I found this on the LU wiki. You may want to read it. This is from LU graphic design artist Rayhawk.

"It’s funny, because by a lot of objective measures it’s been extremely successful: stable service, fantastic public opinion (once we added enough content), a healthy base of free players (over two million, LEGO just publicized), and a growing base of paying players who were dedicated and deeply invested in the game. We had a seasoned and motivated dev team, and a parent company with the financial stability to ride out those first couple of years that every MMO needs to gain traction and reach profitability. From a product standpoint, we in a great position, and lots of companies would have killed for our numbers. In the right hands, LEGO Universe was (and still would be) an absolute gold mine waiting to be tapped.

"But in the wrong hands, it’s a liability, threatening to damage the core LEGO brand as soon as a tone-deaf decision by management outrages the userbase, or if there were even the barest rumor of a child safety breach, or in any of the million unpredictable situations where an online community can suddenly turn itself against you without warning.

"Everybody on the team has their private conspiracy theories about the real reason LEGO shut down the project right as it was getting its legs under it. I think LEGO management took a sober assessment of their own unfamiliarity with exactly what MMOs are and how they work, and realized that they couldn’t trust themselves not to steer the ship straight into the rocks."


You see, LEGO Universe was basically perfect. They only shut it down because they were afraid it would GET shut down. But they would have had loyal players to back them up. Now, if they make something similar, they will have lost a lot of fans to back them up. LEGO Universe closing wasn't due to money problems. It was just a bad move made by the higher ups in the LEGO company