EA takes over mythic, another example of large companies bullying around the MMO market

NeuroXl · June 2006

much in the same way SOE bullied and pushed around verant, monolith, and sigil, and the way ea took over uo, or even the way microsoft is ursurping market share by publishing, or taking over games like AC, EA has now taken over mythic and WARHAMMER ....

when is the market going to stand up for itself and stop letting these large companies take over everything and control the gaming industry... is there a way to stop them from bullying markets ?

xxxmonkxxx · June 2006

Let's play a game! It's called "beating a dead horse", oh wait I can see you are already playing that!

Anageth · June 2006

Originally posted by NeuroXl
is there a way to stop them from bullying markets ?

Monopolies and Mergers Commission

Jmonster · June 2006

http://www.imagedump.com/index.cgi?pick=get&tp=265638

IdesofMarch · June 2006

Originally posted by NeuroXl

much in the same way SOE bullied and pushed around verant, monolith, and sigil, and the way ea took over uo, or even the way microsoft is ursurping market share by publishing, or taking over games like AC, EA has now taken over mythic and WARHAMMER ....

Don't forget the swirlies after third period...

ianubisi · June 2006

Originally posted by NeuroXl
is there a way to stop them from bullying markets ?

Play other games. There are quite a few small-company MMOGs on the market. Give them your dollars. That's how you, as the consumer, make your mark.

Incidentally, for what it's worth...Sony was always the owner of EQ. Go read up on it.

Antarious · June 2006

"Play other games. There are quite a few small-company MMOGs on the market. Give them your dollars. That's how you, as the consumer, make your mark.

Incidentally, for what it's worth...Sony was always the owner of EQ. Go read up on it."

depends on what you read...

"VERANT INTERACTIVE, developer of EverQuest, is an independent online game development studio that emerged from 989 Studios (formerly Sony Interactive Studios), which began development of EverQuest in 1996."

followed up by....

"After Sony Online Entertainment acquired Verant Interactive, Brad McQuaid was promoted to Vice President of Premium Games and Chief Creative Officer."

Those sources relatively are:

http://beallcenter.uci.edu/shift/bios/verant.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_McQuaid

Which if you read that and figure out what it means.

You'll realize why there was no mention of "Sony" or "SOE" on the game boxes/jewel cases until Shadows of Luclin came out.

Until that point the only company on the label was Verant.

So relatively no... Sony didn't own EQ all along.

However, I don't really agree with the OP in general... Mark Jacobs wasn't forced to sell Mythic. It was what he chose to do and supposedly because it was good for the company. It really has nothing to do with EA or any amount of money they offered. It wasn't a hostile buy out... and they had other offers as Mark said in posts on Mythics site in April. In fact in a statement that was posted on mmorpg.com in april.

Perhaps the better question is... why sell out your company/product.

Greyface · June 2006

Big companies don't gobble up MMO developers. MMO developers sell out to big companies because MMOs take a silly amount of money to get right. Get used to it.

And, for the record, EA owned Origin Systems five years prior to the release of UO.

ianubisi · June 2006

Originally posted by Antarious

So relatively no... Sony didn't own EQ all along.

From Wikipedia

Development of EverQuest began in 1996 when Sony Interactive Studios America (SISA) executive John Smedley secured funding for a 3D version of textbased MUDs following the success of the first massively multiplayer game, Meridian 59. To implement the design Smedley hired programmers Brad McQuaid and Steve Clover who had come to Smedley's attention through their work on the singleplayer RPG Warwizard. McQuaid soon rose through the ranks to become Executive Producer for the EverQuest franchise and emerged during development of EverQuest as a popular figure among the fan community through his in-game avatar, Aradune. Other key members of the development team included Bill Trost, who created the history, lore and major characters of Norrath (including Everquest protagonist Firiona Vie), Geoffrey "GZ" Zatkin who implemented the spell system, and artist Kevin Burns, who did the original character modelling in the game.
EverQuest launched with modest expectations from Sony on March 16, 1999 under its Verant Interactive brand and quickly became successful. By the end of the year, it had surpassed the leading competitor, Ultima Online in number of subscriptions. Numbers continued rising at a steady rate until mid-2001 when growth slowed. As of 2004, Sony reports subscription numbers close to 450,000.
The success of EverQuest has triggered several corporate iterations of its publishing entity which has engendered a popular misconception among newer fans of the series that ownership and creative leadership of franchise passed somehow in 2000 from an independent entity known as Verant into Sony's hands. In reality, EverQuest from its inception has continually been owned by one or other subsidiary of Sony America, with John Smedley retaining ultimate control of the product from his creation of the concept in 1996 to this day. This confusion can be attributed to a shift in Sony's publishing priorities in the US prior to the launch of its Playstation 2 product in 1999. In anticipation of PlayStation's launch Sony Interactive Studios America had made the decision to focus primarily on console titles under the banner 989 Studios while spinning off its sole computer title, EverQuest which was ready to launch, to a new computer game division named Redeye (renamed Verant Interactive). Executives initially had very low expectations for EverQuest but in 2000, following the surprising continued success and unparallelled profits of EverQuest, Sony reorganized Verant Interactive into Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) with Smedley retaining control of the company. By 2002 however, a majority of the original EverQuest team, including Brad McQuaid, Steve Clover and Geoffrey Zatkin had left SOE and day-to-day development of new titles in the fanchise continues largely in the hands of a new generation of Sony designers.

baff · June 2006

EA have the power to ensure Warhammer doesn't become vapourware, and that once released can be bought on shop shelves anywhere in the world.

They are a seriously good publisher.

Unfortunatley they are also the kiss of death to innovation. They love a good sequel, so they will buy out a franchise (at which point the key programmers will retire to Barbados to drink champagne with hookers) and EA will flog the same old code over and over again. Replacing the head programmers with which ever beta testor or janitor didn't have enough shares in the company to retire. Mythic if it has just been sold should be good for one more title at worst.

hercules · June 2006

Hmm word bully is totally unjust .

First monolith.Well if not for SoE MxO would probably be dead now.Learn your history SoE only wanted the DC licence anyhow ,MxO came with the deal and i bet monolith was more then happy to give it up.

Verrant.Was a part of SoE before EQ1 was launched.Learn your history again.

Sigil.Sigil was looking for a publisher and if you recall(we even discuessed this on this same site!) M$,SoE and ncsoft were intrested.They went M$ and for reasons known to sigil they did not click.So sigil could have looked for another publisher or gone it alone but they of their own freewill choose SoE.Not ncsoft or some other company SoE.Maybe Brad just wanted to go with ppl he knew ,who knows but it was not forced on them.

Mythic.Again i doubt there was any hostile takeover involved at all.Otherwise we would have had wind of it.Mythic directors wanted to cash in the company that been successful and they did.Pure and simple.

I personally dislike EA because of their poor poor history in mmorpg but you know what maybe they offered more!

I can say many bad thigs about EA but bullying mythic nahhh.

The only bullying lies in your mind sorry OP.

Anofalye · June 2006

Well,

I don't particuliarly like EA, they didn't do any game I actually enjoy, nor even buy at all! Considering I buy hundred of games, let's just say my interests are FAR from what they produce. (might have accidentally buy a side game, but nothing they really can say they are the father off, just like someone who buy Matrix Online didn't really buy a SoE product)

However I think they understand pretty that they have no experience in MMOs and that Mythic got plenty. That doesn't mean they won't affect the design room, but it mean that they will keep it to a minimum, only when they are pretty sure they are right.

And it prolly means more funds to developp a bigger game. As long as EA can keep it interventions to a minimum and only prevent Mythic from going on a wild rampage on some aspect, I think they will improve the game slightly on the design and a LOT with the funding.

Of course, if they have no clues, they should refrain from affecting any design choice at Mythic.

Honestly, as a "feeling", I think this will be positive. But I didn't check everything in details, EA might be overdoing their impact just as well.

hercules · July 2006

Originally posted by Anofalye

However I think they understand pretty that they have no experience in MMOs and that Mythic got plenty. That doesn't mean they won't affect the design room, but it mean that they will keep it to a minimum, only when they are pretty sure they are right.

Actually EA ben running UO under their banner since 2000 or so.Priorr to that they owned origin.They also made a few mmorpg some which have been canned but still have sims online.

So technically they have much more experience then mythic who have only one mmorpg to their name -DAoC(unless u count the unreleased WAR).

Greyface · July 2006

Originally posted by hercules

Mythic.Again i doubt there was any hostile takeover involved at all.Otherwise we would have had wind of it.Mythic directors wanted to cash in the company that been successful and they did.Pure and simple.

Just to add to your point, I don't believe that Mythic was even a public company... which means that there was no possible way for EA to buy them without the express consent of the current owner/s. My best guess is that they ran out of money for WAR, which appears to be in a very pre-pre-alpha state.

Now, to circle back to the OP's original topic - I find it sadly amusing that people are so suspicious of video game companies with everything else that's going on in the world. We live in a world where genetically modified frankenfoods are being pushed into the market without any testing or safety standards... where energy trading companies artificially jack up the cost of electricity and cause blackouts.... where phone companies push laws to give them tight controls over which websites we can use.... where blatent war profiteering is tolerated... where known unsafe drugs are lobbied past the FDA and left on the market until people start dying.... and you guys freak out about the people who make the John Madden games nerfing your tank-mage. I weep for the future.

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EA takes over mythic, another example of large companies bullying around the MMO market

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EA takes over mythic, another example of large companies bullying around the MMO market

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