Wizardry Online

2013 - 2014

dead us

a japanese-developed western revival of the classic sir-tech wizardry dungeon crawl, ported by gamepot and published by SOE in january 2013. the pitch was permadeath: die and roll for a resurrection, fail the roll and lose the character forever. eighteen months later SOE killed the western servers in the same batch as clone wars adventures.

» see soe.com/wizardryonline as it lived, on the wayback machine

~ the last words ~

wizardry online opened its western servers on 30 january 2013. it was a japanese revival of the sir-tech wizardry cRPG series, developed by gamepot in tokyo, published in the west by sony online entertainment. the whole selling point was permadeath. your character could die in a dungeon and never come back. dying gave you a chance at resurrection at a shrine. missing the shrine, or failing the resurrection roll, ended the character.

you could pay real money to SOE for a better resurrection roll. that detail told you exactly what the F2P model was designed to lean on. players who liked the risk tolerated the shrine mechanic. players who did not liked it even less once they found out the ceiling was pay-to-not-die.

i missed this one. the japanese-import permadeath dungeon crawler was a niche of a niche in 2013, and the western launch was english-language SOE stations built for a north american hardcore audience. by 2013 i was working full time in ankara and my MMO years were already behind me. i can read the obit but i cannot pretend i was near it.

~ the record ~

Born	30 January 2013 in NA/EU, based on Gamepot's earlier japanese release
Peak	small dedicated hardcore audience, exact numbers never disclosed by SOE
Killed	31 July 2014, shutdown announced 23 January 2014
Lifespan	1 year 6 months in the west
Made by	Gamepot Inc, published by Sony Online Entertainment
Killed by	SOE cost cuts, too niche for the F2P market it competed in

~ the postmortem ~

on 23 january 2014 SOE producer todd carson announced that wizardry online would close in the west on 31 july 2014. it went in the same shutdown batch as free realms, clone wars adventures and vanguard: saga of heroes. carson gave the reason as needing to refocus resources. the numbers were never public, but eighteen months of a niche permadeath MMO with a paid-resurrection ceiling was clearly not paying its own rent inside SOE.

~ the legacy ~

the japanese version kept running under gamepot for another two years and shut down in july 2016. the western wikipedia article and a handful of retrospective podcasts are what remain. a rogue-server revival appeared briefly in 2021 but did not stay live. the permadeath idea itself has kept mutating: dark souls invasions, tarkov raids, hardcore diablo. wizardry online was one of the few MMOs willing to actually delete your character. that is a design choice that has aged into something people now write essays about.

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visitors before you have left these graveside notes. anonymous welcome.

other gaming: Magic: Legends, Linux for PlayStation 2, Storybook Brawl, General Computer Corporation

also died in 2010-2014: HotFile, Symbian OS, Linux for PlayStation 2

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