What Happens When an MMO Dies?

Long before Techgage came to be, a hobby (or perhaps addiction) of mine was discovering and playing MMORPG games. My first real foray into an MMO was with Asheron’s Call in early 2002, and that’s a game I still play today. Another game I sunk a countless number of hours into was Lineage II, another I still play on occasion. So what happens when either of these games die? I don’t want to know.

If you’re a player of an MMO, you know what I’m talking about. It couldn’t sound geekier to say, but once you’re immersed into an MMO, it becomes more than a game. It becomes a hangout spot, a place to meet friends, a world to sink yourself into and explore, it’s excitement… it’s memories. When a developer decides that it’s time to pull the plug, all except the memories are pulled with it.

In an article posted at Kotaku, the author takes a look at what happened after a couple popular MMO games died, and one of them did affect me… Auto Assault. This was a game I anticipated all the way up to its launch, and played quite a bit after the launch. It’s one I even reviewed. At a time when games like World of Warcraft dominated the attention of gamers everywhere, finding success was tough.

A year-and-a-half after that game launched, NCsoft pulled its plug. There were no real reasons given, but fans blamed lack of real marketing, and lack of interest in other players. What that meant was… Auto Assault wasn’t a typical MMO. No, here, your character is a car, and the idea of that no doubt kept some people away. Despite that, it was a great game, and one I still recall vividly.

The worst part about an MMO closing is that fans of the game almost have no chance of being able to play it again, even via an emulator. And let’s face it, emulators are not ideal anyway, though they are still appreciated. Publishers almost never release the source code for any games either, because most of the time, the code is shared with other games. This happened with Asheron’s Call 2, which saw its code ported over to other Turbine games – games which are still available and very popular.

At the end of the day, it’s not only gamers who are left upset at an MMO closing. Developers are as well, and the article here talks to some of them. If you work on a project for years and years, then it’s just gone… that’s gotta affect you.

The players also make an investment in these persistent virtual worlds. Years are spent earning experience points, gathering powerful equipment, and establishing themselves as not merely players, but citizens of a vast virtual community. Money is spent on the game, its expansion packs, and any subscription fee they might incur. There’s also the emotional investment, forming bonds with the players they battle beside. day in and day out.