I’m getting real tired of publishers killing online world games, and New World: Aeternum is the latest reminder that gamers keep getting screwed. Not the free to play ones, either. I’m talking about the games we pay full price for. We invest time, grind for gear, meet people, join guilds, and make memories. Then one day, the publisher hits us with “thanks for playing” and flips the light switch off.
Well, that’s exactly what Amazon is doing with New World: Aeternum. The game is being pulled from sale and shut down permanently, which means players who already paid are now on a countdown timer, and everyone else is locked out completely. And like always, there’s no real compensation. No refunds. No credits. Just a corporate apology and the door slamming shut.
This keeps happening, too. Anthem died when EA shut its servers down, making the game unplayable because it was always online. Ubisoft went even further with The Crew, shutting it down, then taking an extra step by reaching into the digital library of those who purchased the game and making it inaccessible. Turning a full price purchase into something you can’t even re-download. That shouldn’t even be legal.
If companies are going to keep killing online games, the bare minimum should be allowing players to host their own servers. We’ve seen communities keep games alive for years through private servers and reverse engineering. “Even after SEGA shut down the last official PSO Blue Burst servers on December 27, 2010, the community kept it alive through private servers…” So the solution exists, publishers just refuse to give it to us.
Let’s also not forget the other side of this. Did you think that the game servers run themselves, or that the people who worked on the game will be spared? With the game going offline, this means infrastructure ceases to be needed, and the people who made sure the servers stayed online or didn’t blow up will no longer be needed. The developers who created the game, pumped out fixes and other game developer stuff will also be out of a job. It’s a side of things that people don’t normally pay attention to, outside of a just a game being taken offline.
And honestly, New World: Aeternum deserved better. Keep in mind that this is the same company that has repeatedly pulled the plug on games and projects when things don’t go their way, like canceling Breakaway and shutting down Crucible. Seeing New World: Aeternum put on a death clock feels like business as usual.
