Sony Online Entertainment Becomes Daybreak Game Company

Yes it is an option, how hard is it to understand that, It is called standing up to the boss and people, yes even people with families sometimes do it, if they feel they are in the right so get over yourself and your absolutes. It may not be an option for you but it is an option.

Smed has no say in the decisions to layoff employees, watch Office Space, you'll understand it. Yes it's a comedy movie, but it's amazingly accurate to a certain extend how stupid the corporate environment is, from top to down.

Even Smed got reviewed by suits above him. He's the head of a division, that's it, a division. The layoff calls came from above him. He was handed a sheet, with a bottomline he had to meet. Even the employees acknowledged that it was no surprise because they were very open about the need to restructure when they got bought out. So quit arguing on their behalf, they themselves knew layoffs were coming, they just couldn't talk about it.

The reason why these mergers keep the division heads for awhile is because they still want a familiar face to lead the left-over crew. Because honestly, an investment firm don't have replacements readily available to slot in for a market they are not familiar with. So the suits above him chose to keep him over raising someone else...for now. His job isn't safe, nobody's is. Likely he's given a chance to prove he can steer the ship and depending on their performance (bottom line), he'll be under watchful eyes.

You too. What's up with this attempt at condescension? Fragile ego issues? I can do it too. "Family to provide for" - LOL! I'm sure that a dude who has been the President of SOE is going to see his family starve overnight if he sticks up for his employees... who also have families and get paid less. Ignorance is bliss. LOL!
Do you see how that works? Now how about engaging in a mature and meaningful way. Agreed?

Lets see if Smedley survives Friday. If he does then he has a grace period. However it is widely known throughout the industry that Smedley is a "hands on" micro-manager that just loves to blow up schedules with his own personal feature additions to games.

lol. If you have kids and a wife to take care of your only option is to worry about them. What happens when the CEO fires you because you refused ? He fires them employees himself anyway now not only are these people laid off you're also. Go tell your wife or kids that. You keep your job so one day maybe you can bring them people back or instead of looking for a new job yourself you can call around to help them find another job.

You want to talk about ,mature and meaningful only an immature person would ignore the responsibilities he has in life and get himself fired because of pride or ego.

That is your opinion, IMO standing up to the boss is not always about pride or ego. It can be about doing what is right. You stated as an absolute that it was not an option. That is a false statement it is an option just because it is not an option you would choose does not prohibit it from being one. Learn the difference

try feeding family on moral hi ground , pick and choose battles, this one would have been a losing one.
as we as well have been complaining.
this would have been the wrong one to stand ground on.
now the shake up comes and lets see how well company does that everyone's refocused. this is now instead of being a carebear tv show its game of thrones... no one is safe

Do you realize that outsiders scoff at EQ1 and make fun of us all for still playing this old "dinosaur"? Even long retired ex-EQ players are like "WHAT? THAT GAME IS STILL AROUND?" - You have outsiders that don't even know EQ1 exists. Once you develop a negative stigma and perception, its impossible to shake and get rid of in the gaming market.

You can blame marketing and management all you want. But the fact of the matter is that the damage is already done. You cannot close Pandora's box once you open it. EQ1 is an OLD game. The young generation isn't interesting in playing old outdated antiquated games in the least. They are all interested in the latest and greatest games. The young generation is where the money is and its the audience that gaming companies aim their product at.

Unless you're saying they did a complete engine/graphic overhaul and made EQ1 into a current technology game. If that is the case, then sure. I'd get on board with it attracting new players, however, in its current form, not a snowballs chance in hell that it'll attract new players.

The absolute best route you can take with this game that is REALISTIC is to continue it on in a way that keeps and retains who is still playing. The people still playing this old game are your loyals and diehards, so your #1 priority needs to be to please them. Then try to re-hook those ex-players who come back periodically to check the game out again. This has been attempted in the past and failed miserably. So repackage that concept and do it better.

Either way, this whole situation doesn't look good. EQ1 already had a small staff working on the game. Once the smoke has cleared, that staff will be even smaller which will mean less development, less resources and a bare bones approach to maintaining the game. There will be ripple effects felt due to these layoffs and EQ1 will feel it.

People were worried about the sale. I took it as a good sign. Why ? Smed was with sony for 20 years there was a loyalty factor in play. This new company has no loyalty to him if he does not do what they want or make money like they want he is gone.

one thing a lot of folks don't realize is just because some of us make more money then others we all overspend and have debt that we are working on paying down. fluid cash on hand,? smed might has as much in his pocket as the poorest guy in eq does " after all he is married with children!"

"lol" So no one ever changes jobs after they have a spouse and children? So no one ever rationally challenges their bosses? So if anyone is ever fired they immediately die and their families starve to death? I guess we're all subject to slave labor then. I never knew.

Try telling your wife and kids that your seven figure salary was too important to say anything to stick up for people you had worked with for years because you wouldn't be able to vacation in the Bahamas as often. That'll feel real good, I'm sure.

You're right though. What was I thinking. Integrity has no place in the real world. We should all just be Darwinists and get what material gain we can while we can, moral integrity be damned.

Funny enough, I never vilified Smedley. I'm just trying to keep this objective. As I said earlier, we don't know what the guy has or hasn't done as far as sticking up for his employees. We don't know if the people let go deserved to be canned or not. Maybe Smedley was consulted and he chose these people to be let go. Every one of them might have been a bad employee. As far as I can tell, none of the talking heads here seem qualified to make the call whether they deserved it or not or whether Smedley deserves to be fired or not. I don't speculate on who deserves to be fired. My perspective is simply that mistakes had been made and obviously some people weren't doing their jobs very well - so some people will deserve to get fired. Others might not. Others might just be collateral damage. The thing is, if it's a complete liquidation, none of them are going to have the same job when all is said and done.

Ya what they don't get is the more you make the more you spend. You have a nice house ? Ya you also have to pay more to maintain that house. You have a nice car ? Nice your insurance also cost more.

Look at these millionaire athletes who're broke. Just because you make more does not mean you have more saved.

New management is a double edged sword. There are both sides to that coin. Both good and bad and the bad always outweighs the good in these situations. So be careful what you wish for.

Yes! We need the only Dev that plays a monk to stick around . I just hope he's iksar and not a dirty human/drakkin.

Well this is interesting, SOE (Daybreak) suddenly has 19 job openings. ..

https://www.soe.com/careers

And also, name more than one MMO property that was purchased by another company this late in the games shelf life and survived more than two years. I bet you'll be hard pressed to find many.

Verant doesn't count. Because Sony owned Verant in the first place - Verant (and 989 studios) were just some of several different Sony-owned subsidiaries that were merged into SOE.

WOW

Blizzard was bought by another company and later bought itself out of that company. I guess that doesn't count as bought by another company

Was it? How far into WoW's shelf life was it when this took place?

Those have been open for awhile.

Now that is interesting. Replacing higher paid folks with lower paying replacements maybe ? The school district I work for has been trying to do this for years.