The story of APB is a long and dirty one, but suffice to say that a lot of money was wasted on the online shooter/MMO hybrid that would crash and burn three months after release. It wasn't pretty. Since then, GamersFirst bought the code and is currently working on getting it back online in a free to play version, funded by micropayments.
It's said that the original APB had 130,000 players, and now GamersFirst has said that the beta for APB Reloaded (as the resurrected version is called) has already recieved 100,000 sign ups. Of course this doesn't mean that they automatically will make big bucks when the game launches, but there's absolutely some interest surrounding the title. The beta is set to start towards the end of this month.