5 MMOs That Were Doomed

Video game development is risky and there are plenty of games out there that didn’t make it for one reason or another. Sometimes it’s as simple as things just not working out. Then there are some that are just kind of doomed by their creators. Bad production choices or general abandonment leave games a shell of what they could have been. Those same choices also leave developers unemployed.

In this list, we look at a few of those games. The idea originally came from the fact that the list was being written on Friday the 13th. And we know there have been some really unlucky games out there. It just seemed right.

Concord

Sony may have intended for Concord to be a major IP for them, but things didn’t go at all as expected. In fact, the game was only officially alive for about 11 days before Sony shut it down and started issuing refunds. That is, of course, if you don’t count Early Access. If you do, that would give it a bit more life.

Of course, it wasn’t much longer after that that Sony shut the developer down as well and decided to go back to focusing on well-known IPs, apparently thinking that was the big problem here. However, this was a game launching on PC but requiring players to have a PSN account to play. It also required a purchase when most games of the same variety are all free-to-play. Effectively, the game was doomed out of the gate.

Secret World

I think most readers would know that The Secret World – or as it came to be known later, Secret World Legends – is a favorite game of mine. That said, things didn’t exactly go well for it. Yes, it’s still around in it’s rebooted form. But the last news update on the website is for the table top version – a post made two years ago. The last actual news for the game was earlier that same year.

The thing is, after waiting about a decade for the occult MMORPG to come out, it didn’t take long for the game’s primary creator to be let go. This was later followed by another top three creatives also going, leaving only one of them to continue working on the story – story that was never seen to completion.

The game never got really big, partially because the combat system didn’t appeal to a lot of MMO players. But the player base that loved it was loyal. In fact, I’m pretty sure some of them are still there, despite not having new content in years. It’s just a shame more effort wasn’t put into giving those players more content as time went on.

Honestly though. If you’ve never played Secret World Legends before and are looking for something. Give it a go. Yes, it’s more or less on life support and ends abruptly. But it was a fun game.

World of Darkness

One might think that when you take a popular table top/LARP IP like the World of Darkness and decide to turn it into an MMORPG that it would be a no-brainer. So, when CCP Games merged with White Wolf setting up an agreement where the former would create video games from the IP while the latter just concentrated on books, it seems like a perfect marriage. It was not.</p.

In fact, the game never made it out of the gates. Before canceling the project entirely and eventually divesting themselves of White Wolf, CCP offered a lot of information on their plans for the game, including things like having hired a fashion consultant to help with character customization.

Unfortunately for would-be vampires, the game never made it off the ground. Development was taking forever, staff was moved to other projects, and layoffs were frequent. Eventually, CCP decided to end the project and refocus their efforts on the Eve Online IP, much to the relief of longtime players.

Defiance

The sci-fi shooter Defiance was a weird project for now-defunct Trion games. The company had had a solid success with the MMORPG Rift when they announced this particular project. I’ll say up front that the game wasn’t terrible. It did, however, have a hell of a gimmick – one we couldn’t figure out how would work. And it seems Trion never really figured it out either.

The game was a joint project with the Sy-Fy channel who would air the Defiance TV show. The game and the show were supposed to tell the story in tandem, with the actions of players in the game having an impact on the narrative of the story.

Reportedly, over $70 million was spend developing the game. It launched alongside the show in 2013. In 2014 it went free to play. This was followed by the show being canceled after three seasons in 2015. The game still stuck around for a while, and like The Secret World, it was even rebooted. However, unlike Secret World Legends, it’s no longer running at all – not even as just a place for players to hang out.

Project Copernicus

This game. Oh. Man. This game… Developed by 38 Studios, Project Copernicus was intended to be a major fantasy MMO featuring writing by R.A. Salvatore and art by Todd McFarlane. The studio itself was founded by Curt Schilling – yes, the baseball player. In fact, there were several well-known names involved with the project.

It was intended to be one of those WoW killers with the company projecting about $100 million in annual profits. Instead, the game never launched – although a smaller action RPG in the same universe did, but failed to make any money. The company was riddled with accusations of poor management and money handling with the studio defaulting on repaying its loan to from the state of Rhode island and the company eventually shuttered.

Those involved blamed the game’s issues on the changing market. But one could argue that it’s probably not the best idea to have people who’ve never worked on an MMO before in charge of making a big budget MMO.