Auto Assault terminates on August 31st

Author: Dan Boaden
Published: 3rd July 2007

Has the ever growing World of Warcraft community eradicated another of its species, slowly eroding any sort of diversity in the MMO market?

Yesterday saw the poignant announcement of the termination for all Auto Assault operations on the 31st of August.

The innovative car combat MMO from developer NetDevil and publisher NCSoft was a breath of fresh air to the saturated World of Warcraft copies in the MMO market. It was met with relatively good praise from reviewers and gamers alike; however, after a year of slow decline it unfortunately did not meet sales or subscribers’ expectations.

“Today NCsoft is announcing that it will be closing down service for Auto Assault at the end of the summer. The service will close at midnight on August 31, 2007. As of today, any player currently in the service with an active billed account will not be billed again. If players have previously purchased time via multi-month billing or time cards that extends their service past July 31, NCsoft will reconcile these accounts appropriately. There will be more announcements coming soon regarding the shut down of Auto Assault and its impact on current accounts.”

Auto Assault looked to be slowly subsiding in sales and with desperate attempts to snatch back its depleting community from the jaws of World of Warcraft and various other MMOs. The developers introduced schemes such as a ‘14 day free trial’ and ‘refer a friend benefits’, but it all seemed futile in restoring the MMO back to its previous glory.

So what's left to say apart from 'another MMO bites the dust'?

Will you be affected? Are you glad to see Auto Assault vanish from the gaming community or do you want a good rant about MMOs? Let us know in our forums.