Knockout City Is Shutting Down
The online game Knockout City is shutting down for good.
Reading through the gaming news for the past weeks, gamers can do very little but hum Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” as more and more gaming titles are being shut down or canceled. This week alone, we received news of Apex Legends shutting down, along with a massive battle royale game and the mobile version of Battlefield—which was canceled mid-development. Now, yet another one bites the dust as Velan Studios announces the shutdown of Knockout City.
According to Kotaku, Knockout City’s game director Jeremy Russo stated that the game’s servers would shut down on June 6, after which the game won’t be playable anymore. He stated that the decision was a difficult one but both necessary and important for Velan Studios. Despite the shutdown, however, the game will still receive a content drop in the form of another Season and amazing new content.
But despair, not young grasshoppers, Russo also added that a private server version of the game would make sure that the title lives on.
The changes to Knockout City are coming into effect starting February 28, the same day that the game’s Season 9 starts, and the monetization stops. Still, the upcoming Velan decided to sunset the game in an epic manner. Season 9 will receive its due content, and the game will host shop sale events which will now offer almost every previously featured cosmetic.
Furthermore, all login rewards and bonuses, as well as league play rewards and other elements will be increased once the monetization stops.
And so, another EA game is headed towards the setting sun—third this week. It makes us wonder what’s actually prompting EA to shut down a slew of live service games. Game shutdowns, while hard for a dedicated community, represent the realities of business, and the same applies to gaming releases accompanied by massive launch events counting players in millions.
All games eventually fade; even the truest of classics don’t survive the test of time and eventually fall into oblivion, and it’s all fueled by nothing else than the gaming giants’ greed and ever-increasing profit margins.
Live-service games, like all the games shut down or canceled by EA this week—including Knockout City—are fantastic for shareholders. They require less investment for development and generate significantly more profit compared to raw sales. But when you turn each and every IP into a blatant and sloppy cash grab, well, the results are pretty obvious.
You get a copy of a copy of a copy, and the public, both gamers, and non-gamers, are becoming sick of it—the politicians are even targeting these releases for unfair monetization tactics.
As for Knockout City, the official version of the game will shut down in June, but Russo mentioned a dedicated, private server version for the PC, which is supposed to prolong the game’s lifespan for the dedicated gaming community. It’s important to note that the game has generally received positive reviews upon release for previous-gen consoles and PC, with many comparing the gaming title to EA’s Rocket Arena, released in 2020.
