I came home from work this evening, chatted with Mrs Bhagpuss, had my tea, then down at the PC to see what Feedly had for me. The first thing I saw was this:
"EVE Online developer CCP Games bought by Black Desert Online studio Pearl Abyss"
As MassivelyOP so astutely put it "I bet that’s not a headline you expected to wake up to!" No, nor come home to, either.
I have never played EVE but I've read a lot about it, mostly at The Ancient Gaming Noob. Wilhelm has the full details and links to the many people talking about this surprising turn of fortune.
As I said in the comments there, it could be worse. Pearl Abyss don't have a particularly bad reputation, despite the accusations that they favor Pay to Win mechanics, and Black Desert Online has been one of the more popular, successful and accepted transitions from East to West of recent years.
Al the same, I would bet most EVE players would rather CCP had remained independent and I would be surprised if there's much of a shift in that feeling over the next year or two. MMO players don't like change, even when it's objectively in their own best interests.
The EVE buyout was such a huge story it eclipsed another piece of news that would have been a main headline on another day:
"THQ Nordic has bought up the rights to 38 Studios’ Project Copernicus and Kingdoms of Amalur"
I'd all but forgotten Curt Schilling's ill-fated attempt to re-create his EverQuest raiding days by funding his own MMORPG. If you build it they will come, perhaps. Only he never did build it.
Instead the whole thing turned into what MassivelyOP describes as "one of the biggest messes the MMORPG genre – and gaming itself – has ever seen". I don't imagine anyone ever expected to see Project Copernicus return in a playable form after that and maybe we still never will, but THQ Nordic (no, me neither) must have bought the assets for something so who knows?
After all that I needed a bit of a change of pace so I went and watched Eggheads for half an hour. I am old. Don't mock me.
I came back, glanced at Feedly before logging in to EQ2 and stap me if I didn't see this:
"WildStar and Carbine are shutting down"
What are we doing? Playing MMO Industry Bingo? One buyout, one acquisition, one closedown - HOUSE!
WildStar, of course, has been living on borrowed time while drinking at the last chance saloon for years now. Many pundits have pondered over NCSoft's apparent unwillingness to pull the switch on this failed experiment in hardcore gaming.
Was it fear of a backlash after the desperately badly-received decision to close the then-profitable City of Heroes just because it wasn't profitable enough? Or had they simply forgotten WildStar even existed? God knows that would have been easy enough to do - most of us managed it years ago.
I never entirely got on with WildStar. It was too brash and too jarring to be relaxing, something its cuddly anhropomorphic characters seemed to suggest it should be. Still, I had some good times there, on and off. I don't suppose I would ever have played it again but I'm sorry to see it go.
I hope WildStar gets another chance in that grey zone where emulators operate. If Earth Eternal can do it, anyone can. Although I imagine EE's code is a lot less complex than WildStar's.However you want to paint it, that's a lot of news for one day. I scarcely dare check Feedly again. I've been typing this for half an hour - who knows what MMO might have closed down or changed hands since I last looked?
Wilhelm and I have been corresponding recently on those rumors about Daybreak Games' future plans. As he pointed out, some of them have already happened. Come to think of it, there was some talk once about Daybreak or SOE acquiring CCP, wan't there? I did say it could have been worse!
We're still waiting on any news about this Autumn's EverQuest and EQ2 expansions, beyond the bald assertion that they will happen. I am now braced to hear that they will also be the last.
Whether that means the end of a chapter or the closing of the book remains to be seen. After a day like today I'm not going to make any predictions about anything.
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