CCP's World of Darkness MMO Cancelled

News
By Catherine Cai
published

Sorry, World of Darkness fans, CCP has just announced that the MMO it was working on is now cancelled.

MMOs are, by their nature, intrinsically a money and time sink to develop. Unfortunately, with the flux that the MMO market is in, there's also no guarantee of a return on an investment. 

In 2006, to the excitement of World of Darkness fans around the world, MMO giant and Eve Online developer CCP announced that it would be developing an MMO based off of the world created by White Wolf. Since the game's initial announcement, there's been relatively little content that the developer has publicly shown. 

Now, CCP has announced that the World of Darkness project is cancelled. With the project's cancellation will come 56 layoffs at the CCP Atlanta studio. "The decision to end the World of Darkness MMO project is one of the hardest I've ever had to make," stated CCP CEO Hilmar Veigar Petursson. "I have always loved and valued the idea of a sandbox experience set in that universe, and over the years I've watched the team passionately strive to make that possible. 

"... To our current and former employees and fans of World of Darkness, I am truly sorry that we could not deliver the experience that we aspired to make. We dreamed of a game that would transport you completely into the sweeping fantasy of World of Darkness, but had to admit that our efforts were falling regretfully short. One day I hope we will make it up to you." 

CCP Atlanta will now focus entirely on the studio's moneymaker, Eve. Currently, the studio has Dust 514, Eve Online, and Eve Valkyrie as its current projects. 

Catherine Cai
11 Comments Comment from the forums
  • ferooxidan
    what is this anyway
    Reply
  • emdea22
    How can you not know what it is ...
    Reply
  • Draven35
    And a couple people I know are going to be laid off over this...
    Reply
  • Mathos
    Probably has a lot to do with the changes to almost all the games based in World of Darkness over the last revision. Vampire, Changeling, Werewolf, etc. Forgot the names of the others. Not to mention the worlds system itself has had quite a fall off of popularity since said changes. Which would make promise of any return on investment that much more risky.
    Reply
  • Tempname
    I love World of Darkness to bits, it's just fantastic, and, in my opinion, miles ahead of everything else in the genre.

    That said, I would NOT have bought this game. Why? Simple: MMO.

    Bring us another Vampire Bloodlines by Tim Cain, that's what I want to see. He's over at Obsidian, so he has the team...
    Reply
  • signothorn
    This was sad news to the VTM community. Perhaps CCPGames will license the WoD out to a 3rd party to make another game in the future. Bloodlines will be 10 years old this October. Project Vaulderie is promising, they're porting Bloodlines to the Unity engine to make it much easier to mod, a nicer look with DX11 support and much more.
    Reply
  • Tempname
    13101712 said:
    This was sad news to the VTM community. Perhaps CCPGames will license the WoD out to a 3rd party to make another game in the future. Bloodlines will be 10 years old this October. Project Vaulderie is promising, they're porting Bloodlines to the Unity engine to make it much easier to mod, a nicer look with DX11 support and much more.
    Promising?

    It's pretty obvious it will fail miserably. A project of that size is bound to fail, no matter the strength of the people leading it. They will need years of hard work with a team of 5, with no guarantee of success, and with nothing to be gained (financially speaking). Much smaller projects have falling by the wayside (like the KotOR2 restoration project) despite being much easier.
    Reply
  • signothorn
    13101712 said:
    This was sad news to the VTM community. Perhaps CCPGames will license the WoD out to a 3rd party to make another game in the future. Bloodlines will be 10 years old this October. Project Vaulderie is promising, they're porting Bloodlines to the Unity engine to make it much easier to mod, a nicer look with DX11 support and much more.
    Promising?

    It's pretty obvious it will fail miserably. A project of that size is bound to fail, no matter the strength of the people leading it. They will need years of hard work with a team of 5, with no guarantee of success, and with nothing to be gained (financially speaking). Much smaller projects have falling by the wayside (like the KotOR2 restoration project) despite being much easier.

    It's not obvious at all. The game is porting quite easily to Unity and they will have a demo of the Santa Monica hub available soon. The scale of the operation isn't as large as many might think, and as someone who is in regular contact with the team doing it, I'm assessing they'll get it done.
    Reply
  • Tempname
    13103740 said:
    13101712 said:
    This was sad news to the VTM community. Perhaps CCPGames will license the WoD out to a 3rd party to make another game in the future. Bloodlines will be 10 years old this October. Project Vaulderie is promising, they're porting Bloodlines to the Unity engine to make it much easier to mod, a nicer look with DX11 support and much more.
    Promising?

    It's pretty obvious it will fail miserably. A project of that size is bound to fail, no matter the strength of the people leading it. They will need years of hard work with a team of 5, with no guarantee of success, and with nothing to be gained (financially speaking). Much smaller projects have falling by the wayside (like the KotOR2 restoration project) despite being much easier.

    It's not obvious at all. The game is porting quite easily to Unity and they will have a demo of the Santa Monica hub available soon. The scale of the operation isn't as large as many might think, and as someone who is in regular contact with the team doing it, I'm assessing they'll get it done.

    As a fan of the game, that's great to hear.
    Reply
  • Tuishimi
    Sad... but I hope signothorn is correct and the port will be successful (and timely).
    Reply