Glitch, a massively multi-player online game built by San Francisco-based company Tiny Speck, is to close its doors on December 9th forever. This is a sad day for the company, who managed to build something that was completely unique. Sadly for them, and for all the people who signed up to play it (myself included), it has proved unsustainable. But why did it fail?
The Good of Glitch
The gameplay of Glitch was very, very simple and not all that ground breaking. You created a character then spent time wandering around the massive |Glitch world, completing quests and learning new skills. It’s what every MMO is built around. Where Glitch did break new ground was in the design. Pigs, butterflies, trees and rocks (all of which can talk!), a massively customisable character, the well thought out music, the stunning and sometimes insane scenery all made Glitch a real joy to play and it felt fresh, even if the actual gameplay was not.
There were hundreds of litle touches that made you feel special playing it and even the introduction of an iPhone app so you could continue learning skills even while you weren’t playing was a stroke of genius.
What Tiny Speck did was take a tried and tested concept and apply a sometimes mental but always delicious skin to it. And made it an in browser game, accessible from anywhere. And built a community around it using forums and an auction house. Not to mention spawned a host of third party apps based on the Glitch API.
So where did it all go wrong?
The Bad of Glitch
All true, but the truth is, as they also admit, that the game wasn’t taken up by as many people as they hoped and didn’t make enough money to sustain itself. So much so that even selling it was an unviable option. Really, remaking the game using mobile friendly HTML 5 wasn’t an option simply because the numbers didn’t add up. To be fair, Glitch wouldn’t have translated itself to mobile very well…it would be like playing World of Warcraft on a smartphone. Many want it, but nobody believes it can be done.
The Ugly of Glitch
A game like Glitch requires a multitude of designers, developers and technical experts and with the demise of the game and what amounts to the downsizing of Tiny Speck as a company, many of those talented and creative individuals are now looking for work. This is the dark side of start up failures, the people who end up looking for work. There are no less than 30 of them from Tiny Speck following the closure of the game.
To be fair to Tiny Speck, they have at least tried to get their people into other work.
The company itself will remain, focusing on messaging software and applications with a small team.
It just goes to show how hard it is to be successful online. Glitch was a wonderful, wonderful game with great design, creativity and best of all it worked. As a product it was brilliant. As a saleable product it didn’t.
I’m personally disappointed, I enjoyed playing Glitch. What about you? Did you play? Going to miss it?
