The Dungeon Runners Website announces that NCsoft will be pulling the plug on this fantasy-themed MMORPG on January 1, 2010 due to lack of profitability (thanks MMORPG.com). Rumors that the subscription-free game might close surfaced last year, but were later refuted almost a year ago to the day. This time, however, it looks like there's no reprieve on the way. The update from the Stephen Nichols, the Producer & Lead Programmer on the game is a "crap sandwich" that surrounds the bad news with some niceties, including how the game will be "going out in style," and plans to compensate paid customers with 30 day game time serial codes and free digital copies of City of Heroes Architect Edition and Guild Wars Prophecies and 30 days of free play in each. So if that's the bread, here is the crap:

Now, it's time for the bad news. Dungeon Runners just isn't cutting the mustard. If she were a ship, she'd be taking on water. Yeah, she's been taking on water for a long time now. Are my cryptic references too hard to decipher? The game just isn't profitable. And, the first rule of business is to be profitable! Man, I must have missed that day in business school... but I digress.

We've been trying to figure out how to fix things for some time now. And, that's where things get sticky. We've got some ideas that could work. But, they're expensive to implement and pretty risky. Those two facts, coupled with the recent loss of some key developers, make achieving the success we seek pretty much out of the question.

As things stand now, we're a three man team. Yeah, we lost two of our five man team recently. Not nearly enough manpower to get where we need to be. Rebuilding the team isn't really an option for various reasons. So, where does that leave us? Can you guess? Yes, that's right, we're going to be shutting Dungeon Runners down at the end of 2009. New Year's Eve to be exact.