Its official, Lego Universe will be shutting down by the end of January, with a buy 1 get 1 free membership offer in December, and refunds paid to existing members who's membership would've lasted past January.
Read the Official Post here
3. Specifically targeting kids, now I don't blame Lego for doing this, but this is a relatively small market compared to a much larger market of teenagers and adults who play multi player online games, I'm not saying you compromise on the child friendly atmosphere, but maybe not labelling it- or giving the impression of labelling it- as a children's game would be a better marketing method, I mean how many kids want to be labelled as 'children'...
4. Bad planning from the start, many people are complaining that they bought the game from stores when it was released for free only a few weeks later for free download. With no refunds given to those who purchased it...c'mon Lego, why bother releasing the game as a CD (albeit with a months membership but with a much higher price compared to credit card purchasing of membership) if you were gonna make an F2P version anyway.
5. Relatively expensive compared to other MMORPGs like Runescape or ClubPenguin. IMO this was the least of the reasons the game failed, but it would not hurt to bring it inline with competitors pricing, at least initially. In addition to this I believe that giving free Lego Sets as prises for competitions was a bit excessive- Lego sets are fairly expensive...A better method might have been a free week of membership (given to non-members obviously ;)), I think this is a good plan as it will give non-members a teaser of how membership will be, and who knows they may therefore by membership permanently, or an exp boost etc. for those who do have membership. Certainly not something that costs more than a months membership.
I'm sure many people out there are wondering what the Lego game devs did which caused their 'Universe' to catastrophically explode...
I believe there are a number of reasons why:
1. Bad design of the F2P (free to play) version of the game which was only released earlier this year (2011) and the overall game play as well.First and foremost non-members are very limited in the amount of things they can do. For instance there is a gold limit of 10000gold, which is very easy, even for a newcomer/noob, to obtain. This limits all F2P from buying more expensive items and from saving up gold to splurge when they became a member in future.
Furthermore the inability to talk unless you are a P2P member (desperation? o.O) limited the amount of socialising that could occur which is a major attraction in most Multi player games, and almost a necessity when playing team-based games where discussion of tactics before and during mini-games might be extremely useful and advantageous. Moreover it may have lead to new players quitting if they couldn't understand certain aspects of the game and were unable to ask questions (I know forums do exist but they are infrequently used especially by non-hardcore gamers.) I also believe that a lack of PvP (Player vs. Player) may have contributed to a feeling of boredom and eventually have lead to quitting the game. After all once beating the computer becomes so easy its boring the occasional challenge is welcome and can even help you improve.
2. Limited or no advertising.Seriously Lego, unlike many other games out there, I saw no advertising at all taking place outside the Lego chain eg. Their website, magazines and stores. (there may have been some, but nothing that I noticed...) How do you expect new people to discover your game if you don't advertise properly and spread as much news as possible all over the web.
3. Specifically targeting kids, now I don't blame Lego for doing this, but this is a relatively small market compared to a much larger market of teenagers and adults who play multi player online games, I'm not saying you compromise on the child friendly atmosphere, but maybe not labelling it- or giving the impression of labelling it- as a children's game would be a better marketing method, I mean how many kids want to be labelled as 'children'...
4. Bad planning from the start, many people are complaining that they bought the game from stores when it was released for free only a few weeks later for free download. With no refunds given to those who purchased it...c'mon Lego, why bother releasing the game as a CD (albeit with a months membership but with a much higher price compared to credit card purchasing of membership) if you were gonna make an F2P version anyway.
5. Relatively expensive compared to other MMORPGs like Runescape or ClubPenguin. IMO this was the least of the reasons the game failed, but it would not hurt to bring it inline with competitors pricing, at least initially. In addition to this I believe that giving free Lego Sets as prises for competitions was a bit excessive- Lego sets are fairly expensive...A better method might have been a free week of membership (given to non-members obviously ;)), I think this is a good plan as it will give non-members a teaser of how membership will be, and who knows they may therefore by membership permanently, or an exp boost etc. for those who do have membership. Certainly not something that costs more than a months membership.
What do you think were the reasons behind the end of the Universe? Pls leave a comment below.
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