When Project Spark was released back in 2014, it was envisioned that the game creation game would allow players to effectively create their own worlds and games from scratch with as much as freedom as possible. Now Microsoft has announced that they will be ending support for Project Spark in August. The tool has already been removed from the Windows Store and Xbox Marketplace and those still using the tool despite this will be unable from August 12th.
“This was an extremely difficult decision for our team that we do not take lightly,” Thomas Gratz, Microsoft’s Project Spark community manager said on the official forums. “When Project Spark transitioned away from active development last fall, many of our team members moved to other projects within Microsoft Studios.”
Microsoft claims that no lay-offs have been made as part of the closing of Project Spark, the game’s development ended in October last year, with all of the game’s DLC becoming free and refunds being issued to customers at the time of the last expansion pack. Now it is clearly deemed as infeasible to keep the project alive with bug fixes and content alone. Perhaps its biggest downfall was the sheer ambition, allowing players to work on assets and games as well as play them on Xbox One consoles and Windows PCs alike. Unfortunately, it has proven vastly less popular than Playstation’s Little Big Planet series and is now sadly to vanish in all forms. Microsoft will be offering credit to those who purchased and redeemed the physical version of the Project Spark Starter Kit.
