If you have visited MLP:Online's website at all during November you would have noticed that the game was no longer available for download, with an announcement that the game was no longer under development. No details were given as to why this might have been the case, but today our suspicions were confirmed in that the project had been taken down by Hasbro for copyright reasons. All hope is not lost, however, as the developers have stated that they are going to begin work on a new MLP-related fangame, and will give details on how to help fairly soon.
Anyhow, in case you want to read the original announcement you can do so via
this link or just go down and read beyond the break.
Just over a month ago, we released our first episode of our game. After a year and a half since the outset of the project, we were happy to present our first Episode to you. Though our servers suffered, we were pleased with the response and the great feedback we received!
Shortly after that–exactly 4 weeks prior to now–we received a complaint about copyright and trademark infringement. We initially dismissed this it was most likely submitted by some trolls, as they could be submitted anonymously by anyone through our CDN. However, we continued to look into it, and by the following Monday, found it to be very real.
Hasbro is not to be blamed here. As per U.S. Trademark law, as soon as an infringement comes to light, they are obligated to defend the trademark, or they will lose it. They had no choice in the matter, regardless of what they thought of the project or how it benefited them.
The matter was quite strict: there was little that we could do to work around it. We removed the download link and development was suspended. Discussions continued through the month, but it came down to one fact: MLP:Online had come to an end.
MLP:Online: April 2015-November 2012. RIP.
We apologize for the wait. The time that we were taking for our discussions and to announce this publicly was time-boxed. Salty will be posting a eulogy about the project.
But all hope is not lost. While MLPOnline is officially dead and buried, the team is mostly sticking together. Some took their leave due to real-life considerations, but about 75% of the old team remains. We've officially changed our name to Starlight Studios, as per a team vote last week. We have selected a new project. It is pony related, but otherwise we're keeping most of the details secret. It is our goal to have it completed by Bronycon 2013, though this may be ambitious.
You should expect to see something unveiled this summer.
EDIT: If you would like to help out with our new project, keep an eye out. I will be posting information about how to within the next 8 hours.
Kind of a bummer, eh? At least they're going to be working on another project, so at least there's that to look forward to.
