A few hours ago, Fantastic Pixel Castle Studio Head and Game Director Greg Street revealed via LinkedIn that the company's debut game, the fantasy MMORPG codenamed Ghost, is in serious danger. That's because NetEase, which had provided the initial funding, has decided to pull the plug. Both NetEase and Fantastic Pixel Castle have been looking for another publisher, but with the current market conditions, it's a very challenging proposition.
That's why Greg Street admitted that team members are already being encouraged to 'explore future opportunities' (that means looking at new jobs):
If we're unable to find a publisher soon, the reality is that the studio would likely close, and the entire team, leadership included, would be affected. We want to thank the Ghost community, our playtesters, and the literally hundreds of people who have given us advice on how to find funding in this absurdly challenging time for our industry. I hope you all will have a chance to play Ghost. I also want to thank the FPC team who has made a game that we all should be proud of. I know it's cliche to say this, but demonstrably this is the best team I have ever worked with.
We interviewed Greg Street (previously, the Lead Systems Designer of World of Warcraft between 2008 and 2013) a couple of years ago, and the designer opened up on the upcoming MMO. The main twist of Ghost was supposed to be that players could hop between public 'Red' Shards, more akin to regular MMOs, and private 'Blue' Shards, which at first were supposed to offer survival elements but were then redesigned to support roguelike elements.
Fantastic Pixel Castle is not the only developer to suffer from NetEase pulling the plug; it already happened with T-Minus Zero, a studio formed by former BioWare and Bethesda veterans, as well as other projects canceled earlier this year.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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