In what is unheard of in the MMO industry, Tiny Speck has announced that it is "unlaunching" Glitch, its inaugural title. The team has plans to continue service to Glitch but will place the game back in beta phase to give developers time to work out gameplay issues and more.

“There are two obvious and huge improvements we need to make: the first is to make the early game reveal itself more easily to new players so they can get into the fun faster,” Butterfield wrote. “The second and larger task is to give those players who have gotten over that initial hump and fallen in love with the game — spending dozens or even hundreds of hours playing — the creative tools that they need to change the world in more tangible ways: building whole new locations themselves, designing new buildings, setting up resource flows and forming flexible organizations to create bigger things together.”

Read the full report at Venture Beat.

"In what is unheard of in the MMO industry, Tiny Speck has announced that it is 'unlaunching' Glitch" (Suzie Ford).

To be quite clear, if people recall the recent history of APB being moved back into beta testing, this statement becomes false, doesn't it?

The only "unheard" of part in their actions would be that they are applying a new lable to it, quite clever when one is familiar to what psychologists and sociologists call labeling theory, in order to help reduce criticism.

I am neutral to their actions, my point is not to criticise the company's decision. I do, however, feel like it was needed to point out this unclear journalistic qoute, which could possibly be missleading, for a future refernce to the author. 

Originally posted by JonathJCen

"In what is unheard of in the MMO industry, Tiny Speck has announced that it is 'unlaunching' Glitch" (Suzie Ford).

To be quite clear, if people recall the recent history of APB being moved back into beta testing, this statement becomes false, doesn't it?

The only "unheard" of part in their actions would be that they are applying a new lable to it, quite clever when one is familiar to what psychologists and sociologists call labeling theory, in order to help reduce criticism.

I am neutral to their actions, my point is not to criticise the company's decision. I do, however, feel like it was needed to point out this unclear journalistic qoute, which could possibly be missleading, for a future refernce to the author. 

 

 

Didn't a different company take over and redo APB though?  And I'd think they'd want to beta test it.  So I think this is a first with Glitch yes.

Sounds good, IMHO.  The game does need a bit more of a longterm hook, and it looks like they have some pretty good ideas on what sort of hook it should be.

Originally posted by kadepsyson

Didn't a different company take over and redo APB though?  And I'd think they'd want to beta test it.  So I think this is a first with Glitch yes.

Depends...do you count FFXIV, or not?  Is a "play for free while we clean up this mess" the same thing as an "unlaunch"?

AO got a re-launch too, as I recall, back at the dawn of time.

They've made it clear that all of their numbers are where they expected.  However, they didn't anticipate how much upheaval it would take to implement some of the newer creative tools they want players to have.  Their only recourse was to re-implement beta to allow for those changes to occur.

Glitch is back in Beta....the joke makes itself.

While this is just a PR move, it does have sound reasons behind it. The game is great but has some large holes in it in terms of end game. I'm hoping this rethinking will allow for them to introduce some creativity based end game along with finishing off the minor issues they've been having with the servers.

Actually looked up this game today. Seems really interesting. So if anyone playing this game could maybe give me an invite? PM me :) Thanks!

Glitch is like heroin.

I've been waiting a few weeks for an invite. If anyone has any available invites remaining, I'd really appreciate one. Please PM and thanks in advance!