Sadly, it seems the struggle to update Blaseball for a new era was too much effort and not enough income to keep The Game Band, the game’s creator and maintainer, going with it, and they’ve made the decision to end it.
It’s a shame, but it could be that it was something of its time. It got started during the big lockdown period of COVID (as opposed to the long haul, pretend-it’s-not-happening period we’re currently in), when everyone was obsessing over this strange fake horror-themed baseball sim and Animal Crossing New Horizons.
I’m sure in the decades to come people will look back fondly at that time, as a moment when we could afford to be so focused on a small number of particular cultural monoliths instead of our regular diffuse fixations. Maybe a moment such as that will come again someday. But it’s not now, and Blaseball has ended.
It’s worth noting what a cultural phenomenon Blaseball was for awhile. They made a number of Youtube videos for the second era of the “splort,” called The Blaseball Roundup, that are worth watching for their own sake. And the Seattle Garages was a seriously good band that arose out of Blaseball’s pandemic enthusiasm.
Farewell Blaseball! You will be missed.
