The year 2017 is coming to an end and some MMOs have long since left us. Find out here which 9 online games unfortunately passed away this year.
MMOs are mostly designed as “Games as a Service.” This means they are supposed to last forever and are continuously expanded with new features and upgrades.
But some games simply do not appeal to players or fall victim to questionable design decisions, while others are gnawed by the ravages of time. Then it can happen that the publisher pulls the plug and causes an MMO to be discontinued.
Here we present 9 such tragic fates.
Battleborn – The Undead Hero Shooter
Officially, Battleborn is not actually dead. The servers are still running. But developer Gearbox has already announced that they are no longer actively working on the game and are instead deploying the team to other projects, likely for the next Borderlands. Thus, Battleborn is clinically dead and merely shuffles through its dismal existence like a zombie.
Free2Play didn’t help
Battleborn primarily failed due to acute player decline. Shortly before the end of support, there were on average 50 people online. For a competitive hero shooter with coop mode, that was far too few!
There were not lacking rescue attempts. Gearbox last tried via a partial shift to Free2Play to salvage something. Unfortunately, that brought nothing.
A real shame for a good hero shooter
However, Battleborn was not a bad game. Quite the contrary: The colorful hero shooter delighted its fans with a wild mix of MOBA and shooter. There was also a coop PvE mode, and the humor of the game was simply delightful.
But many players were put off by the extreme comic style, and others found the gameplay too complicated. And when Blizzard’s hero shooter Overwatch hit the market shortly after Battleborn’s release, player numbers for Battleborn noticeably declined and never recovered.
But whether Blizzard is to blame or Battleborn simply didn’t appeal to the broader public, it is certainly unlikely that it will continue to exist for long.
Next up is a game that had a short life.
Master X Master – Dead after just 7 months
With Master X Master, NCSoft wanted to create its own niche and thrive there. The game was a colorful mix of various genres and features:
- You had the choice of dozens of heroes, some from other NCSoft games like WildStar, Lineage, Guild Wars, or Aion
- There was a MOBA mode where you had to capture the enemy base with the help of giant monsters.
- You could have fun in 3vs3 mode in an arena
- PvE friends could compete in coop against hordes of AI monsters and play MXM like a top-down shooter
- The newest mode was a horde mode in PvE where you had to fend off wave after wave of enemies
- For in-between, Master X Master had fun mini-games where you could test your reflexes
Lack of target audience and controversial patch
The colorful buffet of game modes and genres that Master X Master offered unfortunately did not appeal to many players. The number of active gamers declined, and the controversial patch 1.3 caused a lot of discontent as it reduced rewards and increased grind time by a good 60 percent.
Already at the start of version 1.3, some pessimists predicted the end of MXM. They were proven right. Just two months later, NCSoft announced that the MXM servers would be shut down on January 31, 2018. But until then, you could still play.
Exemplary refunds at the end
Additionally, all purchases between August 30 and November 16 will be refunded. All players can spend tons of free premium currency during the remaining time until the death of Master X Master in January to get the most out of the game before it finally goes under. An exemplary action from the developer and a worthy farewell to the game.
The next game died suddenly, cruelly, and unexpectedly.
Marvel Heroes – Sudden game death
The action MMO Marvel Heroes was long considered a small miracle in the genre. The game by Diablo developer David Brevik was a flop at release, offering hardly any variety. Then Marvel Heroes was continuously improved with a lot of heart and enthusiasm and finally achieved well-deserved success!
However, Brevik had had enough of management early in 2016 and wanted to develop more again. He left the studio Gazillion Entertainment. They wanted to continue to expand and planned the release of Marvel Heroes on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 consoles. From then on, it went steeply downhill.
Console version angers PC players & Halloween is canceled
The launch of the PlayStation 4 version in May 2017 caused PC players to feel neglected. Updates on the computer were absent, and the PlayStation version did not have all the features of the original. The player numbers on Steam collapsed.
The end was foreshadowed when updates were omitted and the Halloween event was canceled. Regular updates and cool events had been the studio’s pride so far. And then came rumors about the misconduct of Gazillion’s CEO.
The boss was supposedly a horrible sexist, harassing female employees. However, Gazillion feared that Disney (the owners of Marvel) would revoke their license if this became public.
Death came at Thanksgiving
Indeed, shortly thereafter exactly that happened: Disney revoked Gazillion’s Marvel license! Apparently, this had already happened a month before it became known, which is why events and updates had been canceled. The studio had hoped until the last moment to achieve a reinstatement of the license. When that didn’t happen, they announced the end.
Marvel Heroes could only continue until December 31, 2017, after which it would be over! The game was thus practically already dead, but it got even worse. The banks had had enough and said shortly before Thanksgiving: “You’re shutting down!”.
Thus, Marvel Heroes sank without a trace after the Thanksgiving weekend and the employees of Gazillion were suddenly unemployed. Many employees had expected the end and accumulated vacation days. They were supposed to be paid out, providing employees with a financial buffer after losing their jobs. But that did not happen: Since Gazillion filed for bankruptcy, the vacation days expired and were not paid out.
Moreover, there was unpleasant trouble regarding the refund of costs as console gamers had invested a considerable amount of real money. They naturally did not expect the game to go under just a few months later.
Meanwhile, there have likely been concessions from Sony and Microsoft. Overall, however, the end of Gazillion and Marvel Heroes remains a nasty affair that came as a shock.
On the next page you will learn all about the fate of a long-suffering shooter MMO and other tragically departed online games!
