Dear Fellow Star Wars The Old Republic Users,
Indeed, Star War Galaxies is gone as of 12-15-11, but it succeeded on many different levels. In fact, it was the first MMORPG Star Wars game, none the less; it's also one of the first MMORPG games. In the end, it was one of the first games to get an expansion pack - Jump to Lightspeed. Though, it was quite successful, especially in the first two years to three years, then, the constant population started to decrease, slowly, but steadily. As a RP person (Somewhat) myself, I personally loved it. But it was quite redundant after a while, so I can see why some people left. Although this seems more of a game rating type thing, this intertwines fact, as well as opinion.
On 16 September 2009, SOE informed all current and past account holders of the forthcoming closure of twelve servers.
On 3 May 2011, SOE issued a press release stating that ALL Sony Online Products have been isolated from the internet, due to massive and widespread security infiltrations of various games, servers, databases and likely more unmentioned. Security teams, as well as the FBI, were called-in and at that time no information was available regarding when anything would be restored. Initial reports indicated personal data of 20-30 million customers has potentially been compromised, none within the USA. The information compromised was old information including addresses. All SOE web pages were re-directed temporarily to a customer announcement and a press release page. This is where people were starting to leave. I remember that very well. Although, finally, on 24 June 2011, SOE and LucasArts announced that they had mutually agreed to shut down Star Wars Galaxies on 15 December 2011. I quote from Sony Online Entertainment:
If you are an active subscriber in good standing as of September 15, 2011, then you can play for free for the final months. Players wishing to play through the end of the game and participate in the galaxy-ending event planned for the last week of live service in December will need to re-activate or join the game on or before September 15th. No new or reactivated accounts will be accepted after September 15, 2011.
This was honestly one of the saddest, yet most grand deaths by a game ever. It allowed all users for the last three months (Active only) free membership. I salute Star Wars Galaxies to its glorious death, and for all the fun times I had on it. Thank you Star Wars Galaxies.