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Rubies of Eventide MMO Shutting Down?
Bruha writes "Over at Rubies of Eventide Warcry it has been announced that the fantasy-based PC MMO Rubies of Eventide will be shutting down operations in December unless they can find some way to pay the bills. The owner of the company sent out an announcement where he said those paid up to that point will be receiving refunds and pointed out that they just did not have enough players anymore to continue: 'Our customer base continues to decline; as of yesterday we had only 806 paying customers (we lost another 41 over the weekend).'" Are there just too many MMOs out there, thus spreading players too thin, or are these problems down to the state of this particular game?
That kind of sucks... I played that MMO for awhile and liked it. It was a bit lacking on excitement I think, but overall a solid and engrossing game. Having a free download really helped it's image in my mind as well.
It was kind of sparse on players after the newbie's area. I agree that MMOGs are getting spread thin as I've basically been playing a new game every month looking for a good online home which I haven't discovered yet. There are a lot of options. Every time I've switched I've found that the grass is always greener on the other side.
This is not necessarily a sign of too many games. If no MMO games ever closed, that would be a sure sign that there weren't enough of them.
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I predict that this is the first of many of these stories. The industry is saturating the market with these games. I haven't played Everquest. or any of it's ilk. What I have gleaned from others complaints is that this genre demands LOTS of time. There must be a fixed amount of people in the world with the time and determination to keep playing. Flooding the market with these games is only going to disrupt the available pool of people willing to pay a monthly fee. IOW, if X amount of people are ever going to be paying a monthly fee for a massively time consuming online game, having a glut of titles nets less total players per game. We will soon see a digital "darwinism" thinning the herds of these games. Of course, it has always worked this way, with FPS and RTS games showing the pattern. However, none of these games were relying on monthly fees to make their money. Where it was easy to make a quick cash in on the RTS or FPS craze, the developers relying on subscriptions for profit are in for trouble.
Lets see...from the FAQ:
Can I download the game, or is it on a CD?
Rubies Of Eventide is no longer being offered on CD during open beta. Any updates are automatically downloaded after the installation of the game. All updates are mandatory to run Rubies Of Eventide.
Oh, so this never got out of beta...yet...in the same FAQ...
What do I need to play this game? What are the system requirements?
You will need an Internet connection to play Rubies Of Eventide. There is no single player version planned at this time.
Minimum System requirements are:
Pentium 4 or faster Processor
256 MB of RAM (512MB recommended)
Yet the screen shots look real bad (like something from the '90s)...and I'm certain this has to be their best screenshots...
And the whole try before you buy thing seems to have eluded them...as in the same FAQ...
Rubies of Eventide Pricing for 2003
1 month - $14.95
$35.85 for 3 months ($11.95/m) Save 20% off the standard rate!!
$65.70 for 6 months ($10.95/m) Look, over 25% off!!
$119.40 for a year ($9.95/m)Best deal for almost 35% off at $9.95 a month!!
Ok, so for a recap...
You want me to pay $15/mo to play a beta of a game that I've never heard of and obviously never played with high system requirements that looks like it's about 5 years too late with the graphics...
Ok, I can't tell why this company is having problems selling their beta game to everyone...must be the start of another games crash...
This game has potential, but was never really finished beta. It needs more content, and more fleshed out skills. The engine is also somewhat dated, pre-Everquest quality graphics. I hope something good comes of this, they seem to have good developers and good ideas, just general problems along the way.
Open Source it!
If it's going to die, might as well allow the world to reap the rewards and improve it, host it ourselves, and give it a second chance at life, in the open. Having it rot on a shelf in the basement is a terrible end for a game with such great potential.
By giving it to the world, you solve the problem of the ideas/code being sold, we can port it to a dozen platforms, improve the graphics, and add a vast amount of story/plot to it. Give the editing / modelling tools to the community (or at least detailed specs on the models and maps) and we'll happily be on our way, keeping this dream alive.