The free-to-play online shooter Kwari (pictured above) is no more. It enjoyed a few short months of preying on places like France, Lichtenstein, and Vatican State, but it never made it to the US. With the company going into receivership, Kwari has gone back to being simply a river in India.

The idea was that players bought weapons and ammo through micropayments, with the promise that they could win the money back by killing other players. In order to be profitable, Kwari relied on a steady stream of less skilled players ("suckers") being gunned down by other players ("suckers").

This wasn't the first company to try to cash in on the presumtion that a) gamers love shooters., and b) can't really do math. During its brief run, Tournament.com tried a similar scheme, with players betting on matches. The company enjoyed a strange relationship with Valve Software, the only game maker to get on board. You'd think Tournament.com's demise would have been a warning sign to Kwari. Instead, you can read here their marketing manager suggesting that the lack of an IP was Kwari's strong point!

Shooters and online payments are uneasy bedfellows. It's been established sixteen million times over that people will dribble out their money to level up a character in a persistent world. They will also pay for songs in Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and Singstar. But something as fast and disposable as a shooter has proved harder to monetize.

The next attempt will be Electronic Arts' Battlefield Team Fortress 2 Heroes (above), which will kick off the company's "Play 4 Free" program, combining micropayments and ad revenue. After that, Webzen's Huxley (below), a subscription-based MMO/shooter, will be coming to American thanks to a recently announced publishing deal.

Both of these stand a much better chance of making money, mainly because they're from people who actually understand games rather than entrepreneurs dreaming about the success of online poker and the herd mentality of Counter-Strike players. But Battlefield Heroes and Huxley face stiff competition from games that won't try to stick their fingers into your wallet. Without some special hook to make them stand out, I wouldn't bet on either game.