This Blog post from Netdevil animator Toby Cochran and a report over at Eurogamer, has the word that NetDevil, developer of LEGO Universe, is cutting staff.
Quote:
Unfortunately a lot of talented folks lost their jobs as we have found out on Facebook! I personally think it's pretty terrible to find news out that way and not to be correctly notified. We all were receiving phone calls tonight and I just got mine about 2 hrs ago.
From what we've been told a handful of artists will be kept on board and continue working on Lego Universe. But at the moment that will be a very, VERY small team. As the count continues to rise on FB, they've cut over 20 people.
Next time you make a LEGO game, remember to make it about building stuff, M'Kay.
I was a beta tester for this as well, it wasn't as fun as the licensed LEGO games that have been released and for the price you can buy several of the licensed ones and have hours of fun :P
The sad thing is, the people who were making this probably thought of and quickly discarded something very close to Minecraft early in their development process. I bet they're kicking themselves.
I think the marketing and management teams who were overseeing the Lego MMOs development looked at the success of the Lego Star Wars, Batman, Indiana, Jones, Harry Potter, et. al. and thought, "Hey! People LOVE these games! So let's make an MMO that plays just like them and people will love that too, and keep giving us more money every month!" Problem is, I'm pretty sure it's mostly younger kids that have been driving the LEGO game sales (although granted, I and many other adults have bought and enjoyed several of them). But young kids AREN'T nearly as likely to get drawn into an ongoing MMO. As for me, while I enjoyed MMOs for awhile, I'm now firmly in the camp that prefers my games as encapsulated experiences with a solid beginning and at least a fairly solid end (still open to cliffhanger endings, prepping for sequels, etc.). Episodic gaming is great for when I want a more open experience. But I've lost just about all interest in games that you can never actually "win".
Quite a boring game from what I experienced in the beta. I could see it being somewhat appealing to the younger crowd, but I have to be honest I'm not surprised to see this. I wish the best to all that lost their jobs because of this.
