End of dawn: EA’s MOBA Dawngate canceled

Surprisingly, or perhaps not so given the highly competitive and crowded MOBA arena (pun intended), Electronic Arts has just pulled the plug on its free-to-play game Dawngate. The MOBA was in open beta and the cancellation comes 18 months after the original announcement. Players are able to enjoy it for 90 days and then the servers will be turned off.

The reasons for the cancellation are related to not seeing enough progress, as Waystone’s Matt Bromberg said: “Through that time, we’ve taken a lot of feedback from players and delivered lots of new features and innovations. And although the game has grown, we’re not seeing the progress we’d hoped for. This isn’t the outcome we wanted, but beta testing is about learning and improving, and ultimately, about making difficult decisions about how to proceed.”

The development at Waystone is getting the worst part of the deal, being dissolved by Electronic Arts, which will try to relocate the employees in other EA studios.

Dawngate wasn't shaping up to be a bad game, but the ruthless competition (mostly League of Legends and Dota 2) and the obvious comparisons with Riot Games' blockbuster led to what we believe is a lack of playerbase and consequently the decision to cease development. Probably the first of many MOBAs to go down during the next couple of years.