Being a subscription game run by a small development studio is not an easy thing in todays gaming market, and Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising developer Heatwave Interactive is another developer that has fallen on hard times. In the latest State of the Republic message to players, it was revealed that the MMORPG has yet to make even close to enough money to recuperate the cost of developing it.
Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising is exceptionally important to Heatwave and it was a massive undertaking that was underfunded, under resourced and entering a difficult market. Despite all that, through herculean effort the team was able to get the game to a playable state and work through some difficult launch issues.
Regardless, the game did not perform at launch and has never even come close to paying for the cost of bringing it to market, much less the cost of keeping a team developing it for nine-months. Weve had a wonderfully committed but very small community of players who have continued to support us despite the difficulty the game has encountered.
Heatwave Interactives executive team has been in discussion with several partners since August to try and secure additional funding to continue work on the game and deliver a successful free-to-play transition. Unfortunately, the lack of additional funding forced Heatwave to either release the development team or find another way to keep them around. The good news is that it looks like theyve done that by assigning a majority of the development team to other projects. The bad news is that its left Gods & Heroes without much of a development team for the time being.
To be honest, Ive driven the company to the brink several times in an effort to keep the team together and to keep Gods and Heroes operating. However, at the end of 2011, it was clear that we would either have to let the team go, or find another way to keep them around. So, in order to keep the game alive and have a real chance at getting the free 2 play effort funded, weve reassigned the majority of the development team to new projects and made the service free for everyone.
Despite the current lack of additional funding, Heatwave has stated that they have no intention of shutting the game down, and that keeping it running is not an issue.
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