Encourages fans to "join the party," though "wake" might be more appropriate.
Realtime Worlds' freefall after the June release of its MMO APB has been terrible to observe, and it appears as if the skeleton crew left in the studio after the reported mass layoffs won't even be able to keep the root of the studio's woes afloat long enough to recoup its costs. This afternoon, Realtime's Ben Bateman has announced the apparent immediate closure of APB via the game's official forums.
"APB has been a fantastic journey," he wrote, "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."Â Â
 Bateman didn't get specific as to when the MMO's servers would be shut down, but his encouragement to "join the party and say goodbye" certainly suggests that the time to flick a switch is nigh.Â
As Joystiq points out, this sudden closure brings up a wee little issue for users who have money locked up in the MMO's zany Realtime Points system. Will they get refunds? Realtime didn't address this in the post that otherwise so graciously thanks its hardcore base for their devoted, but brief, support.
I always said from the beta that it wouldnt last long. Combined with the fucking idiots who play it, and the constant doubt RealTimeWorlds were not gonna last long, this is a joy to behold. I'm so so happy i didnt fork out for any gametime. booya!
I played the beta and it was really crazy how many people were giving poor feedback, yet at the time Realtime Worlds were acting as if the game was running perfectly. Even saying that though I'm surprised the game only lasted 3 months, this must be the shortest lived MMO ever! (Not even really an MMO)
Wow, that is very soon after launch. Has any MMO failed this fast?
Now I am a bit worried for Star Trek Online, I've had the impression that it has had more trouble than APB, especially reception wise - and I've been wanting to give STO a try, would it be worth the risk to invest in the STO client this far after launch?
I'm glad I didn't put any more money into it. I enjoyed it for about 20 hours or so, but then I put it down and haven't picked it up again since then. Too bad... it could have been something cool, but it ultimately just didn't have a lot of staying power.
Wow, I'm glad I quit ahead of time.. This game wasn't for people bad at shooters, or with slow computers.. Â And I was both.. Â I now have a $70.00 souvenir of a game that no longer works.
Wow, that is very soon after launch. Has any MMO failed this fast?
Now I am a bit worried for Star Trek Online, I've had the impression that it has had more trouble than APB, especially reception wise - and I've been wanting to give STO a try, would it be worth the risk to invest in the STO client this far after launch?
"
Less than three months after launch, so yeah, it's GOT to be a first. Â And STO has been around a hell of a lot longer at this point, looks like they're in it for at leat the medium haul.
Wow, according to Wikipedia the servers were shut down about 4 hours ago, or around 8 pm GMT. That's on the same day it was announced they would be closed down.
I never purchased it or even felt like getting it even before it was released to negative reviews, but shutting the game down without even a days notice is really, really poor customer relations.
They had 130000 customers after all, probably a decent bunch of them who still had a lot of purchased game time left.
" So is it safe to say that APB was the biggest failure in the history of Video Games? Hope RTW guys make it out OK, though. "
I don't know how it compares to E.T. on the Atari 2600 or Daikatana, but I think the comment on The Guardian where someone called it "Daikatana Online" probably wasn't far off.
@Jayzilla: I'd guess most MMO's are in development longer than they are in business, but in the case of APB it can't even have lasted longer than it took between them sending the game off for production and it getting out in stores.
People are only going to pay so much a month for video games subs and WoW sort of has a monopoly of $15 of whatever that, probably small, number is. I've only known one person who signed up for more than one of these things at a time. It seems like a brutal market to crack so your game needs to be amazing and not APB.
Ha! Even The Matrix Online lasted longer than this! It is a little sad, because i thought that some of the concepts within the game were pretty interesting. They were just poorly executed.
An appropriate end to an awful game. Any one invited into Beta testing knows what I'm talking about.  I was very much looking forward to this game, until I played it.....   It seemed the only people who like this game are people who pre-ordered it years ago. I guess they couldn't come to terms with the fact that they waited years for a terd.  No one should feel bad for Realtime Worlds. If you make a crappy game, then try to scam people into buying it, Chapter 11 is what you deserve.
Yes, this will go a long ways to make sure people never buy MMO's...and the death of that genre cannot come quickly enough. It's amazing that all of them, save one, tend to be epic disappointments/disasters.
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