Some Video Games Fail
I was somewhat surprised to learn this week that the action role-playing video game Magic: Legends was to be closed. Not so much by the actual decision itself but at the speed at which it has been made. Technically the game has not left beta testing and will now never be formally launched. The servers will remain accessible until October 31st 2021 and players who have spent money on microtransactions via the Epic Store or Arc will be refunded. Developer’s Cryptic and publishers Perfect World Entertainment have naturally not given any specific details regarding the reasons behind the games closure. The accompanying press release is suitably vague. “We learned several valuable lessons along the way, and we will use them to improve Cryptic’s future development efforts”.
Soft Launches
I thought Magic Legends was being beta tested when it appeared on my Arc launcher along with PWE’s other games. Silly me. Apparently, I was mistaken and Magic Legends is being soft launched. Because the game is selling stuff already. To date we have an unoptimized game suffering major performance issues and lag, with the added bonus of an egregious monetisation. People aren’t happy. There are all the technical issues associated with beta testing along with the early introduction of a predatory business model. Bravo. The idea of a soft launch is to maintain a relatively low profile, compared to a traditional hard “the game is totally ready” launch. That way you can tinker with your game client in a reactive fashion and introduce new features, ensuring that you keep your current customers onboard. However, if you do it wrong, you can piss off not only your existing customer base but cause a stink that prejudices future punters.