Gameglobe was a game creation and sharing platform developed by Bigpoint and Square-Enix. Sort of like what people nowadays might call Dreams or Roblox.
Except Gameglobe did that back in 2012. Since I am writing this
essentially based on my memories, who knows if it's exact, but what can
you do.
Honestly, it's not surprising the game shut down. Not
only was it an online game, that ran purely in the browser itself, but
there was also minimal monetization, which sounded great to my back then
child self, until you realize that the game was pretty niche and made
barely any money. Really, I don't think I heard anyone talk about this
game ever, not even a mention of the name, which I find quite weird and
sad considering how big this "game creation" or "game as a platform"
genre is nowadays, with Roblox being big as it is and Fortnite going a similar way as well.
The
game had a nice artstyle and graphics from what I both remember and can
find online. Cartoony, but still a lot more detailed than what
something like Roblox offered. Animations were solid too. All
of that running purely in the browser, in around 2012. And free to play.
That was great for me as a player back then. Not good for business,
though. From what I could find, it was shut down in around November
2013.
Let's focus on the main thing though, that being the
gameplay and the content. To be honest, I don't think the game had any
special deep mechanics. I mean, you had your basic combat, basic
platforming, and somewhat deep level editor. I don't really recall even
any social features other than comments, and it was single-player only.
Still, as a kid, it gave me countless hours of entertainment. Really, it
was the variety which was great, even though that's mostly the players'
achievement. You had combat levels, platforming, puzzle, story-based
ones, driving, minigames and all kinds of other stuff. And if you wanted
something different, well then you could just create it yourself. I
think the editor was pretty good in itself as well, as you had the
option to make pretty complex experiences, but I don't recall thinking
that it would have been too hard to use. I think it might even be part
of the reason why I never really gave games like Roblox a chance. It just looked worse and felt more complicated.
Other
than that, really, there was not much. The meat of this "game" was the
user-made content. If my memory serves correctly, there used to be some
sort of short campaign, but it was pretty short. I would say like 3–5
levels short, perhaps. There was also a simple character editor, but I
think it was mostly clothes, body shapes, few haircuts and other
cosmetics. This is the only place that I remember coming across any
monetization. I'm not so sure about the dates, but according to some
stuff I found online, there used to be some sort of paid membership as
well. Didn't seem to go too well. Also... there might have been
some monetization in the level editor too. That's... really all I can
muster. I suppose talking about in such a way makes it sound somewhat
generic and basic, but back then, it felt all but that to me.
I
wish I could talk about it more in-depth, but there's not much left in
my memory, and that same can be said about what's left online. It's a
shame that nowadays I can't even find videos with all the content that
was added in later updates such as all the vehicles, mercenary themed
stuff, zombies, suburban themed NPCs and objects and whatnot. It's like
it might as well have never existed. The bulk of the stuff left is only
from the original version, back when most of the content was mostly just
either generic or pirate themed. There has been such a lack of archival
of everything regarding this game that it is quite sad. Not even a
Wikipedia page. When searching for it, you just get some old trailers
and let's play's, unkept videogame databases, few old articles and the
rest is a sea of dead links. The low player numbers and badly designed
monetization, combined with almost nonexistent PR except for one E3
trailer, really did a number on it. I am not surprised that Square-Enix
gutted it for the lack of growth. Although, not being satisfied with
games' performances seems to be Square-Enix's modus operandi in general.
Knowing about this game, while seemingly nobody else does, makes me
genuinely wonder how many players it actually had back in the day. So,
shoutout to all the 12 people who actually played this game, I suppose.
