Wildstar developer Carbine Studios shut down, 50 people laid off, game will be closed in the near future

[LOC Veteran]

 

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Carbine Studios, the developer of the massively multiplayer online game WildStar, is shutting down, Kotaku has learned. Fifty people will lose their jobs in the process, according to a person briefed on the shutdown. The game will also come to a close.

Staff were informed of the closure at a meeting today, according to someone who was in the room, but it had been looming for a while after at least two of the studio’s game projects failed to gain traction with the studio’s parent company, Korean publisher NCSoft.

 

“Today, we are closing Carbine Studios and will begin the process of winding WildStar down to ultimately shutter the game,” NCSoft said in a statement. “WildStar players who have spent money within the game will be refunded purchases from July 1, 2018 until the payment system is shut off. We are also in the process of identifying the teams that will be doing the work to bring WildStar to a close. These decisions are very difficult to make and we are in the midst of shifting as many of our teammates as possible into other roles within the organization.”

 

Carbine was founded in 2005 by former members of the World of Warcraftteam at Blizzard Entertainment. In 2007, NCSoft purchased Carbine, and in 2011 the studio announced WildStar, a stylish MMORPG that would eventually release in June 2014. After launching with a monthly subscription, it went free-to-play a year later. In February 2016, Carbine laid off a number of staff, and the game had been quiet in recent months.

 

 

Source - Kotaku

[Brandon H Supervisor]

I don't even remember WildStar personally; clearly they did not advertise very well and that has probably played a part in this inevitable shut down

 

If I had known about them I probably would have given the game a chance when they went F2P

[+Zagadka Subscriber²]

Wildstar was a good game for the genre, but completely lacked end game content. Sorry to see it go, was considering revisiting it.

 

Another good NCSoft game gets shuttered.

[LOC Veteran]

Yeah, NCSoft has closed down 3 of my favorite MMO's of all time so far. Auto Assault, Tabula Rasa and now Wildstar. Sigh

[+Zagadka Subscriber²]

And CoH.

 

Poor Tabula Rasa. Really liked that one, way ahead when developed.

[LOC Veteran]

Yeah and CoH/V. At least we're getting a couple (hopefully) Superhero themed MMOs based around CoH down the road.

 

I felt the same about Auto Assault. Way ahead of its time, people just weren't ready for a different MMO experience at the time. Maybe they still aren't, who knows these days. But man, between Auto Assault, Tabula Rasa, Wildstar and Aion (which we may be getting a sequel to finally!) I must have sunk over 1200 hours of playtime between all of them under NCSoft's umbrella. Sigh.

[firey]

Played Wildstar when it was released, was quite fun.. but I found it to be like rift.. I just couldn't get hooked on it like I could with WoW.