A Sad Parent on the Closure of LEGO Universe

In a recent Facebook thread between former members of the LEGO Universe team, someone commented that losing LEGO Universe felt like losing a child.  My response to that was it only takes two people about 9 months (give or take with some crunch time) to make a baby.  Creating LEGO Universe involved over 250 people and over 5 years of development effort.

Hyperbole aside, those of us in the craft of entertainment creation tend to become very emotionally attached to our work.  It is anguishing to see a project fail; it is absolutely devastating to see a project that in almost every respect was succeeding suddenly get killed.

As close as a developer can be emotionally to a game, we often forget that the players that enjoy them can have just as intense of a connection to our brain children. This note from a parent of a child who played LEGO Universe makes me as sad as it does happy... happy to have created something that had such a positive effect on someone out there.

"for all of you at LEGO universe, know that you have been an inspiration to my son and he wishes on a star every night that perhaps it will be saved."

I've heard and read this sentiment many times over in person and on the internet, especially in the LEGO forums.  I will never understand why LEGO Universe is being shuttered.

I want to say thanks to all the parents, kids and players of the game who have expressed what the game meant to them over the last year.  Although it makes me extremely sad to think of the game closing and all the resulting broken hearts, it's really good to know that for it's blink of existence, it made a brighter day for a lot of people.

That's what I live for; my LEGO Universe team created some wonderful lasting memories in a few million brains that will resonate for the rest of the players' lives.  That feels like some small success to me, even if LEGO states the game cannot be a financial one--which I probably also will never understand why.