New World Gets A Sunset Date: January 31, 2027

I'm a little late to the party on this, or should I say wake? New World, a game with one of the worst launches in MMORPG history, now has an official sunset date: 31 January 2027. 

The disastrous launch was documented in a Josh Strife Hayes video published in December 2021.

Now, I know some publications as well as fans of the game will try to gaslight people into believing the game was finally fixed and on the upswing. But as the Steam charts show, even with the launch of a new expansion the average number of concurrent players was still below that of EVE Online's global server.

Steam chart for New World

And outside months with an expansion launch, the monthly ACU in EVE Online was 2-3 times greater than that in New World. I think if Tranquility ever showed activity that low that Pearl Abyss would wind up forcing CCP Games to shut down the servers.

For those who wish to know what an improved and recovering game looks like, below is Jester's ACU graph for the past 10 years.

Jester's 10-year ACU chart - Jan 2016 to Jan 2026

Unlike New World's Steamcharts, Jester's EVE Online ACU chart shows and approximately 60% growth in logged in accounts since CCP returned to the 2-expansion per year model at the end of 2022.

Perhaps if New World would have seen such a recovery a couple of years ago, not only would the game have been saved, but the studio as well. But given the history of failure, Amazon finally realized it was not good at video games, finally cut their losses and is shutting down the studio. I think Amazon will remain as a publisher, but for now AAA games are no longer part of the business plan.

Amazon Game Studios: What Moving Away From Triple-A Looks Like

Honestly, the announcement on 28 October that New World would enter maintenance mode wasn't a big surprise. After all, since the launch of EVE Online's Havoc expansion in November 2023 the Amazon product was unable to achieve the same number of average concurrent users on PC that the 20-year-old Icelandic game did outside of China.

If I had paid attention to news affecting my Amazon Prime account I would have noticed the re-launch of something called Amazon Luna. Polygon covered the story at the beginning of the month.

Amazon's cloud-gaming platform is getting a big "rethink" in 2025, the company announced Wednesday, promising a "completely redesigned and reimagined Amazon Luna that combines innovative social party games with amazing blockbusters." In addition to streaming hits like Hogwarts Legacy, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, the new Luna will include GameNight, a collection of family-friendly social party games.

The first game announced by Amazon is something called Courtroom Chaos: Starring Snoop Dogg. The game is described as:

...a human-built, AI-powered, voice-driven improv courtroom game where players take turns inventing absurd characters, spinning wild stories, and doing anything it takes to defend their testimonies in front of Judge Snoop Dogg.

No, I did not copy this from Copilot. This is not an AI hallucination, although I wish it were. I'll include the launch trailer below.

Perhaps I had good reason not to pay attention to Amazon's video game offerings that come with an Amazon Prime membership. Let me continue on with Amazon's own description of Luna.

Luna (Included with Prime)

Included with Prime are titles like Hogwarts Legacy, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, and TopSpin 2K25, alongside a growing catalog of recent-release blockbusters, popular classics, indie gems, and more. (Games outside of the GameNight library on Luna do require a controller or mouse and keyboard to play.)

“We know that 95% of Prime households include someone who loves games, but there’s not always a straightforward path for many of them to play,” says Gattis. “Luna is purpose-built to remove the historical barriers to gaming. There’s no need to purchase costly, dedicated PC or console hardware. No downloads or installations required. And best of all, access is included within the same Prime membership enjoyed by more than 200 million paid members today.”

By the way, Amazon also offers a premium version of Luna that costs $9.99 per month. If Amazon really wanted my money, the company should have thought about how the launch was announced. But then again, I don't think I'm the target audience for the service.

In an effort to look at the issue rationally, I cranked Copilot up to eleven and asked about the closing of New World. The AI gave me a 13-page, 3900 word report with 27 references. I don't think I can argue with this explanation of why Amazon is moving away from triple-A games in general and MMORPGs specifically.

The strategic rationale for this pivot is clear: casual and party games can be developed more quickly and cost-effectively than AAA MMOs, align with Amazon’s broader entertainment ecosystem, and leverage the company’s strengths in cloud streaming and AI. By bundling Luna access with Prime, Amazon aims to drive engagement and retention across its core customer base, while differentiating itself from competitors focused on traditional console and PC gaming.

Now for my pie-in-the-sky take. I spend a lot of time on YouTube watching content about video games. Forget about AA games like Expedition 33. Indie games with small development teams like Ball x Pit, Escape from Duckov, Megabonk, and Slots & Daggers look like fun games that would fit in my schedule between sessions of games like Final Fantasy XIV. Below is a video by Veteran Joystick highlighting the types of games I think Amazon Game Studios would like to make.

AGS would clearly like to adopt the template developed by indie and double-A games to become successful. According to Veteran Joystick:

It's the same pattern. Tiny team, weird idea, massive success. So, what do all of these have in common? Innovation, risk, fun first, sales second. A clear vision from people who clearly love games.

I can't even say the formula would not work for AGS. After all, they failed miserably over the past several years trying to develop a successful MMORPG. Escape from Duckov, on the other hand, had a 5-person development team. Bilibili, a Chinese company sometimes referred to as “China’s YouTube for Gen Z” succeeded in making small development teams while being a large company. The internal Team Soda developed the game and Bilibili provided the marketing and publishing power to make the game a success.

Could Amazon build the same type of synergy with its new approach? Possibly. But given history, I can also imagine a continuous stream of slop, whether AI-generated or produced by humans. At least, as an Amazon Prime member, I won't have to spend any extra money to find out.

MMORPGs Are A Marathon, Not A Sprint

A lot of players are complaining now, but EVE Online really is a remarkable game. How many games last 19 years with continuous development? Thanks to Croda of marketsforISK, we have financial records for CCP and its successor, Pearl Abyss Iceland, going back to 2012. 

Game revenue, mostly generated from EVE Online

Over the last 10 years, games using the EVE IP, primarily EVE Online, generated $636 million in revenue. Last year's $63.8 million was slightly over the 10-year average of $63.6 million. Of course, 2021's revenue includes $10 million from EVE Echoes. But EVE Echoes was not the only other game besides EVE Online published by CCP. Since 2014, CCP published DUST 514, EVE: Valkyrie, EVE: Gunjack, and Sparc.

While we don't have records for 2003-2011, I think I can safely say the EVE IP has generated over $1 billion, if EVE Online itself hasn't recorded $1 billion in revenue since its launch in May 2003. Given CCP's beginning as a small indie studio founded on a rock in the middle of the North Atlantic, creating a $1 billion IP is a pretty good accomplishment.

If people think EVE Online is sick and in danger of dying, then what do we say about New World? The Amazon Games' game started out strong, with a peak of 913,027 users at least trying to log into the game on the first day. Much better than EVE's all-time peak of 65,303 on the game's 10th anniversary. But seven months after launch, New World's numbers were lower than EVE's.

EVE Online vs New World yesterday

Yesterday, New World has a high water mark of 22,779 accounts. EVE-Offline.net recorded a peak concurrent user number of 27,401 on the Tranquility shard for EVE Online. Including the Chinese Serenity shard would push the number over 30,000.

As for sales, how is New World doing? According to VG Insights, Amazon Games had sold 6.8 million units for $162.9 million. Pretty good money, surpassing what EVE Online has made for Pearl Abyss. The question is, how much longer will New World keep going? The game's monetization is limited to cosmetic items with no subscription options, so sales of units needs to continue. 

Slowing sales for New World

According to VG Insights, Amazon has sold 35,000 copies of the game over the past 30 days. At an estimated $37.56 per copy, that runs to $1.3 million. As a comparison, the EVE IP averaged $5 million per month in the first 3 months of 2022.

One final comparison. Yesterday, nine years after EVE's peak concurrent user mark, yesterday's PCU was down 58%. New World, on the other hand, was down 97.5% from its peak concurrent users set 7 months ago.

Ideally, player logins increase after launch of a new MMORPG. In EVE's case, player numbers grew for 10 years. But after only 7 months, New World had declined to a point below EVE's numbers after 19 years. Apparently, EVE is making more money now as well.