Dungeon Runners - End-of-Life Announcement and Shutdown (January 2010)

End-of-Life Announcement and Shutdown (January 2010)

NCsoft 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. Dungeon Runners had dropped, 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 good reviews for the PC in July 2008.

"Dungeon Runners just isn't cutting the mustard," Nichols said on an announcement on the Dungeon Runners forum. "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 and risky 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."

The online service for Dungeon Runners ended on January 1, 2010. The website was shut down shortly thereafter on January 3, 2010. Many players had commented on the official forums that they thought the biggest mistake was the re-organization of the servers that occurred when the game went to a retail box version. Several of the servers were merged or made available to retail box purchasers only, and good game communities were broken up as a result.