Administration
On 17 August 2010, six weeks after the release of APB, Realtime Worlds entered administration. Former APB staff spoke to the press about the development process, including a lack of management focus and desire to ignore negative comments from beta-testers, and the substandard quality of gameplay including poor driving and shooting mechanics.[23]
Shutdown
On 16 September 2010, as the administrator was unable to find a buyer, Realtime Worlds announced the shutdown of APB.[24]
Servers remained online the following day, during which time an unknown source apparently close to the RTW development team sparked rumors that Epic Games, creators of the Unreal Engine 3 on which APB was based, were showing interest in the APB intellectual property rights. Dana Cowley, spokesperson for Epic, neither confirmed nor denied the idea, stating:
"Mark [Epic Games CEO] absolutely loves APB, and everyone here loved what they saw. We've got our hands full of Gears of War 3, Bullet Storm and the recently announced Project Sword. If any talks like that are going on, then they would be confidential." [25]