Last night’s startling news that Daybreak plans to sunset Landmark abruptly in February (while forbidding player emulators) sent the MMORPG community into… I’ll call it “resigned and weary outrage.” At Massively OP, we just spent the last month reliving last year’s EverQuest Next cancellation thanks to the fact that it “won” so many awards — Biggest Disappointment and Biggest Story, the reader vote for Biggest Blunder — and was our most-commented-on article of the year. Landmark’s sunset is sadly just a capstone to a year already dominated by Daybreak’s decisions.
(The bummer is Landmark also narrowly took our serious award for Best Crafting, which it probably deserved, but most MMO gamers will never get to try it to understand why.)
Our comments last night were filled with concern for Daybreak’s remaining games. We counted around 14 games canceled, most of them in the last few years, with DC Universe Online, PlanetSide 2, EverQuest, EverQuest II, and the two H1Z1 halves being the only games left under the DBG banner (plus the mystery game they’ve been hiring for — and it’s now publishing Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online but doesn’t actually own or develop them, so they’re probably safe). Do you think Landmark was the last remnant of a bad business decision finally getting cleaned up, or are you concerned for Daybreak’s other MMORPGs?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
