The Kickstarter MMORPG Legends of Aria could face a dark fate or it could be a pioneer of a new wave of “meta-metaverse” games fueled by NFTs. Who knows? This charming little MMORPG once aimed to be a spiritual successor to Ultima Online, launched on Steam in July 2020, but has never been particularly successful. Now the game has been purchased by a company looking to profit from the controversial technology “NFT”.
What kind of MMORPG was it?
- We have been reporting on the development of “Legends of Aria” on MeinMMO since 2015: a sandbox MMORPG, that aimed to go in the direction of “Ultima Online.” Originally it raised $100,000 as a Kickstarter project “Shards Online”.
- The game had some charming old-school ideas for MMORPG purists, primarily emphasizing player freedom in the sandbox, but the game suffered from “chronic lack of attention” from the start.
- Since 2019, our reports on MeinMMO have mainly focused on how poorly the MMORPG has fared on Steam, how desperately it was searching for a turnaround. MeinMMO author Alexander Leitsch predicted the death of the MMORPG for 2020 and 2021. As Massivelyop reports: It has also been a long time since a significant new update was released.
How many players does it still have on Steam? Currently, there are about 20 concurrent players that you encounter in Legends of Aria on Steam.
At its “peak” in August 2019, there were once 560 – but that number dropped significantly. Those are not figures with which an MMORPG can stay afloat.
MMORPG to become part of the meta-metaverse
This is the news now: The studio “Blue Money Games” has completely acquired Legends of Aria, along with the engine:
- It is said that the “Shards Engine” is optimized for MMORPGs and can support thousands of players in a virtual world.
- The “AAA” game will now be expanded with blockchain and Web3 mechanics and thus “metaversified” with NFTs and a token-based in-game currency
- Legends of Aria is to become part of the “meta-metaverse” of Realms of Ethernity
- Additionally, the founder and head of the studio behind Legends of Aria, Derek Brinkman, will become the new chief technology officer at the company acquiring the MMORPG. Brinkman founded Citadel Studios in 2013 after previously working as a technician at EA and Mythic. At EA, he was indeed responsible for Ultima Online.
Buyer says: He wants to gobble up more games!
What does the buyer say? There is a rather odd-sounding quote from the founder of Blue Monster Games (via cointelegraph). He says:
“Realms of Ethernity is not a normal metaverse game. It will be the metaverse that devours the gaming world. Our acquisition of Citadel Studios is just the first step of this vision. We will bring metaverse elements into existing games, which will then become part of the Realm-of-Ethernity metaverse. Expect to see many more of these acquisitions from us in the coming months!”
Joseph Rubin, Co-Founder Blue Monster Games
This is what lies behind it: MMORPG purists may have outbursts at the news and tear their hair out. Because in their ears, the news sounds like: “We are turning your Ultima Online successor into a thoroughly commercialized game with many cool buzzwords.”
But fine, Legends of Aria was already a failure as an MMORPG, now it may have a second life as an NFT-based game infused with microtransactions within a meta-metaverse, whatever that may be.
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