505 Games has announced that it has cancelled Ashes Cricket 2013, days after the title temporarily appeared for sale on Steam.

Offering a public apology to its licensors, the ECB, and the game's customers, the publisher says it "failed to deliver" on the title, and will offer full refunds to anyone that purchased the game.

The visibly buggy game was largely criticised by fans due to its poor quality. 505 Games has also been criticised for failing to communicate the status of the title, after unceremoniously announcing a last-minute delay back in July.

505 Games explained its stance in a public statement:

"As most people who have followed the project closely can affirm, the development of Ashes Cricket 2013 has been fraught with challenges almost from the outset. The chosen developer, even with their many years of cricket game development experience, was unable to overcome the unexpected challenges that the chosen game engine threw up, even with multiple extensions to the development schedule. At the start of the project, 505 Games received all assurances from the developer that the engine was up to the task of creating a dynamic, cutting-edge cricket game for the modern age across multiple platforms, and unfortunately those assurances were found to be misplaced."

“The net result of the challenges we have faced was a game which, despite our best efforts over the course of a 2 year development, couldn’t meet the quality benchmarks of either us, our licensors or our customers. 505 Games’ main priority right now is to protect the Ashes name and that of the ECB and Cricket Australia, and do what we can to recompense the cricket community."

“As the licensee and publisher of name for Ashes Cricket 2013, 505 Games would like to apologise publicly and sincerely to our licensors, the ECB and Cricket Australia, and their respective partners/sponsors, who have been nothing but patient and supportive of us throughout the challenges this project has presented, and who, ultimately, we have let down."

“Our deepest apologies, however, are reserved for the fans of cricket and cricket games worldwide. 505 Games prides itself on being a safe pair of hands on which gamers of all tastes and denominations can rely to put their best foot forward to create compelling gaming experiences. It is clear that, in this instance, we have fallen way short of our stated aims and failed to deliver. We know that the mitigating factors, as highlighted above, hold little solace to the hordes of excited cricket fans worldwide who had hoped this year to be able to play out their fantasy of playing in the Ashes series."

“The people who purchased the game will be contacted very shortly with details of a full refund."

Source

Who thought it was a good idea to release it in the state it was in ?

@jimmyfenix: 505 Games did. They don't exactly publish the cream of the crop overall, putting it mildly. Which makes that second to last paragraph all the more hilarious.

The year of developer apologies continues.

Cancelling a game after release and give refunds to everyone who bought it, has that happened before? The game looked like absolute garbage, so it's probably the right decision.

edit: And it's been in development for two years?!

Good lord, what is going on?! Not that I was expecting anything out of this specific title or even knew about it, but damn. Apologies, apologies, apologies.

A Quick Look of a recalled game...awesome! This is a first.

@tennmuerti: Well, according to Brad they published one of the ten best games of the year :-) .

Oh, 505 Games is a developer now?

Name just 10 games published by 505 this year that are better than Brothers.

@roland_d11: Too bad most of their other published stuff is terrible. What I'm saying is that they don't give a shit about what quality gets put out by them, contrary to what that press release says. Some developers they publish for just happen to not suck on their own (Arma, Terraria, Brothers) . But there is no quality control or standards when it comes to them, for every good apple there is a whole bushel of utterly rotten ones. "505 Games prides itself on being a safe pair of hands on which gamers of all tastes and denominations can rely to put their best foot forward to create compelling gaming experiences." is a pure 100% load of horse crap.

Wow, this is quite the turn of events. I kind of wish more developers just gave full refunds when their games turned out to be terrible... Though, I guess this is a special case.

I wonder if anyone liked the game and just hoped it would be fixed. I feel a bit bad for anyone hoping they might improve it instead of scrapping it altogether.

And the poor people that had to work on this crap...

lol

This makes that QL even more special.

So, um, do we need a concept page for games that are cancelled after being released?

I know nothing about Cricket so I couldn't even perceive what was wrong with the game.

I don't understand. The product works as intended.

(Image credit to Stimpack here on GB)

Jeff will be glad that he can get his refund... unlike Angry Birds Star Wars..

All down to timing, I bet. They missed their initially planned release earlier in the year to coincide with the real life Ashes being played in England, taking advantage of public interest, with the fallback being that another series was starting in late November here in Australia. Now that the Australian leg of the Ashes has started, I guess they felt it was now or never.

Clearly, never was the better choice.