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Glitch Is Closing

glitch.com

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Re: Glitch Is Closing

#2
This saddens me on some aspects:

1. As a fellow game developer that published a game (and didn’t hit the jackpot). (We’re a small startup at the time launching our little game and it didn’t go well at all after a 2 hard-working year, about the same time when Glitch launched).

2. It’s the Flickr’s founding dream to create this, and if you read the backstory of Flickr, you’ll notice that the founder initially wanted to create this startup before Flickr, but found out it is not feasbible, and took out a main component from the game (sharing photo) and built Flickr. And so now, the founder has sold her company to Yahoo!, and decided to use every penny to make her dream come true, and it appears reality hits where it hurts the most, and the game didn’t fly. I tried the game, it’s really polished, but it just didn’t have the target market pool as big as Zynga in Facebook. Really sad its under-appreciated.

3. There is an unseen s*load amount of hard work placed in Glitch, but it just all went boom to their face.

What is the problem? Does this mean hard work != successful? Or did they not have enough marketing budget to make Glitch fly?

Re: Glitch Is Closing

#3
That's really sad. I have a friend who plays it every day - and found it adorable. I spend about 40-50 hours in it, and was really impressed with the characterization, polish, and originality.

Re: Glitch Is Closing

#4
Bummer for Stewart Butterfield. But maybe third time's the charm!

This does seem to count as a vote against Big Production Up Front. I have to wonder if they had started smaller, used a more "Lean" strategy, got a product to market quicker, and started working on revenue, if they would've A) discovered the "insurmountable" problems sooner, B) had some revenue to play with, and C) been in a position to pivot when the shit hit the fan.

Re: Glitch Is Closing

#5
post #2

This saddens me on some aspects: 1. As a fellow game developer that published a game (and didn’t hit the jackpot). (We’re a small startup at the time launching our little game and it didn’t go well at all after a 2 hard-working year, about the same time when Glitch launched). 2. It’s the Flickr’s founding dream to create this, and if you read the backstory of Flickr, you’ll notice that the founder initially wanted to…

You're right that one of the founders of Flickr was behind Glitch, but there were two Flickr founders: Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake. Butterfield was the one behind Glitch. Fake went on to Hunch and then Pinwheel/Findery.

Re: Glitch Is Closing

#7
post #6

Now that the main page is just a gravestone, what is glitch?

Found this About page via the "Log in" link at the top: http://www.glitch.com/about/

"Glitch is a web-based massively-multiplayer game which takes place inside the minds of eleven peculiarly imaginative Giants. You choose how to grow and shape the world: building and developing, learning new skills, collaborating or competing with everyone else in one enormous, ever-changing, persistent world."

Re: Glitch Is Closing

#8
post #2

This saddens me on some aspects: 1. As a fellow game developer that published a game (and didn’t hit the jackpot). (We’re a small startup at the time launching our little game and it didn’t go well at all after a 2 hard-working year, about the same time when Glitch launched). 2. It’s the Flickr’s founding dream to create this, and if you read the backstory of Flickr, you’ll notice that the founder initially wanted to…

Seems like they weren't adequate at marketing.. The concept of the game is appealing but I have never heard about it until today, the people who have played it have nothing but praise haven't seen a negative comment yet.

Re: Glitch Is Closing

#9

Bummer for Stewart Butterfield. But maybe third time's the charm! This does seem to count as a vote against Big Production Up Front. I have to wonder if they had started smaller, used a more "Lean" strategy, got a product to market quicker, and started working on revenue, if they would've A) discovered the "insurmountable" problems sooner, B) had some revenue to play with, and C) been in a position to pivot when the…

Some problems, MMORPGs being one of them, are not very amenable to the lean approach.

Re: Glitch Is Closing

#10
I am really sad to read this. I have been an occasional Glitch player since early betas and I've always been impressed at the civility of the players and the seemingly endless creativity of the game itself.

It's beautiful in the way few things imagine that they could be.

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