MMO “Unlaunched”

Glitch, the bizarre world-building MMO from Keita Takahashi, the man behind the utterly mental Noby Noby Boy and Katamari Damacy, has been “unlaunched” after two months of release.

The game was returned to a beta state not because of glitches, which would have made for a spectacularly wry headline that would have amused you for all of half a second, but because it was missing important features.

“There are two obvious and huge improvements we need to make: the first is to make the early game reveal itself more easily to new players so they can get into the fun faster,” wrote Tiny Speck’s Stewart Butterfield. “The second and larger task is to give those players who have gotten over that initial hump and fallen in love with the game – spending dozens or even hundreds of hours playing – the creative tools that they need to change the world in more tangible ways: building whole new locations themselves, designing new buildings, setting up resource flows and forming flexible organizations to create bigger things together.”

Apparently, the team had hoped to add features and fix issues over time, as many MMOs are wont to do these days, but that proved difficult. “Making radical changes to core game mechanics is something that’s a lot harder to do while the front doors are open,” Butterfield continued.

The game is still playable in its Beta state, though the development team may be slow to fix “non-critical bugs.” Any player who has spent money on the game’s premium content can claim a full refund via the game’s official site. There’s no information on when the game will be relaunched.

For those who haven’t heard of Glitch – and I admit, it managed to slip under my radar completely – it’s a world-building MMO that takes place in the minds of “eleven peculiarly imaginative giants.” Just check out the distinctly unsettling trailer at the top right there.

Source: Eurogamer