UK studios and MMO's

Torch

Hey all, was speaking with a friend about this and wondered if there are any studios in the UK right now developing their own MMO titles? I know Jagex in Cambridge is working on Runescape but that's all I could think of

Also Realtime were working on APB but from what I know aren't going any longer. Anyway would love to know if there are any other UK projects going on, if anyone has any info. Thanks :thumbup:

mazz423

Realtime shut down but APB got picked up by another company and was rereleased as APB reloaded, in fact the dev is actually called reloaded productions. They're here in Edinburgh, although I think it's fairly small, I'm not entirely sure as far as I can tell they don't have much of a presence.

If you're looking for a job, then their website has one page and a broken link to a supposed job section, not a particularly welcoming sign...

I know that there are a couple others around but I can't think of them off the top of my head.

Ark

Not much MMOs, plenty of racing game devs though. :P

ambershee

There was a company in Nottingham working on a Football MMOG, but I think they may have gone the way of the dodo.

Torch

Hey guys, thanks for the comments must've missed them XO Yep I thought this was the case, just wondered if there were any teams working on titles that I didn't know about but I guess working on an MMO is a pretty big job

ambershee

I'd call it less of a 'big job' and more of a 'fools errand'.

Torch

Why? o_O

And a Football MMO, wonder if they'll have RP servers for that. "My lord, I have traveled from distant lands for the chance to kick thine soccer balls"

ambershee

They have an enormous development cost to recoup on top of an enormous maintenance cost that must be continually met - and as a result the vast majority of attempts are abject failures that ruin the developer. World of Warcraft and EVE Online are an exception and not the rule. There are probably only five or six profitable MMOGs in the Western world, and they are likely all very long running. You'd be a fool to think that people are suddenly going to move from one MMOG to another after they've insted thousands of hours (and pounds) in your direct competitor.

The examples in this thread, UK developers Realtime Worlds and Monumental are both large studios who committed rapid suicide by jumping on the MMO bandwagon.

JohnnyRaptor

I was working at that nottingham studio and its been shut down since xmas 2011

actually..i was working at realtime worlds on APB aswell.... MMOs are cursed...

littleclaude

http://www.starfirestudios.co.uk/

http://www.22cans.com/

ambershee

I'm not sure either of those studios are working on MMOGs (and I'm less sure they can pull it off with budgets and teams as small as theirs).

Justin Meisse

I don't know, since so many studios lay off their staff after a title ships, the looooooooooooooong dev time of MMOs work in your favor. As far as bandwagons - MOBAs are the new hot flavor :P

ambershee

Yep, free-to-play especially. I can see a lot of middling-to-failing F2P-MOBAs on the horizon...

Frankie

Sorry to bring this thread back from the dead, I really wanted to post but held off so we could tie up the loose ends. Anway a friend and myself have just started a company developing an MMO in the uk, just the two of us with no plans to expand, check it out here

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=123683