[ JK ]
(?)Community Member
- Posted: Sun, 19 Feb 2012 21:05:09 +0000
Hello Friends!
I'm sure you've all heard of the sad announcement I had to make during the dev-meat, and I felt it was time to make an "official" forum post as well, since a lot of the things I said got a bit misinterpreted it seems sweatdrop
I'm sad to tell you all, but as of a couple of weeks ago zOMG is in "maintenance mode" and I have been re-assigned to be art director on another new game in development. What does "maintenance mode" mean? It means there will be no new updates on the game for now, and it will only get dev-time dedicated to it if major major bugs appear... it doesn't mean that the game will get shut down in the foreseeable future. It is technically possible that they will let me work on zOMG again, I do hope so myself, but I don't want to give you false hope and will be realistic: It's not likely as things are now.
Why did this development happen? It's pretty much a mix between the fact that creating new content for zOMG requires a lot of resources (we were only able to release DMS with our tiny team because most of the assets and a lot of the game balancing were already finished) and Gaia doesn't have these resources to spare currently, and the fact that the zOMG in general hasn't met Gaia HQ's expectations in terms of revenue and popularity. You have to remember that it took a team of nearly 20 people 3 years to develop this game and similar features that took a much smaller team only a few months to develop have more users and generate more revenue for the company. Please keep in mind that I am explaining the reasoning of the company to halt production on zOMG for now... my personal opinion is that zOMG has the potential to be amazing and has an amazing passionate community, and I would really have liked to continue working on it.
Finally, I'm seeing some fingers pointed at particular users here. Please don't blame each other for this... it was a mainly financial decision from Gaia HQ and nothing to do with concrete users in particular. In fact we were happy to see that the game got back some life from the release of DMS, and I hope all of you continue to enjoy that area.
We've all invested a lot of time, dedication and passion into this game and I hope you had and continue to have as much fun playing, talking to your friends, making new friends and trying to reach new heights as I have. I do think the game has a lot of potential, I enjoy its mechanics and quirks, but it was you, the community that fueled my passion. The zOMG community with its supportive passionate, smart, compassionate and competitive players is unique on Gaia, and, dare I say so, the internet. It made me really happy to see so many people that had left zOMG return for DMS and I really hope that if somewhere down the line we can add new content to the game you'll all still be here or return to enjoy it with me. It makes me proud to be part of the zOMG community, and like Mav.. I will continue to stop by and even hold dev-meats until there is no interest anymore. The game may be in maintenance mode, but the happy memories we've collected and the friends we've made live on, and no one can take that from us.
I'm sure you've all heard of the sad announcement I had to make during the dev-meat, and I felt it was time to make an "official" forum post as well, since a lot of the things I said got a bit misinterpreted it seems sweatdrop
I'm sad to tell you all, but as of a couple of weeks ago zOMG is in "maintenance mode" and I have been re-assigned to be art director on another new game in development. What does "maintenance mode" mean? It means there will be no new updates on the game for now, and it will only get dev-time dedicated to it if major major bugs appear... it doesn't mean that the game will get shut down in the foreseeable future. It is technically possible that they will let me work on zOMG again, I do hope so myself, but I don't want to give you false hope and will be realistic: It's not likely as things are now.
Why did this development happen? It's pretty much a mix between the fact that creating new content for zOMG requires a lot of resources (we were only able to release DMS with our tiny team because most of the assets and a lot of the game balancing were already finished) and Gaia doesn't have these resources to spare currently, and the fact that the zOMG in general hasn't met Gaia HQ's expectations in terms of revenue and popularity. You have to remember that it took a team of nearly 20 people 3 years to develop this game and similar features that took a much smaller team only a few months to develop have more users and generate more revenue for the company. Please keep in mind that I am explaining the reasoning of the company to halt production on zOMG for now... my personal opinion is that zOMG has the potential to be amazing and has an amazing passionate community, and I would really have liked to continue working on it.
Finally, I'm seeing some fingers pointed at particular users here. Please don't blame each other for this... it was a mainly financial decision from Gaia HQ and nothing to do with concrete users in particular. In fact we were happy to see that the game got back some life from the release of DMS, and I hope all of you continue to enjoy that area.
We've all invested a lot of time, dedication and passion into this game and I hope you had and continue to have as much fun playing, talking to your friends, making new friends and trying to reach new heights as I have. I do think the game has a lot of potential, I enjoy its mechanics and quirks, but it was you, the community that fueled my passion. The zOMG community with its supportive passionate, smart, compassionate and competitive players is unique on Gaia, and, dare I say so, the internet. It made me really happy to see so many people that had left zOMG return for DMS and I really hope that if somewhere down the line we can add new content to the game you'll all still be here or return to enjoy it with me. It makes me proud to be part of the zOMG community, and like Mav.. I will continue to stop by and even hold dev-meats until there is no interest anymore. The game may be in maintenance mode, but the happy memories we've collected and the friends we've made live on, and no one can take that from us.