General Discussion

With today's announcement that Auran Developments, the company behind the PvP MMORPG Fury, would be closing their doors, the announcement didn't really take many by surprise. Managing Editor Jon Wood offers some thoughts on why Fury wasn't the kind of success that the company had hoped.

Earlier today, we learned that Auran Developments, the company behind the MMORPG Fury, announced that they would be closing their doors. Fury itself will continue on as a free-to-play, free-to-download title, but the developers behind the game have all been laid off, and the company has “called in a Voluntary Administrator” (What Auran describes as similar to Chapter 11 in the United States) leaving only what the official announcement to the public called “a small but committed team to continue developing FURY on an ongoing basis”.

The recently announced Age of the Chosen update, we are told, will still go ahead as scheduled on Friday the 14th, making some additions and fixes to the game. The official announcement expressed optimism, saying that, “I believe that once people hear about F:AotC and the new Free to Play business model, we’ll start building up the player numbers and revenues that will make the game successful.”

With the Fury Launch date a mere two months in the past, a number of questions are raised around how this could have happened. What did Auran Developments do that led to this end?

Personally, I think that there are a number of different answers to that question. First and foremost on my list though is the fact that Fury was built on a premise that, in my opinion, was shaky to begin with.

Read the whole thing here.

Most important things you said -

"In order for Fury to be successful, there would have to be a fairly large number of players out there who feel that MMORPG-style PvP provides enough entertainment to justify the expense of creating an entire game. Unfortunately for Auran, this does not seem to have been the case.... "

"The problem is that while these hardcore players are numerous, there just aren't enough of them to support an all-PvP game."

Very, very true. I feel that no matter how much a MMORPG player loves PvP, they still need to have the PvE option available, as well as other "standard" MMO systems like crafting, trade, etc.

Also, I feel (from beta) that Fury was just a horribly made game. Even if it wasn't all PvP, I still think it was horrible. I know that is my personal opinion, but I played for an hour in Beta and deinstalled it.

So what happened to Auran?

They created a bad game on a bad premise and the market spoke. Plain and simple.

Originally posted by heerobya

"The problem is that while these hardcore players are numerous, there just aren't enough of them to support an all-PvP game."

Very, very true. I feel that no matter how much a MMORPG player loves PvP, they still need to have the PvE option available, as well as other "standard" MMO systems like crafting, trade, etc.

Very, very false.  Unfortunately, I can't prove it because a well-made, PvP-only game has not been made.

Yet another failure in a very uninspired year for MMORPGs.  2007 certainly was a poor year for the genre, wasn't it?   Let's hope developers were watching train wrecks like Vanguard, Auto Assault and the rest and LEARNING something. 

The PvP vs PvE argument, however, can't really be applied to Fury because of statements like this:

Originally posted by heerobya

Also, I feel (from beta) that Fury was just a horribly made game.

So what happened to Auran?

They created a bad game on a bad premise and the market spoke. Plain and simple.

Exactly.  It didn't matter whether Fury was PvP-focused, PvE-focused or whatever.   Auran made a lousy game that nobody wanted to play.

The difference is that now there is enough competition so games like Fury get completely cancelled rather than become niche markets for hardcore players like the first generation MMORPGs.   Nowadays, bad games means failure for a company and they can't attempt to along while getting players to pay for beta-testing or improvements.   

Originally posted by raykor

Originally posted by heerobya

"The problem is that while these hardcore players are numerous, there just aren't enough of them to support an all-PvP game."

Very, very true. I feel that no matter how much a MMORPG player loves PvP, they still need to have the PvE option available, as well as other "standard" MMO systems like crafting, trade, etc.

Very, very false.  Unfortunately, I can't prove it because a well-made, PvP-only game has not been made.

niche game + high system reqs = a bad idea.

that's what i think really killed the game. There are alot of people who love PVP and would like to play nothing else. But when most people aren't able to run the game (which is required to run smoothly since it's pvp) that really limits the playerbase.

Originally posted by heerobya

 

In a little over 10 years of MMO gaming, have you ever wondered why a "well-made, PvP-only game has not been made?"

 

Planetside?

Originally posted by heerobya

 

In a little over 10 years of MMO gaming, have you ever wondered why a "well-made, PvP-only game has not been made?"

Originally posted by Dracus

Originally posted by heerobya

 

In a little over 10 years of MMO gaming, have you ever wondered why a "well-made, PvP-only game has not been made?"

 

Planetside?

True, I guess Planetside would have to be considered a success... but it is a MMOFPS. 

In my personal opinion, this is the final nail in the coffin of this concept: "There are a huge number of PvPers who demand full PvP at all times."

If the vast majority of gamers were both PvPers and desperate to play a PvP mmorpg I think Fury would have done better. Instead, two months later the company that made the game is down the drain.

Do I hate PvP? Nope. I enjoy Eve Online and some PvP in my mmorpgs.

Do I believe that there are enough PvPers to support a MMORPG that is full pvp, all the time? Not any more.

There are a very vocal minority of gamers who want full PvP in their online games. But those gamers certainly don't represent the rest of us.