Sony Online Entertainment Becomes Daybreak Game Company

And this right here is whats wrong with conservative society and greed is best reaganomics. Picture not something like an online game, but environmental technologies, aids drugs for africa or healthcare.

They now can set their best minds on how much money they can suck out of PS2 before a critical mass of users quits. A + B = C. Its just business they say, nothing personal.

But most likely they will sell it to EA as they are the experts at wrecking franchises. A investment firm could only do so much damage, I am sure they would rather leave it to the pros at EA.

So I have taken upon myself to write a letter that I will send soon to the CEO of Columbus Nova and I would like your thoughts:


Mr. Andrew Intrater,


It has come to my attention that your company had recently purchased (formerly) Sony Online Entertainment, and I would like to address some concerns that I have about this deal.
Myself and others are wondering what this will mean for our beloved free to play games that we have come to love and enjoy such as DC Universe Online, Everquest and my favorite, Planetside 2. Many are reasonably and greatly concerned about what kind of direction you wish to take with Daybreak Game Company.

As research will show some of the most successful game companies provide their fans with great entertainment from their games that they produce. What I am describing of course are companies like Valve Corporation and Blizzard Entertainment, although I don't expect Daybreak to become them, and from what I see from those at Daybreak is a great Free to Play system, giving players a choice to pay money to them if they like the game and allowing those who don't wish to pay at the time a level playing field on par with those who are paying members. What I am afraid of is Daybreak, being influenced by Columbus Nova, to adopt a pay to win strategy for their games much like what Electronic Arts Los Angeles has done with their games. I should point out that the strategy that EA has adopted is NOT the way to go here with Daybreak, in fact that is the quickest way to loose consumer confidence and ultimately destroy this company and what they have worked hard to build.

One of the most important things with game companies (in my opinion) is keeping their community happy with their products on top of a good business strategy that does not alienate the consumers who sink much of their time into the games that they love and allows the company to make a reasonable profit off of happy customers. Myself and others would love to hear your thoughts on this acquisition and what your plan is for Daybreak Game Company and I hope I didn't bore you with this email.


Sincerely, *********************************, concerned Planetside 2 player.

Change loose to lose.

I'll put that in. The spell checker said it was wrong.

Do you have a 401k plan or some other type of retirement plan? If you do, guess what? You're a shareholder! Even pension plans are invested in the market with companies like this to get a return on investment. That's the whole point of investing money.

Honestly, who the heck are you to dictate what people do with their money? Before you try to say I'm greedy, I give what I can to charity and have volunteered my time for various causes. Are you giving money or time into those causes?

Then again, it helps to have a decent grasp of real world economics instead of empty rhetoric and wishful thinking.

I'm keeping an open mind about this, i really hope more resources get pumped into Planetside 2, on the PC and console side. The console port can only mean good things for the game in general.

Sadly, theres like a 99% chance that Daybreak Game Company will become Day Break My Game Company...

MAG and Warhawk were the best games I've played. Sony let go of Incognito, which became Light Box Interactive and made Starhawk... an awful parody of its predecessor. MAG the wonderful hybrid of SOCOM/Planetside from Zipper just didn't garner enough attention and sales and Sony closed the doors of that studio. And now that PS2 is finally set to arrive on PSN... Sony sends off SOE.

I don't understand. Does Sony simply not want great, exclusive, multiplayer shooters on it's console?

I have a feeling the original PlanetSide is going to be shut down completely soon.

"Playstation Xbox Mobile and More" ?!?!! WTF. As someone who's been playing SoE games for over 15 years, gotta say I'm not happy about the sounds of this announcement esp all this talk of crossplatform blah. I thought SoE or W/E you want to call yourselves was all about making the best online games. Online games are best on PC, PERIOD. Always have been, always will be. If you want to then port that game to console like ps2 fine but keep your priorities straight. Otherwise..

You're going to drive your reputation Back into the ground (did you forget your name was mud not that long ago?) if you start focusing on console and Freeking Mobile games and neglect your Core Customers here on PC just to make a few bucks for some "investment firm". This sounds like a seriously Bad Idea that some psudo Marty Khan from House of Lies talked you into promising you everything. I just hope this wasn't what I fear.

Time will tell but I think you will see the new owners evaluate what can make them money and what IP's they will sell off to other interested parties.

PS2 I think for now will stay around until they can see the results of the PS4 launch but if that doesn't turn into a cash cow it's just a matter of time to all further development in PS2 comes to a halt.

All of you guys that are thinking you can contact the investment firm and give input...they probably don't even know what the hell you're talking about.

The only real thing these investment firms do is put one or several people on the board of directors that push the company to make more money. They don't have any input on any single product line. They simply state how money is getting spent and what project lines should be cut.

You think I give a crap about a product when it comes to my investments? I'm not trying to make the world a better place, I'm trying to make money. Believe it or not, in creative spaces, you usually make LESS money with more complex products. The simpler the product, the more money you make. You have to make a product you can sell to the masses. That's why CoD sold incredibly well but was the worst game ever because it wasn't a game as much as it was a slot machine.

If you want them to make a product that is really good and doesn't get watered down so the lowest common denominator feels like he's king of the world, then you better buy the company yourself.


I'm not saying I like what will happen to the game but as I said from the beginning, this game should have been a sub model, maybe with like a 1 month trial period. F2P was a doomed model to begin with.

In fact, most of these investment firms have portfolios of at least 20 different companies. Given how big their portfolio is, it's probably closer to 40 or maybe even 50.

People always get this mixed up. You're wrong, by the way. Planetside 2 has always been making money, ever since launch. What you misunderstood in that one Dev reddit post was that Planetside 2 has finally made back their preliminary investment to develop the game.

Planetside 2 did not just start making money, it just recently broke even and is now seeing profits. It doesn't sound important, but thats a huge difference in reality. Players have been buying camos, weapons, cosmetics, boosts etc since the day they've come out. It's just recently that all of that money added up has payed back the prior investment to develop the game.

This is the reason why CN most likely purchased SOE from Sony (people keep in mind, SOE used to be an independent game dev themselves, then months before launching SWG they were picked up by yours truly), it's because the money Sony invested into making SOE has finally been repayed and then some,

I agree... this is terrible news. Sony is in the entertainment industry, CN is in Finance. It's guaranteed that they wont give a damn about the creativity, and instead focus on the profitability. The devs have just been sold like cattle, and PS2 will now be milked dry.

Devs I hope you find greener pastures ASAP.

I don't know about the studio as a whole or it's portfolio, but Sony dropped the ball here concerning PS2 and the team working on it. The game doesn't feel finished on the pc. And the ps4 controller setup options are limited. That said, I really like the game.

15+ years ago console ports meant a hit in many areas of a pc game. That's not the case now. It's more of a UI and input interface port than changes in the game itself. That's a much broader market for the time spent coding and making in-game assets. But once it's on all platforms, it's no longer the exclusive gem that get's extra dev time and funds to sell systems.

Actually Sony is a conglomerate. It was originally an electronics company. They started the entertainment arm so they could get into video games, movies, and TV shows.

The core company, however, is still an electronics and technology producer and not a content producer.

Wow, that is weird to think you guys aren't with Sony anymore. Hey, I know this may be a longshot, but...

Wii U version, perhaps... ? Dude, think of what you could do with the GamePad!

They are Capital Management group specializing in telecom and materials. They probably picked up SOE to offset gains in other areas and because they see this market as a steady force in telecom.

I think it's mostly good news. The only bad side to this is they will probably sell off SOE if they need to, but I think SOE will do fine.

Interesting that this occurred so soon after the Guinness World record.

I've been loving the PS4 beta and I normally spend at least some money on free games I enjoy, but this news will make me hesitate to do that until I see where this is going. Someone else made the point that players should still spend money and show these new owners that the fan base cares about the game, but I don't see how to look at this and not be at least a little nervous.

@Donaldson Jones - I had the same thought about the world record.

That would be a good version, but I think we have to think bigger. This sellout is not just about SOE, it's more about Sony as a whole, and last few years have been harsh on them. They even got hacked. So Sony probably is looking to consolidate resources and cut off departments that don't bring any profit, otherwise the whole company might not survive.

Star Trek Online team deserved this, and if the same happens to SOE - it is well deserved too, with many years of failure. They did some amazing things, yet they did so many mistakes only only a complete newbie would make, it's mindboggling.

Thank you for this explanation, I've been looking for this thread for someone who can explain what's happening

Do you really hope to make it past the secretary?