The vagueness makes it seem like there was a contract dispute which both parties could not resolve.
While I don’t like to use the official forums as a surefire indicator, the lack of recent activity is never a good sign. Still, Gameforge manages to keep de-populated games running so long as they are making enough to eek out a small operating profit.
The last time I played GoE was during Gameforge’s open beta soft launch in early 2019 where very little had been done to address the clunky movement and combat. The game has had a rocky tenure when it was previously published by Insel Games (which was run by former Gamigo CEO Patrick Streppel) where sales of it was eventually suspended from Steam due to review manipulation across several of the titles that Insel had on Steam. The game servers continued to operate for Steam players but Insel had to find other methods of selling it (the game was buy to play).
Eventually, the game changed hands to a holding company of sorts (MMO Rewards) before Gameforge picked up the publishing rights and relaunched it as a free to play title. Through all of this, the players character data was maintained (as much as I have a lot of negative things to say about Gameforge’s business model, they have shown a consistent attitude towards migrating character data whenever possible; a good thing for players).
It will be interesting to see what Runewaker’s next step will be with this game (like if it will end up being an asset flip; I can see this being peddled off to Gamigo IF Runewaker is willing to accept a lower payout and revenue sharing agreement).
Regardless, another isometric MMO-ARPG bites the dust (condolences to those who actually liked the game and will be sticking it out until the end).
