RIFT China closing in November

[Talolan]

RIFT China closing in November

According to a translation at MMO Culture, Shanda Games will be shutting down RIFT China on November 15, 2013.

After an unsuccessful push to keep the pay-to-play model alive in China, Shanda cryptically cites "several reasons" as the purpose behind the closure. RIFT's Korean version has fared no better, closing on April 25th of this year, and recent studio closures in San Diego and Europe worry fans of the fantasy MMO.

[Lasarian]

Bear this in mind though, Trion licensed the distribution rights to another company which was in charge of its release, pricing and advertising - even the servers. Trion's only hand in the market was to push the occasional update and I have been unable to verify which version they were running at, but a few pages suggested 2.1 or 2.2.

This story was actually reported back in May by MMO Culture: http://www.mmoculture.com/2013/05/rift- ... r-players/

The publisher in China, Shanda Games only released in March of this year. They stuck to a subscription model that apparently charged by the HOUR of use after level 20, with no other packages available. Thus, this article cites, the equivalent 30 day (unlimited play) subscription cost approximately $58 per month.

This strikes one as outrageous and a fairly reasonable conclusion for the closure of the servers. However, in practical terms, this is an absurd amount of hours - some 725 per month. That assumes being able to play every day, all day, all 24 hours per day, all month long.

The US equivalent of the monthly charge of $15.00 is about 200 hours worth of play per month, or just over 6.5 hours per day.

I think it is far more likely that the burgeoning Gold Farm industry in China viewed RIFT as a potential source of revenue: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/magaz ... d=all&_r=0

But with the change in model from subscription to Free to Play, this made the western market a lot shallower than it used to be.

[Talolan]

Let me fearmonger.

[Talolan]

RIFT is also closing in Russia.

But this time it is because Trion doesn't care and stopped supporting that localization. Most of its Russian users have moved from the Russian version of the game (which was still subscription based) to the European version (which is Free-to-Play like North America).

[HollyCNY]

I know that the majority of Russia is in Asia rather than Europe, but I think this is really just splitting hairs. Does RIFT, or any other MMO for that matter, need that many separate divisions? If Trion shores up its budget by absorbing the Russian division into the European division, and Russian players benefit by being able to use the F2P model, then maybe the closure of RIFT Russia isn't such a bad thing.

I don't know enough about Trion and the day-to-day decisions of its bigwigs, in order to judge either way. But does any MMO need a separate division in Russia if it benefits both the company and player base to simply merge it into the European division?

[Talolan]

Most mmos would have as many region specific versions as possible. The European version doesn't support Russian language, meaning those players have no rift to play anymore.