Be Right Back: Is Your Free MMO Temporarily Closed?

All of us know that the free-to-play market is a tough one that will relentlessly chew game after game without any kind of regret. Some games manage to get a considerable player base and can happily endure a couple of years, sometimes even more time of microtransactions and Easter/Christmas/Halloween events. You know, those where players may earn a fancy hat that will make them look like a bunch of clones and a stats boost that lasts for a couple of milliseconds. And some of us love it.

But on the other side of the coin are the F2P games that didn’t manage to charm a significant amount of players to be deemed profitable. And when push comes to shove, the solution is just one – plain cancelation of the game, with servers shut down, a few players broken hearted and a welcome package to other games of the same publisher. However, some games die hard and struggle to keep afloat, away from the shutdown of no return. Those brave games are known as the ‘temporarily closed’ bunch.

The most shocking are the ones that are forced into temporary closure just a few months after launching. Divine Souls, for one, is a quality action MMORPG that was suddenly closed in August 2011 to supposedly iron out the kinks and make it live to its true potential. Nearly one year later there’s still no news about the announced drastic overhaul.

Troy Online also closed as fast as it launched, staying online for just three months after launch. The temporarily shut down and announcement of a re-launch are nowhere to be seen, since the official game site is offline. Bad news for those who were still expecting to MMO their way alongside the Greeks and Trojans.

We’re not quite sure if it was due to an extreme case of cutesy-itis or something to do with the Greek background that the game also features, but Legend of Edda didn’t have its doors open long enough. Although it’s been over half a year since the announcement of the complete revamp, there’s some hope left since the 2012 date still seems attainable. We wouldn’t hold our breath, though.

Two more examples of temporarily closed free to play MMO games are Hero: 108 Online and WonderKing, obviously none with any updates since the announcement of the ‘revamp’.

At the end of the day, the cruel reality is just one – when a game doesn’t make enough money the most likely scenario is to shut it down. Behind some ‘be right back’ announcements lies what sounds like a ‘let’s let this fade into obscurity and hope we can attract the few remaining players to our other games’. Although a couple of games may return with a longer name and not much else – Archlord X, Solstice Reborn, Shaiya Phoenix –, the vast majority will simply be closed and forgotten.

Either way, is anybody out there really expecting those games to return and be on par with the fierce competition?

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