This is pretty fucking unfortunate for everyone involved- the developers who poured their time into it and especially the people who paid good money for what they assumed would be a worthy, lasting MMO. If I’d bought the game I’d be howling for a refund of any unused gametime, but given how deep a financial hole they seem to have dug for themselves, I’m not sure people will even see that much.
What a crying fucking shame.
16/09/2010 at 18:38 Josh says:
This is why you don’t plan the impossible.
Both World of Warcraft and EVE planned to have small numbers to start and ramp up over time. EVE has gone according to plan, and, well, WoW exploded. Even if WoW didn’t explode like it did Blizzard would’ve been ok. It wasn’t so much a gamble for them. They planned the reach EQs subscription level over a period of years. MMO developers seem to think that MASSIVE SUCCESS is what’s going to happen with their game. Even mild success isn’t good enough to sustain them with how they’ve gone about development.
I still think the work part is people who bought the game now have some useless DVDs. Maybe MMO developers should start adding in an escape clause that says “If we fuck up, here’s an unlock code/patch that allows you to host small world servers.” Or “Here’s how to make a world server.” I know this is completely implausible since it would require dev time already spent playing ping pong or making a shitty game.
The SWGemu project has made great strides to preserve the original iteration of SWG. If WoW failed, there were some “illegal” shards people built. It just sucks that most of that game isn’t even going to be played.
16/09/2010 at 20:04 Starky says:
Agreed, MMO developers should be looking at reasonable numbers and then sustained growth.
Simple off the top of my head would be 100,000 subs for 1 year as a break even point for a bigger MMO (giving roughly a 20 million budget) would be reasonable.
Then a 10 million budget as “post launch development” for 2 years.
Good management of that budget would see over the course of 2-3 years the game make a reasonable profit at anything over 100k subs – which lets face it would no be that hard to achieve in NA alone, so long as the game isn’t totally shite.
16/09/2010 at 22:53 Sobric says:
Hopefully this will be the last of a generation of MMOs that sought to ape WoW’s phenomenal success. I know that APB is nothing like WoW in terms of game-play, but too many companies over the last few years have rolled out MMOs with little or no thought put into their game-design, and have been left by the wayside because of it.
Of course, not many other MMOs had that much money poured into them first…
16/09/2010 at 18:53 Tyshalle says:
I still don’t get why anybody thought this game was fun. I mean, I understand that tastes are different and all, and I’m not ragging on that, or even the genre. I think a GTA MMO is an awesome idea, and I was eagerly waiting for this game. But beyond just being utterly, utterly broken, of which all of the key mechanics rode on (driving was awful, shooting was laggy as hell and lame), this was a game where all missions were solved by driving half-way across town and pushing one button.
There are broken games that are terribly unfinished that still ooze with promise. Bloodlines comes to mind. Or Fallen Earth if you want an MMO example. But this game was just shit on all levels. I’m very surprised anyone found anything to like about it.
16/09/2010 at 19:00 K says:
I was following APB for quite some time during its development, and looking forward to it… right up until shortly before release when they changed the payment model from buy-the-game-and-play, to buy-the-game-and-pay-monthly. They lost my custom when they made that decision. One of my friend’s who was following it also instantly lost interested in it for the exact same reason. Last I checked it wasn’t even a cheap monthly payment.
16/09/2010 at 19:01 Deacon Blues says:
I was really tempted to buy this just a few weeks ago. (Back when they said their financial problems weren’t going to threaten APB, in fact.)) Looks like my new policy of not buying an MMO before playing a trial came in handy. Still, I’m sad to see it go. Even if it wasn’t excellent, at least it wasn’t WOW With Micropayments #456.
16/09/2010 at 19:01 Bungle says:
I have never paid $70 for a video game that simply stopped working. There is nothing I can do to make my video game work again.
Publishers, pay attention: This is why fewer people will pre-order each year. This is why we no longer buy games sight-unseen. This is why we download your games for free.
16/09/2010 at 21:57 GHudston says:
I have a copy of Auto Assault that has never been played. It’s not a nice feeling when this happens.
Also of note: CAPTCHA = Aaah!
16/09/2010 at 19:05 Dean says:
I imagine the fact that they’re in administration also prevents them from releasing the server code too, which is a shame.
16/09/2010 at 19:07 Kadayi says:
That fact that so many people in this thread (including the KG) continue to erroneously refer to it as an MMO is the real problem here. APB was never in any way shape or form an MMO in terms of what people expect (WoW, AoC, etc). I think Dave Jones referred to it as a (Team based) Persistent Online Shooter, which (unfortunate acronym aside) is exactly what it was. The original concept was open world counterstrike, and that’s kind of what they delivered. The fuck up more than anything else comes down to collective failure by RTW to market the game accurately and get that message across to both the gaming press and the gaming public. They really needed to take a leaf out of Gearbox and Valves approach to promoting Borderlands and Left4Dead. Everyone knew with those games exactly what they were, and what they were buying into at the end of the day, namely a mediocre single player experience but a great team based one.
16/09/2010 at 20:12 Starky says:
Sure it was an MMO, it was massively multilayer (more than 64), online and persistent – that is all a game needs to be an MMO. You subscribed to it (by a funky pay as you play system) and it had no single player option.
It wasn’t an MMORPG sure, but it WAS an MMOG.
There is a massive difference between Borderlands, and Left4Dead – no subscription, both offer single player also (via bots for CS). And both could still be played if the Developers shut down all servers (even borderlands if Gamespy shutdown can be hacked around, and is). L4D has private servers.
So, what is required to be an MMO?
- Lots of players (more than 64 at a time at least)
- Persistent world
- Company controlled servers that without them the game no longer exists (unless via illegal clone servers).
- Some kind of sustained payment method, subscription or micro-payments without which you can no longer play (or are very limited).
I think it ticks them all.
16/09/2010 at 20:30 Kadayi says:
@Starky
‘It wasn’t an MMORPG sure, but it WAS an MMOG.’
Generally when the acronym MMO is thrown around most people readily think of MMORPG.
16/09/2010 at 21:22 Alexander Norris says:
It wasn’t an MMORPG? It had levelling up and “character abilities” (in the form of weapon upgrades). It may have been a MMO3PS, but it had quite a few CRPG elements.
16/09/2010 at 21:29 Kadayi says:
@Alexander Norris
One could equally call that merely ‘progression’ and ‘better equipment’. You get exactly the same thing happen in MW2 Multi-player, and I don’t think anyone bandies that around as an MMO do they?
16/09/2010 at 21:58 Kieron Gillen says:
Kad: Give up on the “It wasn’t an MMO” riff. It was. The problem is people’s tendency to define MMOs too narrowly, and APB was part of the movement to try and define MMOs wider than “WoW clone”. Go dig out Dave Jones’ Key Note from Develop 2009. Frankly, it’s one of the reasons anyone cared about it., in terms of “An MMO can be anything! It’s about persistence, etc”. There’s interviews where they talked about it in MMO terms – once again, turn to gamasutra – so are clearly complicit in it – and, frankly, not least in trying to charge for play time.
They’ve stepped away from the GTA MMO thing, but I do think it’s a little disingenuous. Everyone was saying it ever since it was announced. They had years of interviews. Did they say “We’re nothing like GTA” at any point before they got hammered in the reviews?
And don’t think they didn’t profit from making people think of it in MMO terms. Would they have got 50 million in investment if they didn’t think there was room for a pay out above and beyond what a “normal” game may earn? Clearly not.
50 million to develop a counter-strike clone? Of course they thought it was an MMO. It was the only way they’d ever make their money back.
KG
16/09/2010 at 22:55 Kadayi says:
@KG
“The problem is people’s tendency to define MMOs too narrowly, and APB was part of the movement to try and define MMOs wider than “WoW clone”
So you’re saying the games press isn’t complicit in perpetuating that lazy definition? Please hooker, hardly any reviewers approached APB from the perspective of it being a team based game at the end of the day. If Left4Dead had been played as a single player game for review purposes do you think it would of garnered such high scores as it did?
Don’t get me wrong as a title APB had problems, and RTW certainly had issues, but the plain truth of the matter is bad PR and lazy game journalism also played it’s part as well.
17/09/2010 at 01:31 Starky says:
Once again team based games don’t charge by the hour for server access…
L4D was reviewed as a single player game by some – almost ALL the reviews mention that if you don’t want to play it on-line you may as well not bother getting it.
APB was reviewed as the game it is, lacking.
It costs too much for a basic “team based shooter” – and isn’t a particularly good one at that.
It tries to justify that cost by claiming to be an MMOG, persist ant world, customizable and permanent avatar and possessions (gear) – then it utterly failed at that too.
Sorry but however you look at it as a TBS or an MMO GTA, APB was crap.
Now maybe if it was a normal TBS as you claim, cost £30 as a one off payment and that is it, with a few MMO trapping to spice it up (guild wars style) it would be forgiveable, and more people would have bought it.
The pricing model was stupid for the kind of game it was though, and so people avoided it like the plague.
It was also filled with stupid choices, and money grubbing ALL the time, with their fake points money, and the mini charges from that of almost everything you did.
It was insanity, and they dropped a few of the charges after announcing them (manufacturing) – but the bad vibe it created in the gaming community ensured the horrible death of the game.
Hopefully Rockstar will do a proper GTA MMO, 1000 players per server, with gang warfare (guilds) turf, and status.
Not just style and celebrity but no substance.
17/09/2010 at 04:45 StingingVelvet says:
I played both Left 4 Dead 1 & 2 and Borderlands offline by myself. I loved Left 4 Dead, the moody zombie shooting works offline for me very well… Borderlands was kind of boring after a dozen hours, but I still finished it and enjoyed it overall.
APB I could never even play, as I don’t like multiplayer and it offered nothing else. There’s a big difference there. If Left 4 Dead became unplayable someday I would be very sad, but APB being unplayable… meh.
17/09/2010 at 08:19 Kadayi says:
@Starky
I’m not sure of the relevance of the comment to this particular debate tbh but: -
“Once again team based games don’t charge by the hour for server access…”
Says who exactly? The same voices in your head that tell you that Battlefield 2 is an MMO and not just in fact a multi-player shooter?
17/09/2010 at 11:36 Starky says:
Says industry standard practice up until this date and the fact that every single PC team based shooter used private dedicated servers or peer to peer, for free.
So yeah, the “says who” is nothing but 20 years of standard practice and PC gamer expectations.
They might have been able to get away with a small monthly charge if the number were properly huge (128 per team maybe, so 256 over all) – but 50 a side, isn’t worth paying a monthly fee. Not when so many other games offer close to that for free (after you buy the game) or a much, much lower cost (running your own server splitting it with a few friends).
They got greedy, and vastly over-valued their product.
Also please refrain from ad hominem, especially falsely – the urge to insult you back is great but I will simply state at no point did I say battlefield 2 was an MMO, that is something you decided for yourself based on one comment that you took out of context.
I’ve already cleared up this strawman on page 2, please don’t continue it.
17/09/2010 at 13:10 Kadayi says:
@Starky
There are no standards in a constantly evolving medium.
17/09/2010 at 14:58 Starky says:
Kad, that is the dumbest statement I’ve heard in a while about videogames – of course there are standards.
There are standard practices, standards of quality, expectations of certain standards by gamers, publishers and retailers each.
There are genre standards (staples) and gameplay standards – usually set by other games in that genre. if you’re making a 3rd person shooter, all your gameplay is judged to the standard of the best games in that genre. You may not have to best it, but you have to try and get close if you want your game to be successful.
They’re not laws, or rules, but no industry standards are.
Games that ignore those standards, flop (mostly) – as APB did.
The gaming medium is not unique in this, all entertainment mediums have soft standards, some even have hard standards too (as in enforceable requirements – ratings for example).
17/09/2010 at 17:35 Kadayi says:
@Starky
LOL. Contrary to what you think, game design isn’t akin to architecture (an industry that does operate to tried and tested universal standards). It’s still very much the Wild West, because the frontiers (technology) are still expanding at an exponential rate. Across game companies I think you’ll find that everyone operates to a different tune from place to place.
Still RTW principally went into administration over dismal business practices at the end of the day. Even if APB had hit an 80%+ metacritic score and it’s target sales I doubt (as others have that ) it would of sustained RTW for long based on its poor payment model. Attempting to Lay the blame sqat the feet of the game is disingenuous
17/09/2010 at 19:27 Starky says:
Well I’ve worked in the games industry briefly (As QA for 2 summers as an intern – unpaid one at that) and I know there are standards – all those I mentioned hold true. Disagree with me if you like, but I know what I know. We were given lists of them to check the builds we were given against. Hell we even had to play competing games to compare them directly, and make sure the game was meeting set goals (or standards).
It’s not the wild west, not for AAA games (hell even for medium budget 50-100 team games) and hasn’t been for a number of years, small indie studio’s may still operate like this, but big devs are very much an organized and corporate mindset, big budget games just cannot afford to fail – standards are set and standards must be met, and those standards are set based upon what the competition is doing, and what gamers expect.
Ironically though it seems as if one of the failures of realtime worlds was trying to mindlessly copy that kind of corporate system, when they weren’t suited to it.
As detailed in that excellent blog.
Thankfully I realized pretty soon that the games industry was a freaking nightmare, and unless you got very lucky, you’d be working your arse of for crap pay. You’d never have any form of job stability, chances are you’d never get any real career progression, again not unless lucky, or willing to work 100 hour weeks for years, for a wage that you’d beat by working at your local Tesco.
16/09/2010 at 19:08 Bascule42 says:
In my opinion APB is/was crap. Many liked it though and have invested a lot of time and money. Lets hope those who have paid in advance for game time get something back.
It was a grand idea wich is going to go down as one the great “Epic fail but could have been….”s of gaming.
16/09/2010 at 19:12 Pie says:
Okay this just totally pisses me off. I spent like 40 quid on this game and i’ve still had 50+ hours of gaming time and then this happens! I WANT MY MONEY BACK!
16/09/2010 at 19:14 J says:
That follow up post made you look like an asshole. Thumbsup.
16/09/2010 at 19:20 perilisk says:
I kinda hope they sell the character customization stuff as middleware — I never played APB, but that aspect of it looked pretty good.
16/09/2010 at 19:21 truestory says:
So now they even closed the forum ? Wtf ? I feel robbed.
16/09/2010 at 19:25 Jimbo says:
@KG: The Cities XL servers were up for 5 months. I didn’t expect to see anybody beat that quite so quickly. CXL did have a lifetime sub in some regions though, which is at least a x3 shittiness multiplier.
16/09/2010 at 22:04 Dean says:
CXL also had a single player mode though no? So at least the box is still worth something.
This is kind of the point, someone could have gone out and bought APB yesterday from GAME and now not be able to play it.
If you want to sell games as a subscription-based service, you shouldn’t also be selling the box as a product.
17/09/2010 at 09:24 Kadayi says:
@Dean
I’m pretty sure taking the game back to the retailer will result in a full refund, like most purchased goods.
16/09/2010 at 19:25 Tom says:
such a shame this game didn’t deliver on it’s promise.
16/09/2010 at 19:48 kwyjibo says:
A GTA MMO? Yes Please!
Wait, a non-persistent world, where two teams square off in deathmatch? Err… don’t we already have plenty of these games?
Wait, you want us to pay a subscription for this?
Wait, your subscription options are as stupid as Hellgate?
Fuck off.
—-
I can’t believe these guys managed to get $100m in funding with such as massively risky ridiculous business plan. I can’t believe these guys chose to develop this stupendously expensive pipe dream and turned down Crackdown 2.
Rarely has failure been so well deserved.
16/09/2010 at 20:12 Kadayi says:
Where did they ever say it was a GTA MMO?
16/09/2010 at 20:16 Starky says:
Erm, in basically every single teaser, interview and press release from the start… they may not have said the words “GTA MMO” but god damn they implied it as heavily as could be without Rockstar suing their asses.
Everybody I spoke to the game about was expecting a GTA MMO, everybody WANTED a GTA MMO, the Devs did nothing to discourage that and encouraged it everywhere I saw them speak.
16/09/2010 at 20:23 Kadayi says:
@Starky
Can you provide some examples of where they encouraged that line of thinking?
16/09/2010 at 22:08 Starky says:
Basically all of the video’s on gametrailers…
All of them are cut and styled like a GTA game, the world is styled on GTA, the action and combat is styled on GTA, the descriptions the devs make of the game sound like they could be GTA + customization + online.
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/gc-09-apb/56287 there is one – the words “open world mission based city” alone scream “GTA”. 35 seconds in.
I’m sorry but you are kidding yourself if you think for a second this game wasn’t trying to be GTA the MMO – and marketing itself as such.
Hell if the gameplay was half as good as GTA (San Andreas driving and GTA 4 shooting) it wouldn’t have flopped as hard as it did.
But the parts of the game it pushed forward as gameplay, driving, shooting, fighting as gangs/cops against the other, missions and all that fun stuff, it failed on in a spectacular level.
16/09/2010 at 22:15 Dean says:
Well they got the guy from Epic games in to help demo and promote it and the soundbyte he gave everyone was “If the Rockstar guys ever made an MMO out of the best version of Grand Theft Auto, this would be it.”
http://www.apbforum.com/forum/official-apb-news/66-first-hands-impressions-apb-mark-rein-epic-games.html
16/09/2010 at 22:24 kwyjibo says:
@Kadayi
Every single preview pretty much called it the GTA MMO. I doubt Realtime would actively use someone else’s game to promote theirs, but the problem is that it wasn’t even an MMO.
It was a team deathmatch game. Which you have to fucking pay hourly for.
I feel bad for their creditors.
16/09/2010 at 23:14 Kadayi says:
@kwyjibo
A games Journalist tidily summarizing something nebulous is not quite the same as a press release I’m afraid. Hell, if we take Sparkys definition of MMO to mean any game with over 64 players in is an MMO then Battlefield 2 is an MMO, which is patently absurd. It’sd a multi-player online team based shooter. Massive Multi-player online is a distinctly different thing from multi-player online.
Anyway let’s goto the source with Dave Jones here: -
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/realtime-worlds-dave-jones-interview
” Not that important. I think I said months ago that I knew they’d be all over the place. Some people had too high expectations. The game years ago was initially tagged as GTA MMO, which we’d never said. Obviously people put two and two together – our history and the fact it was online – and said, ‘Oh it’s going to be like a GTA MMO’. I think that’s set huge expectations. That’s not what we were building, so I was expecting that.”
17/09/2010 at 01:23 kwyjibo says:
Of course it’s not a press release, that’s not the point.
People thought it was a GTA MMO, RTW shares the blame for that. Rolling back what the press has been saying for years as your game launches doesn’t change that. It set huge expectations that RTW did nothing to correct. It doesn’t matter about a press release, when the reality was that everyone, developer and all was going along with the GTA MMO descriptor.
Oh, then it turns out not it’s not even an MMO.
17/09/2010 at 01:25 kwyjibo says:
More from your goto source.
Eurogamer: Is that enough for Realtime Worlds in terms of sustaining APB over a long-term period?
Dave Jones: Yeah.
17/09/2010 at 01:39 Starky says:
Also Kadayi don’t strawman me thanks…
I will think you’ll find I said an MMO was more than just more than 64 players as a requirement.
I also included a persistent world.
A ongoing fee (after purchase).
And no ability to play offline. No support for private, or custom dedicated servers, you can only play on the companies official servers.
Battlefield only ticks 1 of those boxes.
Starcraft ticks 1
Guild wars ticks 2 and a half (sort of more than 64 players)…
APB ticked them all, and thus it was an MMO.
17/09/2010 at 02:54 manveruppd says:
Sorry guys, but I seem to remember MANY SPECIFIC QUOTES of RTW going that it most emphatically is NOT a GTA MMO (including that post-launch Dave Jones interview on EG). People seemed to think that there’d be a storyline, and missions you get from NPCs to advance that storyline, and endless diversions, basically all the stuff that makes GTA except it’d be in a city with a few thousand other folks all doing the same thing. So a bog standard MMO, with NPCs with exclamation marks over their heads telling you to “Collect 20 PoPo’s asses yo” and everyone queueing up to do the same quest. Instead, they were making something much simpler and much more fun: cops and robbers online! I know that’s what *I* wanted, and all the people who were enjoying it, and it was something pretty unique.
Starky’s “Everyone wanted a GTA MMO” basically sums up the problem with this game: wishful thinking. Reading that blog Alec linked to it’s obvious that there were innumerable SNAFUs in the way RTW did things. But I have a feeling that even if they had done everything right, they still would’ve had the same problem “selling” their game to the press and consumers, and they still would’ve suffered from horrible reviews and the weight of people’s false expectations. It would’ve taken a PR wizard to sell this game properly. I can sort of picture their frustration:
“How many quests are in this game?”
“Umm.. it’s not really quests, you just get matched up by the computer”
“So it’s like Counter Strike?”
“No,no, it’s set in the open world, and you might get asymmetrical matchups, you know, 3 lowbies against a stronger player”
“Ah, so there’ll be boss fights?”
“No, see, it’s all pvp, there’s no bosses or mobs, just other players”
“So there’s battlegrounds and stuff? What if you don’t want to be flagged for pvp?”
“But it’s ALL pvp! It’s just cops and robbers guys, like we all used to play when we were kids, you know, before computers, using sticks for guns and going bang! bang!”
“Ah, so more like the ORIGINAL GTA than GTA4?”
[PR dude shoots himself in the head in frustration]
Sorry, but you’re all wrong. It was a fun game. It just wasn’t the game you had unilaterally decided it should’ve been. And 300 people are unemployed now, mostly because the company fucked up, but also, to a small extent, because people like you refused to see what the game actually was and threw your toys out of the pram because it wasn’t what you had decided it should be.
(Tangentially, I’m reminded of the frustration I felt back when I was reading people complaining about Age of Conan back when it was released. The game was really buggy, terrible performance, full of imbalances, had a few big holes in content, Battlekeep sieges hardly ever worked, and there was no point to or reward for open-world pvp. But that wasn’t what people on the forums were complaining about. No sir. Instead, 9/10 people who quit did so because they were unhappy that they’ve been playing for 2 weeks now and still haven’t found a better sword or bigger, shinier shoulderpads! Now, I know all about the ever-dangling MMO carrot of gear rewards, I understand why it’s a great incentive and it works in getting people to keep playing, but the folks at Funcom had repeatedly been very clear and very vocal that Conan would be a game where gear wasn’t very powerful. Me and the people I was playing with in fact bought it BECAUSE of that! I mean, I understand why you like getting new and better gear every 10 minutes, so why did all these people buy this game and then slam it for not doing what it specifically said it wouldn’t do? The irony is that after all the gear-whores left, Funcom bumped up the power of gear to get them back – I’m sure that now the APB IP will be bought up and someone will make it into a GTA-skinned conventional WoW-clone MMO. For when the giants stole the secret of steel, Crom was angry, and he invented irony instead, and used it as a stick to beat on PC gamers.)
17/09/2010 at 07:46 Tacroy says:
Kadyai: I have to wonder, why does it matter to you so much that RTW never officially said the words “GTA MMO”? If so many people got the impression that what RTW was doing with APB was making a GTA MMO, and were excited for a GTA MMO, then were disappointed when APB was not in fact a GTA MMO, then doesn’t that say something useful about RTW’s marketing and their target audience (e.g, how horribly off-base both were?)
17/09/2010 at 11:18 Kadayi says:
@manveruppd
Starky’s “Everyone wanted a GTA MMO” basically sums up the problem with this game: wishful thinking. Reading that blog Alec linked to it’s obvious that there were innumerable SNAFUs in the way RTW did things. But I have a feeling that even if they had done everything right, they still would’ve had the same problem “selling” their game to the press and consumers, and they still would’ve suffered from horrible reviews and the weight of people’s false expectations. It would’ve taken a PR wizard to sell this game properly.
Agreed on that front. I think that getting Journalists to play collectively as a team (as Valve did when it was pushing L4D) rather than on a singular basis might of gone some way towards battling the problem, but fundamentally they were facing a constant problem of every preview article starting with ‘GTA style MMO APB…..’ which set up false expectations as to the final product. If you take it as intended, purely as a game and ignore all the other crap, by and large it delivers as promised by RTW. Buggy? Sure, Broken? Hardly.
Still no doubt we are in for lots of hand wringing articles from various Journos about ‘what went wrong with APB’ over the coming days, though I doubt any will consider their own misrepresentations about APB being a GTA MMO being an influencing factor.
17/09/2010 at 11:53 Starky says:
manveruppd, yes there were lots of quotes near and post launch trying to distance themselves fro the GTA MMO perception – probably when they realized they weren’t going to deliver anything close to that.
But at the start there was a LOT of nodding and winking whenever Journalists mentioned GTA and MMO in one sentence.
All of the trailers they cut, especially the early gameplay trailers went out of their way to look like GTA, especially with the riding around in cars shooting out windows and such.
Maybe you can blame the press and the companies PR tactics combined, but the result is the same.
At the end of the day though, even if it failed to live up to the GTA MMO thing but was still a good and fun game with solid gameplay, it would have done well enough.
It wasn’t, the gameplay sucked. Most 6/10 rated Xbox 360 3rd person shooters are more fun to actually play.
Not to mention it was buggy, unoptimized, and a resource beast – most of which you expect from a new MMO – but not from a TBS.
Still it tried to charge too much for too little – I like many people would have probably given it more of a chance if it was simply pay by the hour, but download the client free (so no £30 purchase, just a £5 for 20 hours fee).
17/09/2010 at 13:04 Kadayi says:
@Starky
Please hooker the only nudging and winking going on is that in your lucid imagination. Go back and really look at what they said and when I say ‘they’ I mean RTW, not the Journalists looking for a quick byline.
Seriously this mythologising about the APB being ‘promised’ as a GTA MMO is up there with WMDs in Iraq in terms of reality.
17/09/2010 at 13:35 manveruppd says:
@Starky maybe at some point, under pressure for a soundbyte, they might’ve said “sort of…”, and it “sort of” was, in that you had cops and robbers, shooting each other online. But it wasn’t a GTA-style game in that it doesn’t have a storyline and discrete plot-driven missions. So the press managed to completely misrepresent the game to those people who expected something plot-driven and more akin to a conventional MMO.
The other half of the discontents were the ones expecting CounterStrike on a bigger map, and they were disappointed too. I’m not gonna defend the shooting, it needed a bit of work, but, as I’ve said before, I don’t think it could EVER be as tight as an FPS, not with a massive map with 80 people in it. Plus it was designed from the start to offer asymmetrical matchups, so you would occasionally get the odd unfair matchup there until you managed to find backup, and that frustrated FPS players too.
I have a feeling it could’ve been one of those titles that would’ve been a lot more popular with casual gamers than with people with pre-set expectations formed from their favourite genres.
17/09/2010 at 15:07 Starky says:
Kad, seriously mate go F… yourself, you are clearly a blind little fanboy and while I was expressing a civil opinion you decided to attack me personally.
As for the opinion that it was a GTA MMO, sorry but I’m hardly alone in that impression, blame whoever the feck you like for that – the press, gamers, yourself for all I care… you can deny that the devs had any blame in this misconception all you like, but I was at the London Expo when a few of the devs were talking about the game exactly like it was going to be GTA4′s multilayer just expanded with massive customization.
No one was expecting plot, or mission based plots (that I spoke too), but a Eve like freedom in a GTA style environment – which is what I think everyone was expecting for the first year and a bit.
That may have changed but it was NOT well communicated, gamers were left in the dark about a lot of the game right up until the end, so those initial impressions were firmly entrenched, and by the time the makers got their finger out their asses to start trying to let people know what the game would be like, it was too late for anything but crushing disappointment.
And once again, bottom line is, the shooting and driving sucked… which kind of automatically kills a game that is about shooting and driving.
17/09/2010 at 16:13 kwyjibo says:
Re: Kadayi
You seem so stuck up on the GTA MMO thing. It wasn’t even an MMO.
Regardless of press “misrepresentations” that RTW did nothing about, forget the GTA bit (which I think it actually fucking is), it wasn’t an MMO.
They wanted you to pay monthly for a team deathmatch game.
17/09/2010 at 20:23 Kadayi says:
@Starky
Unrepentant fanboy in what way? By simple virtue of the fact that I disagree with your knee jerk assessment of what went wrong and how? I’m not condoning anything RTW did (it reads like a complete cluster fuck), nor have I ever claimed that APB was or is some sacred jewel of a game (it needed work, but on the most fundamental level it worked). The only thing I’ve actually said is that the actual game got misrepresented by the gaming press to the wider public (GTA MMO) and that misrepresentation was never effectively dealt with. Hell, got back to this: -
http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6186547.html
Dave Jones is there rallying against the term MMO because of of all the RPG connotations it draws. Outlining that he views APB as a MOG, (Multiplayer Online Game), for very specific reasons. Yet barely about 4 comments in people are once again throwing ‘GTA MMO’ out there again, and hyping themselves up.
I think the inherent problem is that when presented with something new, peoples tendency is to reach for what they know in terms of description and Journalists are no different in that respect. The issue is that MMO is a term that unfortunately does generate certain expectations (principally of RPGs like WoW) and it was never a good fit for what APB was at the end of the day.
@kwyjibo
I’m actually the one saying it wasn’t an MMO mate. Starky is the one saying it is.
17/09/2010 at 23:52 Starky says:
It’s still an MMOG – I don’t care what he says trying to get away from WoW, I don’t care that most people can’t differentiate MMOG and MMORPG.
I agree that it isn’t and wasn’t a MMORPG, I said so in one of my first comments.
It was a MMOG – It was massively multilayer. A term that has connotations beyond simply having lots of players… If someone hacked a Battlefield 2 server that had 256 players per side, so 512 player total – it still would not be a MMO-. Maybe it is a poor term, but it is the term that has come into common usage, and thus even if illogical it is valid language.
Persistent world/characters, character customization, avatar/character based (you make a character, not just play on a team, it might be cops vs. robbers, but your robber is Jim the slim), item trading, loot, auction house/market place and monthly subscription/pay-to-play, centralized developer ran servers with no lan/private play supported – all firmly place it as a MMOG.
Maybe massively is debatable, call it a MOG if you like, either way it is bullshit semantics about what classifies as massive – if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck it’s a frigging duck.
Multiplayer games, even some with some persistence (such as Diablo 2, and Guild wars) don’t charge on going fees and that’s the bottom line.
Granted it blurs the line, but even in that article you link it talks about him talking about WoW and then saying “compared to that we’re doing something different” which ironically only firms people’s opinions about it being a MMO – because that is the same kind of thing “WoW does X, but we’re doing Y instead” we’ve heard from every single since mmo being developed since WoW.
By doing all those comparisons to WoW and then saying why APB was different, and what it was doing different it sill firmly linked everyone into the “Oh like WoW but without the grind and more action twitch based? So like Planetside?”
If they wanted to distance themselves from WoW they should have been comparing themselves to other games, never even mentioning WoW, or any other MMORPG.
Either way it doesn’t matter the results were the same, everybody expected GTA the MMO, GTA meets counterstrike, meets need for speed with MMO style character customization, persistent world and “quests” (missions) and they were either complicit with that expectation (at least at the start), and/or failed to a spectacular degree to communicate what their game was, leaving this misunderstanding to fester until it was too deep to remove.
Personally I think a bit of both, the former at the start and the latter towards the end.
MMO not MMO aside the only other thing I disagree with you on, and it’s the major factor in why I did no buy the game – and why I wager most people didn’t is this…
“it needed work, but on the most fundamental level it worked”.
I think the vast majority of people would disagree with this, on it’s most fundamental level (gameplay) it fell flat on it’s face – it just wasn’t fun to actually play. To drive or to shoot.
As it stood GTA 4′s lacklustre multiplayer was more fun, as was the San Andreas multi player hack/mod.
Not that any of this matters anyway, the game could have been the best game in years, sold a million copies and still probably ended up bankrupting the company.
18/09/2010 at 01:23 Kadayi says:
@Starky
“I think the vast majority of people would disagree with this, on it’s most fundamental level (gameplay) it fell flat on it’s face – it just wasn’t fun to actually play. To drive or to shoot.”
Well like most things multi-player, a lot depends upon how much you are prepared to put into a game in the first place. APB as a solo experience, not that much ‘fun’ it has to be said. APB as a team experience however, different matter entirely.
18/09/2010 at 02:29 Starky says:
Team play makes a lot of things better, but it doesn’t improved basic flawed game mechanics – it might allow you to have fun without them – but it doesn’t matter “how much you are prepared to put into [the] game” the driving was crap – like moving a brick around a ice rink.
The shooting was floaty and horrid, and honestly about as bad as I’ve experienced in a modern game. Except for maybe mass effect 1, but given that was an RPG…
It’s also the oldest and worst of MMO arguments “you need to join a guild/clan/corp to have fun”, people you know and would like to play with are not always around, if a game can’t hold up playing alone/with strangers in pugs, then it just fails.
Community should enhance a title, not be a crutch for it.
18/09/2010 at 11:17 Kadayi says:
@Starky
Exactly how much time did you put into APB? The more I read the more I get the impression you’re one of the ‘I played 2 hours of the beta and then quit’ types. I mean did you team up? Did you even use the ingame VOIP system to co-ordinate your teams actions? When faced with a difficult situation did you have the presence of mind to change your approach/your load out? It seems to me that your expectation of what a game should be is one where you’re winning from the offset, which is an unrealistic expectation in an open world game that is purely PvP, and more specifically one that is ideally meant to be played as a team experience. No game can moderate ‘fun’ when the challenge is outwitting other human players at the end of the day. As I said before you get out what you put in. If you put minimal effort in you can hardly expect good results.
16/09/2010 at 19:52 Kaiji says:
I’m stunned to see people saying this was a “shame”.
They sold a shitty product and their business failed. Isn’t that how business works?
The people who bought the shitty product were disappointed at how shitty it was. Shouldn’t they have read reviews or something?
What would be a “shame” would be if games this shitty sold millions. PC gaming is in too much of a mess for people to lament when bad games fail.
16/09/2010 at 19:54 Buemba says:
I owe RPS for scoring me a beta key. Without it I’d probably have bought the game.
But it would be a shame if the tech behind the game just disappeared – Just imagine if next Sims game used APB’s character creator and customization options.
16/09/2010 at 20:20 JimmyJames says:
Yesterday they said they’d be patching in the much asked for Pureskill ruleset (no gun/character upgrades) today.
I hope no one re-subbed because of that.
16/09/2010 at 20:20 Heliocentric says:
If it had been a pay once shooter it would still exist. Stupid really.
16/09/2010 at 20:32 zipdrive says:
This strikes me as one that’s going to be pivotal in terms of how people view MMOs now. Even the life-time subs to Hellgate got over a year of playing.
16/09/2010 at 20:45 Heliocentric says:
Accidentally posted my last post as a reply.
In short, how long until HMV stops selling this game for £30?
16/09/2010 at 20:49 KindredPhantom says:
They should have already stopped otherwise they will have some angry customers.
I do remember seeing some Hellgate London copies in my local gamestation a few months after Helgate London went under, so it is possible some retailers will still sell the game.
16/09/2010 at 20:53 Cyrenic says:
I was just wondering about that. There’s really no precedent for an online game to shut down this quickly. so retailers are probably going to leave the game on the shelf for months.
16/09/2010 at 21:14 truestory says:
Should people that bought it ask EA for a refund or some compensation ? Its a MMO, we paid for something we CANT play.
16/09/2010 at 21:31 Valentin says:
Not fair, makes me sad to see a game burn out this quickly. It ran poorly on my PC, a PC on which I can run Mass Effect 2 medium settings on 1650×1080, so that was unforgivable but still, i came out only a couple of months ago.
This could had been a much better game with voice acting and a single player campaign.
16/09/2010 at 21:34 Chaosgabe says:
Just a minute ago the server went down, i suppose forever . . .
And i would chime in to the “Its a shame” crowd, because you really could have fun in this game. It had its failures, true. But i saw a way to right those.
Ah well, AutoAssault and APB down, PlanetSide and EvE still running. 2 outta 4 isn´t too bad.
16/09/2010 at 21:39 Kadayi says:
From the launcher before it went down (as the forums are kaput): –
APB has been a fantastic journey, but unfortunately that journey has come to a premature end. Today we are sad to announce that despite everyone’s best efforts to keep the service running; APB is coming to a close. It’s been a pleasure working on APB and with all its players. Together we were building an absolutely amazing game, and for that, we thank you. You guys are awesome! From all of the Realtime World staff we thank you for your continued support. The servers are still up, so join the party and say goodbye! – Ben ‘APBMonkey’ Bateman (Community Officer)
“I truly wish we had the chance to continue to craft APB into the vision we had for it. It has been a
long & difficult journey but ultimately rewarding to have had the chance to try something bold and
different. APB holds some great memories, from the last night of the beta, to the clans and individuals
who amazed us with their creativity and sense of community. I am so sorry it had to end so quickly but
hopefully the good memories will stay with us all for a long time. Thanks to all the team for the years
of hard work, and to the players who contributed so much.” – Dave Jones
Please spare a thought to all the thousands of brave men and women of San Paro who despite knowing the odds, still dared to cross the street. They will be sorely missed.. – Johann van der Walt (Software Engineer: Living City)
Thanks for sticking with us through the hard times guys, we put a huge amount of our lives into APB,
but unfortunately we.re not going to get the chance to make it the game we all knew it had the
potential to be. Thanks.” – Rob ‘bobbyd’ Anderberg (Technical Lead).
“Thanks for being a creative and imaginative community, the cookies, feedback and ideas were
appreciated.” . Ben ‘ Giefster ‘ Skelly
“Working on APB was rewarding, frustrating, amazing, depressing, exciting, and overall, surreal. I’ve
never experienced anything quite like it, but I.ve enjoyed it all the way. I hope the players enjoyed
the time they had despite the short comings, and will remember the game in a good light for what it was meant to be, not quite what it turned out to be. Now just to get started on that Xbox version…” – Jon
McKellan (the guy who did the loading screens)
I had the great pleasure of working with some extremely talented people in both the Dundee and Boulder office, and for the longest time APB was our lives. It is truly sad that it ended this way … but when you aim for the stars, you sometimes fall on your face.. – Ben Abbott, Live Producer.
“Press F to apply for Jobseekers Allowance.”- Ben Hall (Development QA)
“In every way APB was a dichotomy. I have witnessed the project alter from a fragile and delicate
entity used to show the world the depth of our vision through to the sturdy beast we released to the
public. There were the unusual errors and crashes which are to be expected but it worked. Once in the hands of our community I have never seen something elicit such a polarisation of people. It was
dismissed as overhyped and broken or else taken to heart to be loved and cherished, buoyed on by a
fanaticism I was proud to have played a part in bringing to the world. Although still again among our
players APB brought out both the poles in human behaviour. I bore witness to raw hatred and fury,
arrogance and mean spirits but I was also delighted to experience the kindest side of human nature as players came to the aid of others when in a tight spot or they created works of art with the tools
provided.
In all APB was a fantastic experience with an incredible team and it is one that I will always cherish
and has added to who I am. Thank you everyone involved from our excellent players to our incredible dev team.”- Conor Crowley (Senior QA, System design assistant, Tech support, in-game support, Overall CS, 1 man Publishing QA team, Tea Boy, Morale Officer)
“I’m sad to see the project go. Of all the games I.ve worked on, APB was probably the one with the most potential. I genuinely believe that given more time, we could have turned APB into the game we all wanted it to be. I.d like to thank the community for all their support, the good times I.ve had playing
against them, and for the amazing (and often hilarious) user-generated content that they.ve created.
I’d also like to thank the rest of the team for all of their hard-work, and for generally being great
people to work with. ” -Bryan Robertson (Gameplay Programmer)
16/09/2010 at 21:56 KindredPhantom says:
APB.com seems to have gone down too now, it’s all over.
16/09/2010 at 22:20 Dolphan says:
I suppose it’s long past the point where I can worry about coming out as ex-RTW, so: APB – meh, and it always was. Conor Crowley and the rest of the RTW Pub QA team, back before August when there was a rest of the team – awesome.
There were a lot of good people who worked hard on this project; it’s sad that our time was wasted. RTW will stand as an example of why you shouldn’t get caught up in your own hubris (KG – 50 mill to develop a counter-strike clone isn’t quite accurate; the money was supposed to let RTW turn into a major online publisher with server infrastructure etc, with APB as a flagship product alongside others, MyWorld and potentially games from other devs – when you think about it, that’s actually worse).
17/09/2010 at 00:17 Kadayi says:
@Dolphan
Hope things go well for you.
17/09/2010 at 00:43 Slaphead says:
@Dolphan
Well it did turn out to be a Flagship product in one sense. I bought an APB box too, and never even got to log in. At least I got to play Hellgate: London for half a year.
Best of luck in your future endeavors in any case. I’ve worked for a startup killed by hubris too, so I can sympathize.
16/09/2010 at 21:39 [21CW] 2000AD says:
Man, I gotta thank RPS for helping me dodge a bullet on this one. When it was first announced and then when I saw the promotional stuff I was excited and almost pre-ordered.
Then I got a beta key when RPS did the give away and decided it wasn’t worth it.
16/09/2010 at 21:41 n3gs says:
Well shit. I hope they compensate everyone somehow, cause I still have some 48 hours left – I bought the game but never had time to play all that much.
16/09/2010 at 21:53 Grot Punter says:
I hope for compensation as well, and not some manner of half-assed in-game “last hurrah” event, I want my money back.
I pre-ordered this, played in the beta, found it to be shite, and then never touched it upon release. Considering how fast it died, there had better be a refund.
16/09/2010 at 21:57 KindredPhantom says:
Hard Luck i guess, i can’t see refunds being given out now.
16/09/2010 at 22:19 Dean says:
Well you won’t get anything from RTW as they’re in receivership. Fairly sure you can get your money back though, just fight the toss with the shop you bought it from. Tell them you got it ages ago and never played it and now it won’t work so it’s not fit for purpose.
16/09/2010 at 21:54 XM says:
I was part of the Beta and the main problem was they didn’t listen to us if you were not in the first group they just didn’t listen.
Every time I or any new members posted what was wrong with the game the first group just called you a noob all the time. Then they said all along it was going to be free and I understand somewhere down the road we were going to have to pay something. But just before release they came up with the worst costing system in MMO history.
It was ment to be ground breaking, well it was job breaking if nothing else.
For these MMOs to work they need to have a good game to start with then have 3-6 months free to get you up and running then if you like it (hopfully hooked) you’ll be happy to part with your money.
I hope the elites on the Beta forum are happy now they killed their game they said was too good to fail.
16/09/2010 at 21:58 KindredPhantom says:
No RTW killed the game when they failed to act upon the beta players feedback, when they mis-managed the game, the fund for the game and finally the game itself, failing to even advertise it properly.
I won’t be buying any of there future games.
16/09/2010 at 22:32 kwyjibo says:
This game and company was fucked way before the beta.
16/09/2010 at 22:12 Starky says:
They killed the game when they focused almost utterly on style over substance…
All that customization while great didn’t mean crap with bad core mechanics and gameplay.
Thanks to RPS (keys to the city thing) I got to play it for a few days and it saved me the cost of buying it.
It’s the same mistake spore made, though even that had better gameplay.
16/09/2010 at 22:16 Chizu says:
Apparently there is a Private server for APB (not sure if its actually running yet)
So I guess that’s something for those who actually want to play a game they expected to be able to actually play.
16/09/2010 at 22:27 novariua says:
There are plenty of safe areas in Eve. Sure people can attack you anywhere, but in the safe areas they tend to die for it.
But I do agree with a more EVE style game. Especially if they had made each neighborhood slightly unique and player run/contributed/setup.
17/09/2010 at 15:08 Malibu Stacey says:
I played EVE for about 2 years solid. No where is safe. I’ve ganked people in 1.0 sec systems without war declarations active (things have probably changed now as CCP likely increased the CONCORD response since then but with enough people & equipment it should still be possible). A guy in my old corp ganked the pod of Marko Debreault the then CEO of Outbreak in a 0.9 sec system. Boy was he pissed.
It’s all about taking a calculated risk. Losing a few battlecruisers or a couple of battleships to pop some ISK farmer’s Exhumer with T2 Strip Miners or a mission farmers pimped out Navy Raven was worth it because the cost of the cheap ships & modules you used were replaced easily with half an hour’s ratting in null sec plus the loot from the victim. Using a Tech 1 frigate to pop someone’s pod who has tens if not hundreds of millions of ISK worth of implants plugged in doesn’t even require much thought especially when you don’t particularly like that person.
16/09/2010 at 22:28 Legionary says:
When MMOs go down there ought to be a legal duty for the developers to ensure the game remains playable, whether that’s with releasing dedicated server software, releasing a specification for said software, or patching the game so as much as possible of it remains accessible.
After three months they really are, in my view, failing to provide their end of the contract formed when you purchase a product.
16/09/2010 at 22:33 Junior says:
On an unrelated note, you’ll be happy to hear APB was only $5 at Gamestop today!
17/09/2010 at 07:29 Bungle says:
That’s a class action lawsuit right there. Dirty.
16/09/2010 at 22:44 Jorum says:
I imagine one issue here would be that RTW is in receivership, and source code, server software and specs etc. would probably be considered assets. The receivers job is to try and salvage as much value as they can from this trainwreck. Software and code still potentially has value (theoretically someone may buy it to try and restart APB or modify it for something else, theoretically…) so they couldn’t just give it away for free to the community.
16/09/2010 at 23:04 Legionary says:
That’s true and I’m not suggesting that the game is made open source immediately. I’m just saying that, should no buyer be found (and it’s unlikely that one will be, by RTW’s own admission) there should be sufficient information released so people can continue to use the product they bought.
16/09/2010 at 23:53 Wulf says:
The sad part about this really is that they likely have licensed libraries making up their servers, if they didn’t then they could sell their server software and everyone would win. I don’t know whether some agreement could be reached with their license holders really to see if they can arrange a situation where they could sell the servers, but if more companies did this then MMOs wouldn’t be quite such failures, in general.
We could let the fans hop on and pay a subscription for as long as it lasts, then when it dies the developer could sell the server software and that could be picked up, people could run their own servers then, for their personal use (single-player), for use with friends, or to run public servers. Then even if a game dies it could live on, and anyone who enjoyed the game could keep playing it. Also, having access to the servers opens up all sorts of fun modding potential.
There are all sorts of MMORPGs I really, really wish this happened with, but again, I think there are probably things that stop this from even being a possibility. It is a shame though, isn’t it? And hell, if they could release the sources as well as part of a purchased package, then people could continue to develop the game, even, often a community is better at the upkeep of a game than the developer is, so much so that they can take a completely broken game and polish it until it becomes something really special and shiny. (See: Gothic III.)
16/09/2010 at 23:56 Kadayi says:
Judging from the eurogamer article: -
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-09-16-apb-plug-to-be-pulled
It sounds more like the game is likely to re-emerge at some point once it’s been sold, but none of the parties who expressed an interest in purchasing it wanted to buy it as an active project with it’s current commitments in place (server upkeep and responsibility to the existing player base).
17/09/2010 at 00:39 iamseb says:
Anyone in the UK who purchased from a UK retailer should return their copy to the retailer they purchased it from for a full refund under the Sale of Goods Act, regardless of whether or not they purchased time or used it all. As the product is no longer functional, it’s not fit for purpose and thus we’re legally entitled to return the product for a refund.
Sadface about RTW. Couldn’t they have given some of that money to me?
17/09/2010 at 00:47 Graeme Strachan says:
I’m quite sad actually, I had planned to pop in and check out the latest update to see if it was any better.
Now I’ve got a game taking up a chunk of my hard drive, and an account for a non-existant MMO i played for about 8 hours.
If I’d been a paying customer I’d be righteously angered over this. as it stands I’m just a bit peeved.
17/09/2010 at 02:59 JKjoker says:
what a shock, what an absolute shock
the only thing im surprised of is how fast they bankrupted, even the pioneers to overhyped AAA mmo epic fail, Flaship, lasted almost a year, i guess they released the game in that state because they had no more money to burn in it
well probably start seeing this kind of news often with all the new mmos trying to crash the overloaded mmo party with a game that by its very definition discourages the gamer from playing (or even trying) other games at the same time after they invested so much time into it
17/09/2010 at 03:02 manveruppd says:
Just a quick note to the people criticising the game’s payment model: I too was convinced that it was a ripoff, but a few days after I got it I was shocked at how slowly the hours were ticking down! I was playing it for 2 months (almost every day, at least 4 times a week) and haven’t paid a dime beyond the box cost, and I still had a few hours left today when they pulled down the servers!
TBH I probably could’ve gone on for a couple more months without paying too, cause my character had earned so much in-game money I could’ve funded my game time by selling it! I also made a few items of clothing that had netted me a few RTW points, and a couple of short tunes using the in-game sequencer. It was pretty cool getting killed by someone and hearing the theme tune YOU made playing – always whispered them to thank them for their business! :p
In short, it was an INCREDIBLY generous pricing scheme, and they did an atrociously shitty job of communicating this to consumers (compounded by D. Jones’s monumental fuckup of telling people it wasn’t gonna have a subscription at all a few months earlier). It was yet another of the many ways in which they screwed up, but it was a PR fuckup, not a bad pricing scheme in itself.
17/09/2010 at 03:13 JKjoker says:
err, had the game been as fun as it was supposed to be, you would have spent a higher percent of your time in the paid area
personally the main thing i didnt like about the price mode was the way it was announced and the doors it opened for the future rather than the actual cost
i had to use internet paid by the hour for a few years, the feeling of watching the clock 10 times per minute and rushing to do everything as fast as possible was horrible, every time someone forced me to waste time felt like a slap in the face, even if i ended paying less than i pay now with plain fee, i have no doubts that (at least with my personality) paying by the hour would kill any possible enjoyment i could get from any game
17/09/2010 at 10:53 Tei says:
You could have opted for the 30 days unlimited play. 10€ and you play all you want the whole month.
17/09/2010 at 13:30 manveruppd says:
Nah guys, it’s shooty, actiony gameplay, there’s no way you can play it for more than a couple of hours without feeling exhausted afterwards. It’s not your typical, slow, click-the-icon 1,2,3,4,5 MMO.
The amazing thing is that I read an internal report somewhere (in fact, I think an ex RTW employee posted it in one of these comment threads here on RPS) which said that the 4 hours a day average was much less than they expected players to be spending, and I was absolutely flabbergasted! It’s obvious that the guys who drew up their expectation of how many hours they wanted the players to spend in the action districts didn’t spend any time at all playing their own game!
17/09/2010 at 03:11 pipman3000 says:
hahaha its like hellgate londom in super speed.
17/09/2010 at 05:00 Hazza says:
Ive still got a fair bit of unused gametime that i planned to use when i upgrade my pc to a 64-bit version of windows 7. What the hell am i supposed to do now? I guess it just sucks to be me. >.>
17/09/2010 at 05:22 Moonracer says:
Not surprised it is dead. I am surprised at the lack of information. They could have left the forums up and just locked them so no one can post any more. They could have stated how long the servers will be up. I logged on just for the hell of it and it said I had infinite play time till December 12 of 2020!!! I’m Guessing the servers won’t be kept up THAT long! :P
bummer the game is officially dead but I haven’t had the urge to play again. I did feel I got my money’s worth out of it though.
17/09/2010 at 05:57 drewski says:
Sad for the people who’ve lost their jobs, sad for the customers who don’t get to play a game they’ve paid for, but not sad at all that a developer that proved incapable of developing and marketing a game of sufficient quality won’t be wasting development talent and investor cash any more.
17/09/2010 at 07:54 Shadowcat says:
This is why I’ve never bought an online-only game (and why I hate internet-based DRM above all).
17/09/2010 at 15:13 Malibu Stacey says:
Have fun with that. The rest of us are enjoying Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead 1 and 2, Borderlands etc.
17/09/2010 at 07:56 Shadowcat says:
damn you, reply button.
17/09/2010 at 07:58 wyrmsine says:
Tremendously saddening. I’d very much like to see an RPS Wot I Think on this.
17/09/2010 at 11:29 Kadayi says:
I don’t think any of the hivemind put any time into it tbh.
17/09/2010 at 11:06 bit_crusherrr says:
I’m a bit gutted. I wanted to buy the game after they had fixed all the problems I had with it in beta :(
17/09/2010 at 12:38 Bill says:
If I’m losing any sleep over this it’s just for lost jobs. RTW as a creative entity is something I can entirely do without, thanks. As an employer, it’s a shame to see it go, but ultimately it’s obvious it wasn’t sustainable.
17/09/2010 at 17:12 Onwards says:
So Dave Jones had success in in sweet-talking investors but spectacularly failed in both creative and business leadership,
What’s his next project?
21/09/2010 at 14:04 google says:
Google are now expanding its “hobbies” to every expect.