In my posting regarding En Masse Entertainment’s impending closure of Kritika Online, I briefly mentioned that Breach (a game in Steam Early Access where it is being handled by QC Games) but would be published by EME as a F2P once it launches out of early access, would likely end up (being closed) like ZMR and A.V.A. (titles that EME previously published) down the road. Note that the “partnership” during the early access period has the game freely available via the En Masse Launcher while early access on Steam is paid (and handled directly by QC Games).
Well, it seems the game isn’t going to even escape early access since the developer, QC Games has noted they will be winding down their internal operations. While there is no word on EME’s Breach landing page (EME sold Founder’s Packs and early access bundles), there is a vague message regarding what this will mean for the future of the game on QC Games sites (probably to work out those details with EME). This is another one of those cases where common sense should dictate the answer though. The game is DEAD when the developer is wrapping up their business operations (and without any word regarding another developer taking over the IP).
This would be yet another black eye for EME (proper vetting of a development studio for one; hopefully their contract has terms that covers early termination resulting from business operation issues by both parties). I’ve noted numerous times now that EME as a publisher is skating on very thin ice (given the sink or swim nature of what used to be known as the Bluehole Alliance). As the sole non developer and publisher in the KRAFTON Game Union, they do not have much to offer that alliance (more so when PUBG was self-published and is also the direction MISTOVER is taking) besides having an office presence which personnel directly associated with those projects, can utilize.
Part of this self-publishing (in some regions) was due to PUBG Corporations predecessor (before the name/focus change) Bluehole Ginno, being overpromised by Trion Worlds (Trion sold Bluehole Ginno on the idea of being a partner that would market their titles globally using their Glyph platform). Once Trion launched Devilian though, they made an executive decision to downsize the Devilian team just 6 months later (dismissing the associate producer who handled most all of the early technical and game design discussions with Bluehole Ginno designers).
The Bluehole subsidiary eventually reached a point where they had to look outside Devilian when even the mobile version (published globally be GAMEVIL) failed to garner a continued stream of revenue (which is when then Devilian executive producer and Bluehole Ginno Project Director Chang Han Kim who was later named CEO of PUBG Corp, pitched the idea of a battle royale game while tapping a modder (Brendan Greene) to lead what would eventually become PUBG (hiring him as creative director at Bluehole Ginno). More background info here, here, and here. PUBG ended up becoming wildly successful during early access (well beyond what Bluehole and Bluehole Ginno expected) and put the company on the map while also giving the company a second revenue stream (eventually surpassing TERA).
Given Bluehole Ginno’s less than stellar experience with Trion Worlds, that was a key driver in deciding to self-publish PUBG in the west on Steam (though they did leverage EME and it’s Seattle based office for doing things like testing, marketing support, etc since they are still a subsidiary of Bluehole/Krafton). Since independent operations was always a key facet of the Bluehole Alliance, that same trait is also still an important aspect of the KRAFTON Game Union. So EME will not necessarily see preference given to publish any of the PC titles that are being developed at Krafton (like how Krafton has decided to also self-publish MISTOVER).
EME’s biggest revenue generator is TERA (NA only for PC and NA/EU for console) and they’ve been doing an exceptionally poor job managing their part of the game (especially the PC version for NA) since 2016ish. The publisher will more than likely be down to publishing just two titles, Closers and TERA (PC NA and NA/EU console) while facing challenges at increasing the player base (new plus retention) and associated revenue stream from each of those, while also looking to publisher other titles (which does not come cheap).
There were a lot of cash grab style promotions during 2018 and I expect that to now increase in 2019. At least with TERA on the PC, this could not come at a worse time for EME given the grindy nature of the level 70 update (K-TERA has been suffering from player attrition due to these type of design decisions dating back to the preceding gear revamp; they merged down to one single server when rolling out patch 80). EME will likely have to end up merging their PvP and PvE servers in the future if they maintain their hands off approach when it comes to managing events to try to offset the grindy design being pursued by the current TERA development team.
As far as Breach goes for EME, the company is no longer equipped to handle internal development (like if they were considering continuing to run Breach via some type of agreement with QC Games) of this sort of magnitude since the company eliminated those in-house technical positions years ago. EME really just needs to bite the bullet and refund players packs/early access payments, and maybe begin to pull out the stops at doing a better job managing their two live games (I’m more realistic though and not counting on that to happen). Else, we could one day be hearing a story about Krafton deciding to pull the plug on EME.
