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Let's take a trip shall we? A trip back a little more than a year ago. PAX Prime 2009 was underway and we were getting one of our first major looks at APB. "That looks pretty cool!" we exclaimed. "Indeed!" another one of us agreed.
Fast forward one whole year and we find that APB is now shutting down less than three months after being released. It's a sad day for the gamers, and developers, who believed in a project that was widely known to be riddled with problems upon release. Developer Realtime Worlds has also been having problems, issuing a major string of layoffs not too long ago.
A statement was issued today by Community Officer Ben Bateman who released the Eulogy to the community.
APB has been a fantastic journey, 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. It's been a pleasure working on APB and with all its players. Together we were building an absolutely amazing game, and for that, we thank you. You guys are awesome!
And so it is done. Less than three months is short for even a troubled MMO. Anarchy Online and WWII Online were a mess upon release but both are still up and running. The administration problems of Realtime Worlds are most probably the major fatal flaw in the mix.
Comments
13 years, 7 months ago
Ah, this is a shame. This mmo had alot of concepts that were different from the norm, and it was something i really wanted to sink my teeth into when i got a good gaming comp. Ah well, hopefully this move will keep realtime worlds afloat, and able to create some more games that are original and inventive!
13 years, 7 months ago
Saw this coming. After a week or so of playing, and enjoying it besides the terrible shooting elements, I thought this would be free to play soon enough. Then when Realtime Worlds when down the hole I figured this would just get shut down.
Sucks, game had potential, just was not ready.....It was not fun getting matched against opponents with fucking N-Tecs with all these stupid upgrades that would just kill you in a couple shots. The hitboxes were awful, no frigging headshots, ugh. My female char was so badass though......
13 years, 7 months ago
I'm glad I never touched that game, It looked like trash, And even Destructoid trashed it to pieces.
13 years, 7 months ago
bah, this only reminds me I still gotta get at Demon souls :[[
13 years, 7 months ago
Such a waste. I'm one of the few who truly loved and enjoyed all aspects of the game, including, what I consider to be, some of the most enjoyable and unique open-world gunplay in any game. RTW didn't deserve to die off due to their bad management, and APB, among so many crappy WoW clones, should have seen at least solid success in the MMO market, especially in the it's now-patched state.
The whole situation is a tragic mess, with no one coming out well in the end. Hard to believe it ended like this.
13 years, 7 months ago
Damn, now that was a quick birth and death of an MMO. Made me remember the 'life is short' xbox commercial. The game was born and shot right into a grave so incredibly fast. I'll admit that I knew very little about the game upon its release, I didn't even know what the game was about. The cost structure of the game also seemed to be a bit odd, but maybe that's just me. Another one bites the dust.
13 years, 7 months ago
And nothing of value was lost.
APB looked like a piece of shit from the get-go.
13 years, 7 months ago
Huh, I wasn't even aware the game was released.
13 years, 7 months ago
It seem unfortunate but all too common that these smaller MMOs rot on the vine. I had heard of APB and understood the basic idea behind it, but like others on this site, never knew it was even released. I've played my share of MMOs (20+ ever since Ultima Online and MUDs before that) and it seems like the only ones these days that "make it," copy the same formula and stick with the safe option. Innovation and unestablished intellectual property tend to be the undoing of these games. They don't draw the attention of the market and with that the funding necessary to ensure the success of the product. Because of lack of investors, bad management, or failure of advertisements, some really innovative and exciting MMOs fail to secure the initial influx of subscribers and thus stagnate and die too young.
If you look at all of the currently successful (i.e. still open after the first couple years) MMOs, you will note one thing in common between them all: a very strong release. It is a rare occurrence that an MMO becomes successful *after* the launch. If your launch fails due to a buggy product (bad management, not enough dev and testing time, etc.) that chases away all of your initial customers, or lack of said initial customers (lack of advertisement or uncomfortably with an unestablished franchise) it is almost certain that the game will fail within the first couple years.
The above is true for most big budget games; with a big budget, investors expect big returns, and if you do not get them in the initial year, you will never get them (or so investors seem to believe). I'm excited to see the new development of "indie MMOs" which allow for smaller, higher risk games to be developed on a low budget and don't have much to lose; even a small community can support one of these games. These kinds of games can become absolutely amazing experiences due to the relatively small communities; this is something you can't experience in a highly successful game, but MMO gaming communities is another subject entirely. :)
13 years, 7 months ago
I read this article a couple days ago, and that evening while I was in Walmart I noticed APB still on the shelves, and couldn't help feeling sorry for any of the poor bastards who buy that before it gets de-shelved.
13 years, 3 months ago
[...] you remember the story, internal developer conflict and a severely competitive MMO market quickly took its tole on APB and [...]