And what’s to stop this game from dying all over again? There’s still no way to run the game server yourself, right? Why do the work if they’re not going to future proof it against an outcome they couldn’t avoid the last time?
Future proofing isn’t the goal, I don’t think. This game had a lot of positive word of mouth after its shutdown. The revival from a new studio and publisher who weren’t around to learn anything about its original downfall is probably just an attempt to see if that positive word of mouth can turn into sales.
To them, the problem was never that people couldn’t play it after it shut down, it’s that it didn’t make enough money while it lived. Hell, if it didn’t shut down as an online only title this studio wouldn’t even have been able to buy it at all, that turned out to be a good part of the design for them.
Edit: to be clear, I’m not advocating for online only games, I’m just saying there’s pretty much less than no incentive for them to care about that part of the game
So the thing is, regardless of current campaigns to stop killing games, this is like the definition of throwing good money after bad…unless they actually offered customers assurances that they’ll get their money’s worth out of an up front payment to play the game. Because without that assurance, however long your free to play multiplayer game sustained an audience, the version where you have to buy the game up front will be worse off.
And what’s to stop this game from dying all over again? There’s still no way to run the game server yourself, right? Why do the work if they’re not going to future proof it against an outcome they couldn’t avoid the last time?
Future proofing isn’t the goal, I don’t think. This game had a lot of positive word of mouth after its shutdown. The revival from a new studio and publisher who weren’t around to learn anything about its original downfall is probably just an attempt to see if that positive word of mouth can turn into sales.
To them, the problem was never that people couldn’t play it after it shut down, it’s that it didn’t make enough money while it lived. Hell, if it didn’t shut down as an online only title this studio wouldn’t even have been able to buy it at all, that turned out to be a good part of the design for them.
Edit: to be clear, I’m not advocating for online only games, I’m just saying there’s pretty much less than no incentive for them to care about that part of the game
So the thing is, regardless of current campaigns to stop killing games, this is like the definition of throwing good money after bad…unless they actually offered customers assurances that they’ll get their money’s worth out of an up front payment to play the game. Because without that assurance, however long your free to play multiplayer game sustained an audience, the version where you have to buy the game up front will be worse off.
Yeah, and right now the probability that it will shut does not make me want to spend any money on it.