I'm not a hater, I know why SONY does what they do. MONEY!!
No kidding, Sherlock.
And why does ANY company do ANYTHING? To make money.
How many non profit companies do you see out there? Plenty. Most file chapter 7 bankruptcy and continue under court supervision.
That are still in business that is....
Boy, you have problems. The only hater i've seen so far is you.
The thing i think you are missing the most from my posts is that theres a way to do business and a way not to. I believe that SONY has make some bad business decisions. Quite simply, they are going about making money the wrong way, and it will hurt them. I don't have time to write an entire thesis in my post, but you need to chill. You are getting to worked up over this. People have their reasons to hate or not hate. Leave it be. You can't change their minds. If you think SONY is good. GREAT!!. Buy their products and don't worry about us.
I'm not a hater, I know why SONY does what they do. MONEY!!
No kidding, Sherlock.
And why does ANY company do ANYTHING?
How many non profit companies do you see out there?
That are still in business that is....
Yes, but most companies make their money by doing legitimate business. In other words, releasing a complete, finished product that doesn't suck ass AND not ruining it later on down the line.
As to the above question, lets start with Planetside, MXO, SWG, and the recent champ, Vanguard. Yes, Sigil technically developed Vanguard, but it was primarily pressure from SOE that led to its current condition.
No it was NOT pressure from SOE.
It was the fact that Sigil had blown $30,000,000 at Microsoft and were still a year away from a finished game, so MS told them to take a hike. They begged SOE to ttake them on, and SOE gave them 6 months, and they STILL blew it.
Don't blame SOE for the crapfest that Sigil made.
And I could point out a LOT of games that were released unfinished. In fact the few that WERE finished are pretty rare. DOAC is one of the few that I can recall, and most likely LOTRO will be. But those are the exception.
I dont know call me .....whatever you want ive got thick skin......but i classify a "failed" game as 1 that doesnt make any cash.I have yet to see ANY announcements from SOE concerning the ever so precious holy grail of gaming SWG shutting down.Nor is EQ as a matter of fact it has yet another expansion coming out.
EQ2 is BETTER now than it was at release according to some current players.
WoW those guys at SOE really dont have a clue.I mean here they are almost 10 years later and they offer what like 5 games for 20 or 30 bucks a month?
Go buy 5 or 6 xbox,ps2 or 360 or wii games and see what that costs ya.
I just dont see what there is to hate.
They keep making and developing content for current games and even appeal to a marketplace setting via the exchange server on EQ2.If that isnt listening to its playerbase i dont know what is.
I get a bit tired of people pointing out how bad SOE is and SONY in general.IMHO this is NOT a company you want to see fail.They were GLOBAL way before Blizzard and Microsoft were.Think of the way it would affect the GLOBAL economy if they just shut the doors.They dont just employ SONY employees they also employ related companies many things get farmed out to outside sources.
I dont know call me .....whatever you want ive got thick skin......but i classify a "failed" game as 1 that doesnt make any cash.I have yet to see ANY announcements from SOE concerning the ever so precious holy grail of gaming SWG shutting down.Nor is EQ as a matter of fact it has yet another expansion coming out.
EQ2 is BETTER now than it was at release according to some current players.
WoW those guys at SOE really dont have a clue.I mean here they are almost 10 years later and they offer what like 5 games for 20 or 30 bucks a month?
Go buy 5 or 6 xbox,ps2 or 360 or wii games and see what that costs ya.
I just dont see what there is to hate.
They keep making and developing content for current games and even appeal to a marketplace setting via the exchange server on EQ2.If that isnt listening to its playerbase i dont know what is.
I get a bit tired of people pointing out how bad SOE is and SONY in general.IMHO this is NOT a company you want to see fail.They were GLOBAL way before Blizzard and Microsoft were.Think of the way it would affect the GLOBAL economy if they just shut the doors.They dont just employ SONY employees they also employ related companies many things get farmed out to outside sources.
Enough with the corporate bashing already.
They just hired a gold farming exec to be their VP. What does that tell you?
I'm not a hater, I know why SONY does what they do. MONEY!!
No kidding, Sherlock.
And why does ANY company do ANYTHING?
How many non profit companies do you see out there?
That are still in business that is....
Yes, but most companies make their money by doing legitimate business. In other words, releasing a complete, finished product that doesn't suck ass AND not ruining it later on down the line.
As to the above question, lets start with Planetside, MXO, SWG, and the recent champ, Vanguard. Yes, Sigil technically developed Vanguard, but it was primarily pressure from SOE that led to its current condition.
No it was NOT pressure from SOE.
It was the fact that Sigil had blown $30,000,000 at Microsoft and were still a year away from a finished game, so MS told them to take a hike. They begged SOE to ttake them on, and SOE gave them 6 months, and they STILL blew it.
Don't blame SOE for the crapfest that Sigil made.
And I could point out a LOT of games that were released unfinished. In fact the few that WERE finished are pretty rare. DOAC is one of the few that I can recall, and most likely LOTRO will be. But those are the exception.
Actually no recent MMO has released finished. Lord Of the Rings Online will be the first one. (You can't really say if Asheron's Call 1 or Ultima Online, or EQ released unfinished, since back then they didn't have to promise any features to the community ) But AO, Archlord, AutoAssault, CoH, CoV, DDO, DAoC, D&L, EVE, EQ2, RFO, SWG, Vanguard, and especially WoW didn't release Finished.
Dark Age Of Camelot wasn't finished on release. It had a very smooth release as far as MMO's go. But it released with all of Hibernia's level 30+ dungeons unitemized. That is definitely not finished in my book.
World of Warcraft launched with out Mauradon, dire Maul, Molten Core, Battlegrounds, Honor System, Etc. Not a single feature that makes the game what it is today was in the game at release.
Currently playing: LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too: Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
why is everyone so eager for this or that game or system or company to fail? personally, i like the amount of choices out there. but i guess if half these companies folded they'd be complaining about the lack of choices available.
The reason SOE fails is because they have forgotten that they are an *entertainment* company. They have so little regard for their consumers that they have given themselves a horrible reputation. They are so desperate to emulate WoW and they will screw all of their customers attempting to do it.
There are so many people blinded by hatred for SOE they cant even see that Blizzard is headed down the same road.Currently Blizzard is making a TON of cash.
On 1 game and 1 expansion.
By reading the posts in this thread that makes them even more money hungry than SOE.If your talking greed here lets do the math CORRECTLY.Blizzard is making $119,600,000,00.00 a month.This based on 8 million subs they claim x 14.95 a month.This is the very least they are making monthly.
Do the math yourself and please correct me if im wrong.IMHO if Blizzard is making this much on its cash cow they should be producing more games and more content for its players/customers.
Yet all the SOE haters claim that SOE is the WORST game developer bar none.They have 5 or 6 games that are all being played provide new content for its current games and even let you play them all under 1 subscription as well.On top of that i think we can all agree here that they make considerably LESS than Blizzard.
So really following the "logic" in this thread that makes Blizzard even GREEDIER than SOE.
Go ahead and counter the point with whatever reason you can come up with but Blizzard still Makes MORE than SOE off of
SoE will always fail, that's why it's SoE! If they were any good they would close down SoE, fire some dipshits that were ru(i)nning the show and start a new company and just hope no one finds out it's them. And only then they could start thinking about not sucking so much and actually make and keep a good game running.
I mean... Even the biggest shithole of a shop knows that customer is always right and that it's because of the customer that they make some money. What does SoE do to it's customers? Fuck em up with no lubrication!
SoE as it is will never make it! I don't give a shit if they make a (Pre-Cu) SWG2 now and it's all I ever wanted in the game... I ante buying it even if SoE is only printing manuals. It's just matter of time before they fuck me up again and hope of getting some WoW2 player instead of me.
Every time I read your post, I die a little inside...
There are so many people blinded by hatred for SOE they cant even see that Blizzard is headed down the same road.Currently Blizzard is making a TON of cash.
On 1 game and 1 expansion.
By reading the posts in this thread that makes them even more money hungry than SOE.If your talking greed here lets do the math CORRECTLY.Blizzard is making $119,600,000,00.00 a month.This based on 8 million subs they claim x 14.95 a month.This is the very least they are making monthly.
Do the math yourself and please correct me if im wrong.IMHO if Blizzard is making this much on its cash cow they should be producing more games and more content for its players/customers.
Yet all the SOE haters claim that SOE is the WORST game developer bar none.They have 5 or 6 games that are all being played provide new content for its current games and even let you play them all under 1 subscription as well.On top of that i think we can all agree here that they make considerably LESS than Blizzard.
So really following the "logic" in this thread that makes Blizzard even GREEDIER than SOE.
Go ahead and counter the point with whatever reason you can come up with but Blizzard still Makes MORE than SOE off of
1GAME.
Both companies are greedy, Blizzard is more so than SOE IMO.. Why I believe that? 8 million paying 15 a month generating that insane amount of money each month could easily put out free content for its paying customers.. So blizzard spends some money to make and keep people happy and paying longer... Thats a wise business choice but they never did it.. They release BC at what 50 bucks a pop? Thats greed!
Soe on the other hand is trying to emulate WoW when the people currently playing eq2 don't want to play WoW.. Soe wants blizzards sub base and they will do whatever they can to get it. They tried and failed with regards to swg..
Next, I think soe makes more than enough money from eq2 subs alone to release free content to its paying customers... This is a wise business decision because it makes the customer happy. If you look at a place like unrest which was supposed to be part of EOF, they added it in a few month later so the high end wouldn't become completely stale to current players. It took 1 guy 2 months to do that zone... If they have 50 people developing that game I would take 5 of them put them in a room and let them just go to town and making more unrest type zones... Then every 2-3 months put them in the game for free.. This is what soe needs to do more often to become successful.. They need to spend some of their generated income each month by continually adding in free content which is already payed to them by a customers monthly fee.. The monthly fee generates more than enough to just run servers and bandwidth... They are making money hand over fist or they wouldn't be in the business..
If you ask any unreal modder, that unrest zone could of been done in 2-3 weeks had 3-5 people worked on it.. And thats where soe fails at managing its crew of devs IMO.. But then again I don't know how many people they actually have working on that game it could be only 12 actual devs and 40 suits cracking the whip behind them... But again if thats the case its still poorly managed..
Soe also needs to repair its reputation with SWG like 2 years ago... There was 280k players and 90% of them most likely never touched another soe product after the NGE. An apology won't cut it either, they need an apology and older servers to back it up, and then pray people will forgive what they did to them.. Like it or not, soe decision with swg/nge will hurt them for a long time to come and not just in the mmo world, in electronics and everywhere else some ex vet see's sony names it will be instant boycott...
The reason SOE fails is because they have forgotten that they are an *entertainment* company. They have so little regard for their consumers that they have given themselves a horrible reputation. They are so desperate to emulate WoW and they will screw all of their customers attempting to do it.
hehe.. ya im always amused by game hate. here these folks are claiming to be passionate gamers, yet they want their selection game choices to be extremely limited and enjoy seeing developers flop
rock on.. i'll play every MMO on the market with a smile. i'll also not become a company stalker or hater because ive got better things to do with my life, one of them is playing other games I might discover that I enjoy
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a robot foot stomping on a human face -- forever."
i wasn't aware that SOE was a charitable institution, that they had to model their business practices and products to satisfy the minority at the expense of profits . plain and simple, SOE (or Blizzard for that matter) is a business out to make money. if you don't like their products, don't buy them. but please, don't go around acting like SOE owes you something.
SoE will always fail, that's why it's SoE! If they were any good they would close down SoE, fire some dipshits that were ru(i)nning the show and start a new company and just hope no one finds out it's them. And only then they could start thinking about not sucking so much and actually make and keep a good game running.
I mean... Even the biggest shithole of a shop knows that customer is always right and that it's because of the customer that they make some money. What does SoE do to it's customers? Fuck em up with no lubrication!
SoE as it is will never make it! I don't give a shit if they make a (Pre-Cu) SWG2 now and it's all I ever wanted in the game... I ante buying it even if SoE is only printing manuals. It's just matter of time before they fuck me up again and hope of getting some WoW2 player instead of me.
Ok so after reading your post here is what im wondering:
Your 1st sentence is false.SOE has not failed.They currently have games on the market continually being played and are still providing content and new games are being developed as well.
So where you got the idea they "failed" ive no idea.BTW EQ is still going strong with another expansion coming along.Id say that is rather succesful.
Now your last sentence implies that you are a current customer:"It's just a matter of time before they fuck me up again and hope of getting some WoW2 player instead of me."
Im not sure i understand the whole statement there grammatical errors aside.If you hate SOE so much why are you STILL a customer?(just assuming here that you are).
If you are not a SOE customer how is it possible they could "fuck you up"?Id really like to know.
Clearly you are so consumed with hate for everything SOE you cant think in a reasonable manner.The entitlement that you SOE haters have is just beyond my comprehension.
SOE is not responsible to you.They have a responsibilty to investors.If you really want to have a true voice i suggest that you and all the other SOE haters buy a majority of the stock in SONY itself.Then you can fire Smedley and take over the reigns of SOE.
The reason SOE fails is because they have forgotten that they are an *entertainment* company. They have so little regard for their consumers that they have given themselves a horrible reputation. They are so desperate to emulate WoW and they will screw all of their customers attempting to do it.
SOE is set on emulating WoW? This is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. Do you even play any of SOE's games? I play Everquest 2 and it's nowhere's near WoW. This debate about SOE this and SOE that is tiring. I have seen so much threads about the hatred for SOE. Every gaming company has it's flaws. But if they make a good solid game, why is it so hard to respect them for doing that? Until you play thier games, and don't give me this crap about past tense either.. if you play them now, you'll see that they are learning. I for one don't have any bias against other gaming companies. Why you ask? Because wether or not you forget, they are not any different from you or I. We all strive to be successful in what we do. Wether that is a good or bad thing. Sometimes we stray from the standards we set and promise. The only thing I can say is stop being the ways so many of you are being. You act like the gaming industry has ruined your lives. But remember, you chose to play games for hours upon hours, no company forced you to do this. If letting go of past events is so hard, find something that makes you feel alive again. I mean honestly, isn't there enough bashing, hatred, and negativity on these forums already? Sometimes I wonder if people have forgotten how to be at times. Anyways, I'm sure most of you will take this as a lecture. But this is just one person wondering why games interfer with our true lives.
Originally posted by ste2000 Before shifting their focus to other markets, SoE should at least release a blockbuster game in NA/EU, since none of their games reach the 300K mark............. If they are not able to make a mass market game in the western emisphere how on earth they will be able to beat the Koreans and Chinese on their own ground????
Why? Because Asian/non-US games have done so well in the US? Game doesn't have to do well in the US to be popular outside of the US.
Originally posted by Opticaleye Currently Blizzard is making a TON of cash.On 1 game and 1 expansion.By reading the posts in this thread that makes them even more money hungry than SOE.If your talking greed here lets do the math CORRECTLY.Blizzard is making $119,600,000,00.00 a month.This based on 8 million subs they claim x 14.95 a month.This is the very least they are making monthly.Do the math yourself and please correct me if im wrong.IMHO if Blizzard is making this much on its cash cow they should be producing more games and more content for its players/customers.
You fail at math. Not all of those subs are paying per month.
At any rate, how does making lots of money make Blizzard greedy? They have that money because they continue to give the majority of players what they want. SOE fails because they don't realize that they could make just as much money by doing exactly the opposite, but are currently refusing to do so.
Also, I should mention that there is a point in business where you may be losing money, but continuing to lose money is sometimes cheaper than closing down altogether. Where does that fall on your "win-lose" spectrum? It's not always black and white, and it wouldn't surprise me to find out that SOE lives in this realm of greyness more often than not.
No matter how you spin it, Blizzard wins. Stop trolling and go away.
On 1 game and 1 expansion. By reading the posts in this thread that makes them even more money hungry than SOE.If your talking greed here lets do the math CORRECTLY.Blizzard is making $119,600,000,00.00 a month.This based on 8 million subs they claim x 14.95 a month.This is the very least they are making monthly. Do the math yourself and please correct me if im wrong.IMHO if Blizzard is making this much on its cash cow they should be producing more games and more content for its players/customers.
You fail at math. Not all of those subs are paying per month.
At any rate, how does making lots of money make Blizzard greedy? They have that money because they continue to give the majority of players what they want. SOE fails because they don't realize that they could make just as much money by doing exactly the opposite, but are currently refusing to do so.
Also, I should mention that there is a point in business where you may be losing money, but continuing to lose money is sometimes cheaper than closing down altogether. Where does that fall on your "win-lose" spectrum? It's not always black and white, and it wouldn't surprise me to find out that SOE lives in this realm of greyness more often than not.
No matter how you spin it, Blizzard wins. Stop trolling and go away.
Ok so after reading your post here is what im wondering:
Your 1st sentence is false.SOE has not failed.They currently have games on the market continually being played and are still providing content and new games are being developed as well.
So where you got the idea they "failed" ive no idea.BTW EQ is still going strong with another expansion coming along.Id say that is rather succesful.
Now your last sentence implies that you are a current customer:"It's just a matter of time before they fuck me up again and hope of getting some WoW2 player instead of me."
Im not sure i understand the whole statement there grammatical errors aside.If you hate SOE so much why are you STILL a customer?(just assuming here that you are).
If you are not a SOE customer how is it possible they could "fuck you up"?Id really like to know.
Clearly you are so consumed with hate for everything SOE you cant think in a reasonable manner.The entitlement that you SOE haters have is just beyond my comprehension.
SOE is not responsible to you.They have a responsibilty to investors.If you really want to have a true voice i suggest that you and all the other SOE haters buy a majority of the stock in SONY itself.Then you can fire Smedley and take over the reigns of SOE.
Can I just point out you went slighlty off topic? This is not just another thread about why we hate SoE, although you seems to think that it is.
The OP is about SoE taking on Blizzard world-wide, most of the replies are about how ridicoulous this is, people is not saying that just because we think SoE suxx in general, but because it is actually supported by hard facts, at least on this subject.
SoE games are mediocres and they have a mediocre subscription base world-wide compared to Blizzard and most Korean games (it doesn't mean that they are failure, they are just mediocres).
In the OP, SoE says that it want to challenge Blizzard for world domination, to which everyone with some brains will understand that this is bollocks (SoE haters or not).
Facts:
-SoE has around 4-5 MMORPGs. None of them has more than 300K subs.
-Blizzard with 1 game in their stable reached 6 millions at the first try.
-NCSoft has around 4 millions between L1 and L2, other chinese and koreans games has subs over the million.
Now, of the SoE games only one out of 5 broke the 300K subs limit, that's EQ which hit 500K at its peak (a 7 y/o game).
So you tell why can't we mock SoE about their latest marketing spin, when we have all the evidence to think that they are talking crap?
I think it is pretty obvious that if SoE cannot manage to have a steady subs base of more than a million in NA/EU (still very far), most certainly is not going to destroy Blizzard or NCSoft in Asia?
Or do you think they can????
In which case enlighten us, because we are very curious to know how.
Before shifting their focus to other markets, SoE should at least release a blockbuster game in NA/EU, since none of their games reach the 300K mark.............
If they are not able to make a mass market game in the western emisphere how on earth they will be able to beat the Koreans and Chinese on their own ground????
Why? Because Asian/non-US games have done so well in the US? Game doesn't have to do well in the US to be popular outside of the US.
Because SoE said that, not me, I just analyzed what they plan to do.
SOE will never succeed as long as the company is run by business executives instead of game developers.
Would you rather play a game conceptualized by someone like Garriot, or Smedley?
Asian MMOs will continue on their snowballing failures as long as more MMOs are engineered by businessmen with specific profit maximizing mechanics. In-game ad's item malls GTC for ISK and /pizza plz! So many new ways to make money, but what about new ways to make games fun?
MMOs are coming to the hollywood point where nobody cares about the ingenuity of ideas as long as they are profitable. They will throw as much hype and gimmicks and whatever sticks will ship.
Gamers need to stop flaming "low budget" games into vaporware. (vaporware-izing?) One of those guys with his basement made MMO could end up making the greatest game ever with the right funding. No company will risk millions on new concepts. MMOs need low cost innovative games to survive as an artform/ industry. If jaded gamers keep stomping on everyone's dreams there's no one to blame for the pathetic state of MMOs other than ouselves. But, I for one, won't let MMORPGs become some bastardized stillborn of hollywood and silicon valley.
MMORPGs dont need multimillion subscriber successes. MMORPGs need creative failures to pave the long forgotten road to creative genius.
So, flame on if you must. But you're only turning up the heat in hell.
SOE will never succeed as long as the company is run by business executives instead of game developers.
Would you rather play a game conceptualized by someone like Garriot, or Smedley?
Asian MMOs will continue on their snowballing failures as long as more MMOs are engineered by businessmen with specific profit maximizing mechanics. In-game ad's Item Malls and /pizza plz!
MMOs are coming to the hollywood point where nobody cares about the ingenuity of ideas as long as they are profitable. They will throw as much hype and gimmicks and whatever sticks will ship.
Gamers need to stop flaming "low budget" games into vaporware. (vaporware-izing?) One of those guys with his basement made MMO could end up making the greatest game ever with the right funding. No company will risk millions on new concepts. MMOs need low cost innovative games to survive as an artform/ industry. If jaded gamers keep stomping on everyone's dreams there's no one to blame for the pathetic state of MMOs other than ouselves. But, I for one, won't let MMORPGs become some bastardized stillborn of hollywood and silicon valley.
MMORPGs dont need multimillion subscriber successes. MMORPGs need creative failures to pave the long forgotten road to creative genius.
So, flame on if you must. But you're only turning up the heat in hell.
Say hi to Smedley while you're there
Hate to burst your bubble there but for an mmo to even become a decent game it costs MILLIONS.Why do you think SOE and Blizzard are at the top?Why do you think the korean mmo's fail so often?A GOOD mmo cant be developed on a guys paycheck.
I wouldnt play an mmo that some guy made in his garage EVER.Ive been there and done that.BTW its too late for "art" as we speak 2nd life is paving the way for the next gen of communication beyond anything we can imagine.
Ok so after reading your post here is what im wondering:
Your 1st sentence is false.SOE has not failed.They currently have games on the market continually being played and are still providing content and new games are being developed as well.
So where you got the idea they "failed" ive no idea.BTW EQ is still going strong with another expansion coming along.Id say that is rather succesful.
Well if SOE didn't fail then damn... I must get in to MMO business myself since there is no way to fail!
Now your last sentence implies that you are a current customer:"It's just a matter of time before they fuck me up again and hope of getting some WoW2 player instead of me."
Im not sure i understand the whole statement there grammatical errors aside.If you hate SOE so much why are you STILL a customer?(just assuming here that you are).
Swap "and" for "in", I ante perfect but I'm trying. And I'm not playing any SOE games and don't plan on playing any ever... If you put a gun on my head I might think about it.
If you are not a SOE customer how is it possible they could "fuck you up"?Id really like to know.
I was, I got fucked big time.
Clearly you are so consumed with hate for everything SOE you cant think in a reasonable manner.The entitlement that you SOE haters have is just beyond my comprehension.
I hate SOE and I'm proud of it! Unlike you I value myself and don't let any one shit on me, especially when they are on my pay list.
SOE is not responsible to you.They have a responsibilty to investors.If you really want to have a true voice i suggest that you and all the other SOE haters buy a majority of the stock in SONY itself.Then you can fire Smedley and take over the reigns of SOE.
I know SOE is not responsible to me... They showed it many times. Too bad we were all fools and actually thought that they would be responsible to there paying customers.
Every time I read your post, I die a little inside...
Comments
No kidding, Sherlock.
And why does ANY company do ANYTHING? To make money.
How many non profit companies do you see out there? Plenty. Most file chapter 7 bankruptcy and continue under court supervision.
That are still in business that is....
Boy, you have problems. The only hater i've seen so far is you.The thing i think you are missing the most from my posts is that theres a way to do business and a way not to. I believe that SONY has make some bad business decisions. Quite simply, they are going about making money the wrong way, and it will hurt them. I don't have time to write an entire thesis in my post, but you need to chill. You are getting to worked up over this. People have their reasons to hate or not hate. Leave it be. You can't change their minds. If you think SONY is good. GREAT!!. Buy their products and don't worry about us.
No kidding, Sherlock.
And why does ANY company do ANYTHING?
How many non profit companies do you see out there?
That are still in business that is....
Yes, but most companies make their money by doing legitimate business. In other words, releasing a complete, finished product that doesn't suck ass AND not ruining it later on down the line.As to the above question, lets start with Planetside, MXO, SWG, and the recent champ, Vanguard. Yes, Sigil technically developed Vanguard, but it was primarily pressure from SOE that led to its current condition.
No it was NOT pressure from SOE.
It was the fact that Sigil had blown $30,000,000 at Microsoft and were still a year away from a finished game, so MS told them to take a hike. They begged SOE to ttake them on, and SOE gave them 6 months, and they STILL blew it.
Don't blame SOE for the crapfest that Sigil made.
And I could point out a LOT of games that were released unfinished. In fact the few that WERE finished are pretty rare. DOAC is one of the few that I can recall, and most likely LOTRO will be. But those are the exception.
EQ2 is BETTER now than it was at release according to some current players.
WoW those guys at SOE really dont have a clue.I mean here they are almost 10 years later and they offer what like 5 games for 20 or 30 bucks a month?
Go buy 5 or 6 xbox,ps2 or 360 or wii games and see what that costs ya.
I just dont see what there is to hate.
They keep making and developing content for current games and even appeal to a marketplace setting via the exchange server on EQ2.If that isnt listening to its playerbase i dont know what is.
I get a bit tired of people pointing out how bad SOE is and SONY in general.IMHO this is NOT a company you want to see fail.They were GLOBAL way before Blizzard and Microsoft were.Think of the way it would affect the GLOBAL economy if they just shut the doors.They dont just employ SONY employees they also employ related companies many things get farmed out to outside sources.
Enough with the corporate bashing already.
What is your physical limit?
They just hired a gold farming exec to be their VP. What does that tell you?
My youtube MMO gaming channel
No kidding, Sherlock.
And why does ANY company do ANYTHING?
How many non profit companies do you see out there?
That are still in business that is....
Yes, but most companies make their money by doing legitimate business. In other words, releasing a complete, finished product that doesn't suck ass AND not ruining it later on down the line.As to the above question, lets start with Planetside, MXO, SWG, and the recent champ, Vanguard. Yes, Sigil technically developed Vanguard, but it was primarily pressure from SOE that led to its current condition.
No it was NOT pressure from SOE.
It was the fact that Sigil had blown $30,000,000 at Microsoft and were still a year away from a finished game, so MS told them to take a hike. They begged SOE to ttake them on, and SOE gave them 6 months, and they STILL blew it.
Don't blame SOE for the crapfest that Sigil made.
And I could point out a LOT of games that were released unfinished. In fact the few that WERE finished are pretty rare. DOAC is one of the few that I can recall, and most likely LOTRO will be. But those are the exception.
Actually no recent MMO has released finished. Lord Of the Rings Online will be the first one. (You can't really say if Asheron's Call 1 or Ultima Online, or EQ released unfinished, since back then they didn't have to promise any features to the communityDark Age Of Camelot wasn't finished on release. It had a very smooth release as far as MMO's go. But it released with all of Hibernia's level 30+ dungeons unitemized. That is definitely not finished in my book.
World of Warcraft launched with out Mauradon, dire Maul, Molten Core, Battlegrounds, Honor System, Etc. Not a single feature that makes the game what it is today was in the game at release.
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
On 1 game and 1 expansion.
By reading the posts in this thread that makes them even more money hungry than SOE.If your talking greed here lets do the math CORRECTLY.Blizzard is making $119,600,000,00.00 a month.This based on 8 million subs they claim x 14.95 a month.This is the very least they are making monthly.
Do the math yourself and please correct me if im wrong.IMHO if Blizzard is making this much on its cash cow they should be producing more games and more content for its players/customers.
Yet all the SOE haters claim that SOE is the WORST game developer bar none.They have 5 or 6 games that are all being played provide new content for its current games and even let you play them all under 1 subscription as well.On top of that i think we can all agree here that they make considerably LESS than Blizzard.
So really following the "logic" in this thread that makes Blizzard even GREEDIER than SOE.
Go ahead and counter the point with whatever reason you can come up with but Blizzard still Makes MORE than SOE off of
1GAME.
What is your physical limit?
I mean... Even the biggest shithole of a shop knows that customer is always right and that it's because of the customer that they make some money. What does SoE do to it's customers? Fuck em up with no lubrication!
SoE as it is will never make it! I don't give a shit if they make a (Pre-Cu) SWG2 now and it's all I ever wanted in the game... I ante buying it even if SoE is only printing manuals. It's just matter of time before they fuck me up again and hope of getting some WoW2 player instead of me.
Soe on the other hand is trying to emulate WoW when the people currently playing eq2 don't want to play WoW.. Soe wants blizzards sub base and they will do whatever they can to get it. They tried and failed with regards to swg..
Next, I think soe makes more than enough money from eq2 subs alone to release free content to its paying customers... This is a wise business decision because it makes the customer happy. If you look at a place like unrest which was supposed to be part of EOF, they added it in a few month later so the high end wouldn't become completely stale to current players. It took 1 guy 2 months to do that zone... If they have 50 people developing that game I would take 5 of them put them in a room and let them just go to town and making more unrest type zones... Then every 2-3 months put them in the game for free.. This is what soe needs to do more often to become successful.. They need to spend some of their generated income each month by continually adding in free content which is already payed to them by a customers monthly fee.. The monthly fee generates more than enough to just run servers and bandwidth... They are making money hand over fist or they wouldn't be in the business..
If you ask any unreal modder, that unrest zone could of been done in 2-3 weeks had 3-5 people worked on it.. And thats where soe fails at managing its crew of devs IMO.. But then again I don't know how many people they actually have working on that game it could be only 12 actual devs and 40 suits cracking the whip behind them... But again if thats the case its still poorly managed..
Soe also needs to repair its reputation with SWG like 2 years ago... There was 280k players and 90% of them most likely never touched another soe product after the NGE. An apology won't cut it either, they need an apology and older servers to back it up, and then pray people will forgive what they did to them.. Like it or not, soe decision with swg/nge will hurt them for a long time to come and not just in the mmo world, in electronics and everywhere else some ex vet see's sony names it will be instant boycott...
hehe.. ya im always amused by game hate. here these folks are claiming to be passionate gamers, yet they want their selection game choices to be extremely limited and enjoy seeing developers flop
rock on.. i'll play every MMO on the market with a smile. i'll also not become a company stalker or hater because ive got better things to do with my life, one of them is playing other games I might discover that I enjoy
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a robot foot stomping on a human face -- forever."
GREAT! 2 piles of shit leading the mmo genre! just what we need...
Your 1st sentence is false.SOE has not failed.They currently have games on the market continually being played and are still providing content and new games are being developed as well.
So where you got the idea they "failed" ive no idea.BTW EQ is still going strong with another expansion coming along.Id say that is rather succesful.
Now your last sentence implies that you are a current customer:"It's just a matter of time before they fuck me up again and hope of getting some WoW2 player instead of me."
Im not sure i understand the whole statement there grammatical errors aside.If you hate SOE so much why are you STILL a customer?(just assuming here that you are).
If you are not a SOE customer how is it possible they could "fuck you up"?Id really like to know.
Clearly you are so consumed with hate for everything SOE you cant think in a reasonable manner.The entitlement that you SOE haters have is just beyond my comprehension.
SOE is not responsible to you.They have a responsibilty to investors.If you really want to have a true voice i suggest that you and all the other SOE haters buy a majority of the stock in SONY itself.Then you can fire Smedley and take over the reigns of SOE.
What is your physical limit?
Why? Because Asian/non-US games have done so well in the US? Game doesn't have to do well in the US to be popular outside of the US.
http://www.greycouncil.org/
You fail at math. Not all of those subs are paying per month.
At any rate, how does making lots of money make Blizzard greedy? They have that money because they continue to give the majority of players what they want. SOE fails because they don't realize that they could make just as much money by doing exactly the opposite, but are currently refusing to do so.
Also, I should mention that there is a point in business where you may be losing money, but continuing to lose money is sometimes cheaper than closing down altogether. Where does that fall on your "win-lose" spectrum? It's not always black and white, and it wouldn't surprise me to find out that SOE lives in this realm of greyness more often than not.
No matter how you spin it, Blizzard wins. Stop trolling and go away.
You fail at math. Not all of those subs are paying per month.
At any rate, how does making lots of money make Blizzard greedy? They have that money because they continue to give the majority of players what they want. SOE fails because they don't realize that they could make just as much money by doing exactly the opposite, but are currently refusing to do so.
Also, I should mention that there is a point in business where you may be losing money, but continuing to lose money is sometimes cheaper than closing down altogether. Where does that fall on your "win-lose" spectrum? It's not always black and white, and it wouldn't surprise me to find out that SOE lives in this realm of greyness more often than not.
No matter how you spin it, Blizzard wins. Stop trolling and go away.
You might want to take your own advice on this.The OP is about SoE taking on Blizzard world-wide, most of the replies are about how ridicoulous this is, people is not saying that just because we think SoE suxx in general, but because it is actually supported by hard facts, at least on this subject.
SoE games are mediocres and they have a mediocre subscription base world-wide compared to Blizzard and most Korean games (it doesn't mean that they are failure, they are just mediocres).
In the OP, SoE says that it want to challenge Blizzard for world domination, to which everyone with some brains will understand that this is bollocks (SoE haters or not).
Facts:
-SoE has around 4-5 MMORPGs. None of them has more than 300K subs.
-Blizzard with 1 game in their stable reached 6 millions at the first try.
-NCSoft has around 4 millions between L1 and L2, other chinese and koreans games has subs over the million.
Now, of the SoE games only one out of 5 broke the 300K subs limit, that's EQ which hit 500K at its peak (a 7 y/o game).
So you tell why can't we mock SoE about their latest marketing spin, when we have all the evidence to think that they are talking crap?
I think it is pretty obvious that if SoE cannot manage to have a steady subs base of more than a million in NA/EU (still very far), most certainly is not going to destroy Blizzard or NCSoft in Asia?
Or do you think they can????
In which case enlighten us, because we are very curious to know how.
Why? Because Asian/non-US games have done so well in the US? Game doesn't have to do well in the US to be popular outside of the US.
Because SoE said that, not me, I just analyzed what they plan to do.
Read the OP before u post.
Would you rather play a game conceptualized by someone like Garriot, or Smedley?
Asian MMOs will continue on their snowballing failures as long as more MMOs are engineered by businessmen with specific profit maximizing mechanics. In-game ad's item malls GTC for ISK and /pizza plz! So many new ways to make money, but what about new ways to make games fun?
MMOs are coming to the hollywood point where nobody cares about the ingenuity of ideas as long as they are profitable. They will throw as much hype and gimmicks and whatever sticks will ship.
Gamers need to stop flaming "low budget" games into vaporware. (vaporware-izing?) One of those guys with his basement made MMO could end up making the greatest game ever with the right funding. No company will risk millions on new concepts. MMOs need low cost innovative games to survive as an artform/ industry. If jaded gamers keep stomping on everyone's dreams there's no one to blame for the pathetic state of MMOs other than ouselves. But, I for one, won't let MMORPGs become some bastardized stillborn of hollywood and silicon valley.
MMORPGs dont need multimillion subscriber successes. MMORPGs need creative failures to pave the long forgotten road to creative genius.
So, flame on if you must. But you're only turning up the heat in hell.
Say hi to Smedley while you're there
I wouldnt play an mmo that some guy made in his garage EVER.Ive been there and done that.BTW its too late for "art" as we speak 2nd life is paving the way for the next gen of communication beyond anything we can imagine.
What is your physical limit?