I was going to continue with my current series, but looking at the collapse of RealTime Worlds really brought home the similarities between that event and the collapse of 38 Studios. Observe: RealTime World’s collapse was a big thing at the time, but they didn’t have any public money involved with them (that I’m aware … Continue reading
Tagged with Realtime Worlds …
Great MMO Company Collapses of Our Time – RealTime Worlds
If you selected this option, congratulations – you decided to back RealTime Worlds! RealTime Worlds Game That Destroyed Them: All Points Bulletin (APB) Studio Launch Date: Early 2002 Studio Closure Date: September 2010 Invested In By: Private investors Estimated Money Blown: Over US$100m Cause of Death: Spending all the budget before the game had even launched, … Continue reading
Crunch Time Is Wrong, But Gee This Game Is Fun!
GameSpot’s Andrew McMillen has an article up on the working conditions of game developers and why gamers should care. but unfortunately is misses its topic on a few levels and fails on its most important point – making gamers care. The first issue with the article are the games used to showcase extensive crunch times (“crunch” … Continue reading
The Very, Very Late 2010 MMO Recap: Here Comes the New Stuff, Same As the Old Stuff
(All you have is my word that I haven’t made any substantive revisions to this document since January 30, 2011. Trust me. I’m a blogger. For a point-by-point recap of 2010, see either the January to June or the July to December articles.) 2010 was an interesting year for the MMO industry in that it … Continue reading
The Very, Very Late 2010 MMO Recap (Part 2)
Part 1 is here, including a note about why April is the best time to review what happened about 16 months ago. July: Star Trek Online Executive Producer Craig Zinkievich leaves both the title and Cryptic Studios. Capcom’s Xbox Japan- and Xbox 360-only MMO Monster Hunter Frontier Online tops the sales charts in Japan. Activision … Continue reading
Death and Rebirth… Of Sorts: Stargate: Worlds and APB
Stargate: Worlds looks to be properly dead at this point – although Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment may have won back the right to work on it among the mess that company and its offpspring are, MGM have pulled the Stargate license from them. MGM have also gone bankrupt, making any kind of re-licensing of said IP … Continue reading
Calling All Cars: The End of APB
That’s that then: APB has gone offline. Links to the official site are now dead. Sure, some companies may have been talking to Real Time World’s administration about picking up APB (300, with a shortlist of 6), but most of them would have been poking around to see what they could pick up cheap. Before … Continue reading
APB: Well, Since Everyone Else Is Doing It…
The failure of All Points Bulletin is a current hot topic, especially since it looks to have pretty much destroyed the generally well-regarded developer Real Time Worlds. A great look at this toppling can be seen at GameBrief – the only thing that appears wrong are claims that APB only sold around 10k copies, whereas … Continue reading
APB (Now That The NDA Is Gone, Or Maybe It Isn’t)
I’m not actually sure that the APB NDA has gone, but the game has launched, so I’m going to rely on the legal precedent of O’Really vs Ya’Really and put up my pre-launch opinions anyway. So, APB: Conclusion: – This particular attempt at GTA Online is probably going to struggle to hold large numbers of … Continue reading
APB: Advertising Over VOIP
Something I hadn’t heard of before: advertising over VOIP. Particularly in a MMO. Especially in a MMO that charges a box cost and subscription fee to play. Kudos then, I guess, to APB for being so creative. You can pay to turn it off by paying for Vivox Premium services, or alternatively use a different … Continue reading
World Class Villains 