While the website and free multiplayer servers proved popular, with a claimed 300,000 registered users, the organisation behind the website struggled at times to find funds for the hardware and bandwidth required to support such a service.
[1] As cheap flat-rate narrow-band and broadband services from more mainstream ISPs became popular and the dot com crash made venture capitalists apprehensive about funding such organizations, Barrysworld once again struggled to find funds to support its activities.
[1] It is not about the failure of anyone here […] the stock market has tarnished anything that's vaguely internet or game-related as a dead loss.
[1] In 2003 the original creators of Barrysworld parted ways from the GAME.net company and relaunched the service supported by a volunteer based organisation using a new website http://www.freddyshouse.com .
The name Barrysworld is a reference to the character Barry the Time Sprout in novels by Robert Rankin[3][4][5]