Sony Online Entertainment Becomes Daybreak Game Company

Agreed.

Though that's not true of all investment companies (e.g. venture capital companies take on a lot of risk, but are looking for the 1-in-many company that will give them a huge return.), but Columbus Nova doesn't look like that type of company:

From http://www.columbusnova.com/about.html
"CN takes a value-oriented, long-term view to investing and seeks consistent returns with an emphasis on capital preservation."

I'm just guessing they already did step 1 last year with the culling off titles in preparation for this sale.

We can hope, but keep in mind investment firms rarely ever look at how the business works, what they can do to improve, etc. Typically they go "Here, you are free to do what you want with X capital. We will review the progress in X Months and go from there". I'm sure they will be able to do a lot more at the start compared to what they could do as part of Sony, but its what happens in the Months - year after that worries me. I hope they make it, as the EQ franchise will always be my favorite.

Yup... I'm just as scared as I am excited at the very, very faint possibility of FreeRealms coming back. I am scared that it will come back as a shadow of its former self.

Did any of you play Neopets prior to its acquisition by Nickelodeon? - They monetized it every way they could... Free Realms could go that way, or it could come back as a brutal "short-term financial gain" game like mobile games tend to be. Or "IMVU for kids" and not "MMO for kids" to try to appeal to a larger audience. If that were the case, as hard as it is for me to say, I think I would much rather it stay gone.

If they do sell it (which I doubt as they have already said there is to much IP inside that game), I hope that they recognize one of the assets is a group of HUGELY devoted fans.

I really think the EQ franchise is safe - it's the largest game and I would think it is the most profitable.

What does this mean for folks with Station Cash balances?

Investment firms can go many ways.
Some do flip the companies.

Some enable new funding, or new capabilities that the former company was not willing or able to invest.

Some do a good job at repositioning, including additional platforms, etc. With Microsoft announcements on Windows 10, games like these running across and interoperable between xBOX and PC platforms could be good investments and improved/updated.

Most investment firms will look at operations and other costs or productivity opportunities. This is not all bad. There are frequently opportunities to improve efficiencies or trip costs, particularly if they make multiple acquisitions and actually integrate them.

Having been through, consulted on and been engaged on acquisitions, divestitures and carve outs, I have seen all of the above. Will need to see what happens in the future.

What was stated was game development and operations. What was not clear is if the new company will host its games on a platform it owns and/or controls or if it will be hosted externally. This choice may impact the game performance, stability, etc. from the server farms, its management, its ability to provision, balance and tune physical and virtual servers, etc.

Need to wait and see how this develops further and other statements made regards the acquisition.

If i had known this before, i would have NEVER bought into H1Z1.

So... native Linux clients?

More like DCUO going to Xbox =-) Linux users make up around 1% of computer users. Not much of a market there.

And now we all know why H1Z1 isn't the game we thought it was going to be b/c Columbus Nova has their mitts in on things and they want that green stuff!

Where can I give feedback to the company about fanfaire (SoE Live!)? I would like to speak with someone on the telephone who matters, like I was able to through the contact with had with folks at these events.

I am wondering is there going to be a big maintenance downtime that is going to revamp all of this? As in update the entire SOE website, move the forums off sony servers, move all the servers out of the Playstation infrastructure? Will the servers have less down time do the move off of Sony or more?

I read today that SOE was acquired by another company. I hope Columbus Nova doesn't decide to kick PS1 to the curb because it is no longer supported, makes no money, and it costs money to keep the server turned on.

A quote from the article said:
"In fact, we expect to have even more resources available to us as a result of this acquisition."

So does that mean there can be support for this game again? If the resources are available, this gem is still worth the time and energy if you ask me. REVIVAL!

Erm. will the soe domain change? and will anything happen to our accounts?

Could past games come back?

hmm.

Why would they do such a silly thing? It's good business sense to keep an operation going that isn't making any money, right? I really hope you were kidding.

..This is bad...really bad...

All I can say at this point is to hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. I've worked at a few companies that were bought out and I heard the same song and dance every time. "Nothing will change!". Funny thing is, things changed at every single one of those companies, including complete shutdown of some. If you're one of the SOE mouth-pieces saying don't worry, be happy, then please stop lying to us. It's an insult to our intelligence. Things will definitely change one way or another. Odds are most won't be good changes. Not trying to be a naysayer so much here as trying to be realistic and not whitewash over the truth. Things are not all sunshine and rainbows at SOE or Sony wouldn't have dumped them.

Nice post Gigaas.
I would add too that I saw the official Columbus Nova announcement and the fact that Sony's stock shares were down slightly means this investment corp. will move quickly to make the changes necessary, (as it sees it), to correct that ship.
There will be changes and while some may truly be very nice for us gamers, it may not bode so well for folks at the studio. We shall see. I do think things will pop rather quickly in the next several months. we may or may not be aware of many of these changes...
Alyn