Realtime Worlds community manager details dev's final days
Eurogamer's piece on Realtime Worlds' collapse is an interesting read for anyone curious about the final weeks of the developer. The studio collapsed in September, shortly after launching APB, a Grand Theft Auto-esque MMO that ran out of gas after 86 days.
Almost the whole piece is told through the words of Realtime Worlds' Community Officer Ben Bateman. His story is relentlessly optimistic about the state of the studio and the development of APB, especially so during the portion where he tells of QA's warnings and complaints from APB beta testers being acknowledged, but ultimately ignored.
Acknowledgment of reality doesn't set in until after APB launches and the hard subscription figures showed the game wasn't going to make it. Then come the painful details of how layoffs went down and how the studio eventually shut down. Give it a read for the human interest angle on a sad business tale.
Almost the whole piece is told through the words of Realtime Worlds' Community Officer Ben Bateman. His story is relentlessly optimistic about the state of the studio and the development of APB, especially so during the portion where he tells of QA's warnings and complaints from APB beta testers being acknowledged, but ultimately ignored.
Acknowledgment of reality doesn't set in until after APB launches and the hard subscription figures showed the game wasn't going to make it. Then come the painful details of how layoffs went down and how the studio eventually shut down. Give it a read for the human interest angle on a sad business tale.
