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Citizen Zero Canned, Spy MMO Announced

Once it was an MMORPG. Then it was a persistent world online shooter. Now it is so much poo gas, as developer Micro Fort 's crumbles up the 7 year old project and tosses it in the rubbish bin, while their other hand distracts us with news of a top-secret spy themed MMO.

Steve Wang - Head of Studios for Micro Fort commented, "Although we were sad to stop working on CZ, we are extremely excited about the progress of our spy project."

The new MMO looks to "bring the social MMO experience together with game-play that has been traditionally the domain of single player games," which incidentally exactly what the recently launched Heatwave Interactive plans to do. I'm beginning to think what I thought was a great idea is simply a common buzzphrase in the MMO industry. Either way, rest in peace, Citizen Zero.

Micro Fort cancels Citizen Zero project - Announces development underway on new IP.

(Sydney, AUSTRALIA): - Micro Fort , a leading Australian developer of MMOs, today announced that it has cancelled development on the "Citizen Zero" project, with internal development now focused on a top secret spy-themed MMO.

Steve Wang - Head of Studios for Micro Fort commented, "Although we were sad to stop working on CZ, we are extremely excited about the progress of our spy project."

The top secret project has been in production since mid '06 with a core development team working out of Micro Fort 's Australian studio.

"We're not giving too much away at this stage," commented Micro Fort Lead Designer, Paul McInnes, "Obviously our new project is a spy-themed MMO, but it incorporates new game-play elements and technologies that we are really looking forward to delivering to the public."

Steve Wang added, "We are at an exciting crossroads where many new game-play styles and experiences have become possible in virtual world environments. This is a great opportunity for us to leverage our 7 years of development in the MMO space to bring the social MMO experience together with game-play that has been traditionally the domain of single player games."

Micro Fort will be making further announcements in the coming months with a view to showcasing the project toward the end of this year. Micro Fort is currently taking expressions of interest from distribution partners and has already begun discussion with some of the world's leading publishers.

12:40 PM on Thu Mar 1 2007
By Mike Fahey
1,099 views
6 comments

Comments

  • It's a new buzzword because more people are getting tired of the grind of the regular MMO, but the MMO model is still a total cash cow, so, "zomg our mmo is very different like online single player lololol" is going to be stuffed down our throats more and more in the coming days.

  • Image of DaveKap DaveKap at 01:23 PM on 03/01/07 *

    "This is a great opportunity for us to leverage our 7 years of development in the MMO space..."

    I think you have to actually develop a product before you can claim to have any "leverage".

  • I do appreciate the Freakazoid reference, if that's where you got "pooh gas" from.

  • @DaveKap:

    Truth.

    I always wonder about how the programmers fell in these situations. I mean here they are, typing away for 7 years trying to get this product completed when all of a sudden your boss walks in and tells everyone the shows over.

    If i were a programmer i'd be kind of pissed because im sure there were a few deadlines he/she missed that they got in trouble for and even some that they barely squeked by and in the end it was for nothing.

  • The Hotspot this week. Speak of the devil?

  • Image of DaveKap DaveKap at 02:10 PM on 03/01/07 *

    @ArmyofJuan: Depending on the company, either the boss really did spring it on them (unlikely) or they knew this thing was dead 2 years ago and have been simply brushing up on some coding techniques (yeah right) or were already making the spy game, just waiting until it looked feasible before announcing it (most probable).

    I'm sure the developers have gained some valuable experience in their progress, but not enough to be considered 7 years of leverage. If any of the developers were actually experienced, then they probably aren't too phased by having worked on a dead project. All developers face this at some point in their career.

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