AOL shuts down Massively.com, will return overpowered

There are things that we'll never understand. Most of you probably know about Massively.com, one of the most popular and reputable websites dedicated to MMO games. It's hard to escape its “grasp”, seeing that the content that the team currently led by Brianna Royce produced was the rare kind – frequent, compelling and transparent. The team at Massively actually had opinions, and weren't afraid to share them to a massive community. I'm not going too far by saying that every MMO fan should have visited them regularly, and other MMO site editors should definitely learn a thing or two from them.

Alas, even with the consistent growth, AOL decided to shut Joystiq down, something that included Massively.com. Once again in this business, someone wearing a suit and driving a car most of us will never be able to afford decided to reward the hard-work of underpaid and volunteer staff by shutting down their site. In a way, this is a job without a fixed schedule, it's something you do since you wake up until you go to sleep, even if you're “just” playing an MMO for a lot of hours – that is WORK, not fun, most of the time. But hey, it's games, so it's just having fun, right? Wrong.

I was shocked when I first read the news and I've been thinking a lot before deciding to say something about it. I just can't stomach the idea of being rewarded for your great work with a knife on your back. One where you put work first and your family and personal responsibilities later, sometimes going to the extent of risking your very own stability. It's just not fair. I've been through something similar several years ago and there's no easy way to describe your mental state at the time – it's like someone is robbing you of your life's work and you can't do anything about it.

Our utmost respect goes to the team at Massively.com. I'm shocked at this, but I was pleased to read the good news – the team is working on MassivelyOP.com, something that I know will maintain their high standards and I'm crossing my fingers as for them not having another shady overlord capable of pulling the plug whenever they feel like it. Follow their Twitter and give those guys and gals a pat in the back. Thank you for being around for so many years, and here's to a lot more.