Sony Online Entertainment Becomes Daybreak Game Company

It's trickling out and being compiled. http://www.reddit.com/r/EQNext/comments/2vkvji/ventinglayoffs_discussion_thread/

I assume some players, especially the EverQuest Next player-designers, are taking a major interest.

EQTraders is saying Ngreth was laid off.

As I look at the list, Planetside 2 got shafted but EQ doesn't look that badly hit.

As for Ngreth, have we gotten information from someplace other than a TS site?

That TS site is run by his wife.

More confirmed layoffs I can't see how this can be anything other than an asset strip and sale now they are just canning everyone not working on EQN and H1Z1 as far as I can see. I suspect those staff left on smaller projects are only being kept so they can be reassigned onto the EQN and H1Z1 teams.

This is absolutely miserable I can't even get that excited about Ngreth going even though he presided over the biggest down turn in the history of the game and the person I blame most for the size of the player base as it is now. Honestly this is like watching every childhood pet you ever had be put down one after the other followed by some close friends and some family members as well.

This is absolutely disgusting how can Smedley just roll over for this and do nothing?

Not to be rude, but you don't know what you're talking about. Intellectual properties are shopped around all the time. I guarantee that for the right price there are dozens of companies ready to buy the rights to Norrath right now. It's highly likely that Columbus Nova has received notices of interest, if not offers, starting the day after the press announced the sale of SOE. Even Blizzard might have sent an offer. EQ is an easy money maker. It's all there. It has a loyal core clientele. The game is built. It's relatively low tech. All you need to do is maintain a few servers, reassure the customers of continuity, and voila, you have an instant inflow of cash. Any number of small companies could make money in the short term off EQ with very little effort on their part. And then sell it for a decent profit later after things have settled.

EQ, as intellectual property right now, is and has been undervalued because of the poor marketing and vision at SOE for it. I don't mean to slam the people involved with keeping EQ alive as a game. But the executives at SOE have been terrible with marketing their product. Which is why SOE no longer exists. SOE was like a goose sitting on a few golden eggs with a bunch of regular eggs covering them up. They protected those eggs by never getting off them. The trouble is, the other eggs rotted and messed up the nest, and people forgot or ignored that SOE even had the golden eggs. And, SOE proved it was no longer a fertile goose by letting the nest rot for so long and completely lost the ability to lay anymore golden eggs. Smart people, like the people at Columbus Nova, waited until the time was right and jumped at the opportunity to kick the dimwitted goose off the nest.

You say no one is going to buy the rights to EQ graphics and lore thinking they could sell it. Really? What do you think Columbus Nova did? Do you think with the money pit and creative vortex of doom that Everquest Next turned out to be that SOE was sold with no value attached to the primary intellectual property that launched it and has been its banner product? Do you think that Columbus Nova - NOT a gaming company by any stretch of the imagination - didn't do its homework and understand that a large part of the price tag that it was paying for was EQ? Sony sold SOE to Columbus Nova - who very well may have been waiting for this opportunity for a while now. When they did they sold all the games under the SOE banner. A huge part of that is everything to do with EQ, including EQ1, EQ2, EQN, and all the associated software developments that go with them. Their majority property is IP? Do you think Columbus Nova bought SOE for IP? You don't think there was a better bargain for IP elsewhere on the market? Columbus Nova bought SOE for its product, first and foremost, and that's what they plan on making money off from.

Yes, when a company liquidates it sells off hard assets. But it also sells of it's intellectual property too, if it has any, unless it's run by incompetents. SOE's value lies in its intellectual property. That's the nature of most companies that make their money in the entertainment industry. And selling intellectual property is the nature of business when it's about liquidating such a company.

What do you expect Smedley to do? It cracks me up how people think he has power and that guild forum person actually said he "chose" this company to sell to so he could stay employed. The reality is HE HAS NO SAY in who SOE sells to, NONE. Its completely ridiculous to even think he has any power. His title is absolutely meaningless when the owners are calling the shots. No company president/CEO whatever has any say when the shareholders/owners start giving orders.

Frankly i am willing to bet (and hope) before its done his head will roll. This group of devs have let the game get stagnant and churned out the same crap over and over for too long. Anyone that thinks this is bad for EQ is crazy. The leadership at SOE has been trash for a long time now, like a cancer...

You seem to be of the opinion that Smed isn't laughing all the way to the bank.

Even if for a moment I believed that Semd was looking at something other than $$$ signs, he might have also been sold a line of bull manure by his new masters.

Except most of that staff was from EQN,EQ2. I would like to see a full list and not speculation.

#Fvbard & #Fenudir genuinely I do not know but he had the big chair for so long and did nothing everyone saw this crash coming and still he did nothing this was 100% his fault. Now maybe the situation has gotten so out of control the sale to CN genuinely was not his doing ...................... MAYBE.

He is the president of the company I am pretty dam sure he had some say in what happened even if the final decision was not his he would of had some influence. Newsflash he is still the president of the company it is up to him to finally man up and come up with a decent plan for saving it and his staff their jobs. Everyone is being sacked and as far as I can see he does nothing.

I did in an earlier post also state I assumed he had been offered a huge payout for helping this process go ahead so no I am not shocked or surprised by his behaviour. I am however still sad about it and making myself feel better by pointing things out.

That list is woefully incomplete

You can say it now there will not be another EQ expansion

i got this today with permissions to share so i am sharing it:

Wilcox, Brad

11:04 AM (5 hours ago)

to me

Certainly. Also feel free to share my twitter account as that is a great way to communicate as well, see below.

----------------------------------------------

Brad Wilcox

Vice President, Customer Service

Daybreak Games

www.soe.com

Phone: 858.577.3929

Email: bwilcox@soe.sony.com

Twitter: @thegreatmutato



may i please share your email with my friends in my guild and on the forum?



On Thu, Feb 12, 2015 at 10:59 AM, Wilcox, Brad <bwilcox@soe.sony.com> wrote:

I can understand your worry. There were a lot of good people that we let go yesterday. Many that I have worked with for years and years, some of my closest friends. It is a sad time. But I can assure you that we will continue making the best online games and push the limits of online gaming while serving the existing dedicated player base. I am a gamer myself, have developed a great love for many games.



I continue to play and associate with the friends I made in the early days of EverQuest even though we are all no literally in different parts of the world. I love the community that these games bring and will work to make sure it continues.



-Brad

Your understanding of how business works is rather sad.

Thats like blaming a general manager at your favorite restaraunt for the owner selling. No power, no say nothing he could have magically done.

He had no say, dont kid yourself. If you think the president has any say in this situation you are utterly clueless on how a business works.

I want smed gone as much as the next guy but this is pathetic reaching for hate.

Or how about the alternative and having a bunch of new leadership/devs with no prior knowledge of EQ1 and its outdated legacy Win98-era code? How can THAT be good? With an old game like EQ1, you very much want people on the game that are familiar with it. I'd wager that its not an easy game to just step in and pick the pieces up due to its old outdated code. You need people familiar with it and that understand the spirit and fundamentals of the game. Remember, EQ1 is an old game. A complete new personnel infrastructure would NOT be a good thing at this point and time of the games shelf life. A bunch of new coders and devs would look at EQ1's infrastructure like a caveman would look at a book. He might not know wth to do with it. Or at least, not know how to make it work as well as the currents do.

Either way, its lose/lose. A complete overhaul would mean a bunch of folks working on this dinosaur with no prior knowledge of the game. Status quo means the same ole crap with even less resources. So take your pick. In other words, either way this game is screwed.

But in the end, I think we are wasting our breath here. I don't see EQ1 being around a year from now.

You know as well as I do, that anyone on the fence or had one foot out the door already, will quit over this. Its an easy out.

I just don't see a lot of people sticking around now and spending money and time on a game that is seemingly headed toward a dead end.

You're mostly right. He (Smedley) has no say - conditionally. Technically, there are a lot of things he could do as President regardless of what the shareholders want. The trouble for him is, as soon as he starts doing anything that ownership doesn't like, they have reason to let him go. He is cooperative because he wants to stay. He doesn't have to be. He chooses to be. Most likely for financial reasons.

I agree with you to a good extent about the stagnation and the potential good here for EQ. The trouble for most of the long term players though is how much money they've spent on the game over the years, and whether or not they'll have continuity with the game. That's where the panic, doom and gloom, and willingness to make up anything to believe it will all just keep going and getting better comes from. I understand and empathize with people whose primary concern right now is the fact that they've spent thousands on EQ over the years and now they're faced with a near future possibility that their collection of characters and equipment will evaporate. Or, that they'll be cut off from the gaming community that they've become ingrained in.

The big picture is, EQ is too solid to just disappear. It's too rich and has too much potential to be wasted. The only long term danger is for the wrong person/people to get their hands on it and allow it to just sit and rot the way SOE did. Anyone investing in EQ needs to learn a lesson from SOE's failures and engage the core community in any future development with the property. Recognize the best that EQ offers and lead with it. Don't lose the fundamental appeal while exploring new ways to utilize and market the EQ world. It may not see continuity as a game, and people may have to watch EQ die in every way as they know it now before it resurfaces, but EQ will live on, and has far more potential now that SOE's grip has been removed.

We have had people "familiar" working on the game for over a decade and a half. Its been mismanaged quite badly. All you really need is a couple guys familiar and better leadership and this game could move in a positive direction. Sticking with the status quo because they where "familiar" is the mistake SOE made to begin with.

Unless someone has a list that shows EQ1 coders are being laid off you're wrong. Once they start to fire the people actually coding this game i will worry. You can find developers elsewhere. Finding coders who have experience with EQ is another thing.

This game has been mismanaged and underdeveloped for 10 years. You cannot blame the devs though if EQ made a profit its obvious that profit was not reinvested into EQ.

Well for starters he was not the CEO. They where not a sole company they where a division of another company he was simply the president of that division. Again when the word comes from above his title is 100% meaningless. He wasnt some board appointed CEO like you think. He was just a division president.

I edited. I had President in my head, but put CEO in anyway. That distinction is meaningful, but still doesn't change that he's not powerless. He's just doing what it takes to keep his job. That's the nature of being top brass, but not the ownership.

#Fvbard I am done talking to you since you lack any form of manners at all or in fact any understanding of how business works I wont bother trying to explain to you I shall simply ignore any responses you make.