News surfaced on Twitter earlier today that the domain www.realtimeworlds.com has now been acquired and staked out by a domain hosting company.
So it seems appropriate to link to an epitaph of the company, which was posted on Eurogamer yesterday:
“APB has been a fantastic journey, but unfortunately that journey has come to a premature end. Today we are sad to announce that despite everyone’s best efforts to keep the service running, APB is coming to a close.”
With those words, community officer Ben Bateman announced the death of the massively multiplayer shooter APB and the studio that created it, Realtime Worlds. The revelation, which came via the game’s official website, marked the climax of one of the industry’s most spectacular failures. Despite a team of hundreds, a development period of five years and tens of millions of investment dollars, APB stayed online for just 86 days.
Prior to release, all the indications were that APB would be a success. The Dundee-based studio behind it was headed up by Dave Jones, the creative force behind Lemmings and the Grand Theft Auto series. The core of the same development team had been responsible for the success of Crackdown.
In short, APB had a fantastic pedigree. And a self-published, independent MMO shooter offering unprecedented customisation options, capable of handling up to 10,000 concurrent players per city, had huge potential. So why, on 23rd September 2010, were the plugs pulled on APB? What was it that forced Realtime Worlds to close its doors for the last time?
You can read the whole article here.
