New World: Aeternum

New World: Aeternum is an MMO that has fallen into massive controversy due to Amazon Game Studios' announcement that it will shut down servers in January 2027. The game's quality itself has received high recognition from players, but the shutdown decision has triggered overwhelming negative sentiment. Among the 200 comments analyzed, as many as 65% of players expressed strong hatred, while only 10% of players expressed love.

Despite facing shutdown, players still gave high praise to the game's quality. First, the game mechanics are highly acclaimed, with one player stating, 'By far the greatest mechanics in any MMO I've played and was the pinnacle of what I always wanted in a MMO.' Second, the unique social experience and fun brought by the game are unforgettable, with a player mentioning, 'The ability to actually talk with people in voice chat in raids, the proximity chat in towns, the people singing in towns and just vibing, was so nice.' Finally, many players regard it as one of the best MMOs on the market, directly stating, 'Best MMO on the market.'

Player dissatisfaction is highly concentrated on the shutdown decision and its subsequent handling. The primary grievance is the server closure itself, with players criticizing it as 'typical modern publisher trash.' Second, a large number of players demand refunds, believing 'We deserve refunds. This is nuts.' Third, players strongly condemn Amazon's failure to provide private server options after shutdown, pointing out 'Should be illegal to pull a live service game without a way to continue playing locally.' Additionally, criticism of Amazon Game Studios' decision-making and business model runs throughout.

The current public sentiment shows clear negative risk signals. First, the emotional distribution is severely imbalanced, with negative emotions (hatred + dislike) accounting for as much as 77%, while positive emotions (love + like) only account for 18%, indicating an extremely negative overall sentiment in the player community. Second, large-scale, highly concentrated complaint topics have emerged, with 'server closure' mentioned 89 times and a positive rate of only 2%; 'refund demands' mentioned 32 times with a positive rate of 0%; 'Amazon criticism' mentioned 20 times with a positive rate also at 0%. These data indicate that the controversy surrounding the shutdown decision has formed a large-scale, focused negative public opinion arena. Finally, players have begun citing the 'StopKillingGames' movement (mentioned 8 times) and characterizing the event as commercial fraud, such as 'This game is the Scamazon special. they took everyone’s money and ran with it,' which could trigger broader industry discussions and a brand reputation crisis.