APB: Finally, I Can Be A PUNK!

[LK]

God forbid someone low on the totem pole tries to help the company as a whole out and instead gets perceived as going over someone's head and making them look bad.

[IainC]

Wow, thats just wow.. has an mmo ever cratered this fast? 

What about people that just topped up their hours.

Even Fury lasted nearly a year and that was previously considered the high water mark of commercial failure for a game that actually launched.

[Outlawedprod]

Luke Halliwell, ex-RTW, on some of the RTW cultural factors that saw APB fail.

He posted a couple more times.  I liked the mention of http://www.realtimeworlds.com/careers/graduates/
Note the section called "Why Realtime Worlds?"

[Mrbloodworth]

Wow, thats just wow.. has an mmo ever cratered this fast? 

What about people that just topped up their hours.

Seed.

[Rasix]

That doesn't count.

[Lantyssa]

Do three months really count as an "era"?

[LC]

APB will be used as a cautionary tale for years to come.

Spend more time thinking about ways for your player base to have fun, and less time thinking about ways to milk money from them.

[sam, an eggplant]

Nah, that's too simplistic. It wasn't the tail wagging the dog. RTW failed in every possible way; their unproven business model confused consumers, excess funding and "mature" company culture avoiding milestones drained drive, locations limiting workforce, they launched PC-only, had that insane review embargo, their studio (rightly) didn't have faith in the game and didn't promote it, and in the end most damningly, both design and implementation of the actual game had seemingly insurmountable issues. These factors entangled and stewed together, leading to a mewling rat king of failure.

Ion Storm was 10 years ago. Obviously we needed a reminder. APB served its purpose.

[Rendakor]

I think, like HG:L, the business model was a big problem. A lot of people earned enough RTW points in-game to pay for their subscriptions, so the most hardcore people were essentially playing for free. Mediocre games with simple sub fees have survived much longer than APB.

[Threash]

I wasn't hardcore at all and i played for free, and had three months worth of RTW points left when i quit.

[LK]

And the sequel to the game they made was a fucking pile of shit as well. Realtime World's mark on the games industry is a pure negative now.

Reap what you sow?

[TripleDES]

If you're talking about Crackdown 2, RTW didn't develop it.

[koro]

If you're talking about Crackdown 2, RTW didn't develop it.

...because they were too busy with APB. 

[Rendakor]

You still can't lay the failure of CD2 at their feet, they had nothing to do with it. It was really just a glorified mission pack for CD1 anyway.

[UnSub]

Luke Halliwell, ex-RTW, on some of the RTW cultural factors that saw APB fail.

He posted a couple more times.  I liked the mention of http://www.realtimeworlds.com/careers/graduates/

Thanks.

The Oh Snap moments:

I just want to focus in on the unquestioned assumption that we should set out to spend all the money.

We forgot to tell ourselves that the investment was just a small step towards success, not to be confused with success itself.

APB / RTW should definitely be remembered, but sadly the mistakes it made are all too common. The idea of spending all your budget getting to launch since the game will be super-awesome and sell millions, that company growth was out of control, poor internal communication and the culture shock of shifting from a small organisation to a big one.

Unfortunately the MMO industry tends to treat MMOs that fail as titles that were always going to fail. But that's not true - RTW had the talent, the money and the ideas to succeed. However, it looks like they lost sight of what they actually needed to achieve - a sustainable MMO launch, not a single-player title launch - and poured a lot of cash down the drain as a result.

[waffel]

Well then, guess I WONT be seeing how this game progressed in a year.

Finally, I Can Be A PUNK!... for 3 months.

[waffel]

It could be worse, you could be this guy:
http://www.thehumanavatar.com/stage/6
 

[Rasix]

Am I the only person that immediately thought "this will never work" after hearing all of the hubbub over avatar customization? I just don't trust noobler dev studios to do anything ambitious and not have it be terrible, especially from a technical stand point.

[Pringles]

It could be worse, you could be this guy:
http://www.thehumanavatar.com/stage/6
 

Sure does suck to be him.

[Samprimary]

After reading in detail about how the game ended up working out, I could bet you money that all of the people within the company, who likely knew and complained about how the game was going to sodomize new players repeatedly and make everyone want to quit, and all those other things? They were likely organizationally dissuaded from being allowed to present negative reports, and told 'it is not your place to manage or comment on design decisions.'

[jakonovski]

omglol

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-09-17-epic-games-may-buy-apb-report

[5150]

I don't think I've even taken the shrink wrap off my copy yet :-(

[Mrbloodworth]

omglol

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-09-17-epic-games-may-buy-apb-report

Hehe, saw that coming, if that goes through, watch the next version of unreal remove some very longstanding limitations.

"Mark [Rein - Epic VP] absolutely loves APB, and everyone here loved what they saw,"

Apparently hes as crazy as I am. 

[01101010]

Queue the Serek Dmart signal...

 

[Stormwaltz]

According to Massively, Seed lasted twice as long as APB.

[HaemishM]

That makes it legendary epic fail.

[fuser]

“Customers should revert to the entity from which they bought the game in respect of their entitlement to any refund,” RTW administrator Begbies Traynor told MCV’s sister site Develop.
The servers hosting APB were switched off last night, meaning those who purchased the £34.99 title were left unable to play the product.

So if you purchased points from the RTW onslite store you lost your money 

[jakonovski]

Man did I ever dodge a bullet here! I probably would've liked the game warts and all, just like I did with Hellgate.

[Shatter]

Man did I ever dodge a bullet here! I probably would've liked the game warts and all, just like I did with Hellgate.

Yup its been good.  Saved my money on STO, then APB, and now FFXIV.  Cha ching!  Its getting too easy actually. 

[Threash]

I used up my 50 free hours in a couple weeks, then played sporadically for a month.  I more than got my moneys worth i think.

[Mrbloodworth]

I used up my 50 free hours in a couple weeks, then played sporadically for a month.  I more than got my moneys worth i think.

Same.

[Kageru]

Game Over Man....Game Over

Sadly a link to the APB forums is as transitory as the game itself...

[NiX]

...because they were too busy with APB. 

Didn't this have to do with MS holding the rights and all the shenanigans that surrounded RTW's IPs?

[LC]

Too late to do a chargeback?

[tmp]

According to Massively, Seed lasted twice as long as APB.

Whoa, all this time i was under impression Auto Assault tanked fast and turns out it actually lasted longer than Tabula Rasa.