advertisement

Dungeon Runners closing Dec. 31

By Tom Magrino, GameSpotPosted Sep 18, 2009 10:38 am PT

NCsoft confirms unprofitable casual MMOG will be taken offline New Year's Eve; paid subscribers offered free games, refunds.

The casual gaming market hasn't treated massively multiplayer online gaming company NCsoft particularly well. As part of its company-wide reorganization in 2008, the publisher said it would be refocusing its efforts on big-budget, top-tier MMOGs. The announcement was accompanied by news that NCsoft had laid off a number of developers working on its casual MMOG Dungeon Runners, as well as canceled plans to bring the game to other platforms, believed to be Sony's PlayStation 3.

Yes, that is a snowman...in a dungeon.

This week, the other shoe dropped for Dungeon Runners, as producer and lead programmer Stephen Nichols confirmed that the game will be taken offline on December 31. Dungeon Runners, which operates under both a free-to-play, microtransaction-supported and subscription-based business model, launched to lackluster reviews for the PC in July 2008.

"Dungeon Runners just isn't cutting the mustard," Nichols said in a post to the game's Web site. "If she were a ship, she'd be taking on water. Yeah, she's been taking on water for a long time now. Are my cryptic references too hard to decipher? The game just isn't profitable. And, the first rule of business is to be profitable!"

Nichols went on to note that, while the team has a number of ideas to generate revenue, they would be expensive to implement. He also noted that said plans would be greatly hampered given that two of the five developers on the game had recently departed from the team.

Nichols noted that those with paid memberships to Dungeon Runners will receive digital copies of City of Heroes Architect Edition and Guild Wars Prophecies. The producer also stated that anyone who "needs refunds for multiple-month membership purchases will be taken care of."

42 Comments

  • Kyleve

    Posted Oct 31, 2009 10:25 pm PT

    YAY my sweet,sweet sequel to guild wars will finall be DONE!

    So many years of waiting come to realization.

    I dont get what people like about WOW, i mean it isnt top tier, the gameplay is terrible and there is absolutely no tactics apart from skill, skill skill repeat till death.

    And how does a game like GW, that actually cares about its players brains, get the short bloody end of the stick. NCsoft used to give out quality, now all they care about is squeezing every last drop of money out of anything remotely nice. GW2 better not be p2p or im offically quiting mmorpgs.

  • Khasym

    Posted Sep 20, 2009 7:44 pm PT

    alcari

    More of the latter. :-) Guild Wars and City of Heroes/Villains are fairly good games. The problem is, those two games came in on the tail end of Everquest's popularity, before the MMO world was WoW dominant. They had time to build up a fanbase. Ever since, NCsoft has been throwing out less and less quality games, under the same idea that they'd build up an audience.

  • Decardcain

    Posted Sep 20, 2009 1:08 pm PT

    the mmo world is too hard from one hand we have the fee after month and from the other the free to play games close like dust in the wind.. its a pitty...why developments dont make this game single player in order to keep them alive its so unfair this waste of time of the developments... thats the reason i prefer to play single player games because in the mmo scene yoy are not sure for everything. for example i dont mind to play loki or diablo 2 or titan quest i ll find these games everytime i want but what about an mmo i have to pay every month and i have to rush because there is the posibility to shut down the servers. in my opinion dont waste the code just transmute this games to a single player experience. i was ready to try age of connan but i am afraid that is going to close just like other worthy efforts (tabula rasa). unfortunately this is wow world ...

  • carllfc

    Posted Sep 20, 2009 10:51 am PT

    NCSoft are absolutely rubbish, they close more games than they can make. I still feel upset because they closed Tabula Rasa

  • alcari

    Posted Sep 20, 2009 7:42 am PT

    So, does everything NCsoft touch turn to crap, or do they only touch crap and not recognise it until it's to late?

  • DiscGuru101

    Posted Sep 20, 2009 12:13 am PT

    I had my eye on Dungeon Runners, but the WoW-ish graphics never quite grabbed me. This news should give the newly made free to play DDO a boost.

  • quickchord

    Posted Sep 19, 2009 8:06 pm PT

    Good to see NCsoft taking care of their customers!

  • runstalker

    Posted Sep 19, 2009 3:09 pm PT

    "... in 2008 the publisher said it would be refocusing its efforts on big-budget, top-tier MMOGs." Good. Onward and upward. Huge projects like Aion, Blade & Soul, and Guild Wars 2 will secure NCsoft's future. Killer big budget, big dev staff (150+ each) games by veteran in-house teams in Seoul and Seattle.

  • magusat999

    Posted Sep 19, 2009 8:00 am PT

    I never heard of this game - and probably wouldn't have played it anyway - but after I read the comments I am not sorry to see this game go away. I'm glad it discouraged this kind of abusive transaction system by simply failing to take hold.

    The future of MMO is buy the game, play the game - somehow, some way that hasn't been worked out yet - WITHOUT extra fees. That's the only way people are going to enjoy a seamless experience. These Pay to Play games will eventually die off like the do-do.

  • NightlyOne

    Posted Sep 19, 2009 3:14 am PT

    It's a shame to see it shut down. I had even gone hunting for the retail box (which only went for $10) about 2 months back, just so I could get the bling gnome and 6-month membership. Ah well. 'Twas fun while it lasted.

  • Pvt_r3d

    Posted Sep 18, 2009 8:13 pm PT

    I totally agree with you sirmathew, most of the FTP mmo's are stooping to these cash shops.

  • sirmathew

    Posted Sep 18, 2009 7:36 pm PT

    i played it for around a week,was very good the first 2-3 days,had a lot of fun trying to learn it and gain some lvls.
    Sadly after these first 2-3 days i found out that you must pay to use most of the items that dropped when you killed the monsters and if you wanted to continue to play (and not pay) you must continue to equip yourself with the junk armor/weapons you had from start so i stopped bothering me with these "free to play" game.
    the micro-transactions system is a dangerous thing and Dungeon Runners is one of the first games that is "punished" for that i think.
    We will see more F2P games having his fate soon....

  • KingBobCat

    Posted Sep 18, 2009 5:43 pm PT

    Not surprised ... I played it for a while, had some fun with it, tired of it, and moved on ...

  • ColdfireTrilogy

    Posted Sep 18, 2009 4:51 pm PT

    @MrM3th0d sounds like thats exactly what happened .. they hit the nail dead on. Lackluster game, it shuts down. Whats so wrong about them being right? lol

  • magicalclick

    Posted Sep 18, 2009 3:50 pm PT

    BTW, I think Facebook is killing MMO games as well. It is free and it is easier to bring friends aboard. And you get to send free Gifts to your friends. Of course, there are so many of them, and I have to ignore most of those games.

  • magicalclick

    Posted Sep 18, 2009 3:47 pm PT

    Played it, and don't like it. It takes forever to level up. I suppose that's what happen to all MMO games. Just some boring text of story and repetitive combat and leveling. Also it was kind of frustrating to obtain some really nice equipment, but, I can't use it as free player.

    Why don't they make Paid player better at PvP to show off, but free player can still enjoy the game without limit?

  • NuKkU

    Posted Sep 18, 2009 3:23 pm PT

    that sucks i heard this was a pretty fun free game

  • chibi-acer

    Posted Sep 18, 2009 3:22 pm PT

    Dungeon Runners felt like a cheap Diablo/Dungeon Siege game. I'm sure some people will miss it, but I'm not at all surprised to see it go.

  • FlamingWafflez

    Posted Sep 18, 2009 3:06 pm PT

    I got a few small laughs when playing this game. But this game bored me so much. I didn't feel like I was playing an MMO; I felt like I was playing a single-player game demo that never introduced a plot or story.
    R.I.P.

  • MrM3th0d

    Posted Sep 18, 2009 2:14 pm PT

    Oh, they also got the date wrong. The game is shutting down Jan 1, not Dec 31. Sheeeeeesh. Can I get some quality control on aisle 69?!

Dungeon Runners Quick Links

Summary | Reviews | News | Previews & Features | Images | Videos | Downloads | Answers | Forum

advertisement
advertisement
Click Here
Dungeon Runners Boxshot Enlarge the boxshot
Dungeon Runners

Game Stats

  • Rank:
    8,358 of 79,200
    (down by 29)
    PC Rank:
    2,818 of 12,646
    Highest Rank:
    86 in 2009
    Tracking:
    563 Track It»
    Wishlists:
    132 Wish It»
  • Player Reviews:
    43
    Player Ratings:
    602
    Users Now Playing:
    133
  • Number of Players:

    Massively Multiplayer, Massively Multiplayer

  • Top 5 User Tags:
    1. dungeon runners
    2. ncsoft
    3. dungeon
    4. fantasy
    5. mmorpg
  • Teen Rating Description

    Titles rated T (Teen) have content that may be suitable for ages 13 and older. Titles in this category may contain violence, suggestive themes, crude humor, minimal blood, simulated gambling, and/or infrequent use of strong language. Learn more

Full Game Details »Close

Games you may like…

Users who looked at content for this game also looked at these games.

See More Similar Games
advertisement