This week in MMOs was unfortunately dominated by the business end of gaming for two key reasons. First, Embracer, which is currently in the middle of a total corporate meltdown, is apparently trying to sell the entirety of Gearbox Entertainment – which includes Cryptic and all of its MMOs. And second, Unity, the company behind the Unity engine that propels kind of a lot of MMOs and other games, wrecked years of goodwill by attempting to force brand-new fees upon gaming studios using the engine under very different terms of service.
In happier news, Lord of the Rings Online unveiled the Mariner class, Guild Wars 2 says Secrets of the Obscure performed “even better than expected,” and Throne & Liberty is undergoing yet another feedback-inspired revamp.
Read on to catch up with the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions today as every Sunday (since 2010!) in Massively Overpowered’s Week in Review!THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
Rumor: Embracer is trying to sell Gearbox – and therefore Cryptic and its MMORPGs - The Embracer Group contract disaster continues to generate destructive waves all over the gaming industry, and now it's landing at our doorstep, as the Swedish megacorp is apparently trying to…
Unity is adding excessive new per-install fees – game developers aren’t having it - Unity has been struggling with its public and corporate relations over the course of 2023, first with multiple rounds of mass layoffs that cut at least 900 total workers, all…
Unity asks game studios to trust its download estimates, closes offices over death threat - As the bulk of the gaming industry unites against Unity's new "runtime fees," the company is continuing to spin the fees as a smart decision. On Tuesday, the company announced…
Unity begins backtracking on new runtime fees, but it hasn’t addressed indies - Yesterday, we covered Unity's surprise announcement that it was instituting a "runtime fee" that would charge developers as much as 20 cents per download of a game using the Unity…
LOTRO Legendarium: Lord of the Rings Online’s new Mariner class is the swashbuckler we needed - A new class added to any MMORPG is bound to raise excitement and anxiety among fans, especially when they try to feel out whether the class will fit in with…
Guild Wars 2’s Secrets of the Obscure performed ‘even better than expected,’ ArenaNet says - So, how well did Secrets of the Obscure do for Guild Wars 2? We're not getting hard numbers in ArenaNet's blog post this afternoon (unsurprisingly), but the team does say…
Unity’s runtime fee scheme sees game devs shut off Unity ads and employees turn in resignations - The tire fire of Unity's decision to impose "runtime fees" on studios that use the engine continues to burn bright and hot. Game developers who are already incensed at the…
Lord of the Rings Online delays its Forester event a second time, says fix coming soon - The first of Lord of the Rings Online's planned series of crafting-related events continues to have a hard time getting off the ground. Standing Stone Games announced on Friday that…
Destiny 2 announces plans to completely remove legendary shards currency from the game - Legendary shards are one of those currencies that Destiny 2 players can either have too much of or not enough of, and that can be a problem since its spent…
WoW Factor: MMO raid design and the antagonistic GM - Last week's column about World of Warcraft prompted some really interesting comments that I think are worth talking about; in fact, I very nearly wrote an entire column about one…
Genshin Impact previews the new story, characters, and events of Version 4.1 - Genshin Impact has just wrapped up a nearly two hour-long preview broadcast, and as one might expect from a video of that length, there was a whole lot of things…
Massively Overthinking: Do you sub to MMOs you’re no longer playing? - Over the summer, an MMO did something I've never seen an MMO do before: It stopped taking my money for no discernable reason and unsubbed me! I'd had a three-month…
Elder Scrolls Online’s update 40 and Endless Archive repeatable content launch October 30 - As promised, last night ZeniMax Online unveiled Elder Scrolls Online's fourth big update of 2023 and the Necrom-backed plotline, and it's maybe not what players are accustomed to expecting in…
Vague Patch Notes: I don’t know what the deal is with Throne & Liberty - Let me just state this outright: What in the absolute heck is supposed to be going on with Throne & Liberty at this point? What is this game's deal? Like,…
NCsoft’s mythological battle royale, Battle Crush, is launching next spring with CBT signups open now - You wouldn't normally look to Nintendo Direct for news on NCsoft multiplayer titles, but 2023 is still pumping out surprises. Today, NCsoft announced that its new title Battle Crush is…
PvP MMO Abyss admits it began life as a crypto game selling ‘satirical poop’ NFTs - Back in August, we covered a seemingly new project from a new-to-MMOs team called Old World Labs. The so-called Abyss sounded interesting, with immersive sandbox gameplay, PvP, and multiple eras…
No Man’s Sky sees ‘its biggest month’ in years, possibly thanks to Starfield - What do spaceships, robots, and intergalactic adventures have in common? They're both the domain of the constantly expanding No Man's Sky and the fresh-on-the-scene Starfield. Yet despite possible concerns that…
New indie MMO Legendarium Online claims inspiration from Ultima Online and Tolkien - Like a prairie dog popping its head above ground to check out the scene, a new indie MMORPG suddenly emerged to make its presence known. This would be Legendarium Online,…
Perfect Ten: 10 MMOs you’ve already forgotten ever existed - Falling into obscurity and then being completely forgotten is the nightmare of any creative artist. This tragic scenario is compounded when it comes to MMORPGs, where scores of people work…
Gamigo’s RIFT celebrates Steam’s 20th birthday with free subs, mounts, and boosts - If you've been on Steam since the early days, you're celebrating a 20th anniversary alongside Valve this week, and some games are jumping in on the fun... including Gamigo's RIFT.…
Survivalbox Chimeraland is stealth-launching a surprise new update today - Earlier this week, we checked in on Chimeraland, finding the delightfully weird title had abandoned its website, social media presence, and Discord, leading us to assume that no word on…
Star Trek Online’s Incursion and season 30 are live on PC - The Borg aren't really that threatening any more in Star Trek Online. It's hard to still feel menaced by a threat that has been in the game since launch, and…
Rumor: Tencent is apparently publishing the mobile version of Blue Protocol - Tech outlets are abuzz this morning as apparently Blue Protocol's mobile edition is still happening, and Bandai Namco has tapped Tencent to run it. As MMO vets already know, Blue…
Palia’s open beta releases new Temple of the Flames content, skins, recipes, and crops - Palia's patch 0.168 may have an unassuming number designation, but there are some blazing sparks in the cozy MMO's latest open beta release, and we didn't choose those words accidentally.…
Lost Ark’s jump-start servers arrive tomorrow with the Jump to the Endgame patch - Are you over last month's massive Lost Ark outage that kept the servers offline for a whole day following the EU region merge? With luck, that won't happen tomorrow, as…
Choose My Adventure: Slayer time with slightly boosted XP in Lost Ark - So I kind of made a mistake in my comeback to Lost Ark. I apparently did have at least one Powerpass to burn up, but I accidentally used it on…
EverQuest II’s Shattered Overture update is live this afternoon - You knew it was coming, EverQuest II players, because Daybreak has been teasing it since August: Shattered Overture officially arrives to the core servers today, with a pair of new…
Stick and Rudder: Chronicling CIG’s naked hostility toward Star Citizen’s long-time backers - Earlier this week, Cloud Imperium creative content lead Jared Huckaby stopped the focus of a Star Citizen Live showcase to very grumpily look through the fourth wall and tell people…
Roblox conference cut short after police arrested an allegedly armed community developer - A seemingly benign Roblox developer conference abruptly turned frightening last weekend when an unruly developer in the crowd was arrested. Games Industry reports that a Roblox developer named Mikhail Olson,…
Dauntless and Fae Farm dev Phoenix Labs are losing more top execs, this time the CEO and COO - Phoenix Labs' 2023 troubles aren't getting any easier: Both its CEO and COO have apparently just stepped down from those positions. As we've been chronicling, Phoenix Labs was at one…
Throne & Liberty addresses ‘static combat and boring growth’ with latest revamps - As western players wait for more localized news from NCsoft and Amazon's Throne and Liberty, we're left to sift through the missives to Korean players - and we've got a…
New World’s Rise of the Angry Earth expansion PTR opens this morning as Amazon previews the flail - If you've been eager to get your hands on New World's Rise of the Angry Earth, then today is your day, as Amazon is finally opening the PTR today at…
Vitae Aeternum: The pros and cons of New World’s transmog - In my very first Vitae Aeternum two years ago, I criticized some of the ways New World lacks character customization. It took a while, but one of my key criticisms…
Wisdom of Nym: What was my journey made for in Final Fantasy XIV? - Late in the story of Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker, the Warrior of Light is talking with Venat. We'd heard about Venat before, and we already had a pretty clear picture…
Greg ‘Ghostcrawler’ Street ruminates on fixing MMORPG progression design failings - Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street is obviously no stranger to MMORPG design and its tripping points, so when he took to Twitter on a self-described rant about the subject, it immediately perked…
Star Citizen showcases alpha 3.20’s updates, declares it won’t answer ‘when’ questions anymore - It looks as if Star Citizen is ramping up for the wider launch of alpha 3.20, as CIG has begun dedicating the game's official forums and YouTube channel to looks…
Final Fantasy XIV’s free trial will continue to expand, but don’t expect a free-to-play switch anytime soon - One of the many long-standing memes among the Final Fantasy XIV community is the one about the MMORPG's free trial, which will be expanding to include the Stormblood expansion as…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
The Stream Team: Reliving Destiny 2’s past through timeline reflections
The Stream Team: The Borg are back with Star Trek Online’s Incursion
The Stream Team: Attempting a conversion to Conan Exiles mods
The Stream Team: Exploring the demo for the MMORPG-inspired solo game Erenshor
The Stream Team: Specializing in Skyscale in Guild Wars 2 Skywatch
The Stream Team: Undaunted and reporting to Lady Arabelle in Elder Scrolls Online
The Stream Team: Prepping for AQ3D’s Talk Like a Pirate Day
The Stream Team: A ninth anniversary peek into ArcheAge
The Stream Team: Three friends log in to Final Fantasy XIV together…
Every week, get caught up on the MMO genre’s latest news and Massively OP’s best content in our MMO Week in Review! Want more roundups of content? Try Friday’s Betawatch for MMO testing highlights, Saturday’s Make My MMO for MMO crowdfunding updates, and Sunday’s The MOP Up, which mops up all the bits of news we didn’t cover anywhere else.
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