Fury & Auran: Can An Unsuccessful Game Become Successful?

fury_stab.jpgIn CEO Tony Hilliam’s statement last week regarding the closure of Auran, he stated that he felt Fury had the potential to claw its way into the black, and maybe even make a few bucks profit:

I believe that once people hear about F:AotC and the new Free to Play business model, we’ll start building up the player numbers and revenues that will make the game successful.

While this appears to be true – at least for now – when I originally read this it reminded me of something NetDevil’s Hermann Peterscheck said in his MMO talk at the most recent Game Connect:

Success is not incremental … Think about WoW, [with]9.5 million [subscribers] , then Lord of the Rings [with]200,000 … There’s very few games with 3 million or 650,000. They tend to fit in defined categories of success, depending on the size of the audience that they reach.

It’s very dangerous to think “Well, we’re going to get some number in between because we’re almost as good”. “Almost as good” also means that you’re the next category down.

Fascinating, indeed. But it’s what Peterscheck had to say next that made me think of Fury:

Slowing dying is a very painful thing, I can tell you that.

There are exceptions to these rules, but not a lot. I don’t like planning that I’m going to be the exception.

Now Peterscheck was not speaking specifically about Fury – not at all – but I feel his comments are very relevant to its current situation.

While I wish Auran and Fury all the best, I find myself agreeing with Peterscheck. It’s hard to reverse the damage word of mouth and negative reviews can cause. Auran could transform the game into something entirely different and innovative, but as long as it’s called “Fury“, the bad memories will linger.

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