Dawngate, EA’s attempt to break into the realm of the MOBA, has been cancelled. Development of the game has stopped, and in 90 days the servers will be shut down for good.
The game was still in beta, but was not making the “progress” EA has hoped for. Luckily, for players who threw money at it, any in-game purchases made during the beta will be refunded within 10 days.
“Whenever we begin a game project, we do so with great hopes and expectations,” said general manager Matt Bromberg. “In this case, we chose to enter a new genre for EA in MOBA, one that we knew going in was extremely competitive. We built a game in Dawngate that wasn’t simply a clone of existing MOBAs, but one that truly pushed the genre forward in many ways. Through that time, we’ve taken a lot of feedback from players and delivered lots of new features and innovations. And although the game has grown, we’re not seeing the progress we’d hoped for. This isn’t the outcome we wanted, but beta testing is about learning and improving, and ultimately, about making difficult decisions about how to proceed.“
I wonder if this, as well as Double Fine ceasing development of Spacebase DF-9, sets a potentially troubling precedent. As developers and publishers can now make money from players long before a game even launches, games need to be big earners before they even end up in stores.
While development used to be funded by profits made from other games, now those games have to fund themselves. It’s a bizarre situation. People should not be expected to support and spend money on or in a game that is still being made.
With Dawngate only having a few months left before it’s put in the ground, do any of you have fond memories to share? I never took it for a spin, because I can only handle 40 MOBAs at a time.