Crowfall
Yes, Crowfall launched too abruptly in July, but it didn’t even take off. The game remained relatively niche with a weak marketing campaign and a busy summer start field. However, the team got out of the pocket and went on to a new wave of resuscitations / an already unannounced project at ArtCraft. The company launched a freemium edition and was upset by rumors of a possible closure. Instead, the company announced the game had been sold to Monumental instead in December.
Star Citizen
Star citizens cadence has slowed so far, but their incomes haven’t gone up ten times since it crossed $400,000,000 threshold for donations and sales from the gamers. Remember that this unfinished game is already paying dividends to its actual investors, and Squadron 42 is still nowhere to be found.
Fractured
After summer with a large size and a double in size, this sandbox testing continued through autumn, culminating with the announcement that it will be published only by Gamigo and now passed by Fractured.
Book of Travels: Travels.
The small MMO suffered multiple delays throughout 2021, but was finally rolled into early access in October, leaving us most who did as it a test run feeling bewildered by its oddities.
One’s Elyria: The Chronicles are on.
In spite of its longstanding entanglements, it has been hung up last year on Chronicles of Elyria, which has redeemed its post, and has succeeded in keeping their efforts to convince the public on their really back. But soulbound promoted the alpha release for Kingdoms of Elyria this year, which was overshadowed by shenanigans with Reddit and NFTs.
The story of Lucimia is about the story.
Last spring, we learned that Saga of Lucimias lead developers had left the company in 2020 without telling backers or testers, a split that was formalized once the knowledge had leaking out. The remaining team defended the game, but rebranded it Embers Adrift, and announced to the fall that it had enough money to begin, after which it began to take preorder and run an alpha.
Camelot Unchained
I have to say that all has been right with Camelot Unchained, but unfortunately, the in-beta game has continued to be stuck in a mess of its own making, due to the still overdue and naive delay in its promised refunds, but not until now lasted two years and not until now, even though a refund continues. Studio City State Entertainment pushed its second title, Final Stand Ragnarok, to early access without fanfare.
TitanReach
It was one of the bizarre twists that we covered all year long. TitanReach actually flipped his Kickstarter and spent some time lurching from one small scandal to the next. It hit early access, announced a launch in 2022, went free and then suspended development because it didn’t have any funds. Here comes a twist: Next the developers announced that a mysterious angel investor had granted the game complete funding to finish. And then they removed the game again. Hmm.
Aria has a legend.
The Legends of Aria failed in 2021, but in fact, its only planned patch was delayed indefinitely. In the summer, however, Citadel Studios was promising to publish seasonal shared world adventure MMO CODEX, and then in the fall, the studio announced Aria 2.0, the original game’s successor with a new engine, which is basically a new engine.
Dual Universe
In April, we learned that the president of Novaquark, who was also the games manager, was deterred from his role and replaced with a wealthy financier. Of course, I didn’t learn the lesson from the company itself but from stock filings. The company waited a few weeks to acknowledge the leadership switch and did that in a stupid fashion. The studio delayed its launch window to 2022, and raised the cost of its beta subscriptions.
Elite Dangerous
This was bogged down by the ink of Odyssey early in the year. Although many core players found it fun, it was also not received well across the board, according to Frontiers own financial reports. The studio was forced to delay the launch of the console so that we could fix the game on PC. A few games they watched closely, but still, their news was enough to make the top 10 of the list:
Pathfinder Online finally called it quits. It turned out to have disappeared last month. Project Gorgon added an optional subscription this year; now its marching on early access. Fractured Veil, the biggest crowdfunding platform of the year, was pulled in 100.000 dollars. Ashes of Creation still moves to alpha 2 as an alinéa. The Wagadu Chronicles received fresh funding and gave its first tidie of 2023 to summer. Pantheon also goes onward, though it earned several cringe points for its lack of attention with NFTs earlier this year. Valiance Online is still putting up its mobile device, with the move to an investor-friendly beta. Ilysia, one of 2020’s big new Kickstarter games, hit closed alpha this year. Ship of Heroes did not make its planned 2021 launch but a new beta went on. Shroud of the Avatar kept its slow-key patch rollouts. However, the company has not addressed its corporate switcharoo and dodgy behavior towards its equity crowdfund investors. Zenith just slipped into beta today, in fact. Temtem has been disappointed about the timeline, but it is aiming for a launch next year. It’s not MMO-specific, but Kickstarter also announced plans for a decentralization of the blockchain. Finally, Dreamworld isn’t a serious multi-player, and I hope you didn’t give it money either, but if it were, the reality was that it would be like having a bizarre sideshow.
What would you say was the biggest crowdfunding story of the year? Yes, some massively funded MMOs will surely succeed. But others are stinging and burn and you must hear about everything else you do, including the games that were waiting for your money early to rely on the promise of accountability and input. And that’s exactly what Make My MMO does every Saturday. Can you help us keep em accountable?
