Quotes

The demise of the game has spawned a number of aphorisms. Some choice ones are listed here:

MetaCreation's Wilczac complains that the cancellation notice on AOL sounded “as if we were canceling it, and that's not what happened.”
--Wired.com

“MetaCreations wishes to apologize for the thoughtless way in which our loyal fans and followers were notified about AOL's decision, not ours, to discontinue the MetaSquares game area for approximately 80,000 Mac and Windows-based subscribers”
--MetaCreations

“The game is easy to learn, challenging to master, and beautiful to watch, thanks to nifty artwork from the Metacreations folks.”
--Scott Kim

“AOL had reportedly tried to talk MetaCreations into moving the game to the Premium games area, which currently charges members US$1.99 per hour over the $19.95 monthly membership fee to play. MetaSquares will not be available on AOL after September 1.”
--GameSpot.com

“AOL made the decision to terminate the game 'unilaterally without any contact or consultation with MetaCreation officials.'”
--MetaCreations

“It seems that AOL, in its infinite wisdom, wasted MetaSquares on 1 September 1997. What's more, MetaSquares wasn't the only AOL feature which got axed on that date; the AOL sites for MetaCreations and TSR evaporated as well, and God knows which others that I'm not aware of.”
--Cubist

“AOL's demands that we begin to pay excessive fees, when none were previously charged, has accelerated our drive to migrate our entire virtual community of computer graphics enthusiasts to our World Wide Web environment as quickly as possible.”
--Mark Zimmer, President of MetaCreations

“The company also blasted AOL for the way in which users were notified: 'A notice of discontinuation on the splash screen containing a glaring typo.' The name of the product was misspelled, a MetaCreations spokeswoman said.”
--CNet

“'This is the thanks we get for helping to build their subscriber base?' asked a MetaCreations spokesperson. 'We're sick of them.'”
--ZDNet