kartooner

The Cyan Worlds web site reports that URU Live is offi­cially dead. That’s right, due to lack of sub­scribers the online por­tion of Ages Beyond Myst has been canned.

In their own words:

Even with all of the time, money, resources, code, peo­ple, sweat, and heart that were poured into Uru Live, we needed a cer­tain num­ber of sub­scribers to pay the bills. We didn’t get there. Uru Live is inno­v­a­tive and unique; its online uni­verse is one of the most beau­ti­ful and com­plex ever built, any­where. The idea of ongo­ing con­tent was dra­matic and forward-looking, but it required a sub­stan­tial con­tin­u­ing effort to sus­tain. We were just not able to sign up the num­ber of sub­scribers (even for free) nec­es­sary to pay for that effort.

The good news for those who own URU is the devel­op­ers plan on releas­ing a series of expan­sion packs that include the con­tent that would have oth­er­wise been down­loaded via the online por­tion. The first of these, enti­tled To D’ni, will be avail­able free of charge while sub­se­quent packs will incur a fee.

Update: There is an online peti­tion to res­ur­rect URU Live, look­ing to con­vince Cyan Worlds and Ubisoft to rein­state the online por­tion of Ages Beyond Myst.