Soon-Shiong’s NantWorks Invests in Daybreak Game Company

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Defjam1, Sep 6, 2018.

  1. Defjam1 Journeyman

    Wilshire-based NantWorks, a diversified holding company run by Patrick Soon-Shiong, announced Sept. 6 it invested an undisclosed sum into Daybreak Game Co., creating through the investment a joint venture titled NantG Mobile.

    NantG Mobile will be responsible for creating mobile applications of Daybreak Games’ popular “EverQuest” series and “H1Z1” titles, built for PC gaming. Daybreak is also known for its role in publishing massive multiplayer online games, including “The Lord of the Rings Online,” “PlanetSide 2” and “Dungeons and Dragons Online.”

    As part of the strategic investment, Soon-Shiong will join Daybreak Games’ board of directors. The investment represents Soon-Shiong’s increasing interest in e-sports; NantWorks is currently drafting construction plans for a new Los Angeles Times Center adjacent to its new El Segundo headquarters which will house “e-sports arenas with fiber interconnectivity at a global scale,” according to a press release. The Los Angeles Times, owned by Soon-Shiong, will reportedly also soon begin covering e-sports events in its Sports section.

    In addition to the creation of an arena, NantG Mobile will reportedly soon establish e-sports leagues for numerous Daybreak titles.

    “The growth of virtual sports has been explosive,” Los Angeles Times Executive Editor Norman Pearlstine noted in a statement. “We look forward to covering all the major games companies, including Daybreak,” Pearlstine said.
  2. Bobbybick Only Banned Twice

    Everquest Battle Royale here we go boys
    Kaenneth, Axxius, Geroblue and 2 others like this.
  3. Raltar Augur

    Wait, Everquest mobile? So I can play on my phone while I'm at work? Sign me up.
    Kaenneth likes this.
  4. Defjam1 Journeyman

    Mobile games bring cash.. cash keeps company operating... not a bad thing.
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  5. svann Augur

    Yea but how does everquest translate to mobile? I guess it would mean taking the eq brand and making a new (much simpler) game out of it? I dont see that paying off, but thats just my opinion.
  6. Drink water New Member

    At least EQ is branching out. Look at what happened to Wildstar today.
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.
  7. Xenze Elder

    I’m going to assume it’s more QoL things than actual game play. Access your offline trader, make purchases/changes prices, etc etc. possibly allow you to do TS assuming you have the required components. Excess items get sent to your parcel? Just taking shots in the dark at this point
  8. Gnomereaper Augur

    It's been a very bad couple of years since Daybreak actually took over the franchise. They have since shutdown most of the major applications that SOE had developed ranging from Fan Faire to letting go of highly experienced developers along with undermining the brand by destroying EQ Next. While the Everquest games such as Everquest F

    While I feel that they have retained some great talent such as Mr. Bell and Mr. Caraker. They have equally lost some great talent over the years that contributed to some of the best content in Everquest.

    I feel that this article gives a good representation of the problems in Everquest but also the kind of players that Everquest appeals to:


    https://www.pcgamer.com/the-origina...lpful-and-severe-that-it-almost-feels-modern/

    Everquest needs a new game to draw in people, but also it means actual investment into the franchise. I do not like all the lore in Everquest, some of the races are poorly done and have really awkward lore. I remember the old debates about the moral ambiguity of Lucan D'Lere that made him a better character from people like Ridefort and Frodlin.Thats the community right there for you. It's only Tornicade and myself left from the old Lore board people, and Tornicade hasn't been active on these forums for a loooooooooong while.

    Firiona Vie versus Lanys T'val, for the most part is boring without the context of the Daddy issues that Lanys had from the GM Events apparently held on Stormhammer that got written into lore books in PoK. Aaaaaaaaaaaand honestly the only reason I even know about that was because I had grouped with Nanya and actually debated him over how Lanys T'val sucked as a character back in 2007 (?). Nanya liked the character, I mean really really was a fan, but also because he actually participated in several GM events that related to the character. I did read the lore books and could see the vestige of why he liked the character, but would never feel the same emotional connection because of the nature of Stormhammer was a one off thing and no reenacting of such events. Then there were also no missions with Lanys, either, except generic DoN missions that were universal to anyone.

    The only real time we actually see content with Lanys vs. Firiona was Seeds of Destruction stasis raid, Bloody Kithicor, and then not until TDS where Tsaph and Lcea take over the limelight with the new Combine Empire in Kunark.

    We also don't have the massive wars we used to have or massive GM events anymore because they gutted the CS department.

    Loral Circlelight called it the "Age of Rashere" which was between TSS and about Underfoot that had a lot of good content and attempts to rebrand the game. Solteris, though, in my mind was a bad joke though and bad marketing (ship to ship combat jokes aside).

    The game brand has shut down all of their old game titles, lost Playstation support, and only has two remaining titles that are decades old and an aging fan base. Pantheon is an attempt to reclaim the old essence of Everquest because it is Brad McQuaid doing it, but he's also got the fog of Vanguard behind him. The investment hopefully brings new Everquest titles that no longer have to be only on the Playstation since the Sony sale, but it never came to fruition. They need several new titles in the same franchise and younger developers who want to take the franchise into new directions.

    Everquest will never be "big" like Blizzard's titles or as popular and ginned up with Nintendo which is the Disney of the video game world. However, the basic lore and characters like Lucan D'Lere, Firiona Vie, Lanys T'val, Tsaph and Lcea Katta, and the other characters deeply entrenched into the mythose of Everquest ranging from Cazic Thule to Tunare can be reiminaged and remade several times over.

    Looking at some of the Everquest Next concept art:

    http://everquestnext.wikia.com/wiki/Ogre

    It's interesting to see how they reimagined the ogre females to be similar to the orc females in WoW, they have a brutality yet a feminity to them. EQ Next was heading in the right direction, but pulling the plug and shutting down the old games while understandible has created a brand that is decaying.

    Once Everquest and Everquest 2 shut down, there will be no other Everquest games available, my expectation was eventually that the game franchise would eventually be bought out by another and invested in to make it a viable franchise in niche markets. This apparently has finally come to the initial stages of that. While not a full on Rennaissance, it does give hope that at least the brand will survive the age of cutbacks and aging and declining playerbase.

    There are enough IP here to build some interesting games, but it takes someone with Vision and cash to do it. The company that bought out SOE did not have that vision and only saw acquisition and maintaining a profit from their investments into older property. Sometime ago someone did research from the firm that bought out SoE and found they had a tendency to cutback and let things decline until the profits go low and shut things down.

    This guy has a vision, while not a vision I agree with, he does see a future which is good and probably the first one to see potential in the Everquest brand in two years.
  9. Aurastrider Augur


    I think it really depends on how they spin it. In reality the EQ faithful will continue to play for the most part with or without a mobile game. The trick here imo is to not make a mobile game geared towards current players but rather make something that will appeal to the masses while bringing product recognition to people who may not even know the game is here. In doing so just maybe some of these people who enjoy the mobile game will venture over to the real thing. They will have to design it in a fashion to where it is appealing enough for these people to play and yet keep their interest if they cross over. If done correctly this would be better than any of these social media adds that only cost money to run. This would provide advertising for the brand while also hopefully bringing in money via the mobile app market. Odds are the average EQ player will probably find what ever mobile version to be watered down because there is no way to make it as complex as the real thing but it might still be a nice work break time sink for people to enjoy and still feel like they are playing something related to their favorite game. It certainly cant get any worse than the old EQ mobile app which was riddled with bugs and would fail to load after to many sessions or at least it did for me.
  10. Gnomereaper Augur


    Champions of Norrath was a single player game, they also had Lords of Everquest. This was back in 2002-2004 when the game was hitting it's popularity peak. Champions of Norrath had good reviews, but Lords of Everquest apparently sucked or was seen as not a good RTS. So they've tried in the past to expand the game into new content. Legends of Norrath was the card game that did well, but it wasn't Hearthstone which is now competing up there with Magic the Gathering and Pokemon CCG.

    This also goes back to the mistakes of Everquest 2 being rushed to market to try and capture the World of Warcraft rage. Had the game been better polished and taken their time and ignored WoW competition and focused on creating a good product Everquest 2 would've been in better shape. Everquest 2 wasn't good until a lot of retuning. The game is a lot better than it used to be, though. However, even it is showing its age.

    Everquest has 20 years of built up assets, but also lost some great people like Lydia Pope. If the art assets of Legends of Norrath and the zones and models of Everquest/Everquest 2 could be used in creating custom games and content and other aspects of newer world orders it would be an interesting direction with retro gaming and attracting newer players that enjoy the "OG experience."
  11. Aurastrider Augur


    I still have a copy of champions of norrath for ps2 if I am thinking of the same game. Lords of everquest was for the pc if I recall? I also bought this and it is stored away in one of my ancient outdated technology bins some place I am sure. I also have a copy of everquest online adventures for the ps2 and I bought the EQ keyboard for the ps2. I remember playing only for a short period of time though.

    I agree a lot of the design features are already there and the art as well should someone want to revamp some of it and spin it in a new direction. At the very least the framework and foundation for a new old product which could be utilized for numerous different things. Even if they took the layout from some of the zones, added some new buildings and such and created a skirmish type of game similar to stronghold or the original Warcraft although I don't know how much interest there is in these types of games from gamers any longer. Next to rpg type games these were my second favorite but I might be in the minority on this. One thing is for certain the pure amount of content from this game provides a lot of potential should someone have the creative genius and funds to do something amazing with it.
  12. Act of Valor The Newest Member

    This game wasn't invested in to give quality of life improvements to it. No company has that kind of altruistic motive for Everquest. The mobile program will be some sort of simple minigame with in app purchases like everything else is on Google Play or Apple's App Store.
    Bobbybick and Corwyhn Lionheart like this.
  13. Evertrek Augur


    i agree. NantWorks is a Health Care company that has an itch to make some cash from esports.
  14. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    EQ1 is not really E-sport driven, so if the investors are focused on that, then it won't result in many improvements for us I think. I also don't see how EQ1 could be ported directly to mobile, just look at the complex UI we currently have!

    Managing traders or some sort of eqplayer-app, or mobile ingame-chat, could probably work on mobile, I doubt that will result in profit though...

    If they really won't to cram E-sport into EQ1, they will have to polish the client a lot, not to mention the endless "balancing-patches" other pvp-driven mmorpgs have.
    Of course, they could be thinking of other kinds of E-sport than pvp-combat. Such as guilds competing in speedruns through raid-progression(we already have that to some degree...).


    It will probably help DBG as a company and help keep EQ1 alive, but for money to be invested directly into EQ1, there can only be 2 reasons:
    Gaining more EQ1 subscribers through significant technical improvements and advertising(what we all want! :) ).
    Or to make the current subscribers pay more(expect in-app purchases through merchant-npcs in pok or something that will completely ruin immersion...:( )


    Time will tell how it works out...:)
    My guess is something new in the EQ-franchise rather than something EQ1-related.
  15. Risiko Augur

    It's very unlikely that this will have anything at all to do with EverQuest 1 nor 2.

    This will more than likely involve creating mobile games based off of the EverQuest, H1Z1, and PlanestSide intellectual property. Also, DBG publishes Lord of the Rings Online. It's possible they could be making mobile games using that IP as well.

    I wouldn't get your hopes up on any of this influx of money making its way to the existing EverQuest games.
    Caell, Corwyhn Lionheart and Fanra like this.
  16. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    a puzzlequest type game based on classes in EQ1 would be interesting.
  17. Thraine Augur

    I hope daybreak gives the reigns to a company that can at least be creative, all we got when DBG took over was a change in heroic stats and people had to recamp augs, non stop nerf after nerf and on top of all that .. nothing new as far as expansions just the same old stuff "revamped"

    this could be good or it could be bad, either way i think its a day late and a dollar short for a lot of players.
  18. svann Augur

    DBG did not "take over". It was the same company, same team, with a new name.
    And if you are thinking of Columbus Nova - they had nothing at all to do with development.
    IblisTheMage likes this.
  19. IblisTheMage Augur

    Agreed, but using the IP could bring more exposure and get more EQ1 players
  20. IblisTheMage Augur

    From OP:

    ...”Soon-Shiong will join Daybreak Games’ board of directors”...

    This I find interresting! With no disrespect to DBG, I imagine this lifts the leadership team into a new league.

    Also, nantmobile (without th G) has a lot of machine learning development, that makes me curious.

    I can’t find any titles nantworks have been involved in, that would indicate they need to buy a mobile games company as well for the execution (unless they expect DBG to build that capability, which would be quite a bet). My reading is that they pay DBG for access to IP, and then form a strategy that supports all platforms, with DBG in charge of existing platforms, and nantG mobile building the mobile games...

    I am not sure if the pay is substantial, or not. The synergies and leadership support could be reason enough to form the partnership.

    This looks like quite a catch for DBG.
    Gyurika Godofwar likes this.