Sad News From Inside of LEGO

My heart is going out to all of those who are losing there jobs, here is the press release:

Online game will close on January 31, 2012. The LEGO Group’s digital offerings will continue to develop over the coming years.

November 4, 2011 – The LEGO Group today announced that it will close LEGO® Universe, an MMOG (massively-multiplayer online game) that has been in operation since the autumn of 2010.

In spite of very positive player feedback and a large number of players in the free play zone, it has not been possible to convert a satisfactory number of players to paying subscribers. It has therefore been decided to close the game as of January 31, 2012.

“The LEGO Universe team can take pride in having developed and launched a great LEGO experience that many players will miss,” said Jesper Vilstrup, Vice President, LEGO Universe. “Right now, we have almost 2 million players in LEGO Universe, and we get extremely positive feedback from players. Unfortunately, we have not been able to build a satisfactory revenue model in our target group, and therefore, have decided to close the game.”

Despite the change, the ambition to develop and run a digital business remains. In future, it is the intention to further pursue cooperation with partners. The LEGO Group has a strong and continuing partnership with TT Games Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment to create digital LEGO experiences within video games. A further expansion in the digital area will mainly be based on similar partnerships.

“The development of our digital offerings continues to be a very important element in our strategy,” said Mads Nipper, Executive Vice President, LEGO Group. “We have more than 20 million visitors on www.LEGO.com every month, and LEGO video games are among the bestselling children’s video games with sales of more than 60 million units in the last five years. Through our experience developing and running LEGO Universe, we have gained a lot of valuable insights, and we have a very strong foundation for future development in the digital area.”

As a consequence of the closure, the LEGO Universe staff has today been informed that the ‘Play Well Studios’ in Louisville, Colorado and the game’s marketing function in Billund, Denmark will be closed. This will affect 115 employees. All affected employees will be offered assistance in finding new jobs inside or outside the LEGO Group.

Sad. I played the game at the LEGO store a while back, I must say it was fun. But 2 million people will no longer enjoy it.

And this doesn't help the economy much, having people loose there jobs over this.

My heart goes out to them.

I saw this coming for a few months now. With the price of the game getting cut in half twice, the desperate sales pitch from my LEGO Store manager, and not budging on the hefty 100 yearly fee...

In my opinion it was great idea, just poorly executed.

At least TLG is offering assistance finding new jobs and giving them over a year's notice, it seems.

I played the demo for five mintues at Legoland in Carlsbad. I can tell why it's being shut down.

CommandoMando wrote:I played the demo for five mintues at Legoland in Carlsbad. I can tell why it's being shut down.

I was a paying member, It was good when you got into it. Its just the whole trade thing (If you have played TF2, you know what I mean) spammed the chat so much, it made asking for help impossible...

Octan

Octan wrote:

CommandoMando wrote:I played the demo for five mintues at Legoland in Carlsbad. I can tell why it's being shut down.

I was a paying member, It was good when you got into it. Its just the whole trade thing (If you have played TF2, you know what I mean) spammed the chat so much, it made asking for help impossible...

Octan

That's one of the reasons why I don't like MMPOG games.

CommandoMando wrote:I played the demo for five mintues at Legoland in Carlsbad. I can tell why it's being shut down.

I know this is off topic, but I went there in the last school holidays! But anyway, I played the it too at LEGOLAND, I liked it, so I'm kinda sad.

I played the Free version, and it was actually quite fun! I enjoyed it, though it ran really slowly on my netbook. I think it was a great game, that if slightly cheaper would have been much better.

Honestly, I think it could have attracted more people if the subscription price had been lower. Also, I think the entire concept of the game is just a little boring. I played the free version a bit, but it wasn't that fun, Clone Wars Adventures was a little more entertaining and it's not the best. I find the "Stunt Gungan" game addictive though. One thing that would have made it more fun though, would be the ability to shoot the Malstroms with guns rather then having to punch them to destroy them, they could have at least done a laser gun because of their No real weapon policy.