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EA Terminates Development Of MOBA Dawngate, Service Ends In 90 Days
Update: EA has responded to our inquiry regarding Waystone's fate. It seems the developer is being disbanded.
"We’re making every effort to relocate people to new assignments within EA," a representative told us via email. Unfortunately, this does not rule out the possibility of layoffs.
Original Story:
EA is getting out of the MOBA business, at least for now. In May 2013, EA and Waystone announced the initiative. In 90 days, that service will come to a close as development has ceased.
According to Matt Bromberg, group general manager, Dawngate’s beta lasted eighteen months, with six of those open to the general public. “Through that time, we’ve taken a lot of feedback from players and delivered lots of new features and innovations,” he writes. “And although the game has grown, we’re not seeing the progress we’d hoped for. This isn’t the outcome we wanted, but beta testing is about learning and improving, and ultimately, about making difficult decisions about how to proceed.”
Players will receive a full refund for any money spent on the game. Bromberg says those should be processed within the next 10 business days. Those players who do not have a payment method on file with EA and Waystone will need to initiate the refund process via help.ea.com.
EA has confirmed the authenticity of the statement that appears on Reddit. The Dawngate website currently appears to be experiencing difficulty.
[Source: Reddit]
Our Take
MOBAs are tricky to get right, and the market is becoming exceedingly crowded. If EA didn’t see the revenue potential it once did and Dawngate wasn’t drawing a player base to support the ongoing development and maintenance MOBAs require, this was the correct choice.
The only question left is what happens to Waystone. We’ve inquired with EA about the studio’s future.
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