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."
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
And they spent like 100 million making this game? What a f-ing waste of money. When I saw it for the first time I new it would suck but many people were excited about it. It was weird to me...
You can't convince me that nobody in that studio had any idea that this game was going to be a steaming pile of donkey crap. This is what happens when guys can't let go.
hoooly shit this is sad. What a trainwreck this entire game's trajectory has been. $100 million and shut down within months... wow. I feel bad for all the people that used to work at RTW, I really think they tried to make a great game, it just didn't come together. Market reality's a bitch, I guess.
It's a spectacular failure, but it's also a bit sad.
Shocking. MMO devs should be forced to take out insurance so that if they go belly up the servers stay live for at least a year. Even Hellgate London lasted longer. If you bought APB you have the right to feel royally fucked by this.
Why do you say that? You played Crackdown 1, didn't you? "
I did it, and at the time it was highly enjoyable. I honestly thing RealTime Worlds would have added something to Crackdown 2, and not in the superficial ways that Ruffian did - my understanding of the situation was that MS sat too long on the sequel and RTW was unavailable due to work on APB - thus Ruffian was formed and they cranked out Crackdown 2 in a matter os 18 or 24 months - really short Dev. time, which was one of their excuses for reusing Pacific City. So, again I think that RTW would have added something more and something significant had they been the ones working on Crackdown 2.
i wanted this game to succeed to badly. Then it came out and I knew it was going to wither and die, but I wouldn't have guessed so soon. Is this some record or something? Even the Matrix Online lasted longer than this didn't it?
" Shocking. MMO devs should be forced to take out insurance so that if they go belly up the servers stay live for at least a year. Even Hellgate London lasted longer. If you bought APB you have the right to feel royally fucked by this. "
I don't think this is even the point where APB buyers started to feel royally fucked by their purchase.
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