Sony has announced that it will shut down PlayStation VR shooter StarBlood Arena’s servers in July, rendering the game unplayable just two years after its original release. It’s a story that’s becoming increasingly familiar to PlayStation fans, as the platform holder prematurely guts online title after online title – including the incredibly well-liked DriveClub.
In this case, though, developer WhiteMoon Dreams wants to do something about it. While the title was published by the Japanese giant, meaning that the firm is in charge of maintaining its servers, the studio would like to update the release and independently keep it online. “We're still waiting to hear back from [the manufacturer] if they'll allow us to patch it,” CEO Jay Koottarappallil wrote on Reddit last month.
“Sony called earlier to let me know that they were shutting down servers,” he explained. “The call was something along the lines of ‘This is always a very hard time, but it’s time to shut down the servers.’ There wasn’t a whole lot of detail past that. At the very least, we would have liked to have the option to pay for servers ourselves.”
Koottarappallil did admit that the number of people still playing the game is small, despite it being given away to PlayStation Plus members in January 2018. But we’re not happy about the platform holder’s approach to all this – as if it isn’t bad enough that the games are going offline so quickly, surely it should be allowing willing developers to support their titles independently?
[source reddit.com]
Comments 30
If they can support it themselves then why the hell not?
And if Sony says no....whewboy.
I've contacted the developer to see if there's any update from Sony on this.
Sony seem intent on shutting down servers with an active player base to force them into new games
@Stocksy To be fair, the developer does say on this occasion that the playerbase wasn't large. It was tiny at launch, so I'm not overly surprised.
That said, they should have an option to maintain them independently if they want to.
Last I tried to play I found a match easy. I might check again later today, but a game should be online if a match can be found.
i don't think ive ever heard of this game.
If it wasn’t 1st Party I’d just say find a way to port it to other platforms
Sadly even been a Plus game doesn't guarantee success. This, Drawn to Death and Dead Star were Plus games at launch but failed to gain any significant player base.
@AdamNovice Starblood Arena wasn't a plus game at launch.
@NintenGuy My bad, yeah it was later on.
@KingdomHeartsFan Tbh though realistically what can they say? The game hasn't sold, not enough people are playing so we're left with no choice. It'll be hard to take for the devs but in business they just got to say the way things are.
You should totally be able to maintain your own game if you wish too and can fund it. Hopefully Sony does the right thing here. They havent been getting the best publicity lately regarding servers lol
@KingdomHeartsFan I admit then communication can be better. I think it's a legacy of them losing some of the more approachable people in the community, Adam Boyes for example. I also think Kinda Funny stopping PS I Love You was a blow too cos they provided a more direct link between the core fanbase and the key people.
Sony and online don't mix sadly
@AdamNovice It's all good. I still have my copy of Starblood sealed in my backlog. 😬
@KingdomHeartsFan They do praise Sony as well, admitting that the game probably wouldn’t exist without them. So it’s not black and white.
I couldnt play this sadly. I tried the demo before it came to plus and it just gave me awful motion sickness
Is Sony deliberately trying to make itself look bad as this gen comes to a close? When you look at how Sony and Microsoft were perceived back in 2013, it's like a total reversal of roles now.
I feel bad for the StarBlood Arena devs. I'm sure they put a lot of work into the game, and at the flick of a switch Sony will render it completely unplayable soon. That's not right.
@3MonthBeef I got awsome games all my Firstparty titles where the best somehow. I think the PS4 brought me so many great games. Singleplayer is my thing so i dont care about online.
I guess Sony will not be pushing social gaming on the next PlayStation, This is very sad I wanted it to grow and allow me to play single player games but still be connected to friends. Games like DriveClub with its challenge system. Knack shared treasure finds. Diablo with its Nemesis that would jump into friends game. The many games that have friends leader boards. This was a big reason for my PS4 purchase.
A game like this was never likely to 'popular' regardless of whether or not it was a PS+ game. The game is 2yrs old and a VR title so those 2 points would make this a 'niche' title with an incredibly small target audience. When ever it was offered free on PS+, it had a very limited sector of the PS community that could actually play it.
At best, a lot of PS+ subscribers may have added it to the downloadable library of games, just in case they do get a VR headset but the number of gamers that have a VR Headset and enjoy this genre of game isn't going to be large. 2yrs ago, it was selling to a very small percentage of Playstation gamers too so was never going to be 'massive' online. The first few playing it online that get bored and drop out only o be replaced by the 'new' VR headset owners with this game etc...
That being said, I was really shocked to see that AAA games are being closed off. I really couldn't believe it and then to hear that a lot of sports games are only online if they are the current iteration. its unbelievable! I honestly don't want this to be trolling but in a week that MS announce an online OG XB game is coming to Games with Gold - with its MP functional (as are all the other BC games). You can't imagine that all these games are heavily populated - not only are they old they competing with all the newer online games for peoples time, the numbers of Xbox gamers is a lot less too. However they are still functional - although whether or not you find others playing the game you want is a different matter...
Does make you wonder whether BC will come to PS5 and if it does, what games will be playable and to what degree. Is it worth making games like Drive Club BC if half the game is shut down?
Really like Drive Club. Will miss the online functions. 😟
@Acquiescence Ultimately, it's gamers who rejected it, not Sony.
Couldn't they just implement some kind of online solution that doesn't need any servers to work?? Like some kind of LAN tunneling that you have on PC with applications like 'Hamachi' and other similar ones.
@Acquiescence in all honesty this probably wont hurt Sony much at all. Your average gamer wont even know this happened.
I honestly don't get the fuss most of the time. If the game is dead then what's the point in server upkeep. At worst give the Devs a chance to patch their own servers or allow peer to peer matchmaking but otherwise why waste energy and money on dead servers.
That's disgusting, I've bought it but not played it yet
They need to state what the online support period is for games when purchasing them, if they need to say 'will be revised in 12 months or 24 months' then fine, they can't just say oh it's off in 3 months.
@Bad-MuthaAdebisi I really doubt that will ever happen! I went out to find all of the Just Dances only to have 3 out of the 5 that I bought close their servers within weeks of my purchase!
In all honesty, I know it’s a different ball game, but this is where the ‘digital’ gaming world is headed! Games will become obselete once they are removed from servers/online stores. Look at PT!
I only buy physical games, and will miss out if I can’t get a disc!
You know what games don't have these issues? Games with an offline mode O_O
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