Sony Online Entertainment Becomes Daybreak Game Company

Nice , congratulations I guess .. sounds exciting.

That means you all will answer to somebody?
And if the games are unplayable at the moment because of massive lag somebody will actually care?

That sucks no? Sony Online Entertainment is no more Sony...

Wow!

So be honest, how many of you came in to the office this morning and got completely surprised by "guess what? We're a new company now!"

I guess this explains a few things on why there hasn't been a SOE Live 2015 save the date yet.

Sneak, probably most of the staff lol. This could be a very, very good thing happening to us.

So does this mean all our lifetime subs and all-access passes are just going to be just as they were? We dont need to do anything?

Would Daybreak have the financial resources to resurrect (or potentially sell ) Vg:soh? I know of a few hundred people that would be more than interested in a re-release and if you were able to fix some of the bugs it might be a potential winner again.

I am assuming that Daybreak Game Company's stance on the potential revival of recently culled games (ie: Free Realms) will remain the same as SOE's stance? Was this transition on the horizon when the decision was made to close these games down?

You guys do realize they just sold all rights to Everquest to big money...say good byr to your thousands of dollars youve dumoed into this ever dieing game...

SoE this was a horrid idea, and you just murdered the MMO community with this..big money has NEVER cared about the little guy (players in this case) and Everquest WILL be shut down...thanks for nothing.

With this new title, " Daybreak Game Company", do you guys have any different motives on the games that were recently shut down (ex. Free Realms), and any future plans on reviving these games?

Does this maybe mean more resources for games that were shut down last year? (I.E Freerealms) I know a ton of people who would like to have a remake of that game.

I doubt Sony did this just for the cash. I would guess Everquest Next is not turning out how they wanted it to.

We'll see. Business is supposed to go on as usual apparently, but only time can tell that. Personally, I'd be happy even if they reopened it just the way that it was prior to the shutdown. Lots of possibilities...

Being a huge SoE fan I am worried what this means. Things like NCSoft shutting down CoH comes to mind. I love the fairness you have brought to online gaming like all access for 15 bucks a month. I really hope your identity stays intact or gets built on. Wish you guys all the best. Thanks for all the fun time we have had over the years and hope for many more.

P.S. I hope EQN makes a huge splash to MMOing. I am ready for a change.

Hopefully the player base will benefit from it. That is the only thing I would be concerned with as I have no idea who this company is.

Before you all start getting into the "This is great news, maybe things will change" need to do research on what it means to sell to an investment firm. An investment firm cares about the bottom dollar only, they do not care about innovation. They bought this company to invest, and in most cases with firms like this, to resell the company for a profit. It is almost like flipping a house. How does this happen you may ask?

-Closing down parts of the business. When it comes to an IP it could mean closing down the entire game or to closing/merging servers.

-Downsizing of staff. I mean come on, everyone here should expect this to happen.

-Splitting the business up into parts. What you could see happen is DC Universe going to X company, while Planetside goes to X company, and so on. This is a popular practice of investment firms when it comes to a multi-tiered company. Again, they did not buy SOE because they are fans of their games.. just for the money value.

I've been part of a company before that was purchased by Sun Capital(yes I am aware this is not Sun Capital purchasing SOE), an investment firm. Each of the above happened over the three years that we were owned. In the end, we were not profitable, and were saved by a buyer in the last Month before we were told we were being closed.

I'm guessing the main reason for this is the freedom to develop games for other consoles (Xbox, etc).

The part that I am excited about are the key phrases:
"SOE will operate as an independent game development studio"
"It also means new exciting developments for our existing IP and games "

I'm holding a faint hope that they will review the portfolio including past games ("existing IP") and will bring back Free Realms.

Columbus Nova being an investment management company I'm not really expecting it to bring back a game that SOE said was losing money, but maybe they will see that it can be profitable? Those that played certain dumped as much into that game as any other game - they just needed a larger player-base, and Free Realms certain appeals to a broad range of people - I just don't think it got the exposure it needed to get it.