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[General Article] General: MMORPG.com Reacts to SOE Going Independent
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Yesterday, the MMO space was surprised to learn that Sony Online Entertainment had been bought out by Columbus Nova, an investment management firm. What this means in both the long and short-term remains to be seen. We have a few thoughts to share on the subject and invite you to reply with your own.
Read more MMORPG.com Reacts to SOE Going Independent.
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View more silliness at http://www.youtube.com/thehiveleader
You stay sassy!
Eat some blackberries, and raw meat.
Try to be excellent to everyone you meet. You never know what someone else has seen or endured.
My Review Manifesto
Follow me on Twitter if you dare.
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
That is the most logical thing any investment group would do with customers. Well that is actually what investment groups do with every product.
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
I think we're going to see a lot more games from them but on a much smaller stage. Mobile/Facebook mainly. It's also worth noting how multi-platform gaming will affect Everquest Next's development. It's possible they will stop development on it, break up the assets, and use them for smaller mobile apps. Or they could keep going as they are and simply restructure to get it to work on Playstation and Xbox and more integration on mobile systems.
Regardless, it's clear their emphasis is on multi-platform gaming. I can only see negatives from this. I don't care about mobile games and I feel a lot of elements need to be toned down when designing for consoles. Take a look at the zone sizes in FFXIV for instance. This will, without a doubt, impact the development of Everquest Next if they continue moving forward with the project. I have been cautious about Next from the start, this just reinforces that.
Seems like a mixed bag. I looked over Columbus Nova's trading partnership and it has a munitions guy in there! Their tech holdings are a mixed bag of elements that - together - might make for an appealing package.
But I think the biggest thing Columbus Nova did with this acquisition was put themselves on the map. Hell it even temporarily crashed their website yesterday with everyone headed over there to see who these guys are.
Having been in a software house that was acquired by a venture capitalist with similar long-term investment interests, SOE/Daybreak is likely to see staff reductions over time as efficiencies are implemented and especially "best practices" for streamlined development. They may also see changes to rollouts as some games or platforms are promoted and others are retired. But those can be reversed by customer input so it will be interesting to see how this unfolds.
With the lackluster progression on the EQ.Landmark front, and it supposedly linked to the EQ.Next progression, with the aforementioned acting as a test bed, maybe a cash injection and freedom to hire, free of the shackles of SONY's poor performance and revenue issues.
Or it all could go to hell in a hand basket.........
(Cue popcorn)
(Munch Munch)
well.... It coulda been worse.
EA coulda bought them.
What do you mean, raw meat? You can make a steak from them
For the change, I'm between you and Rob. Resurrecting Vanguard would be great, but I guess it has much higher chances that we'll see mobile / tablet games by the dozens, and also porting PS2 and DCUO onto the Xbone as well... investors want their money back, and if 10 weak/average games produce more green than 2 great games made out from the same amount of money, they will choose the 10 weak ones, without a doubt.
Hopefully I'm wrong about this and I'm just a pessimist.
Smile
Perhaps this is yet another sign that the PC market is becoming less and less desirable as everyone goes nuts over mobiles and consoles. God forbid you have a diversified portfolio in the gaming industry.
Here here
Meh, I wouldn't count it out. I mean Planetside is a great IP, so is Everquest, so is DCUO. Columbus Nova has no shortage of experience in tech companies, so they "get" how costly it is to build a brand, and they now how some premium brands they can really run with, and I hope they do. I think it's about time that EQ got a little more commercial appeal.
Crazkanuk
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Look at it like this: Last year SOE shuttered a handful of MMOs...not one, but a handful. Then this year their parent company cut ties with them all together. This says something about their performance as a company and it's ability to do business.
Right now they've stretched resources across many "new" projects that have shown nothing interesting to investors or players alike. Landmark is a building sandbox in a sea of building sandboxes, some doing it far better or with much more meaning. EQNext is hype boiled down with hot air; nothing much there at all. And as for H1Z1...holy cow did that DayZ-cone slap SOE in the face when they tried to basically do a big cash grab into the survival game genre. Let's not forget that existing PS2 has issues with it right now too.
Commercial appeal when it relates to the gaming industry has shown that it usually means a no go on virtual worlds with complex systems, statistical character building, exploration and the plethora of other mechanics and content that gamers like me prefer. I can't think of a worse scenario other than MMOs in the PC market being mothballed.
Sony dropped them because they havent been profitable for a long while.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielnyegriffiths/2014/05/14/sony-fy-2014-earnings-winning-the-console-battle-losing-the-profits-war/
My guess it SOE was just spreading themselves way too thin. You look at all the games they still host and develop, and then new ones they are working on. They are extremely unfocused.
They have great ideas and a lot of passion as developers, but I think they lost their focus somewhere along the way.
I think they saw how profitable AA cash shop was, decided they wanted some of that, and jumped at the opportunity that presented itself with Sony and SOE. All SOE games are already set up for that business model, now the overlords are going to squeeze that for everything it's worth from all different platform gamers. You could have one division developing various games in a framework that another division could use to port to various platforms. PS2, Landmark, EQN, H1Z1 are all very much linked games. If you want to see development of EQN, play the other 3.
PS2 - horizontal progression systems
Landmark - world building
EQN - AI R&D
H1Z1 - sandbox devlopment, player interactions
Wonder if we will be able to get founders' packs in the future by buying stock in the mutual fund? Or, some such idea will arise. It would completely change the mentality of the vast majority of gamers if they felt like they had a vested interest in a game or gaming company that paid dividends. You know....real consequences!
This is HUGE news!
Why is is huge?
1. EQ Next (#1 hype meter) is now in the hands of a different business model. Still hoping....
2. There are a heavy amount of PS2/3 games that are PS only and now that umbrella may be lifted.
3. I was THIS CLOSE to switching jobs to SOE a few years back.....eek.