I wonder what happens to EQN, its future is pretty much uncertain now.
Over the past year there has been a lot of things moving more and more in house. Like the EU customers are now directly SoE customers. I think a lot of this has been to bolster SoE to sell it. If EQN was hurting SoEs value it would have been chopped before it sold. All access IMO will stay, I hope. As their games are F2P and still manage to get people to sub. I am not sure how All Access hurts them.
I have been very "unwhelmed" by everything SoE has released in recent years. Do not know if there was pressure from the parent comapany, Sony, or if it is just a studio thing in general. I suppose we could hope that things are shaken up enough that they will be reborn as if not new at least a revitalised gaming studio. Only time will tell.
Viacom has sold the Rock Band creator to an investment firm called Columbus Nova, it said Thursday. The New York-based Columbus Nova manages over $10 billion in assets worldwide, using what it calls “a value-oriented, long-term view to investing.” Harmonix will now be owned by Harmonix-SBE Holdings LLC, an affiliate company.
Ummmmm, yeah, they pretty much have more money than god.
I actually know these guys because they own a company local to me. They also have Columbus Nova Technology Partners, which I'm more aware of. Fact is, they have a great amount of diversity in their portfolio. They're not a traditional game dev, but it might be interesting to see how they can run it.
I remember being in a company that was acquired by GE some years back. GE's policy then was if they can't be #1 or #2 in the market, they don't want in it. Didn't matter if the group was profitable or not, they had to be #1 or #2 or GE sold them.
Sony might be in the same boat. SOE is not #1 or #2, and although it might be profitable, it is not going to change Sony's bottom line much. Sony is large.
Originally posted by Thebeasttt They can't possibly be anymore incompetent then SoE.
So far all that changes is the name really. Smedley is still the president. So they are as incompetent as SoE because it is SoE. I do not know how much influence the new parent company will have. Not sure why people are so negative. Many big companies today are big because of investments firms like this. They are not all evil, they are the ones that risk there money (and yes sometimes make unpopular moves to minimize those risks) so you can enjoy the products these companies produce.
Originally posted by Thebeasttt They can't possibly be anymore incompetent then SoE.
Considering the facts so far... That sentence makes no sense.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire: Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
So now SOE is owned by a venture capitalist company.
I expect allot of layoffs in the coming weeks and more intrusive microtransactions.
Won't be remotely surprised if you're correct! It's the crony-capitalist way.
Not to nit pick, but venture capitalist and crony capitalist are distinctly opposite things. However, I agree that venture capitalism would more likely result in layoffs, but that really should only be the case if the company is not efficiently run.
Originally posted by Distopia Not sure why many read this as SOE being the company with the problem. When it's been Sony corp that has been struggling hard for years now to make a highly profitable quarter. They've lost market presence all over the place.If anything IMO it shows SOE was one of the few assets they had that was worth selling off ( someone would buy) outside of selling the PS brand. Which is probably the most important branch to them right now.
What?! Lol that is some extreme devils advocate right there. If you are a company in the red, you trim the fat. You don't sell off your money makers.
Originally posted by Distopia Not sure why many read this as SOE being the company with the problem. When it's been Sony corp that has been struggling hard for years now to make a highly profitable quarter. They've lost market presence all over the place.If anything IMO it shows SOE was one of the few assets they had that was worth selling off ( someone would buy) outside of selling the PS brand. Which is probably the most important branch to them right now.
What?! Lol that is some extreme devils advocate right there. If you are a company in the red, you trim the fat. You don't sell off your money makers.
But who wants to buy the fat? Sure you can trim the fat, but if you need working capital you aren't going to get that by trimming the fat. Sometimes you do have to sell something profitable for the better long term strategy.
Originally posted by Distopia Not sure why many read this as SOE being the company with the problem. When it's been Sony corp that has been struggling hard for years now to make a highly profitable quarter. They've lost market presence all over the place.If anything IMO it shows SOE was one of the few assets they had that was worth selling off ( someone would buy) outside of selling the PS brand. Which is probably the most important branch to them right now.
What?! Lol that is some extreme devils advocate right there. If you are a company in the red, you trim the fat. You don't sell off your money makers.
You do when you need cash
Ever heard of the terms Liquid Assets, Hard Assets etc. etc.
What I read from this is that.... contrary to the public opinion on this site, SOE is doing quite well and shows promise for the future.
I give him a few months before he announces that he is leaving to pursue "other interests".
"Sean (Murray) saying MP will be in the game is not remotely close to evidence that at the point of purchase people thought there was MP in the game." - SEANMCAD
I can't get myself to see anything positive in this deal. Columbus Nova is an investment company. Those want to see a return on their investment and they want it fast.
I expect some layoffs, focusing on mobile games and even more on cash shops, maybe some "profitable" games released on other platforms. EQN must deliver fast now, gone are the times of slow progress. Either that or it goes the way of the dodo. Didn't like the art style anyway.
R.I.P. SOE. Have had some great memories with EQ/EQ2.
But maybe the new owner surprises me... but no, reality tells other stories about investment companies. They know how to make money, not games.
Which is the path Dave and Smed have been skipping down for the last few years. They haven't had an original thought in their heads for ages, preferring to look over the fence at what the competition is doing and make a half-baked, heavily monetized facsimile. That is why they've been failing so dreadfully. All their steam is gone. They've been riding the coattails of EQ's success for far too long, and they've failed to realize they've simply been left in the dust.
So, they did it to themselves. Sony washed their hands of their under-performing department and sold it to Columbus. I hope this keeps Smed up at night.
If Smedley is still there and they havent completely trimmed the fat, nothing is going to change. SOE hasn't produced anything of worth in a decade and if they don't go back to the way things were early on where they hired out talent for projects like Everquest and SWG, they will not likely ever be great again.
You can't just expect to keep adding the same old average people to a team and hoping for greatness. The people that put SOE on the map are all gone and only John "Business as Usual" Smedley remains. Things have got to change dramatically if anything will get better, and that doesn't just mean changing the name.
Viacom has sold the Rock Band creator to an investment firm called Columbus Nova, it said Thursday. The New York-based Columbus Nova manages over $10 billion in assets worldwide, using what it calls “a value-oriented, long-term view to investing.” Harmonix will now be owned by Harmonix-SBE Holdings LLC, an affiliate company.
Some more information found on Wikipedia then:
"This sale returned Harmonix to its origins as an independent developer. The resulting sale did not affect present or future support plans for Harmonix' games; Harmonix retained the intellectual property rights for Rock Band and Dance Central in the sale', allowing Harmonix Music Systems to continue to develop these series. Good
[...]
Following the purchase, Harmonix underwent a restructuring in February 2011, laying off about 12-15% of the 240-person staff.
Shortly after this, Activision announced it was shuttering its Guitar Hero division and cancelling planned games for 2011, which many journalists considered to mark the end of the rhythm game genre; Harmonix's Director of Communications, John Drake, in response to this closure, called the news "discouraging", but affirmed that Harmonix will continue to invest itself in further Rock Band and Dance Central developments for the foreseeable future. bad"
They wouldn't have bought SOE if they didn't think they could make money off of it. So in a sense, it's a vote of confidence in the continued profitability of MMORPGs other than WoW.
The critical question is how they think they can make money off of it. If the plan is to add flagrant pay to win item malls to everything for a quick cash grab that runs everything into the ground, then pull the plug, then this is very bad news indeed.
But if the plan is to invest money in particular places to improve the products in ways that SOE wasn't doing or couldn't do before, this could be good news. Plenty of companies in many industries make healthy profits by providing a good product at a competitive price.
There are other ways for a business to make money. I first thought that there might be interested in tax write-offs, taking on product lines losing money, trimming the company to a smaller, more focused organization, then reselling the resulting mess. I feel sorry for all the EQ:N advocates here and elsewhere, but I'm afraid that that project would be among the first candidates that will be put under the corporate microscope. We don't know the costs of the licensing writes that SOE had engaged in for Storybricks or their Voxel technology. Those licensing deals (debts) might be something that might not be in the new ownership's comfort zone.
Even if everything is unchanged for EQ:N, I feel that this change of ownership will drastically impact the development. But what that impact will be for the EQ:N product -- cancelled or dramatically delayed; re-staffed partially or entirely; a scale-back of plans ;or an influx of marketing, support and funds -- I can't make an informed guess. I hope we will know a more by this time next year. The only real expectation that I have, is that EQ:N will have a new marketing plan, thanks to DBGC.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I am sure Smed is laughing all the way to the bank, it was long rumored that when Smed brought Veriant under the Sony umbrella, he retained most of the ownership, except for the piece he gave up to Sony for the marketing, branding and back-end support.
that does not sound good..because why SONY as parent company of soe ,,sold the soe to this new company columbus nova.. if the soe was profitable enough why would big sony sell it?? considering sony is not doing well in general..then why they sold the profitable part of it??
unless they basically get rid of it because it was not good for them anymore.
This ^
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
Comments
Ok this is very interesting but my wife with her 16 years of EQ is gonna panic I am sure.
Over the past year there has been a lot of things moving more and more in house. Like the EU customers are now directly SoE customers. I think a lot of this has been to bolster SoE to sell it. If EQN was hurting SoEs value it would have been chopped before it sold. All access IMO will stay, I hope. As their games are F2P and still manage to get people to sub. I am not sure how All Access hurts them.
I have been very "unwhelmed" by everything SoE has released in recent years. Do not know if there was pressure from the parent comapany, Sony, or if it is just a studio thing in general. I suppose we could hope that things are shaken up enough that they will be reborn as if not new at least a revitalised gaming studio. Only time will tell.
Let's party like it is 1863!
Ummmmm, yeah, they pretty much have more money than god.
I actually know these guys because they own a company local to me. They also have Columbus Nova Technology Partners, which I'm more aware of. Fact is, they have a great amount of diversity in their portfolio. They're not a traditional game dev, but it might be interesting to see how they can run it.
Crazkanuk
----------------
Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
----------------
I remember being in a company that was acquired by GE some years back. GE's policy then was if they can't be #1 or #2 in the market, they don't want in it. Didn't matter if the group was profitable or not, they had to be #1 or #2 or GE sold them.
Sony might be in the same boat. SOE is not #1 or #2, and although it might be profitable, it is not going to change Sony's bottom line much. Sony is large.
------------
2024: 47 years on the Net.
So far all that changes is the name really. Smedley is still the president. So they are as incompetent as SoE because it is SoE. I do not know how much influence the new parent company will have. Not sure why people are so negative. Many big companies today are big because of investments firms like this. They are not all evil, they are the ones that risk there money (and yes sometimes make unpopular moves to minimize those risks) so you can enjoy the products these companies produce.
Considering the facts so far... That sentence makes no sense.
'Sandbox MMO' is a PTSD trigger word for anyone who has the experience to know that anonymous players invariably use a 'sandbox' in the same manner a housecat does.
When your head is stuck in the sand, your ass becomes the only recognizable part of you.
No game is more fun than the one you can't play, and no game is more boring than one which you've become familiar.
How to become a millionaire:
Start with a billion dollars and make an MMO.
Not to nit pick, but venture capitalist and crony capitalist are distinctly opposite things. However, I agree that venture capitalism would more likely result in layoffs, but that really should only be the case if the company is not efficiently run.
But who wants to buy the fat? Sure you can trim the fat, but if you need working capital you aren't going to get that by trimming the fat. Sometimes you do have to sell something profitable for the better long term strategy.
You do when you need cash
Ever heard of the terms Liquid Assets, Hard Assets etc. etc.
What I read from this is that.... contrary to the public opinion on this site, SOE is doing quite well and shows promise for the future.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
That is actually quite huge, for the company and the community. It will definitely be interesting to see where this all eventually goes.
Come on, fire Smedley!
Come on, fire Smedley!
Come on, fire Smedley!
I give him a few months before he announces that he is leaving to pursue "other interests".
Which is the path Dave and Smed have been skipping down for the last few years. They haven't had an original thought in their heads for ages, preferring to look over the fence at what the competition is doing and make a half-baked, heavily monetized facsimile. That is why they've been failing so dreadfully. All their steam is gone. They've been riding the coattails of EQ's success for far too long, and they've failed to realize they've simply been left in the dust.
So, they did it to themselves. Sony washed their hands of their under-performing department and sold it to Columbus. I hope this keeps Smed up at night.
If Smedley is still there and they havent completely trimmed the fat, nothing is going to change. SOE hasn't produced anything of worth in a decade and if they don't go back to the way things were early on where they hired out talent for projects like Everquest and SWG, they will not likely ever be great again.
You can't just expect to keep adding the same old average people to a team and hoping for greatness. The people that put SOE on the map are all gone and only John "Business as Usual" Smedley remains. Things have got to change dramatically if anything will get better, and that doesn't just mean changing the name.
Some more information found on Wikipedia then:
"This sale returned Harmonix to its origins as an independent developer. The resulting sale did not affect present or future support plans for Harmonix' games; Harmonix retained the intellectual property rights for Rock Band and Dance Central in the sale', allowing Harmonix Music Systems to continue to develop these series. Good
[...]
Following the purchase, Harmonix underwent a restructuring in February 2011, laying off about 12-15% of the 240-person staff.
Shortly after this, Activision announced it was shuttering its Guitar Hero division and cancelling planned games for 2011, which many journalists considered to mark the end of the rhythm game genre; Harmonix's Director of Communications, John Drake, in response to this closure, called the news "discouraging", but affirmed that Harmonix will continue to invest itself in further Rock Band and Dance Central developments for the foreseeable future. bad"
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonix
I don't like these things much, but eh, the best I can do is hope they will prove me wrong.
There are other ways for a business to make money. I first thought that there might be interested in tax write-offs, taking on product lines losing money, trimming the company to a smaller, more focused organization, then reselling the resulting mess. I feel sorry for all the EQ:N advocates here and elsewhere, but I'm afraid that that project would be among the first candidates that will be put under the corporate microscope. We don't know the costs of the licensing writes that SOE had engaged in for Storybricks or their Voxel technology. Those licensing deals (debts) might be something that might not be in the new ownership's comfort zone.
Even if everything is unchanged for EQ:N, I feel that this change of ownership will drastically impact the development. But what that impact will be for the EQ:N product -- cancelled or dramatically delayed; re-staffed partially or entirely; a scale-back of plans ;or an influx of marketing, support and funds -- I can't make an informed guess. I hope we will know a more by this time next year. The only real expectation that I have, is that EQ:N will have a new marketing plan, thanks to DBGC.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Brad Mcquaid suckered Smed into buying Vanguard.
Now Smed has suckered someone into buying SOE.
I am sure Smed is laughing all the way to the bank, it was long rumored that when Smed brought Veriant under the Sony umbrella, he retained most of the ownership, except for the piece he gave up to Sony for the marketing, branding and back-end support.
(\ /) ?
( . .)
c('')('')
This ^
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche