The MOBA. It’s a fairly new game genre, young, hopeful and ripe for business. Just about everybody in the industry is getting into the MOBA scene, with a dozen new games on the way by the time you read this sentence finished. One company that isn’t sticking around for this inevitable bubble to burst however? EA, who are cancelling development on their own in-house project, Dawngate.
Count ‘em down, because in the next 90 days Dawngate will be no more. Developed by EA and Waystone, Dawngate would have been a MOBA with an unparalleled level of customisation, or something along those lines when it was detailed at E3. At that point in the year, I was already distracted by the donuts on the table in front of me as the game was being detailed during the E3 EA press conference.
“We’re making every effort to relocate people to new assignments within EA,” a representative told Game Informer, confirming the shut down of Dawngate. If you’re one of the players who has spent the last six months testing out the beta, then there’s some good news for you at least. EA will be refunding any purchases made in the game within the next couple of days.
Dawngate has been in development now for quite some time, with the beta lasting several months as group general manager Matt Bromberg told GI. “Through that time, we’ve taken a lot of feedback from players and delivered lots of new features and innovations,” he wrote.
And although the game has grown, we’re not seeing the progress we’d hoped for. This isn’t the outcome we wanted, but beta testing is about learning and improving, and ultimately, about making difficult decisions about how to proceed.
I’m not exactly surprised. As I said, the market is starting to become flooded with MOBA titles, with everyone aching for a piece of that lucrative pie that has made games such as LoL and DOTA 2 so baffingly popular. And if EA is seeing zero possibility in it recouping development, maintenance and content costs, then that could be a sign that this genre isn’t ready yet for so many new players to enter the field.
Last Updated: November 5, 2014
Lord Chaos
November 5, 2014 at 09:32
Haven’t tried one, doubt I ever will.
MakeItLegal
November 5, 2014 at 09:58
said the same once , i ve been playing dota 2 now , i am level 20 with about 200 hrs behind me … whats cool is like , the depth about the game , learning dota 2 is a fun experience , takes time and effort and it never ends . the match making is spot on ( mostly) , now and then u gana get thumped hard by better players and shitty team work .
my point ?
take one for a spin , play against bots 🙂
Lord Chaos
November 5, 2014 at 09:59
Perhaps one day when the backlog is smaller.
Kensei Seraph Forget Terra
November 5, 2014 at 10:15
So basically never.
MakeItLegal
November 5, 2014 at 11:13
humble bundle catching up ?
Matthew Holliday
November 5, 2014 at 11:39
dotas cool like that.
Ive got 2000 hours in it, not including Warcraft dota, and im still learning.
when you have a group of friends who are all similarly skilled, the games get really fun.
vicky john
November 5, 2014 at 12:04
well said. same thing doing in league of legends
z1n
November 5, 2014 at 09:38
The problem with MOBAs is that they can end up being a ‘blackhole’ kind of game (see what I did there). There’s so much to learn it sucks you in. This is also one of the draw-cards though as you can tout your in-depth knowledge of the game and skillZ. This creates a loyalty to whichever MOBA you started with (why waste all that time spent learning the game) and it’s difficult for new MOBAs to pull existing MOBA players.
Matthew Holliday
November 5, 2014 at 10:00
“black hole” wasnt emphasised enough, toby would be sad.
z1n
November 5, 2014 at 11:27
Haha. Well Toby hasn’t been performing as well lately. Some say it’s the meta. Some blame it on SirActionSlacks. I think we all secretly know it’s because Puppey left Na’Vi so he just can’t BLAAAAACKHOOOOLE the same way without feeling the pain.
Matthew Holliday
November 5, 2014 at 11:39
coincidently, the biggest “BLACK HOOOOOOOLE” Ive heard from him was for Light of Heaven when he was playing #4 for navi instead of puppy at TI1.
the meta has been boring for ages now though, these early game centric skirmishes and push based plays are too polished, its all too clinical. I want dirty improv fights.
I want valve to open the game wide up, bring back the wombos and the dendi rubick plays like TI2.
TI3 meta had a good balance between player skill and viewer investment, TI4 was way too static. “have mission, execute mission, win game.” or “have mission, fail execution, call GG 20 minutes into the last game of the finals.”
z1n
November 5, 2014 at 12:02
Yeah that was ages ago. I even remember him going mad when Dendi was on Enigma and got a game changing black hole. The casters really make a big difference to spectating.
The meta is still figuring itself out I think. 6.81 was amazing IMO, it was just during TI that things got stale. Perhaps it’s cause so much money was on the line that the teams were trying to play too safe and the 5man deathball was the only real meta. My big problem with 6.82 (up to ‘c’ so far) is that it’s taken away a lot from the early game. All these early aggressive strats are dead. And they provided for so many exciting games. Look at TI3 with Chen/Ench getting picked up so often. It seemed to create a sense of unpredictability and the ‘comeback mechanic’ was just whether the team could be creative and surprise the enemy. So we saw varied drafts and play from the teams and even though there was r[A]t, it wasn’t the be all and end all.
I think Newbee really crushed in the finals. I can’t take anything away from them. It’s not as nice for spectators obviously but hey sometimes the Kiwis beat the Wallabies by a huge margin, it happens. Even after TI4 the 6.81 pro games were great to watch and had much variety. The pool of tier 1 teams also seems to have increased which may be a factor (especially with all these roster changes). I guess we have to wait for TI5 to see how things pan out.
Matthew Holliday
November 5, 2014 at 12:31
Dendis enigma was lol, puppy was like “this is what youre going to play” and dendi was all like “pls puppy no, il be bad” and he was rly bad, got first blooded, missed his first 3 black holes entirely, but as Loda says, it only takes one teamfight to win, and they got that.
chen and enchantress were picked up for the buff to solo exp and pushing power, the gangs from them were just standard support rotations. the experience gain has changed 2 or 3 times since then that promoted early fighting, which is sorta still there.
puppys a big fan of picking whats broken and using that specific advantage to win, he would sacrifice everything to make use of what was broken, made for exciting dota. safe lane and mid both losing, so puppy comes out of the bush 5 mins in a level ahead of all the other supports, with 4 bush creeps and wins the lane.
same how he abused BH, alch and batrider when they were buffed.
Newbee winning was fine, it was a nice come back story being dropped to the lower bracket so early, its just how they won it. it was boring dota, safe picks, safe plays, no surprises, was dota by numbers, they just completed their mission.
Caden
November 5, 2014 at 11:42
Was it a “5 MAN BLAAAAACKHOLE”?
z1n
November 5, 2014 at 12:06
Well in this country that happens a lot 😮 But in all seriousness the loudness of “BLAAAACKHOOOLE” is directly proportional to the number of enemy players caught [n], so that would mean BH = n*Toby. The math is legit.
Ghost In The Rift
November 5, 2014 at 09:39
EA used cancel,its very effective(whoa deja vu)
Kensei Seraph Forget Terra
November 5, 2014 at 09:40
Colonel Mustard in the study with a pool.
Hammersteyn
November 5, 2014 at 09:40
rofl
Lord Chaos
November 5, 2014 at 09:43
Why would you have a pool in the study? All that splashing will get the books wet.
Kensei Seraph Forget Terra
November 5, 2014 at 09:44
I’m just going to assume you’re being deliberately obtuse.
Lord Chaos
November 5, 2014 at 09:46
😀
Alien Emperor Trevor
November 5, 2014 at 09:59
Why do you hate books?
Kensei Seraph Forget Terra
November 5, 2014 at 10:15
You have obviously not seen my room if you think I even so much as mildly dislike books.
My room looks a bit like this: http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/fb/24/9a/fb249a3fc245d3291a2ff8ed1f7c5fb2.jpg
Hammersteyn
November 5, 2014 at 09:42
My my, is that V from V for Vendetta (the film) in the left hand side?
Kensei Seraph Forget Terra
November 5, 2014 at 09:43
Remember, remember!
The fifth of November,
The Gunpowder treason and plot;
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!
Admiral Chief 0
November 5, 2014 at 10:33
Never forget
Lord Chaos
November 5, 2014 at 09:44
Damnit, no to search all the other articles.
Kensei Seraph Forget Terra
November 5, 2014 at 09:46
now*
Also, please check the tags while you are at it.
Lord Chaos
November 5, 2014 at 09:46
Found the one in GTA V article. 😀
Hammersteyn
November 5, 2014 at 09:46
Found two on the others already 😀
Alien Emperor Trevor
November 5, 2014 at 10:04
Poor Martha, musta be so sad that the moba is a no-ba.
Matthew Holliday
November 5, 2014 at 10:20
“ripe for business”
Anyone still playing Dead Island Epidemic?
Anyone still playing strife?
anyone playing heart of the storm with any kind of vigor?
Martin du Toit
November 5, 2014 at 10:48
“I’m not questioning your powers of observation, I’m merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is.”
AWW YEAHHH
November 13, 2014 at 07:08
EA being EA, being greedy and stuff