Article Explores APB's and Realtime Worlds' Collapse In 2010

Jason Winter
By Jason Winter, News Editor Posted:
Share:

Get the Most Out of Your Virtual Life Without Sacrificing Your Real Life 1

After five years and over $100 million in development costs, Realtime Worlds' All Points Bulletin launched in late June/early July (depending on your region) of 2010. In September, it shut down and RTW laid off its staff.

You probably know the rest of the story, which is still underway: APB was purchased by GamersFirst, which rebranded the game as the free-to-play APB Reloaded, and it's still going today, recently launching on Xbox One.

Today Eurogamer posted a piece that went into further detail regarding the Scotland-based developer's downfall six years ago, most of which can be boiled down to a lack of planning and poor scope management. It's an engaging read, even if you already know most of the details, and one that would seemingly be duplicated in large part by 38 Studios just a few years later. And years before the infamous Firefall bus, RTW "paid £35,000 to customise a truck which would then go to truck shows and events while they were in the country."

The article also references ex-RTW employee Luke Halliwell's blog posts about the studio, written as the shutdown and layoffs were occurring, which offer more insight into the tragic process. Say what you will about the current incarnation of All Points Bulletin, at least GamersFirst shows a basic level of competence in running an MMO that the heads of Realtime Worlds simply lacked.

Share:
Got a news tip? Contact us directly here!

About the Author

Jason Winter
Jason Winter, News Editor

Jason Winter is a veteran gaming journalist, he brings a wide range of experience to MMOBomb, including two years with Beckett Media where he served as the editor of the leading gaming magazine Massive Online Gamer. He has also written professionally for several gaming websites.

More Stories by Jason Winter

Discussion (8)

chinammosbynotrichwesterncompanywithoutballz 7 years ago
the originally game was doa because in reality the head of gta and all its glory could not handle making something innovative and multiplayer. Going bankrupt doesn't speak anything towards how the players enjoyed the game. And this game had a much happier and bigger community when it was DOA then it ever got from gamersfirst. That match making bs was never there gamersfirst added that for the gimps. People would mostly only play in clans before. But in order to get into a clan more likely then not you had to meet them ingame not sign up on the forums. And let your gameplay from a pug decide if you were cool enough to hang out with.

chinammosbynotrichwesterncompanywithoutballz 7 years ago
thats a huge hate post for someone that clearly is not fit to play competitive shooters against real people. You have a gun a car a team that has the same and feet and your mind to make your own decisions in a world with cover and decent moving space. If you can't manage having your skill and problem solving skill be fun and need a handicap. If I were you I would stick to boosting your stats to be able to kill 50 zombies at once in a pve game.

trionisshit 7 years ago
PAY TO EIN SHIT !

RememberRelease 7 years ago
Thanks for the read. I remember playing and enjoying it on release even though it was very poorly optimized it was a fun and entertaining game back then. Everything these others are talking about wasn't the vision that was originally had as much as it's F2P shell of its former self.

the truth 7 years ago
I played this game for more than 1000 hours and have seen alot of this game.

Ghosting. You can only attack players who are in your mission. Want to complete an objective? Too bad their friends car blocks it and you can't win the mission. You try to drive away? To bad their friends car accidently hits you 50 times and blocks your car. Well this accidently happens. Its obvious that they want to help their friends by slamming your car 50 times to make your crash. People abuse it and call their friends to help them. You can't attack them but they are able to block and ram your car to help their friends. Broken design.

The support is a joke. You got a problem? Well that's your problem and not theirs. If you are lucky to get a real reply and not some autogenerated message it will also be useles. They come with comments like "buy a new computer" or "its your fault" while they caused the problem with the latest update.

APB is a pay to win game with expensive cash shop weapons. I think they sold weapons for $50, added premium subscription and other cash shop items. Cosmetics only? No. They are cosmetics and you have to be premium to get full access to all features but the most items of the cash shop is pay to win. You pay for stronger weapons which reload faster and coem with other features. The cash shop sniper weapons let your run and jump while the normal one will slow you down so much. SMG comes with a bigger magazine and a silencer. No pay - no win

I left because the game was full of hackers and bugs. It was funny to see a few hundred cheaters getting banned in a banwave but it was even funnier when they all returned the day after with new accounts. Just imagine a new player with the lowest rank owning everyone in the mission. Thats APB!

Some cheater even admitted they are using some kind of cheat and they don't get banned while playing for over 1000 hours with it. They are many aimbots, wallhacks, radars and others. What happens when you report them? G1 checks if they pay money in the cash shop. If they do they get away with it. If they don't do they get banned. Cheaters also admitted if you pay for the cash shop and don't cheat obviously they won't ban you. Nice huh? I can not confirm this. They maybe made this story out of nowhere but it would still suck. Their anticheat banned many players who said they are not cheating. I also can't confirm this. Some got unbanned and others not. No idea what was going on with their anti cheat stuff.

The game suffered on permanent crashes and lags. They said they will get better servers but all they got was a crippled machine. They told the players they are working on a new engine for more than 2 years. What did they update in all the years? Only cash shop items. We got a new update. Oh new CASH SHOP weapons, new CASH SHOP clothes, new CASH SHOP cars. Every update was only CASH SHOP related. They don't care about the players or the game. They only care about the CASH SHOP. During all the years I have played this game we never got a new map. There are only 2. Yes only 2 maps for so many years. They updated two "new" maps which were actually ultra small parts of the existing maps. They called it fightclub and made everyone attackable. Good job G1. You are the worst!

I suggest everyone to check the steam comments. There are many people with over 1000 hours on steam (they have a few thousands played before) who downvoted this game. Read their comments. They know what they are talking about. If you still have time to waste go and play this game. After the first few missions you will know what the players in the comments are talking about.

View 2 replies

Read Next

You May Enjoy