- [Robo] In the past, I've talked about Disney MMOs
quite a bit because those were the games
that I played when I was younger.
Stuff like, wait hold on, if you've watched any of these
videos, you probably know exactly what I'm about to say.
Toontown Online, Monkey Quest, YoVille on Facebook
and of course Club Penguin.
Games like Toontown Online, Club Penquin
and YoVille on Facebook.
Games like Club Penguin, Neopets
and when I was really young, Webkins helped
to introduce me into multiplayer games.
Blah, blah, blah, these games were my childhood.
I think everyone understands that by now
and most of the people watching this
are probably in the same boat.
So my point in all of this is that I was really into MMOs
and especially kid themed ones
because, you know, I was a kid.
All of these Disney games that I played felt the same,
which is expected considering that they were all made
by the same company, Disney Interactive.
But sometimes I enjoyed changing it up a bit
and going to play something that didn't feel the same.
The problem was that all of these games required
a premium subscription and I wasn't made out of money.
So I couldn't afford all of these subscriptions
with my $5 per week allowance from doing my chores.
So, that's when taking advantage of friends came into play.
Very rarely, I would head over to one of my friends' houses
and play his games that I couldn't afford.
One of these was Cartoon Network's FusionFall.
A Cartoon Network themed game that was completely filled
with all of the beloved characters from their shows.
This game was amazing and I would get completely drawn
into the world every time I went
over to this friend's house.
I found it cool that you had to fight corrupted versions
of your favorite characters while teaming up
with the non-corrupted versions of the same characters.
It blew my eight year old mind and I couldn't comprehend it.
It sat up in my brain as a philosophical question,
along with the one that asked, why the Easter Bunny
in the mall had a zipper on its back?
And you know, I never really learned
the answer to that second question.
Anyways, it was a great time that I somehow
forgot about in recent years.
But it's kind of hard to forget entirely
when it's your most requested video topic,
so thank you to everyone who requested it.
Like all these other titles that I've covered in the past,
this game also ended up being tragically shut down,
leaving fans wanting more.
But this one's a bit different, and there are many more
factors that led to its demise that what meets the eye.
It's an interesting story and it shows the struggles
that can occur between a development team and a publisher.
So, we're gonna be finishing up our videos on browser MMOs
and reminiscing on what this game was like
and what caused it to die in today's video,
Why FusionFall Died.
So FusionFall was a cool and unique game.
It had all the Cartoon Network characters
from shows such as Ed, Edd n Eddy, Codename: Kids Next Door
and almost every other show that was popular at the time.
Plus, unlike its competitors, it actually had
a full storyline and a lot of thought was put into it.
So the story pretty much goes like this.
There's a planet in space known as Planet Fusion
and it's ruled by a dude named Lord Fuse.
This planet travels through space
and destroys everything it comes across.
Over time, it's grown stronger and has come
into contact with Earth, which is filled
with the Cartoon Network characters.
Luckily these characters run into you in the past
and teleport you to the future to help them
fight off Lord Fuse and all of his alien minions.
And that's the gist, but I promise you,
there's a lot more to it.
In fact, there was an entire Manga comic
that explained the back story and it was written
and handed out by the content designer
of the game at Comic Con 2007.
Plus there are tons of pages of lore and information
that can be found on line and I could make
an entire video just on the story.
As for the gameplay, it was pretty fun back in the day,
buy playing it today, I can definitely see
how it's geared towards younger audiences.
You start out by creating and naming your character
in a customization screen.
The character customization was fairly decent
and while it wasn't crazy, it felt sufficient
for the game that you were playing.
Traveling could be done by warping, walking across the map
or by using temporary vehicles
that gave the player a quick boost.
It felt a bit tedious to walk around,
but these other forms of transportation made up for it.
A positive aspect of walking around, however,
was that you could explore the world and come across
some of the enemies in the wild.
There are countless unique enemies
and finding new ones is actually pretty exciting.
I found them to be creative and it added a lot of charm
and it's actually one of my favorite parts
of the entire game.
There are also loot boxes and shops and power ups
for your weapons and all sorts of cool mechanics
that make FusionFall different from its competitors.
The number one thing that defined this game were the Nanos.
As you kill the tainted versions
of Cartoon Network characters known as Fusions,
you unlock their counterpart which is known as their Nano.
These Nanos each have special powers and unique abilities
that help to aid you in battle.
You can collect all types of them and each little Nano
is a tiny pocket size version of the character you defeated.
As you progress through the game, you can mix and match
these Nanos to assist you with whatever you need help with.
Now, if only the developers could have used these things
to help them keep the game alive.
Cartoon Network's FusionFall was announced
on July 19th, 2006 by the channel themselves.
They partnered with a developer known
as Grigon Entertainment which was a Korean based developer.
They were previously known for their popular title
Seal Online which was a point and click Anime RPG
released in China and other markets near China.
And in interview, the producer Chris Waldron said,
"We wanted to work with a Korean partner because we wanted
"to take the best of both American and international
"gaming markets and try to build something that could be
"an international success."
So this game was aimed at more
than just the American market.
The game was set to release in 2008
and it was geared towards younger audiences
of the Cartoon Network fan base.
At this time, a full character list was not available,
but the names Ben 10, Mac, Bloo and The Kids Nextdoor
were thrown around quite a bit.
And in interview with IGN, Grigon Ceo Byung-Kyu Cho,
anyways, he stated that, "When I look at the globally adored
"characters of Cartoon Network getting together harmonically
"with the renowned strength and uniqueness of Grigon,
"I have all my confidence that we will proudly present
"an online game which will astonish the world."
Even today, I still find this an amazing claim
and I wish more present day developers could act
with this same type of confidence towards their creations.
But he was right and this game would go on
to astonish the world, or at least
the Cartoon Network fans who played it.
In 2007, Chris Waldron appeared in another interview
with IGN revealing more information about the game.
He said, "The game will have all the character development,
"open ended exploration and multiplayer elements
"you would expect, but with more of a platformer style
"combat system and puzzles spread throughout the world,
"complete with moving platforms, slides and ziplines."
When questions were asked about the revenue model,
he refused to answer and said that there will be
a free aspect of the game but that no further information
could be given at the time.
As time progressed, development continued
and everything was looking good
for Cartoon Network's newest project.
By GDC 2008, considerable progress had been made
and discussion related to the game picked up quite a bit.
The summer 2008 release was delayed, but an open beta was
initiated on November 14th, 2008 where players could sign up
on the Cartoon Network website to get access to the title.
This beta went very well and what was shown of the game
received a lot of positive reception.
Some things were tweaked and launch day
was on January 14th, 2009.
The game launched and the reviews were extremely positive
and some of the best reviews out of any of the MMOs
I've covered on this channel.
It got a 75 on Metacritic and people were
generally happy with what they received.
A lot of the praise came from the heavily anime inspired
art style and the seamless integration
of cartoon characters into a video game.
It was pretty much a massive success.
As for the revenue model that was hidden in mystery before,
it wasn't too bad.
Unpaid players of the game could only collect
up to four Nanos, create two characters
and play the game until they got to lever four.
After this point, they would need to create a new account
or purchase a subscription plan to keep playing.
There was a one month option for $5.95,
three months for $14.95, and one year for $49.95.
There were also two other options.
First, there was the family plan which was a discount
if you for some odd reason wanted to play the game
with your entire family on four accounts.
I mean, my family barely knows how to use technology
so I could never imagine playing a game with them.
But hey, I guess some people aren't like that.
Then there was the, I'm cool and wanna flex
on all my elementary school friends
package known as the victory pack.
This insane flex of a deal gave you access
to four months of a subscription,
a comprehensive game guide, two character outfits
and weapons not available online and a super cool shirt.
Honestly, back in the day, the only kid who would own this
was the one who sat in the corner of the room
with his 45 Silly Bands on his arm trying to finesse
and make trades with all the classroom hoes.
My point is that probably nobody bought this one.
Back to the revenue model, all of this
sounded like a good deal.
A fun game with a cool aesthetic
and a reasonably priced membership package.
It performed well right after release
and people seemed to enjoy most aspects of it.
There were quite a few major updates during this time
with one coming around once every three weeks.
Grigon was doing a good job at keeping everything up to date
and it seemed as if everything was going well.
But it wasn't.
By the end of 2009, the studio went bankrupt
and had to stop development of the game.
Apparently it wasn't selling as well as it should have
and a considerable amount of money was lost because of it.
With their main developer going out of business,
Cartoon Networks was now tasked with keeping up with
and developing their own game, which is something
that they weren't necessarily experienced with.
From this point on, updates slowed down
and player accounts began to fall off a bit.
As these numbers decreased, the team over at Cartoon Network
began to get worried and somehow needed
to recoup the lost players.
So, on April 19th, 2010, the game went free to play.
With these changes, everything that was previously locked
behind the subscription paywall was now unlocked.
At first, excited to access these new
previously locked features, player counts spiked back up.
The Cartoon Network needed to act fast
to find a new way to keep these players playing
for a longer period of time.
What they needed was a big update.
This update was known as the New Beginnings update
and it would go on to haunt longtime players of the game.
It was hyped up as being the biggest FusionFall update
to date and people were excited to see what it was about.
First of all, it added a foundation for new Nanos
to be added in the future, but it didn't
actually add new Nanos.
Second of all, it added an area known as a training academy
which was used to fine tune a player's skill
in preparation to fight the boss Fuse.
Plus, there was some new mechanics that were suppose
to make the combat a little bit better,
but these only irritated longtime players
and didn't really help much.
This update undoubtedly had a major effect in killing
FusionFall as a whole and it created
a lot of irritation and outrage in the community.
The training academy changed nearly everything
that was loved about FusionFall and made it feel
like an entirely different game.
People in the community hated it and complained
constantly for Cartoon Network to revert the update.
They begged and begged, but nothing happened
and it was set to stay for good.
At this point, fed up with what they were witnessing,
longtime players of the game began to leave the game
and it all went downhill from there.
It felt as if everything was being rushed
and that Cartoon Network was just merely trying
to milk the last bit of money out of the platform
before it closed down.
New Nanos were added but they had terrible rushed animations
and half of them had no sound.
The endgame chat system began to break and players
were cursing and using a ton of racism
in a children oriented game.
Plus, the world was becoming overrun by hackers
and problems were coming up everywhere.
Cartoon Network acted as if they were oblivious
to these problems and they took the easy
and lazy way out of all of them.
More players were leaving, everything was progressing
into a downward spiral and Cartoon Network
was losing a ton of money.
Finally, on August 23rd, 2013, Cartoon Network announced
that FusionFall was gonna be closing in one week.
They barely gave any notice to players
and a lot of the community honestly saw it coming.
Thus, seven days later, on August 29th, 2013,
FusionFall had officially closed down for good
and a few years of mine and many other people's
childhood were simply deleted.
There were various reasons for this, but it all stemmed
from the closing of Grigon and the lack
of direction caused from it.
I feel like if this game was still headed by Grigon
instead of Cartoon Network, it would still be around today
and people would still be playing it.
Unfortunately, this closure happened only a month
before the closure of the other
kid's games that were popular at the time.
So, by the end of 2013, FusionFall, ToonTown Online,
Pirates Online and Pixie Hollow were all closed down.
It was the most depressing time
in America since the Great Depression.
But obviously, people were pretty upset with the closure
and Cartoon Networks didn't do
a good job at handling the situation.
They provided no closing remarks or explanation
and kind of just brushed it under the rug.
This honestly seems to be a reoccurring pattern
when games like this close and I don't understand
why these developers do this.
Do you guys think it's right
or should people get more of an explanation?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
A few months before the closing of FusionFall,
Cartoon Network released another game
known as FusionFall Heroes which was a free to play game
based off of FusionFall but with a twist.
In this game, you played as the famous Cartoon Network
characters and fought battles against the same enemies
found in the original FusionFall.
Some people definitely enjoyed it and it performed
fairly well, but it couldn't really even be compared
to the original game that everyone grew to love.
But, like some stories that aren't Final Destination,
there was a happy ending.
A devoted team of fans began working on remaking
the entire original game and by late 2018,
the full game was restored to it's former glory.
It's known as FusionFall Retro and it's what I used
to get all the footage shown in this video.
Believe it or not, even though the game was geared
towards kids, it's still pretty fun even today.
This video isn't sponsored by them or anything,
guys, if you wanna sponsor me,
email me, my email's in the description,
but I would definitely recommend checking it out
if I were you and I'll put a link in the description below.
I have a ton of respect for people who take their time
to do this and it shows that when people have a similar goal
and put their minds together,
great things can be accomplished.
Anyways guys, that is gonna be it for today's video,
so I hope you guys enjoyed.
I do wanna apologize, it's been a while since I've uploaded,
actually it's been like a month and a half,
but that's kind of depressing
so we're not gonna mention exact numbers.
I've been super busy with college and I had the flu
and a bunch of other stuff was happening that made me
hesitate to upload and I do apologize about that.
But, I will back and better than ever and I'm gonna try
my best to consistently upload from here on out
because I really should considering that there's now
260,000 of you guys following me.
The number just keeps growing
and it's honestly amazing to me.
So I just want to spend my time to thank
every single one of you who subscribed
and I apologize for the lack of uploading.
And I promise I'll be uploading more from here on out.
If you guys wanna watch any other videos,
there will be links in the description below.
Make sure to follow me on Twitter.
I'll put a link to that and also,
a link to my Discord Server.
Anyways, thank you guys so much for watching,
I will see you guys next time and peace.
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