Japan Sees Mass Free-to-Play MMO Shutdown

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japan, korea, watever...
all asians companys in MMO games are greedy.
so good to know that they went off, and i hope they all go that way.

Ugh time for Private-Servers again. There use to be tons of private servers of Japanese and KR games when they were only released in the east and or stuck with subscription models. Where did all the PS people go run and hide somewhere? No one knows how to make them anymore?

Hope this trend starts back up again. Couldn't care less for main-stream idiots who've invaded gaming and the turn of greed on the publisher's and developers sides.

Let's keep our games clean and censorship free from the tyranny they suffer when they go to phobic west-ward. Atleast then the real fans will be able to enjoy the games they wanted with no b.s. involved. If I have to play another censored JP or KR game i'm just not going to give them my money period. It's a waste and i'll just stick to my movies and books instead.

not overtly surprising MMO's aren't that big in japan compared to console games so uunless its an MMO on consoles its highly unlikely to do well there compared to most of the rest of the world. A lot of japanese don't have great PC's at home...

Good to know, asian generic games sux! shut down them all!

There are so many shitty third-rate MMO's out there simply to sponge up the money while they can, I'm glad they're being shut down.

Hoping Scarlet Blade is next.

Hope HELLGATE isn't shutting down. I play it often, It is an awesome game! I was talking to my guild & they said it was not going to shut down in the USA. As far as the HELLGATE gaming community none think it's gonna shut down in the USA. EVERYONE SHOULD TRY HELLGATE!!! I am trying to fill the server! Get the word out to give it a try. You will not be disappointed!!! The graphics are aok but the game play & classes are AWESOME!!!

Japanese prefer console games, they dont have the PC gamer stereotype like others

If you are looking for some game visually attractive, try Age of Wushu. It features eastern classic graphics.

This game is so meh, and i play age of wushu.

We need Magic Mans opinion here, we miss you!!

SteparuUUUUUUU

Tiara Concerto is shutting down? it hadnt even started+ it had a nice playerbase o.o

this is sad :(

This is all a conspiracy created by the organization to conquer the world :)

I think this whole thing is somewhat linked to developers hyping their MMOs out on websites and teasing fans so much that when the game was released, it was way below what fans had originally anticipated, causing the playerbase to decline drastically in a very short span after launching.

What worries me is that so many developers and publishers have hopped onto the "Tease and hype years before launch" bandwagon that MMO news these days are so irrelevant to real-time. This whole industry is a mess right now. And the hyping up of MMOs trend should stop, really.

All these people are worried about all these MMO's shutting down, whilst ignoring the fact that all the aforementioned shut down games weren't all that great to begin with. Consumers decide what lives and what doesn't.

I don't like mmos from there anyway

It's not too surprising since a lot of developers seem to be in for the quick buck instead of releasing something truly unique and long-lasting.

I believe its common sense if u have over 2 thousand(idk if its so many or less or more just sayin a random number here)mmorpgs(including browser ones)that some will eventually close.Ofc its not good cause people lose their jobs but what can u do than just live with it i hope this is for the better.

Well most of these games I pretty much new were heading in a bad direction(Argos servers for one were desolate within a week of the open beta on all versions more or less)
Ecol Tactics had potential but they are too greedy for their own good. The only decent alternative for a srpg style mmo imo is Wakfu and you pretty much have to be a vip account to enjoy that one so I wish some decent tactical rpgs would pop up in the free to play scene. Hellgate used to be awesome but it never caught on and somehow it went from having perfect english in the paid version to looking like someone translated it to korean then back to english with google translate or something and i refused to play because of that and the fact that they DOWNGRADED the graphics. Prius wasn't bad but it wasn't anything astounding. Most of these are victim of living in the shadow of bigger games that have since become free like other users commented though.

hm...
Its somehow sad that they are going to shut down so many games in that time but...there are so many games out there, it makes your head spin. Many games are just a waste. If the game is good, then there is a chance that the company gives you some bad expirience.
Better close these few games that not really someone will miss instead of having a new videogame crash because of too many crappy games.

start working on virtual reality already :/

To much games Copying World of Warcraft like many said they copy WoW like or Call of Duty Games they end up dlying

To many freakin rpg games its not a surprise

I beta tested Ecol Tactics for a couple of days and (surprisingly enough) liked what I saw,especially for a browser title. Perhaps I haven't played enough to experience it's major flaws,but I hope it doesn't shut down as soon as it opens.

It's what happens when the industry is oversaturated. Hopefully the bubble will burst over here too.

Oh man... Concerto Gate would've been fun to played...
A cute turn-based game that I could just play along to while doing homework...

Too bad Gamecampus never opened it up.

most of them aren't even good, or mediocre. argo meh, prius meh and etc. + from the time these went live, a lot more came in to the market, so it's natural that not so good ones being closed. and even more to open in near future, so it's ok. in the end, it's not publisher's, who are getting closed, just some of their projects. no big thing here

prius shutting down in japan
prius starting back up in west

ecol tactics shutting down in japan
ecol tactics beta ongoing in the west,

ive seen enough * to know where this is going

Will this affect Blade & soul AS WELL!!!!!!!

just goes to show, that innovation and inspiration need to go into each game instead of the same if not very similar systems they always used.

holy shit HELLGATE going down?! why?! that game had some SOLID action combat and such great monsters and lore. if that game would fix a few of the issues it has and was published by a well known publisher that could advert and hype it up that game would have been right up there with Guild Wars 2.

seriously that game was great just make it B2P with updated graphics and advertise with a good publisher and that game would be great.

can't believe it's going to be gone...maybe I should play it now before it's gone for good.

The imminent flood of MMO's into the market caused this.. It is not the end of the MMO but the start of a great cleansing.. The corporate "assembly line" style creation and saturation of mmo space will be alleviated and the kickstarted messiahs will release on a pretty clear slate allowing for only the most interested and devout mmo fans to carry the genre into the future..

Nothing lasts forever. These things come and go. Nothing to be really sad about.

Hey... look on the bright side. We have more space for MMOs now.

GOOD! I am happy! There are smart ways to keep games open forever, but peoples greed gets em shut down. The principle idea is: There is a board member who did not make what he wanted to so he makes every one suffer by shutting it down, even if the game can hold the staff and run normal, the board member did not make a big profit so he shuts it, and through legal rights KEEPS IT SHUT because if any one even trys to use the software to make so much as .01 cent, it would be entitled to him, but since he walked away he loses the possibility, so he prefers NO ONE gets it...and of course you the player suffer and are led on to blieve this is somehow YOUR fault and that subscribers were low etc...ALL BS. IN fact half the games shut down have paid for themselves years ago x10 over...this is just about rights and greed. Some case in points you can see as titles trade and rights trade...hell Prius online is relaunching soon (under a new name) by the original developer who rented out to stupid greedy company that blocked their rights just until recently...Lucky.

Oh, wow. It's always strange to hear of the shutdown of an MMO. I mean, yeah, sure, the market is full of 'um, and many of them are going to fail eventually...but I guess there's just something about seeing it happen. Makes me wonder about the future of MMOs.

For only 3 months time, that quite a list of mmo's closing :(

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