I've never heard of Glitch before today. Maybe that's why they're closing. That really sucks, because from what I've seen poking around it looks like a BEAUTIFUL game!
Founders: PROMOTE YOUR SHIT!!
Glitch Is Closing
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Re: Glitch Is Closing
#92I would really like to see the game... as I've never heard of it which is a shame, can any existing player send me an invite? Add me on Steam under the same name as here if you're willing :)
Recently, they were seem to have been floundering about with some last-ditch engagement attempts -- game-wide "feats". One of them was to invite as many people as possible to the game, and there was widespread backlash, very depressing now that I think about it.
They were fairly open, with an API that enabled several third-party iPhone / iPad apps -- but that were mostly passive inventory viewers, etc. I wonder how things would have gone with Facebook integration instead, with noble attempts at social networking and feed publishing. May have given them the edge they needed.
Re: Glitch Is Closing
#93I'm surprised. Maybe marketing to the wrong audience? I told 2 people, my wife, and her sister, and they both became hopelessly addicted. Neither are techie people at all.
Re: Glitch Is Closing
#94It's a gorgeous game, and I'm heartbroken that they're shutting down. I was part of the very first wave of beta testers when they first launched. Even though I didn't spend much time, I remember being shocked by their attention to details. Every little thing was nicely planned, designed and implemented. But, aside from the intrinsic beauty, the truth is that there was no reason for you to keep coming back. It didn't…
I think its pertinent to note that the American successor to Habitat still exists and is live, some 17 years later. (vzones.com) They spun off from compuserve, went public as Avaterra, got delisted, and now are owned by some other company.
If you design your business right, the online life cycle can be very long. Unfortunately the current nature of startups, venture capital, and exits encourage go big or go broke instead of longevity.
From what I've seen, most avatar based passive online worlds have not done very well. Indeed, I think the MMORPG has effectively filled the slots where we imagined a Snow Crash-esque virtual world.
Re: Glitch Is Closing
#95Terrfyingly, nearly all of their engineers list a LinkedIn profile, but none link a github/bitbucket etc profile :/
The github as a resume thing is still fairly new and mostly implemented by people who have been out of work or working for themselves (since a lot of employment contracts stipulate that the company has dibs on anything you write)
Re: Glitch Is Closing
#96Re: Glitch Is Closing
#97I played Glitch for a couple hours once and it's pretty obvious to me why it didn't work. After all the pre-launch hype about changing the face of gaming forever, the game was dreadfully boring -- you basically walk around and click on things. I described it to a friend as "FarmVille where you don't get your own farm." Sure, there was a lot of art; I think I had my pick of several dozen hairstyles and encountered hun…
Two hours? You got some real patience. I was in the early pre-beta and they lost me few minutes in, right after I was given a "pet rock" that I was expected to talk to. (edit) I also got a strong impression it was a single guy's visionary pet (for the lack of better word) project, and he had some spare money from a previous exit to throw at it. So he kept pulling it in his own direction. I might be and probably am of…
Stewart did Flickr, so yeah.
Remember the power of the usability study people!
Re: Glitch Is Closing
#98I would love to know what was on their product roadmap. I can't imagine what I've seen in their game was all they aspired to be. I know the high-level aspirations included: building and developing, learning new skills, collaborating or competing with everyone else in one enormous, ever-changing, persistent world. But I'd love to hear how they had planned on actually doing that. Was there going to be Minecraft/Second…
They did add some building/decorating with new housing and towers and I guess group halls were on the roadmap. There are also a few small competitive aspects. But it seems like either they didn't know what the core "endgame" mechanics were going to be or they put off implementing them too long.
Re: Glitch Is Closing
#99The idea of a game company that's venture-backed before shipping anything seems odd to me. The startup world in general is moving toward a hits-driven model, but a game company whose product is only used for entertainment takes this to an extreme. A game like Glitch doesn't solve any problem, and it's not even a generalized tool like Twitter where the problems it enables solving become apparent later. It's simply a g…
Good MMOs are supposed to last for years. Perhaps they pitched it as a "casual WOW".
Re: Glitch Is Closing
#100I'm sad to hear it- it reminded me positively of Castle Infinity, and was the most deeply humane facebook game I ever came in contact with.