Wagner James Au / New World Notes

Well this is seriously sucky news: 

Today, we are announcing the closure of the Dual Universe MMO server. It is with a heavy heart from all of us here on the Dual Universe team and at Novaquark to tell you that the Dual Universe MMO server will be sunsetting on Wednesday, August 27th, 2025 at 14:00 UTC.

Longtime readers will remember how excited I was about Dual Universe, at least in terms of its technical and conceptual ambition. In ancient times (by which I mean 2018), I was even vibing on the possibility that Dual Universe was the closest to becoming the Metaverse with a capital M.

I'm reaching out to lead creator J.C. Baillie, to find out what happened. The project was originally funded as a successful Kickstarters with over 8000 backers, so I thought it would (at minimum) succeed as an Eve Online-like niche MMO. Then again, Eve is still going relatively strong, as is Star Citizen. My general rule of thumb is still that science fiction-themed MMOs rarely get massive; the only one that's attracted over 1 million subscribers was Star Wars: The Old Republic. (Which is, you know, Star Wars; also, even that MMO quickly lost that subscriber base.) Raph Koster has told me that he's done surveys suggesting there is a demand for sci-fi-themed MMOs, but the jury's still out on that question — we'll have another proof point when Raph's Stars Reach officially launches.

Anyway, there is a hopeful glimmer in the impending death of Dual Universe — it may be revived as an open source community project:

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