I love a GDC postmortem, with the Fallout and Diablo breakdowns as classic examples of the form.The latest from this year’s all-digital GDC put Star Wars Galaxies on the slab so creative director Raph Koster and executive producer Richard Vogel could dissect what went wrong with the infamous MMO.The opening crawl stated that “This is the story about the worst game to be a classic and the most infamous part of videogame history.”
Star Wars: Galaxies is a game that’s fondly remembered for its crafting, player driven economy, house-customizing and dancing. But at launch, it was a complete disaster.According to Vogel and Koster, the main reason was how fast it was launched. The developers requested an additional six months, but that was reduced to one month of crunch.
