Say It Ain’t So: Tabula Rasa Shutting Down

Fri, Nov 21, 2008

After only one year on the market, Tabula Rasa, the science fiction MMORPG from developer NCsoft, has announced it will be shutting down its service on February 28, 2009. According to a statement made on the Tabula Rasa news page by the TR development team, the game’s poor performance is the primary reason for the shut down:

Tabula Rasa has some unique features that make it fun and very different from every other MMO out there. Unfortunately, the fact is that the game hasn’t performed as expected. The development team has worked hard to improve the game since launch, but the game never achieved the player population we hoped for.

Normally requiring a monthly subscription, the final month and a half of the Tabula Rasa service will be made free to play on all servers, starting January 10, 2009. If you’re already a Tabula Rasa subscriber, the TR team is offering a thank-you gift for your loyalty. If you were an active player as of 10AM Pacific this morning (November 21st) you’re eligible for:

3 free months of City of Heroes including digital client
3 free months of Lineage II including digital client
Aion beta access (coming soon)
Aion pre-order access (available in 2009)
1 free month of Aion including digital client (available in 2009)

Keep your eyes on your inbox if you’re already a subscriber, you should be receiving a notice from NCsoft regarding your thank-you gift. If you’ve already paid for a subscription beyond the January 10th free zone, you can expect a refund from NCsoft before the end of February.

David Swofford, a spokesman for NCsoft, confirmed to Kotaku that there will by lay-offs associated with the Tabula Rasa shutdown: “We’re going to be scaling down the TR team in preparation for the end of live service. But for now [...], we currently don’t know how many people will be affected by that.” News of the shut-down and lay-offs comes only days after Richard “General British” Garriott announced he would be leaving NCsoft and only a month after NCsoft announced the consolidation of its U.S. and European subsidiaries to form NC West, a move that resulted in lay-offs in the product development department of the company’s UK office.