Releasing bad news on a Friday can be a mixed bag – it can be buried since people have better things to do on the weekend than read news articles, or it can backfire since no-one is around to deal with the speculation and issues that arise from the bad news. Because MMO players are … Continue reading
Tagged with Fallen Earth …
Is Naming a Studio After Mythical Example of Failure Ever A Good Idea? Icarus Studios Restructures
Icarus Studios, who is behind-but-set-Fallen-Earth-LLC-as-a-separate-entity-to-develop-Fallen-Earth, has announced a dramatic restructuring of its internal personnel. If you take Icarus’ LinkedIn as accurate, they used to have about 110 employees, which is now down to 28 core staff members plus customer service / GM staff. (Comments that “80% of staff have been laid off” often depend on … Continue reading
How Many Players Does CoH/V Have Anyway?
The core metric for assessing the size of a MMO is the number of active players. It’s a simple metric that is easy to understand and compare, even if it isn’t perfect (after all, revenue and profitability are probably more important regardless of player base size). It’s power is such that good numbers are trumpeted … Continue reading
We Do It To Ourselves, We Do – Why MMOs Are as They Are
Psychochild made an interesting post recently – why haven’t MMOs lived up to their early potential? Why hasn’t the early potential of games like Ultima Online or Meridian 59 with all their freedom and player-driven worlds been built on? Why have more controlled experiences like Everquest 2 or World of Warcraft dominated the genre? Some … Continue reading
City of Heroes / Villains 2009: Running Twice As Fast To Stay At The Same Place
UPDATE: I’ve repeated /facepalmed myself over getting Cryptic and Paragon Studios mixed up a few times in this article; Cryptic used to develop CoH/V but that is all handled by Paragon Studios now. Hopefully fixed! Also probably should have mentioned that DC Universe Online might launch in 2010, but this is still open to change. … Continue reading
Champions Online Alpha / Beta: A Retrospective (And Some Fallen Earth Too)
It’s funny how quickly things can change. If you’d asked me how Champion Online (ChampO) had been in its alpha / beta phases and how well Cryptic had run it, I would have told you that it was the best alpha / beta I’d been in. The devs were open to feedback, made a lot … Continue reading
Fallen Earth Overview (Now That the NDA is Gone)
I’ve also been beta testing Fallen Earth. With the NDA gone… Conclusion: – An indie MMO through and through that is unlikely to get more than a niche audience. – It’s sort-of sandboxy and sort-of hardcore (travel times will kill casual play) which might have appeal to certain corners of the market. – It isn’t … Continue reading
World Class Villains 