Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Interesting news on Sony
Zuel41
Member Posts: 43
Sony news story
So I saw this article this morning. I felt it somewhat meaningful and felt it worthwhile to post and discuss.
IMO, Sony as a whole is doing very poorly and this is reflected in all of their products, including SWG. Since is it very difficult to determine if SOE is profitable, its hard to say what will happen with this division. Experience tells me that if Sony does not have a significant turn around in the next year, that there will be a new CEO and SOE may be put up for sale. Just my opinion of course.
Discuss.
So I saw this article this morning. I felt it somewhat meaningful and felt it worthwhile to post and discuss.
IMO, Sony as a whole is doing very poorly and this is reflected in all of their products, including SWG. Since is it very difficult to determine if SOE is profitable, its hard to say what will happen with this division. Experience tells me that if Sony does not have a significant turn around in the next year, that there will be a new CEO and SOE may be put up for sale. Just my opinion of course.
Discuss.
Comments
If I were Sony, I'd sell off the PC MMO parts of SOE and only make MMO's for the PS2/PS3.
They could sell it for a decent chunk of change as EQ/EQ2 at least have a player base worth buying (about 550K between them).
The only part of SOE worth any money at all are the EQ games.
The question is, who would buy?
EA? Since they bought Mythic, buying SOE may make sense, and they have a pretty good relationship with Sony...
NCSoft? Seems to me they already have a lot on their plate...
Blizzard? Why would they? They have 5 times SOE's sub numbers and only need one set of servers and one Dev team...
But then again, Sony in general is known for going against the current.
Main problem remains lack of SOE's long term plans. EA (big name) just elbowed itself to Warhammer, a title many call WoW killer.
Vivendi is moving all their games online.
PlayNC is releasing new titles.
Many new high-profile titles are planned.
And at the same time, little is known about the DC comics title, which will either need to strike it big, or share market with City of ... titles.
But other than that, EQ2 is still the only noticable direction forward, a flagship product, and while doing quite well, it has carved out it's market, and is unlikely to expand in the future, not with the age of the game, and the upcoming competition.
I'd also wager a bet, that when WoW collapses, it'll happen rather fast, and might even lead to market depression, as huge numbers of players try to flock to other games, failing to find proper replacement, or massively migrating to succesor game, which would have trouble coping with such influx, unless it's Vivendi.
NCSoft goes for smaller, specialized and more controllable markets. They haven't (in the past) spent much time with crowd control (they do make solid games), so I don't think they could handle SOE's legacy.
Blizzard doesn't exist in this context, it's Vivendi. Considering they have taken in other developers, and their move to port all games online, doesn't exactly fit in. SOE has little to offer from development PoV, they are almost exclusively management.
As stated before, SOE's managment and Dev teams are not exactly working together most of the time.
So far they have ruined SWG, I think if they touch to much they will ruin EQ/2 as well.
They are best off right now scrapping some ideas that they had and getting back to the basics to save what they have left with alot of this.
SWG was a bad test of failures that some people should be fired for... as warned and told by the player base.. you cannot force CHOICE for anyone... if the product cannot sell itself then you have a problem.. all others are meaningless compared to that.
In the end being able to say "I told you so" will suck for alot of us... I wish this never happend and I wish they had set aside the egos and listened... NOT NOW when it's sinking but long ago when there was a playerbase and some excitment and fun..
At the summits , seeing how it was at one time called a FAN FEST -- shows how people felt.. we go from a team effort to a public hanging due to managment --- Koster and Hayden both jumped ship, somthing tells me they are the wiser for doing so.
Time is telling (They always wanted to see if it would) -- Now lets see if they listen and how they respond.
______________________________
I usually picture the Career builder commercial with the room full of monkeys and upside down sales chart when thinking about the SOE/SWG decision making process.....
SOE's John Blakely and Todd Fiala issued a warning: "Don't make our mistakes." Ref NGE
Winner of the worst MMOS goes to.... the NGE and SWG..!!! http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=1034&bhcp=1
"From looking at overall market, ditching SOE would be rather unusual move, when everyone else is flocking into MMO markets.
But then again, Sony in general is known for going against the current.
Main problem remains lack of SOE's long term plans. EA (big name) just elbowed itself to Warhammer, a title many call WoW killer.
Vivendi is moving all their games online.
PlayNC is releasing new titles.
Many new high-profile titles are planned.
And at the same time, little is known about the DC comics title, which will either need to strike it big, or share market with City of ... titles.
But other than that, EQ2 is still the only noticable direction forward, a flagship product, and while doing quite well, it has carved out it's market, and is unlikely to expand in the future, not with the age of the game, and the upcoming competition.
I'd also wager a bet, that when WoW collapses, it'll happen rather fast, and might even lead to market depression, as huge numbers of players try to flock to other games, failing to find proper replacement, or massively migrating to succesor game, which would have trouble coping with such influx, unless it's Vivendi."
I'd agree with most of that.
The main reason I would leave the MMO market if I was SOE is..
There is only so much market to grab. Leaving debate about WoW out of this... WoW probably has the vast majority of the available market. In Asia games like L1/2 and FFXI have a vast market as well. SOE however, has never done well in that market with their MMO's. I've always found that strange with a Corp. that is based in Japan but cannot make a game that succeeds there.
EQ1 lasted a year (maybe) before the Asian plug was pulled. SWG was shut down in Japan and those players were optioned to transfer to the other SWG servers. EQ2 didn't make it there even with the SOGA models.
So the main reason to mention WoW and market share is.. How much market is there left in the USA, Europe and the Australia area to pick up?
There is a ton of competition and many upcoming games. Toss in development costs...
Yes I could personally see where for Sony it would make sense to ditch the PC gaming division totally. Throw your support entirely into PS2/3 games. They have so much riding on the PS3 as it is.. it would make sense. They also picked up a very bad reputation over SWG and many have had anti SOE campaigns for years on other SOE games. (most MMO's have plenty of forum trolls but SWG is definitely a first for total game screw ups).
EQ2 does have a decent player base but I agree its picked up most of what it is going to. The recent revamps to the "lower" level areas are not helping. If you played EQ2 at all...
They redid commonlands this last patch. So a new Freeport player will now go out to find...
Many double up heroics (those are mostly groups of 2 to 3 ^^ heroics) and quite a few ^^^ heroics.
Which would be fine if there was actually groups in those zones most of the time. The cost of trying to find decent gear at those levels is rediculous... Most players that even get the Armor Quests done.. are due to higher level players mentoring down to do them.
It certainly doesn't help your game pick up new players... when you keep revamping zones to a degree.. that shows you actually believe new player(s) can find groups. When I travel through those zones or make alts I just don't see many if any groups in those areas.
To close this ramble..
Biggest problems SOE had were:
Not finishing things they started
Leaving long term bugs in game but pushing out expansions
Lack of Communication
And...
No sign of a consistant plan for a direction to take their games.
Shayde - SWG (dead)
Proud member of the Cabal.
It sounds great, so great in fact, I pitty those who canceled
I don't like it when you say things. - A Vanguard fan who does too.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Word of mouth has only impact on certain aspects of sales.
SOE's games just aren't offering enough anymore. People play games from "evil" companies if they are apealing. After all, many people stayed with SWG for a long time.
But in last two years the rest of market has made huge strides, while SOE's offerings are old rehashed content, and even at that they only exist to their own market fragment, with little chance of attracting outside customers. The times of EQ are long gone, and SWG, the bastard UO successor is gone. The rest of the games were never contenders.
Word of mouth has only impact on certain aspects of sales.
SOE's games just aren't offering enough anymore. People play games from "evil" companies if they are apealing. After all, many people stayed with SWG for a long time.
But in last two years the rest of market has made huge strides, while SOE's offerings are old rehashed content, and even at that they only exist to their own market fragment, with little chance of attracting outside customers. The times of EQ are long gone, and SWG, the bastard UO successor is gone. The rest of the games were never contenders.
Word of mouth is the most powerful form of advertising there is. And it's a proven statistical fact that dissatisfied customers will go out of their way to tell others about you than satisfied customers will.
You are partly right on the problem with their games though, the problem with SWG is that they keep TAKING AWAY stuff from it every 6 months, they haven't spent the last year building anything.
That makes me feel all warm inside.
A** Still Raw From Your Last SWG Subscription? Come join us at RLMMO.com
Very nice article op thank you what caught my eye
was
Sony's losses have been largely due to massive restructuring costs, including job cuts, plant closures and dropping money-losing units, as well as research and development expenses for its usually profitable game division, were behind the red ink.
this is what will be interesting if the next few months and fall does not pan out for them.......
Just think they got it on both ends at the Summit meetings across country with swg and now the head SONY is hearing from unhappy stock holders how about that ?????
Well I was too foaming at the mouth earlier to think about this but...
This was announced back in September of 2005
(hope this link works)
http://news.com.com/Sony+plans+broad+reorg,+10,000+job+cuts/2100-1041_3-5876454.html
It was an article about the restructure and job cuts.
Parts of that article I like are:
"Because of the changes, Sony will report a financial loss of about $90 million on sales of about $65.1 billion for the year, the company said. Sony previously said it would post a profit of $90 million." (this is a copy/paste and I would suppose that 65.1 billion is supposed to be million but I didn't write it ;p)
Later in 2005 or in January of 2006 (I can't find the article for this)... They reversed that saying they would no longer have a loss but would have a profit again.
As the link in the OP shows.. They indeed posted a loss. It seems they are as creative with profit/loss figures as they are with SWG subscriptions. Like when they claimed to have 80% veteran retention and as many or more subs than pre-cu .. and yes i read the Red names saying that on the official forums.
There was another article very similar to the one I linked. I cannot find it anymore as news from Sept. of 2005 seems pretty buried on the net.
It had a quote from Sony Corp's president saying they had "lost touch with their customers". (couldn't agree more).
There was also mention that the only two profitible divisions in the entire Corp for the last 2 years were:
Sony Pictures (spiderman 1/2 made them good money among others)
And the games division but the console part not the EQ part.
Now they are saying the gaming division is in the red but they are making a come back with TV's since Samsung started making the picture tubes for them.
Really does make one wonder... how they can let SOE piss off more customers when the whole Corp is having the issues that it is.
I just spit my drink on this --- and thought.. yep, here is a sheep comment. (Blame the public) lol..
You just forgot the fact the game is so screwed up and not worthy of being a MMO part.
Yeah ... oops.
Look you DO NOT DO to people what they did and expect happy go lucky players... NOW lets just add in how many things were broke at launch of the NGE and for at least 4 months of it.
I will give you one... JUST ONE:
I had my earned Jedi --- I logged into a city , I hit force RUN --- Yes, a common yet normal Jedi power, one of the most basic and one would think simple functions. WRONG-- when you hit it you might aggro EVERY SINGLE TARGETABLE ITEM IN THE CITY UNTIL YOU EITHER LOGGED OUT OR DIED!!!
Now, this is just one -- stupid yet unreal issue that should have never even lasted one day. BUT as we all know how this went down it took forever for the first patch that was NOTHING BUT FIXES for the change on the system that they should have never done.
If that is not just the most insane concept or issue then nothing is.
I'm a IT Dir/Admin for a firm outside of Chicago... If I had pulled what they did in the name of change.... I would have been fired by the next hour.
The best proof though is the subs -- no need to use anything but facts. Looking at a friends list is not false, nor is logging into the game and going places. Those are pretty much Proof using your own eyes type deal.
______________________________
I usually picture the Career builder commercial with the room full of monkeys and upside down sales chart when thinking about the SOE/SWG decision making process.....
SOE's John Blakely and Todd Fiala issued a warning: "Don't make our mistakes." Ref NGE
Winner of the worst MMOS goes to.... the NGE and SWG..!!! http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?loadFeature=1034&bhcp=1
They want too much...
-virtual tourist
want your game back?
They want too much...
They should make every single of their decisions completely opposite to everyone else. They had to go against every single standard that came out, went through plenty of lawsuit, and always tried to dominate the market through proprietarity.
Meanwhile, rest of industry realized using common standards is cheaper and leads to bigger profits.
There is a self proclaimed Sith Lord on the SWG boards who calls himself Ablon. This guys has made some great posts over the years. He predicted during beta 3 years ago that if the management style of SWG did not change the population of SWG would die out. Then the numbers would force SWG to dwindle into being shut down. He is still there making suggestions to improve the game amongst the 100 other designers who still play the game.
The real solution is to close SWG and let a game company who understands Star Wars as a fan to make an amazing MMO that is worthy of the name. SWGSOE has one last chance to fix their problems after the talent tree goes live.
The funny thing with Ablon is that he is a real designer for games and wants to make a new SWG MMO-
OK, long story, one time Coca cola changed their formula, They were loosing more and more and the company's president decided to change it(nge anyone?), Well while it seemed a good Idea, It actually made things Worse, people got all crazy, and afeter all the trouble and pepsi taking over the market, They took a step back, swollow their pride and returned with the old formula (pre-nge anyone?) Well, then everyone started buying coca again, Not cuzz the old formula was that great, But because it was a tradition (people were use to it), SOE can change all that, by taking a step back, apologize to their fans, and bring back Pre-cu, Sure they wouldnt get millions of SWG subscribers, but their reputation would rise, so would their games for the future... Too bad that stupid donkey of smedley/LA can't see a hand in front of their nose...
I just spit my drink on this --- and thought.. yep, here is a sheep comment. (Blame the public) lol..
You just forgot the fact the game is so screwed up and not worthy of being a MMO part.
Yeah ... oops.
Look you DO NOT DO to people what they did and expect happy go lucky players... NOW lets just add in how many things were broke at launch of the NGE and for at least 4 months of it.
I will give you one... JUST ONE:
I had my earned Jedi --- I logged into a city , I hit force RUN --- Yes, a common yet normal Jedi power, one of the most basic and one would think simple functions. WRONG-- when you hit it you might aggro EVERY SINGLE TARGETABLE ITEM IN THE CITY UNTIL YOU EITHER LOGGED OUT OR DIED!!!
Now, this is just one -- stupid yet unreal issue that should have never even lasted one day. BUT as we all know how this went down it took forever for the first patch that was NOTHING BUT FIXES for the change on the system that they should have never done.
If that is not just the most insane concept or issue then nothing is.
I'm a IT Dir/Admin for a firm outside of Chicago... If I had pulled what they did in the name of change.... I would have been fired by the next hour.
The best proof though is the subs -- no need to use anything but facts. Looking at a friends list is not false, nor is logging into the game and going places. Those are pretty much Proof using your own eyes type deal.
You see you are talking about SWG I am talking about SOE . People at gaming stores warn people buying Sony products even EQ2 , This greatly hurts sales . Not to mention people who browse forums such as this for their next title .
What you call a sheep comment , Is slighlty true . But You aren't here for that you are here to argue . So I'll play along , Word of mouth is one of the greatest forms of advertising around . When a potential customer walks into a store , And is told by the sales staff hey I would think twice before buying that . 9 out of 10 times the customer probably would not purchase said product .
What you call bad games is in no way a fact , It is your opinion . Others may disagree , That is how life works . Many people love EQ2 , many people love planet side and many people love SWG . Are you saying they are all wrong ? You see there is no right or wrong when it comes to games being bad or good .
But when it boils down to whether word of mouth has had a huge impact on SOE , It is a no brainer . They used to be on top , Now they are sinking fast . WHen did this major decline start ?
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/82873
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Yea. Its a good read, but, almost all major compainies in the technology world are doing poorly.
I currently hold a few grand in Logitech, and it isnt doing to swell either.
Word of mouth has only impact on certain aspects of sales.
SOE's games just aren't offering enough anymore. People play games from "evil" companies if they are apealing. After all, many people stayed with SWG for a long time.
But in last two years the rest of market has made huge strides, while SOE's offerings are old rehashed content, and even at that they only exist to their own market fragment, with little chance of attracting outside customers. The times of EQ are long gone, and SWG, the bastard UO successor is gone. The rest of the games were never contenders.
Aside from Ryzom recently announcing the ring , WHat huge advancments have been made to any MMO in live or production ? They all sound like nothing more than every old rehash .
WAR= Daoc
WOW=EQ
EQ2=EQ
Age of conan = Elder scrolls meets Shadowbane
SWG= SWG,WOW ,Battlefront and EQ all in one package
EVE = UO in space
lineage2 - Lineage in 3d
Vangaurd = EQ
I could go on
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
The rest is just the expansive wave they themselves released.
WAR= Daoc
WOW=EQ
EQ2=EQ
Age of conan = Elder scrolls meets Shadowbane
SWG= SWG,WOW ,Battlefront and EQ all in one package
EVE = UO in space
lineage2 - Lineage in 3d
Vangaurd = EQ
I could go on
MMOs are not something you whip up in 6 months. They take years to develop. And coding and testing is the minimal part of it, usually takes 2 years total.
Genres and offerings have expanded, and old EQ, pay-to-grind model just doesn't work well enough anymore.
Wow is nothing polish, if you shine light on it, it can blind you. That takes huge resources, and even then the game was build on existing franchise.
More companies are now trying to push subscription free models, with very varying success, but they are taping a different market.
Diversity and flexibility of shorter ROI products, rather than huge whales, probably best embodied in PlayNC.
Vivendi's expansion into other titles, by building on top of existing franchises cuts on time-to-market, and shares the costs of development.
STO and SGW are going in sci-fi direction, one action based, other towards adventure model.
PotB is trying a new direction as well, as well as unique environment.
While things change, all of these have both the capacity as well as funds to deliver them.
Eve is showing steady growth and has no competition.
As you mention above, Vanguard, EQ2 and SWG are closely tied to EQ. EQ isn't a seller anymore, the only way to sell it is by spending majority of resources on polish. SOE lacks in that department.
And to move away from "... none of those are WoW killers." attitude, they don't need to be in light of my argument. Wow is anomaly, which will wind down sooner than later. But Vivendi has the head start, and if they manage to stay on this track, that population will stay with them. Smaller players will compete for the remaining market. PlayNC doesn't look as big, but you cannot discount it, especially since they have very flexible aproach, and can add or remove titles as they see fit, there's very little corporate momentum. And now EA is entering the market, which is based around exactly the same principles as SOE, but has much more musclepower.
Apart from the fabled DC comics, I just don't see anything about future from SOE. And products are hyped at least 2 years before release. How many new offerings will come out in this time?