… permanently!
To the Tabula Rasa Community,
Last November we launched what we hoped would be a ground breaking sci-fi MMO. In many ways, we think we’ve achieved that goal. Tabula Rasa has some unique features that make it fun and very different from every other MMO out there. Unfortunately, the fact is that the game hasn’t performed as expected. The development team has worked hard to improve the game since launch, but the game never achieved the player population we hoped for.
So it is with regret that we must announce that Tabula Rasa will end live service on February 28, 2009.
Before we end the service, we’ll make Tabula Rasa servers free to play starting on January 10, 2009.
We can assure you that through the next couple of months we’ll be doing some really fun things in Tabula Rasa, and we plan to make staying on a little longer worth your while. For more details about what we are doing for Tabula Rasa players, please click here.
Stay tuned for more information. We thank you for your loyal support of the game and encourage you to take us up on the benefits we’re offering Tabula Rasa players.
The Tabula Rasa Team
This is why NCSoft needs something akin to SOE’s Station Access! This is the second MMOG NCSoft has shut down. Tabula Rasa was obviously in trouble, and the financial weak link in their chain, but the player feedback I’ve read in forums recently has been very positive and I can’t help but wonder if the team finally had some direction and could have turned the game around. To date, no MMOG has ever made a “comeback” in terms of having a devastating subscriber loss then turning around later into several hundred thousand, but some certainly find their niche with enough support to keep a live team developing content. I am certainly less inclined to ever get involved with an NCSoft title again, that’s for sure.
In any event, I bought a copy for $0.96 recently from Amazon. I was waiting until December to give it a try but with so much to do in LOTRO, maybe I’ll just wait for it to go free in January and ride out the storm until the servers go dark.
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Re: Station Access, I agree. The game wasn’t worth $15/mo, but they might have been able to keep it afloat with a Station Access like plan that would allow someone like me who might pay for CoH/CoV and be willing to pay a little extra to dabble with TR on the side, helping keep population numbers up, and bringing in extra revenue they otherwise would not have received.
I was interested in this game a while back. Not sure if I will take the plunge in January only to get hooked and disappointed in February.
Openedge1 brought up a good point on his blog: get a TR account on December 10 or so, because you have a free month anyway, then January 10 it goes free. So 60 days for free…
I wouldn’t have gone with station access, I’d ditch the sub model. Guild Wars works, and can stand on its solid game design without having to monetize via a drip IV of sub money.
Of course, I’ve not played TR, but if its game design is solid, and the business model amenable to purchasing (not leasing) it’ll find an audience. If the game design itself stinks, well… there’s not much that can be done for it.
On the other hand, I recall NCSoft saying while the total sales of Guild Wars is impressive over four years, I think it’s lower on the financial totem pole because of the one-time purchase.
I’d agree, but the game wasn’t designed at its core to go that way and it would likely take a lot of development funds to retrofit it. I think the game was highly instanced, which makes me wonder why it wasn’t designed like Guild Wars to seem like a single server to players.
Guess I’ll find out next month…
It may be lower on the totem pole, but if it’s profitable, and has a four year plus staying power, that to me indicates that it’s stronger business for sustainable profit. It’s not a cash cow like WoW, but not every company can expect that.
Last year at this time, Amazon had the game on sale for half price and I begged my wife to let me pick it up, but we had to wait till after Xmas to do it. The day after Xmas, the game was back to full price, bummer. So, I managed to download the demo and try it, but found the game lacking in some aspects that would make it a competitive MMO. The game would certainly play better as a free on line shooter or at a lower sub price similar to Hell Gate.
I do agree Scott that more companies with multiple titles need to have something similar to the Station Pass, which has been successful over at Sony to keep a large assortment of less successful game a float. Maybe Sony will try to buy the title and at it to it’s stable like it did with The Matrix and Vanguard. It’s really crazy that NCSoft doesn’t provide this already but maybe they’re company is so divided internally that that isn’t not possible to offer one sub price for all their stable of on line games.
Either way, as a free title or one that had a cheaper online cost, Tabula Rasa would be something I would consider playing again. The action was fun, but after playing Gears of Wars last night, I realized that both games aren’t that different. Well except GoW is much better. lol