Sony Online Entertainment Becomes Daybreak Game Company

Discussion in 'News and Announcements' started by RadarX, Feb 2, 2015.

  1. Wyre Wintermute I'm just a butterly dreaming I'm a man

    Difference there. NCSoft is a game developer/publisher. Columbus Nova is an investment management firm. That being, they will build up the stock value of the assets from the SOE acquisition, and sell it off to the highest bidder.

    Now.. that isn't to try to sound all "doom and gloom." Harmonix Music Systems (Rock Band franchise), for instance, was bought off of Viacom by CN. It is now being run by the original parent company Harmonix.

    The future is uncertain. But eh.. for all those who rallied behind Sony and their finances.. I told you so.
  2. svann Augur

    Perhaps, but the guy I was replying to implied that several games he played got bought out then shuttered.

    "Every game I have ever played that gets taken over by another company gets phased out. t."

    So, what games would those be?
    NightClerk likes this.
  3. Doranur_Aleguzzler Filthy Casualâ„¢

    I haven't bought into past doom and gloom premonitions, but having played a game that was acquired by not one but TWO different companies, and it has become so non-fun to play, I have to imagine that this new company will be the death knell for at least a few existing titles in the coming two years. I don't play any SOE games anymore, but I would be saddened to hear the news that EQ1 will be shut down, when that day DOES come.
  4. Eggborn Lorekeeper

    I want my fanfaire back. The hubby and I could finally afford it again this year. Last time we went we got to hang with so many people that we played this game with for years! That one of the most fun times we had. I guess we have to go back to organizing something like this ourselves again. It makes me so sad and extremely angry that they are getting rid of it.
  5. Abazzagorath Augur

    Bad mojo.

    I'm not concerned with them shutting eq down because its losing money, SOE would have done that. I'm concerned with them shutting it down because its not making ENOUGH money, as a company like that is focused on return on investment dollars, and would rather throw that money to another venture that MIGHT be more profitable.
    Elricvonclief, Fenudir, Sheex and 2 others like this.
  6. Axxius Augur

    The last two SOE Live's were sold out. Was the admission price too low?

    They also generated enormous publicity for at least for one future release (EQ Next) which should result in profit when it's released.

    This is a bummer.
  7. Lenowill Augur

    I find myself oddly less worried about EQ1's fate in this scenario than I did when Sony was the owner.

    Granted, there's plenty of ways this could go south in a hurry, but I am (guardedly) hopeful for this situation.
  8. Nickster86 Elder

    This does not bolster my faith in this game what so ever. So Sony was doing so well and making so much money they decided to sell? I hope that they weren't bought so that SoE could be gutted for its resources
  9. Porterz73 Augur

    Columbus Nova Guy1 - Hey what are you up to?
    CN Guy2 - just playing some Angry Birds on my phone, it's soo addictive!
    CN Guy1 - I love Candy Crush
    CN Guy2 - is there any money to be made in these silly games??
    CN Guy1 - I heard that games with walking squares sold for over a Billion
    CN Guy2 - hey we have a mountain on cash lets buy 1 of these companies, any for sale?
    CN Guy1 - Sony was Hacked again they might want to unload some stuff they have become bored of.
    CN Guy2 - Does Sony make any fun phone games with candy or egg stealing pigs?
    CN Guy1 - No but they have a few for desktop computers
    CN Guy2 - people play games on computers still??? Weird
    CN Guy1 - if they can make a game for a computer they can make 1 for a phone
    CN Guy2 - Nice. Let's do it
    CN Guy1 - what shale we do with these crappy old games?
    CN Guy2 - Status Quo
    CN Guy1 - Status Quo???
    CN Guy2 - everything stays the same for first 6 months until we can figure out how to lose the dead weight and milk what remains.
    CN Guy1 - when do we get our new phone game?
    CN Guy2 - should take about a year after we divert all the talent to the project.
    Admin Assistant - doesn't Sony make EQ
    CN Guy 1&2 - what the heck is EQ???
    Leigo, Geroblue and Maedhros like this.
  10. xclip New Member

    yes ignorance is bliss. everything is going to be ok, just keep saying that over and over.
  11. svann Augur

    If they felt like they would rather invest that money in something else the only way to do that is to SELL soe. They recover almost nothing if they shut it down.

    What resources? A bunch of outdated servers? IP is their resource. Shut that down and they have what - a dev team that may leave at will?
  12. Abazzagorath Augur

    No. You do not seem to understand.

    Investments are about return on investment. Turning a small profit is wasted opportunity cost. You don't tie up resources to make X% profit when you project to make 10X% profit on a new project. Those resources are online services costs (EQ is run off "the cloud", i.e., buying services from a third party, SOE hasn't run their own servers for this game in half a decade), developer and customer support salary, etc.

    Investing a couple million a year to realize $100,000 profit is a waste and one of the first things they would cut, because they could invest that couple million in something else on the probability of generating greater profits.
  13. Momentum Elder


    I would absolutely love this, but seems pretty unlikely. :(
  14. Crystilla Augur


    Let's put it this way Axxius, I'd doubt players couldn't afford the admission price if it was going to cover all the costs SoE put into each year's fan faire. Think of:

    • Cost of each room every day (for Planet Hollywood, they rented out every conference room PH had for 2+ solid days).
    • The AV costs for streaming, signal boosting, sound, etc. + PH staff members to run it.
    • Cost of travel for all the tech, IT, devs, community, marketing and other SoE folks (including transportation, all their rooms, food, etc.)
    • Cost of the food associated with all of us.
    • Shipping or travel costs associated with all the boxes of items, the computers, etc. related to the event.
    • etc.
    Then think of the price we paid for admission.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  15. Shortina Journeyman

    My feeling and worry is this: company wants to maybe initially help daybreak be profitable. There will be cash investment with expectations and time frames. There will be strong restrictions. We can tell Columbus Nova likes H1Z1 as they name it twice in their press release. My guess is a push to get EQNext out faster. Investment company may not want to see competition on their EQNext investment. Therefore EQ and or EQ2 will go. I would guess Landmark would be absorbed into EQNext. It just seems to make financial sense to consolidate games.
  16. svann Augur

    No, you dont understand.
    The guy said he hoped they werent bought so they could be gutted for resources. You dont buy something to gut it for resources when the only resources it has cant be sold for anything like what you paid. Like I said, what resources are you talking about? Normally gutting a company for resources implies they own a lot of resellable capital equipment and property. Not outdated server farms.

    And if they were actually paying into soe more than it profitted them then CN would know that before they bought it and they wouldnt have bought it in the first place. All that is disclosed before sale.
  17. Maginus Lorekeeper

    Hell not even that fast (6months) I want it to take years =)
  18. svann Augur

    I suppose we could hope that CN might have a different take on whether its a good idea to allow vanguard into the public domain for other people to run it. They certainly wont be bringing it back themselves, but they could let it go.
  19. Ribeye Journeyman

    "They Break Games" is taking over? I gotta baaaaad feeling about this...
    Fenudir likes this.
  20. Jordis Augur

    Hoping we can now go back to just paying to play EverQuest, instead of for access to all the games which I have no interest in playing or paying for.