Gangs of Space was our child and became the prison of our hopes. Gangs of Space was a stroke of madness that arrived one day, or maybe a night, in Tokyo in the middle of an amusement arcade full of Shmup classics! Gangs of Space it was quite an adventure! You have understood, it is with great regret that we announce today the upcoming closure of Gangs of Space.

Closing schedule

• November 30, 2018: commercial closure (end of the sale of the DLC).
• May 31, 2019: official servers and support closed.

And after ? Total blackout? We will see, but we can not guarantee anything and in any case, it will be outside of Steam.

Why do we close?

Maybe one day Erhune will have the courage to do a long post-mortem on the dev and the reasons for the end of Gangs of Space, but by then we will try to give you the main reasons:

• No money! After all these years of work on Gangs of Space, the launch in Early Access and the reception of tens of thousands of players, we have never been able to pay us, not even a beer or a restaurant nothing at all! We had made the choice to reinvest everything to self-finance the dev of the game (software, assets, hosting / server, freelance, administration, etc ). How did we manage to stay that long without going crazy? Maybe we already were ?!
• No founding! But as it was not enough, we tried to find investors to finish GoS in V1, but even with a well advanced game and 70,000 players it was too risky for them.
• No communication! Its simple, in 2018 (and also in 2017), to talk about your game in the media, the norm is that you have to pay or that everyone is already talking about you Totally despairing when you still want to make different games that nobody wants to finance.

No more energy! In the end, all this consumed our ultimate energy reserves. We will have tried many things (probably not as good as those who will give us advice) but now it was time to move on.

Commercial closure?

Because we do not want to sell a service that you do not really have time to use at your convenience, we prefer to close the purchase of DLC after this announcement. This allows us to provide another 6 months of service for the last irreducible who would still like to enjoy a DLC Gangs of Space. And we promise you, this time the money of subscribers who will take a DLC will only serve one thing: to pay us a beer and a good restaurant!

Thanks

After all these years we met many people without whom this project could not have gone so far and we wish to thank:b

• First of all, thank you to the family! These relatives who have supported us all these years without understanding our determination to finish GoS. With them no judgment, no advice, but listening, love, and the good dishes of our mothers who comfort so much in times of doubt.
• Right after, there is YOU, you the 70,000 players! From a few minutes to a few years, you played and participated with determination! Your feedback has been decisive in the evolution of the game. To have made a game that will have you passionate, amused, relaxed, raging, will be our greatest pride forever. Thank you 70,000 times!
  • And thanks to those active members of the community who are especially involved at all levels, wiki, moderation, community pillars, passionate evening streamers, etc (no names for no jealous, but you will recognize ;-D)
• -oTo-, our composer who has held all these years and whose work we loved.
• Thanks to Aganon, Skywilly, Bestio and Seldell, from the websites Jeuxonline, Game Side Story et Indiemag. If the journalists and the Streamers were all like them, there is no doubt that you will not play at all the same way and many creators would have a greater chance to live from their work and offer you original games!
• Thanks to the creators of Unity, the transition from Flash to this software has really changed our life and allowed a gigantic qualitative leap for GoS.
• And finally thank you to all the devs, friends, some streamers, visitors on a show, star (like Richard Garriot or Zun) who have some day participated in their advice, their help, to make Gangs of Space.

Come and sign the big guestbook!

The closing of an MMO is always a special moment, it is the opportunity for the old players to nostalgically recall their best memories. For the occasion, two Golden Books are open on our official forum where you are invited to come and tell what GoS was for you, your memories, your anecdotes, even a screenshot?

• Guestbook Gangs of Space [english]
• Guestbook Gangs of Space [french]

MINI FAQ

Why is the game not open source?

• This is a good question and we have studied the possibility but it is a big job. There are more legal reasons because we would not have the right to open some code blocks. In short, it is very complex.

Why was the game not sold? Users have value no?

• An MMO that is not finished is very complicated to sell, its not like a solo game. It will be necessary to put hands in the code, take care of the servers, etc. So unless you have a huge community or a big marketing buzz around the project, nobody wants to get wet.

All hope is lost forever?

• It is almost certain that neither Erhune nor Grouroux will ever work on Gangs of Space again. On the other hand if one day a serious team wishes to work on Gangs of Space and shows us that it has the capacity, one will study it with the greatest care.

[ 2018-11-26 09:10:08 CET ] [ Original post ]