EA is learning an important lesson at the moment — you can’t take treasured franchises, add fun-crushing gameplay based on player skeletonisation and micro-transactions and expect people to blindly lap it up. True, it’s one EA will fail to understand, or simply ignore, but we can pray that one day, the soul of someone in the company’s upper-management will warm to the idea that if you just make good games with IPs such as Ultima, people will gleefully pay for them.
This week the lesson is being taught at the expense of Mythic’s Ultima Forever, the free-to-play iOS game based on Richard Garriott’s seminal series. A post on the game’s official forums explains that the title will be shut down on 29 August, providing players with a month to enjoy several, entirely meaningless advantages until the plug is pulled:
Significantly boosted Virtue and Reputation rewards
Equipment degradation to be disabled (no damage to worn/equipped items)
Increased drop rate of Gold keys
The in-game store will no longer sell premium currency (Silver and Gold keys)
At least people won’t accidentally spend more money on virtual cash!
Seriously though, this has come off the back of Mythic’s shuttering earlier this year. It reinforces a sad state of affairs in general, where running beloved characters and worlds into the ground has become the norm, with the only thing to show for it is a company’s worth of jobless developers.
Important Sunset Announcement [Ultima Forever via VentureBeat]
Comments
9 responses to “Irony Sensors Explode As EA Shuts Down Ultima Forever”
I might be missing something here but i don’t really see what’s so ironic about this, did EA expect micro transactions and shitty game-play to save the game, or were they not just looking for a quick buck? I guess if this game cost a lot to produce and made a dent in EAs wallet then it would be ironic, but i don’t think they spent that much on it, more of a fail then a case of irony-overload.
“I might be missing something here…”
Ultima *Forever*.
The game is called Ultima ‘Forever’…
lol derp derp derp, that would be what I’m missing
Well I seem to recall making a joke when it was announced about the title missing the prefix “We have ruined” so I guess it’s entirely appropriate.
Lets see how many more series EA can ruin, Dune, C&C, Ultima, what next
Go check out the back log of IP’s they have hoarded over the years. For them it’s more about making sure no one else can make the games but if they ever decided to actually develop some they have generations of franchises run in to the ground
This is the depressing reality behind shuttered MMOs having buckley’s of being resurrected. NCSoft is sitting on some greatly beloved MMOs which could quite likely have been sold off and turned into mildly profitable ventures even if they didn’t match the ROI NC was looking for, but that would’ve turned them into competition for NC’s current games, and that’s just not on.
Don’t forget recent gems Dungeon Keeper and Syndicate, off the top of my head. I’m still TERRIFIED that they’re going to mess up Bioware.
…’Going to’? Heh. To hear some folks talk, that ship has sailed.
I think we’re overdue for them to ruin Desert Strike.