MechScape Cancelled, Jagex Loses Millions

GamesIndustry.biz brings word from Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard that the company has cancelled MechScape/Stellar Dawn, their sci-fi MMO follow-up to the ever-popular Runescape.  They’ll apparently be able to use the engine for their next project, but word is that the move cost them “tens of millions of pounds”. Ouch!

The decision, he told GamesIndustry.biz, was made in August when the assembled game failed to meet the standards of Jagex’s new CEO and his team.

“Initially the reason for building MechScape was that we would learn all the lessons from RuneScape having run it for around four years at the time.

“It got near completion and we discovered, oops, it didn’t do all of those things that we wanted it to. So we went back to the original design document and said ‘let’s do it again’.”

…

“The previous game wasn’t a game that we want to play. As much as we ended up thinking of it like a baby we were ‘reasonably’ proud of it, we thought it was a good experience and we’d achieved something it wasn’t a game ready for launch.

“It was expensive. I hope never again to have to make the same decision twice. But it was the right decision.”