10 Ill-Fated Choices That Wrecked Video Games Instantly

At the turn of the millennium, the very first MMO taking place in a galaxy far, far away began to take shape. Star Wars Galaxies from Sony Online Entertainment and Lucasarts became one of the most popular online multiplayer titles upon its 2003 release with an online community 400,000 strong. Opening its gates under the title "An Empire Divided" and following up with two expansions, the game appeared to be a success. But when tasked with evolving to keep pace with the competition, Galaxies suffered an epic collapse.

Released on November 8th 2005, the New Game Enhancements (or NGE) massively altered how players created and grew their character. Streamlining and neutering the gameplay was bad enough but the worst change lay at the character creation screen. Hardcore fans were horrified to learn that being a Jedi in Galaxies was available from the start, effectively negating hours of hard work. Previously, becoming a Jedi was an achievement that certainly gave players a true sense of pride and accomplishment, requiring them to discover specific actions to unlock a force-sensitive ability slot. Among the community, these rare characters were often revered.

An enraged player-base started to abandon Star Wars: Galaxies in droves. The developers desperately tried to bring back some older features to salvage the community, but it was too late. Galaxies would never recover and was eventually shut down in 2011, replaced by Bioware's Star Wars: The Old Republic. Effectively killed off with just one update, few MMOs have collapsed so spectacularly as Galaxies.