The Wargamer first introduced the MMO Rubies of Eventide in a
preview published in September 2000, in which Al Berke concluded the game's "first-person perspective and unique combat system does a good job of setting it apart from the others. This game is designed for the player who doesn’t require leading-edge graphics for immersion and simply wants to get together with some friends on-line and go adventuring." Unfortunately, reports from other media sources at the time of the game's launch seem to indicate Rubies of Eventide never really left its development stage, and so the necessary popularity never materialized. The result was a
message from the game's founder and owner on Tuesday morning announcing Rubies of Eventide would be shut down in December, as the game had failed to hold on to enough customers to remain a viable business. According to the statement, the game's subscriber count had fallen to 806, each of whom had been paying $14.95 to play the game online.
Although the development of MMORPGs seems to continue at a torrid pace, the developers behind Rubies of Eventide did seem convinced it had also become an extremely competitive marketplace: by some estimates, the audience for MMORPGs may be no longer than 1 or 2 million users, and the majority of those users are attracted to only the top tier games supported by the publishers who can fund their long and expensive development cycles. The current leading MMORPGs in North America, according to subscriber figures, are EverQuest, Dark Age of Camelot, Ultima Online and Star Wars: Galaxies. Other large titles, such as Earth & Behond, Anarchy Online, and The Sims Online occupy a middle space between the giants and smaller players like Rubies of Eventide or World War II Online. Rubies of Eventide is one of the first "launched" smaller MMORPGs which has failed in the past year.
