For a long time, nothing has been heard from the sandbox MMORPG Identity, which aims to be a kind of life simulation. Now the developers have spoken up and explained what is currently going on.
What is Identity? Identity aims to give you a virtual second life. You are a citizen of a city and have to cope with your daily life. Whether you open a store and sell something to other players, become a police officer, or manufacture and sell drugs, that is completely up to you.
There are problems
What is the status of the MMORPG? Development is taking quite a long time, and nothing has been said about the game’s status on the website since May 2019. However, there is now a sign of life.
What’s new with Identity? The developers have published a newsletter. In this, they explain that a small update has been released, which primarily fixes bugs in the pre-alpha version.
The team further explains that development is proceeding slower than expected due to a difficult financial situation. In addition to the game’s development, extra work must be taken on to pay the bills. This includes support for the mobile game Furballs. Therefore, Identity is currently being developed part-time. However, progress is being made, albeit at a significantly slower pace.
How does the team plan to complete the MMORPG? It is now said that many smaller updates are to be released in the future, gradually expanding Identity. Previously, it was planned to release updates in large modules that would bring many larger contents each time.
Additionally, the developers are asking the community for help. Anyone who feels capable of actively contributing to the game is encouraged to reach out. This is how the development team hopes to complete the project, even with a very small budget.
Players are upset
What happened to the money? The developers explain that although they were able to raise around 1.6 million dollars through Kickstarter, only about 170,000 dollars per year have been left for the game’s development because of taxes that had to be paid, as well as license fees, refunds, and more.
What do the players think about this? The community is somewhat upset. In the forum, the situation is being discussed. When a moderator intervened and mentioned that the game actually started as a hobby, ZANDERIUSMAXIMUS said: “I don’t think you can call this a ‘hobby’. You earned well over one and a half million dollars, and you have this community with hundreds of thousands of supporters waiting for the game… calling the project just a ‘hobby’ is a slap in the face to all those supporters.”
