Better day

[avevale_intelligencer]

On two out of three counts anyway. Uru Live is still cancelled. In sixty days, everything shuts down.

And part of me is screaming Why, Lord, Why? and part of me is saying Because you didn't deserve it enough, you weren't good enough, you weren't there enough, you weren't supportive enough, you didn't cheerlead for Cyan and drown out the naysayers who kept the numbers down. It's your fault, Charlie.

Which is both true and poppycock. I wasn't as supportive as I could have been, indeed I've been downright critical. But in the end, games like Uru and the Myst series, now that they're no longer startlingly new and the meanest FPS tripe can boast graphics that look as cool (thanks to Cyan leading the way, of course, but who remembers fifteen years ago?) games like Uru and the Myst series are always going to be a minority interest, and big business is not interested in minorities. Even if it can afford to finance them on the back of the popular stuff. If it's not bringing in the money, it's out.

People are talking about cancelling their subscriptions in a "That'll show 'em" sort of way, and it's kind of sweet, but in the end our numbers won't even cause a blip. If there was any chance that they might, Uru Live would be safe. And now I feel really stupid for daring to hope that this time it would work.

But, apart from all this thusness, I am hopefully no longer a card-carrying resident of Jackass County, and I remembered to do pancakes today. So, a better day.

Oh, and......

I made the flyby in Vue, jahura helped me with the Flash coding and the background image. It doesn't link anywhere, but hey, it's something.

Comments

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

Cavern tattle yesterday suggested that Gametap made some dumb marketing decisions too; they were trying to sell UU to the young gamer generation, which was never going to fly. There are no guns, no stats and no easy ways to get "status" quickly (ie. grinding). If Cyan tried to team up with a silver surfers site or something, they might have a lot more luck; people who like crossword puzzles and chess might be much more interested in a community puzzle game.

Me, I'd like to see it go open source, but you'd need a hardcore team of geeks to keep it alive, and there seems to be a remarkably low geek factor in Uru...

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

There are a bunch of geeks who have been making their own Ages using open source software (and they're surprisingly good-looking) and they are talking about using open source game engines and such. It's too soon for them to do anything concrete, but the option is being discussed.

This (http://www.uruobsession.com/forum/index.php?s=89b166fd75ea6490b902bf42fdf1f209&act=ST&f=111&t=32735&st=0&#entry554568) (hopefully--I just copied it by hand from the other screen) is the thread.