It just wouldn’t seem right to end the year without watching Gamigo light itself on fire, now would it? Fortunately, the company has indulged us yet again in the form of both layoffs and publishing shrinkage.
First, Gamigo is closing down its Aeria Games portal and ceasing to publish four more games previously in its roster: Aura Kingdom, Grand Fantasia, Shaiya, and Last Chaos. Players needn’t panic, as (most of) the games will be kept online and transferred to new publishers – Aura Kingdom and Grand Fantasia to X-LEGEND and Shaiya and Last Chaos to Fawkes Games. (Shaiya seems to be the only game whose move is still in negotiation with developer Nexon and hasn’t been finalized yet, but it looks promising.) Each of the announcements for these games recommends that players spend down their Aeria Points before the Aeria Portal is closed down at the end of February.
Here’s the specific statement in regard to Aura Kingdom, which is more or less mirrored for the other games:
“In order to provide you with a better service in the next year, we must close some of our old infrastructure & technology. This means that the Aeria Games portal and backend will be closed by the end of February next year (2023). This was not an easy decision, but it will help improve the experience and gameplay for all our active players. Aura Kingdom will move to the developer’s own service, X-LEGEND, so don’t be worried about your progress, the gameplay data can be transferred to our partner. The data will be anonymized, and soon you will receive a private token via your account email address that you can redeem at our partner’s website, to recover your gameplay data. In order to receive the transfer code, which is required for the transfer, including all relevant information during January 2023, please check and update your mail address associated with your account in the Aeria Games portal. Once the portal is closed, we won’t be able to support you if you are missing your transfer code, due to data protection reasons. We will not share your personal data.”
By our count, that means Gamigo still retains publishing for Fractured Online, Trove, RIFT, Fiesta Online, and the KingsIsle titles Wizard101 and Pirate101. However, the fate of these games remains an open question as well, as a trusted source notified us that Gamigo suffered yet another round of layoffs just a few weeks ago – its second layoff round in 2022 alone. Linkedin crawling suggests the layoffs hit everyone from marketing to execs, though we also understand the last remaining RIFT community manager was among those let go – which might help explain why the game’s winter event hasn’t been mentioned or promoted.
