ArcheAge – The western version of ArcheAge will close its doors next June

This is both surprising without being a real surprise: Kakao Games announces the permanent closure of the North American and European servers ofArcheAge. In a note published on the official websitethe operator Kakao Games specifies “that after having discussed at length the performances ofArcheAge with (the developer) XL Games “, it appears that it is “no longer possible to offer the MMORPG there under acceptable conditions”. The operator continues: “the declining number of active players means that the content of the MMORPG is no longer playable under the conditions provided by the gameplay mechanics and the gaming experience becomes different from that initially envisaged”. In light of this observation, the studio therefore indicates that it has “made the difficult decision to put an end to the operation of ArcheAge in Europe and on the North American continent”.

As a result, the game servers will close their doors permanently on June 27 at 10 a.m. Players' personal data will be destroyed two weeks later. The team of support of Kakao Games will nevertheless remain reachable until September 27. Obviously, the operator does not have a refund policy.

Half-hearted exploitation

In some respects, this announcement of closure may seem “surprising” to the extent that ArcheAge seemed to rank among those indestructible MMORPGs, operated against all odds for almost ten years in the West, despite changes of operators and reversals of versions. And again at the start of the year, the operator published a roadmapwith the promise of many updates in 2024.

However, with a bit of hindsight, the abandonment of the operation of ArcheAge is far from being a real surprise to the extent that we knew the MMORPG was in poor financial health for a long time. We remember, ArcheAge was first operated in the West by the American group Trion Worldswhich had obviously acquired the rights at a price that was far too high and which never managed to make its exploitation profitable. Trion (with the license from ArcheAge) was then taken over by the German group gamigo, with the very aggressive commercial practices that we know and which ended up scaring away European and North American players. And when the MMORPG license was finally recovered by Kakao Games (the House-mother of developer XL Games), it was probably already too late. Attempts to readjust the economic model and the updates that followed were not enough to bring players back to an MMORPG that was already several years old.

We also remember that in South Korea, XL Games underwent a “restructuring”, specifically targeting the team in charge of operating ArcheAge – the studio now favors the operation ofArcheAge WAR in Korea and the development ofArcheAge 2. Under these conditions, ArcheAge no longer had a very long-term future. Coincidence or coincidence, the closure of ArcheAge in the West coincides with the announcement of the launch of ArcheAge War in Taiwan during the quarter, then in mainland China, Southeast Asia and Japan. It remains to be determined whether the closure of ArcheAge in the West calls into question XL Games' plans to eventually distribute ArcheAge War there as well.