Saving the world … of Uru
Twice burned by companies that published and then shut down online versions of its most ambitious project ever, Spokane’s Cyan Worlds is looking at options and seeking new partners to keep its offices open. Last week online video game site GameTap said it would shut down Cyan’s vast and multilayered game, Uru, within 60 days.
This was the second time Uru began a promising life, only to be shut down by its online publisher. The first time occurred in early 2004; in that case, French content company UbiSoft shut down Uru after just a few months of a beta launch.
Cyan CEO Rand Miller is uncertain what the options are. He said that he and others at Cyan are contemplating an assortment of options, including relaunching Uru on its own. That option would only work, he noted, if Cyan and GameTap – a division of Turner Broadcasting – can arrange for Miller and his team to regain rights to the online game.
It took Cyan more than two years to develop Uru, which is a 3-D version of the mythical world D’ni first developed in its landmark 1993 videogame, Myst. The games’ fans worldwide say Myst and Uru – which allows people to interact online in real-time and solve problems in the Uru universe – provide a perfect alternative to the alien-hunting, sword-rattling videogames that most online communities play.
Ricardo Sanchez, a GameTap vice president, said in an online post that the decision to not continue Uru a second year was “a business decision.” Players would pay GameTap roughly $10 a month to play the game. The company does not disclose how many players any of its games attract, said Sanchez.
While Cyan considers its options, Miller said the north Spokane company is looking for ways to spin out quick and casual online games, instead of the more detailed, labor-intensive projects it’s best known for.
It’s already done that, and released a boxed version of one of its classics earlier this winter.
In late November the online content site Fanista released Cosmic Osmo Hex Isle, a revved-up retooling of the second game Cyan created (called back then Cosmic Osmo and the Worlds Beyond the Mackerel).
“We would really like to try to do some games for the online casual market,” Miller said in a recent interview. Instead of shutting down the company and letting its 30 designers and graphic artists hunt for jobs elsewhere, Miller hopes to land a few deals soon to put them to work.
He’s already offered another new game to several publishers and is waiting to see what happens next, he said.
That new online game, which Miller chose to not describe in detail, came out of a decision within the company last fall, just as Uru was ending its first season with GameTap. Miller said he knew then that Uru might not be renewed, and he discussed options with the entire Cyan staff.
“We said, ‘We can just go dark and wait and see what happens. Or we can come up with a new game.’ ”
The staff held a number of brainstorm sessions and voted to pursue the development of a quick online game that would be pitched to several game companies. Casual online games have gained growing support among online gamers, said Miller, because they can be played in less than a half hour, instead of requiring hours or weeks of time.
The new Cosmic Osmo was developed over a few months only after a friend of Miller’s, who works at Fanista, contacted him.
“He said, ‘Why don’t you guys do a game for us? So we got together and decided to do a new version of Osmo,’ ” said Miller.
The original used black and white images and wasn’t a true video game. It was a series of still images that the player progressed through.
In the new version, Cyan took the Osmo character and built up a game environment that involves 3-D landscapes and an assortment of progressively more difficult challenges.
While Uru totally depended on players with broadband Net connections, the game developed for Fanista was a technology throwback, added Miller.
“It’s very old school. You can’t even download the game. You order it at Fanista and they send it to you in a box.”