LEGO Universe is coming to an end

Nick Mertes 12 Nov, 2011 at 8:10pm ET Article published in Gaming

It looks as though another awesome online game is calling it quits. After just over two years, LEGO Universe is shutting down at the end of January 2012. Despite very positive feedback and a large number of players in the free play zone, there just haven’t been enough paying customers to keep the game financially viable.

The following message was posted on the LEGO Universe page:

Hello Adventurers,

We are very sad to announce that LEGO Universe will be closing on Janurary 31, 2012. This was a very difficult decision to make, but unfortunately LEGO Universe has not been able to attract the number of members needed to keep the game open.

We are thankful to have had the opportunity to share this adventure wiith an amazing community of players. We hope you will continue to enjoy LEGO Universe for the last few months. As a thank you, if you are a paying subscriber on December 31, 2011, we will provide you the full game for the final month for free. Click here for the details.

Again, we want to thank the fantastic community of players who made LEGO Universe such a vibrant, fun and creative experience.

(You can discuss this article on the message boards)

Sincerely,

The LEGO Universe Team

Unfortunately this also means the closure of Play Well Studios in Louisville, CO and its marketing function in Billund, Denmark. The 115 affected employees will receive assistance finding new jobs inside or outside of the LEGO Group.

Comments

12 Nov 2011 ~ 9:56pm Canti I had no idea such a thing even existed. I would have played this too
12 Nov 2011 ~ 10:15pm Thrax Saw that coming from a mile away.
13 Nov 2011 ~ 12:13am CB This was still on my list of games to try. :/
14 Nov 2011 ~ 1:25pm Bob Saget's Mosin Nagant I was hoping to try this game out at some point. Oh well.....at least The Matrix Online still works......wait a minute...NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
15 Nov 2011 ~ 7:35pm Game Blade too much too soon
20 Dec 2011 ~ 11:07pm BHHammy Didn't have a chance, unfortunately. Price of admission PLUS a monthly fee for a game that's sort-of-ok-kinda-I-guess.

At least it lasted 2 years. I honestly didn't expect it to last this long.

My heart goes out to the guys who are losing their jobs over this, though. That really sucks.

EDIT: WOW, this topic hasn't been posted in, in over a month, and yet it was at the top of the topics thing? That's kind of confusing. Sorry about the mini-necro.
21 Dec 2011 ~ 12:56am Linc Might've been spam that got deleted just as you commented.
21 Dec 2011 ~ 10:09am kryyst It was out for 2 years... that's funny I remember hearing about it and then looking forward to checking it out. I didn't think it had even launched yet. Yeah way to go advertising dept.
21 Dec 2011 ~ 12:03pm CB
It was out for 2 years... that's funny I remember hearing about it and then looking forward to checking it out. I didn't think it had even launched yet. Yeah way to go advertising dept.
The problem was that they didn't know their audience. This has actually been a problem for LEGO for a while, and they are only just now starting to fix it.

Kids might like LEGOs, but the people willing to spend thousands of dollars on plastic bricks are the adults who have fond memories of LEGO from childhood. The ads for LEGO Universe were in children's magazines and children's cartoon shows. If they had shelled out a few bucks for a prime-time television ad, they could have gotten a huge adult user-base. There aren't many children out there who can pay monthly for a video game, but I know a lot of 18-30 yr old single males who would have jumped at the chance to throw money at LEGO for this game, if only they'd known about it.
21 Dec 2011 ~ 1:09pm primesuspect I agree 100% with CB. I played it for a month, and it was deep and engaging, but the servers were empty because kids got bored (or couldn't get mom and dad to pay for it), and actual adult gamers didn't know it existed.
21 Dec 2011 ~ 4:39pm kryyst Hell they even had a free-to-play version around. Again I heard about the game, saw a bit on it a while ago then completely forgot about it and never saw anything on the usual sites that talk about this kind of stuff. Either I missed the 1 day they mentioned it or it was just utterly neglectful of the marketing team to push it. Oh well.
25 Jun 2014 ~ 6:03am Nick Critz
An interesting discussion is worth comment. I think that you should write more on this topic, it might not be a taboo subject but generally people are not enough to speak on such topics. To the next. Cheers