This year, our categories are: Game of the Year, New Game of the Year, Most Innovative, Most Improved, Best F2P, Favorite Company, Biggest News Story, Most Anticipated, and the newest, and most dubious, addition to our prizes, Biggest Disappointment.
In order to qualify for this category, a news story must have dropped in 2010 and rocked our collective worlds. As per usual, the MMORPG.com staff debated the options and here are our nominees!
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Gods & Heroes – The Revival
When Perpetual put the game on indefinite hold, and eventually went under itself, the general consensus was that the game was dead. No one really expected this game to come back, as the forgotten casualty of Perpetual's closure. Then, earlier this year, it was announced that the Texas development studio Heatwave Interactive h
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ad obtained the rights to the game and would now be developing and releasing the game.
$335,000 Virtual Property
Entropia Universe was obviously no stranger to Virtual World objects being sold for real money, entering the Guinness Book of World Records in 2004 and 2008 for virtual object sale totals. This past November, however, seller Jon Jacobs surpassed all of that by selling a resort on the game's Planet Calypso, in chunks, for a total of $635,000. The largest of those chunks sold made Jacobs a cool $335,000.
The Rise of Freemium Gaming
When Dungeons and Dragons Online went free to play in 2009, none of us could have anticipated the gaming revolution this would spawn. 2010 saw Lord of the Rings Online and Pirates of the Burning Sea go free to play with an item mall, Everquest II and Warhammer Online both went F2P with some extreme limitations. We saw announcements that in 2011 both Champions Online and All-Points Bulletin would be going F2P, not to mention the slew of F2P downloadable games and browser games that launched.
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All-Points Bulletin – The Death and Resurrection
Released in June. Closed down in September. Rose from the ashes in November? APB fans have seen 2010 as one heck of a roller coaster, with nothing but ups and downs, from a shakey start, to mixed reviews and the eventual closure of servers in a heartbreaking move in September. On November 16th, when K2 subsidiary Reloaded Productions made the announcement that there was to be an F2P relaunch, players and fans of the industry alike rejoiced.
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Now it's your turn!
