Gameforge now owns Ryzom, Ryzom.org not giving up

The good news is that The Saga of Ryzom will live on. The bad news is that it won’t be in the hands of the open source community.

The news posted on the official Ryzom website notes positively that Nevrax‘s former MMORPG was bought by Gameforfge, and that they are announcing the re-opening of the billing system to let people re-subscribe. It’s definitely good news for the RPG and for a good number of its players, but it’s also saddening news for another dedicated group of folks who were hoping to make Ryzom completely open-source. 

The Free Ryzom Campaign wasn’t able to pull off its last ditch attempt to buy the game, despite increasing support from different communities and a substantial pledge from the Free Software Foundation. They aren’t giving up though, and even if they weren’t able to get Ryzom, they were still able to pull something amazing off.

As Xavier Antoviaque writes in Ryzom.org’s forums,

Even if a conventional company is winning the bid here, the campaign is still a success. It has made a lot of noise on the Net, it has been covered by mainstream media, we have found two FOSS investors, we have got the backing of the FSF, 170K euro of donation pledges have been registered, and – perhaps the most important – we have found we were not alone dreaming having of own our A-Grade MMORPG, our own world.

The Free Ryzom Campaign is setting its sights on continuing, perhaps attempting to grab another MMO to turn into open-source. If they do manage to pull it off, it’ll be a great achievement for the open source community. Let’s hope they find something new to take on, and wish them well.

The good news is that The Saga of Ryzom will live on. The bad news is that it won’t be in the hands of the open source community.

The news posted on the official Ryzom website notes positively that Nevrax‘s former MMORPG was bought by Gameforfge, and that they are announcing the re-opening of the billing system to let people re-subscribe. It’s definitely good news for the RPG and for a good number of its players, but it’s also saddening news for another dedicated group of folks who were hoping to make Ryzom completely open-source. 

The Free Ryzom Campaign wasn’t able to pull off its last ditch attempt to buy the game, despite increasing support from different communities and a substantial pledge from the Free Software Foundation. They aren’t giving up though, and even if they weren’t able to get Ryzom, they were still able to pull something amazing off.

As Xavier Antoviaque writes in Ryzom.org’s forums,

Even if a conventional company is winning the bid here, the campaign is still a success. It has made a lot of noise on the Net, it has been covered by mainstream media, we have found two FOSS investors, we have got the backing of the FSF, 170K euro of donation pledges have been registered, and – perhaps the most important – we have found we were not alone dreaming having of own our A-Grade MMORPG, our own world.

The Free Ryzom Campaign is setting its sights on continuing, perhaps attempting to grab another MMO to turn into open-source. If they do manage to pull it off, it’ll be a great achievement for the open source community. Let’s hope they find something new to take on, and wish them well.