Buffy/Firefly MMO developer closes its doors

By Fred Dutton Published 4 January, 2012

Unfinished TV tie-ins follow Multiverse to its grave.

The developer behind planned Firefly and Buffy The Vampire Slayer MMOs has gone to the wall before either game ever saw the light of day.

As reported by Massively, California-based Multiverse ceased operations last month.

Founded back in 2004, the company never actually released a commercial title, with its only tangible video game output being two Flash-based promotional titles for McDonalds and Coca Cola.

Its primary focus was its Multiverse Platform - a technology system aimed at reducing the costs of making online games.

It announced plans to release a Firefly MMO back in 2006, and a Buffy MMO in 2008. Movie director James Cameron sat on its board of advisors, with a Titanic MMO project apparently also planned at one time.

A message on the developer's website blamed its closure on the Platform's inability to "achieve a profitable business model."

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About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (20) Latest comment 5 months ago

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  • Kami #1 5 months ago

    Shame, as a Firefly MMO is something I would pay money for.

    But I guess this was the only destiny for a company that hasn't released a commercial product in 7 years. There's only so much money people are willing to throw your way... regardless of the licences in your portfolio...

  • Discalceaterabbit #2 5 months ago

    Who would have thought that releasing products would be such an important part of achieving a "profitable buisness model"

  • Kami #3 5 months ago

    @Discalceaterabbit; We can always ask Tim Langdell for pointers...

    Too soon?!

  • PearOfAnguish #4 5 months ago

    How was a Titanic MMO supposed to have worked?

    A world full of Titanics floating about with +1 hull of iceberg invulnerability? Or perhaps instanced Titanics with players as divers fending off sharks and jellyfish to loot jewels.

  • Vyggo #5 5 months ago

    If I understand it correctly, they were working on two mmo's at the same time? Not even Bioware or Blizard are that ambitious (read: stupid).

  • Fox89 #6 5 months ago

    "A message on the developer's website blamed its closure on the Platform's inability to "achieve a profitable business model.""

    Yeah, unfortunately not releasing any video games will tend to do that to a developer... A real shame, as I would have loved to see how both of those titles turned out.
    Edited by Fox89 at 05/01/12 @ 00:02

  • KanePaws #7 5 months ago

    It's a shame, too, because with the experience of "two Flash-based promotional titles for McDonalds and Coca Cola" behind them, the company could have added so much to gaming as a whole!

  • Gunder #8 5 months ago

    It's hard to believe that a Joss Whedon property didn't really go anywhere.

  • tinyspark #9 5 months ago

    Firefly's cancelled??

  • technotica #10 5 months ago

    We should be thankful, if those games had been released they would probably have been horrible. At least the Firefly and Buffy universes are spared that.

  • levitate #11 5 months ago

    Titanic MMO? Isn't that the title of Blizzard's new MMO? :p

  • ShiftyGeezer #12 5 months ago

    Firefly would be a great universe for an MMO. So would Babylon 5. Makes you wonder in this age of spinoffs and sequelitus why cashing in on these IPs isn't of interest.

  • dagas #13 5 months ago

    Joss Whedon doesn't have much luck. Apart from Buffy everything he has been involved with has been cancelled before it was finished. It's a shame since Firefly and Buffy are some of my favorite TV shows so I might have liked the games. I would ask for a Dollhouse MMO if I didn't know that would be cancelled as well.

  • mr_pink #14 5 months ago

    It doesn't sound like a great business plan to start off with. While Buffy/FF fans are quite dedicated and vocal, let's be honest, there's not that many of them. A Titanic MMO is just a terrible concept in its own right.

  • BigDannyH #15 5 months ago

    A few years back I think everyone thought an MMO was an easy way to print money.

    Turns our that Blizzard are actually great at making games and the market for take-over-your-life MMOs is pretty much just the people who play WoW.

  • Subdominator #16 5 months ago

    @ShiftyGeezer Because they are dead IPs. There is no money in IPs that are five years old or even twenty in the case of B5. If you want to work with the IP do a singleplayer game. For an MMO you need a very strong active fanbase of 2 million and more - because only a minority of those will actually be interested in an MMO.

    You've got it backwards, the reason why we get so many sequels mis because publishers need to keep awareness for their IPs up. These days you can't release a game every two or three years and expect the IP to grow. Just look at the most successful games. And then compare their sales to established IPs that come out every two years and you'll see that those are having a much harder time.

    It's not about cashing in, it's about keeping IPs alive so your company is worth more money. It's often referred to as milking, but that is a negative thing. Milking a franchise suggest you make as much money from it as you possibly can - but publishers think ahead about five years. They want to keep their IPs. And not milk them so everybody's sick of them.

  • ShiftyGeezer #17 5 months ago

    @Subdominator : Except every new MMO is based on new IP, with zero install base. May as well ride the coat-tails of an existing franchise with lots of potential like B5 than create a new space IP with zero interest at launch.

  • peppergomez #18 5 months ago

    A Firefly-themed project cancelled in its infancy- you don't say!

  • Kropotkin #19 5 months ago

    So here's a company that was founded when World of Warcraft was all conquering and some people managed to get some venture capital investment for an MMO development studio. 7 years later and they go to the wall with nothing to show for it. How utterly short sighted can you get?

  • bob_d #20 5 months ago

    They were never really an MMO development studio, their focus was always on the MMO middleware tools. Originally they got the Firefly MMO rights, with the intention of licensing them to an actual development studio on the condition that they use the Multiverse "engine." Problem is, their tools were terrible - as far as I know, none of the company's founders had ever even worked on an MMO, much less released one. The engine and tools were completely unusable (which is why no game has been released using their middleware, despite it being available for free). Since they couldn't get anyone else to use their tools, they decided to do a Buffy MMO themselves. But they didn't have the expertise, tools or money needed to do so. They made a fewer efforts to reinvent the company based on other technology (that no one wanted, either), but it was pretty much doomed years ago.