PlanetSide 3 is said to be in "early development" with other teams moving over to it. It's said to be a battle royale game with building aspects ala Fortnite.
EverQuest will get one more expack with a special series of events planned for its 20th anniversary.
EverQuest 2 will also get one more expack with nostalgic content to bid farewell.
EverQuest 3 is said to have been in development for a year and is being built from the ground up with an emphasis on battle royale. It is said to be prepping to compete with Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen
Sounds like a bad joke tbh. I'm struggling to believe a word of it.
PlanetSide 3 and EverQuest 3 being designed as another generic battle royal type game. I don't generally take to insults but if someone actually made that decision in a development capacity with the misguided belief that making a classic franchise like EverQuest, an MMORPG, emphasis on the MMORPG, into a battle royal and managed to say it would be competing with Pantheon with a straight face, should have been first laughed out of the room, then stripped of their position and been barred from making any future decisions relating to anything game development, and given a mental evaluation. I believe that I might also have to call that person an idiot.
And doing the same to PlanetSide, an open world massive combat base/territory capture type game that is original in its own right and then take that and turn it into a generic battle royal...no thanks. That's a horrible idea.
You can take a step back and ask yoiurself what could you do if you were in charge to keep the company afloat / profitable? What would your strategy be?
OK we don't know the fine details but there are things we do know.
1. EMPLOYEES: Maybe 200 before the lay-off now down to 130? A chunk will be working on DCUO under their own CEO - a "self-contained" unit basically.
So looking after EQ1, EQ2, PS2 and the various H1Z1 variants you have less than 100? Some of those will be the CEO, financial control etc. So not all game devs!
Say that again: less than 100 on EQ1, EQ2, PS2, all H1Z1 variants. You can do the maths.
2. PRODUCTS: EW1, EQ2, PS2, DCUO, H1Z1 and variants. A lot of products to support for under 100 staff let alone develop new content for.
3. SUPPORT COSTS: Massive in context. A legacy game - EQ1, a very old game - EQ2, an old game - PS2. Only DCUO and the H1Z1 titles can be called "recent". There are lots of interviews with th elikes of EA, UbiSoft etc. about the huge cost of having to support multiple engines, and the benefit of having a common engine.
4. REVENUE: Not great. You are "struggling" to make end meets. Revenue has declined. We know this because just over 2 years ago there were lay-offs which were supposed to "match employees to revenue". (And others under SoE as well. And Sony wrote of c. $60M (it was a yen value).
The short term solution: only way to cut costs is to cut staff. And we now know that between a c. third and half of the staff have gone. This is short term however since fewer staff = even less new content, patch support, poor publicity etc. so expect further revenue decline.
EXAM QUESTION: 101 Bussiness Strategy. What would you have been doing / what will you do to have a chance of keeping things running.
Cast the reddit post in thus light then closing EQ1, EQ2 and PS2 and moving everything to H1Z1 architecture would - clearly - save money. Could you just close 1 title or 2? Sure. If you are after minimum copst though they all have to go. With DCUO in its own bubble under its own CEO.
Once you take that decision to close EQ1, EQ2, PS2 you would tell staff to finish up any new content type stuff they are currently working on to push it out as a "final" pack.
Which only leaves future strategy. You potentially upset PS2 fans. You absolutely will have upset EQ fans. All you have is a H1Z1 engine / design / staff - so all you can do is plan on a PS3, EQ3 which are essentially a repurposing of H1Z1. What language you use to dress it up - kust marketing. And whether you actually deliver is another matter.
When the dust settles though - even without the post - if "we" had stepped back and asked the question ....... we could have come up with the sort of information in the post.
But hey in this one post "we" have worked on both the future EQ3 and the future "PS3". Which I throw in just to highlight how inconsequential some of comments in the post might be. The post could be true but have they taken these hard decisions or were they hoping that CN might throw them some money? Not that CN owns them of course.
My heart nearly grew 3x when I saw "EverQuest 3 in development", but then when I read that it is going to be a battle royale or take the same direction.. the fond memories I had with EverQuest and EverQuest 2 were destroyed.. Daybroke EverQuest for me..
well they killed off Everquest Landmark or whatever that was Everquest NEXT so whatever this Everquest 3 is, I wouldn't get your hopes up too much sadly
With all the rumors that they are done in June they are probably putting out false info like this so their customers don't leave in droves.
It certainly seems that this is more smoke screen than news. This type of news certainly seems a bit different from the denials and spin about CN's involvement. This could be an attempt to create positive rumors to help retain customers, but what is information about a desired game (that likely wouldn't appear for 3 years) going to do to keep customers from leaving now?
I wonder what facts (or rumors) Daybreak doesn't want under intense public scrutiny?
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
EverQuest 3 is said to have been in development for a year and is being built from the ground up with an emphasis on battle royale. It is said to be prepping to compete with Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen
. . . . I find this hard to believe. However, if it is.. rest in peace Everquest I will never forget our time together
Could companies just stop with the Battle Royal crap already? >.<
that won't stop till all the games with battle royal stop making money, so till they start to beat the horse dead over and over we will still see several of this
Getting real tired of this bandwagoning. If people would stop buying into this crap we'd all be better for it. Give gaming back to the gamers, gaming is not for the investors as we've been seeing.
Getting real tired of this bandwagoning. If people would stop buying into this crap we'd all be better for it. Give gaming back to the gamers, gaming is not for the investors as we've been seeing.
Clearly in the case of DBG people have stopped buying - hence the lay-offs.
EverQuest 3 is said to have been in development for a year and is being built from the ground up with an emphasis on battle royale. It is said to be prepping to compete with Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen
. . . . I find this hard to believe. However, if it is.. rest in peace Everquest I will never forget our time together
it basically can't both compete with pantheon AND be a BR. they're 2 different things. it's the thing in the leak that i believe the least.
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
Could companies just stop with the Battle Royal crap already? >.<
that won't stop till all the games with battle royal stop making money, so till they start to beat the horse dead over and over we will still see several of this
Exactly...once companies see a new cash cow they throw it at us until our eyes bleed.
IMO it is not about what can i do to keep the business afloat because if that is the stage you are at after just purchasing the business,wtf did you purchase it? If you are a sincere legit business,you try your best to PLAN a great line of products and then succeed at delivering them. DBG has done NOTHING and to think they could layoff 70 and still have more employees,wtf were they all doing? They moved whatever actual team there is from game to game,no way in hell that was 200 i refuse to believe even 100.IMO the total payroll is about more than just dbg they house employees for several reasons beyond gaming.
Factual game designers left in the business,imo no more than 20 and of the 70 laid off some were not really game designers but individual positions from community people to for example the one guy looking after the player made assets.
Seeing how they were going to produce the original EQ3 idea i have no doubt they could pull it off with a very small team but that was utilizing player made assets which is up in the air right now.
SO imo just PR talk,this DBG is going to be sold and very soon.The other option and that is if Epstein is listed as a simple US citizen with no proven ties to the Ogliarchs then he can follow some guidelines to keep the business afloat but imo this was NEVER a legit business so following government guidelines will not be an option to making profits.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
IMO it is not about what can i do to keep the business afloat because if that is the stage you are at after just purchasing the business,wtf did you purchase it? If you are a sincere legit business,you try your best to PLAN a great line of products and then succeed at delivering them. DBG has done NOTHING and to think they could layoff 70 and still have more employees,wtf were they all doing? They moved whatever actual team there is from game to game,no way in hell that was 200 i refuse to believe even 100.IMO the total payroll is about more than just dbg they house employees for several reasons beyond gaming.
Factual game designers left in the business,imo no more than 20 and of the 70 laid off some were not really game designers but individual positions from community people to for example the one guy looking after the player made assets.
Seeing how they were going to produce the original EQ3 idea i have no doubt they could pull it off with a very small team but that was utilizing player made assets which is up in the air right now.
SO imo just PR talk,this DBG is going to be sold and very soon.The other option and that is if Epstein is listed as a simple US citizen with no proven ties to the Ogliarchs then he can follow some guidelines to keep the business afloat but imo this was NEVER a legit business so following government guidelines will not be an option to making profits.
Maybe the PLAN was to get a legit company as a shell to launder money. Which is why they killed EQ next and landmark giving no shits about them and did the entire edit frenzy trying to say they are not owned by Columbus Nova.
I'm betting no one is looking to buy them even if they are for sale, because the parent company is under investigation by the US treasury dept and they just laid off 70 people.
I would also bet that they don't have a single new game in development.
"You CAN'T buy ships for RL money." - MaxBacon
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
EQ 3 and emphasis on battle royal.. surely they only mean that will be the pvp mode... Otherwise they are crazy.
If PvP is in your top 25 features for EQ3 you have lost sight of why people loved EQ. Not saying the Zek servers didnt have their players, but it was basically here guys, you can kill each other. And thats all the PvP EQ needs.
IMO it is not about what can i do to keep the business afloat because if that is the stage you are at after just purchasing the business,wtf did you purchase it? If you are a sincere legit business,you try your best to PLAN a great line of products and then succeed at delivering them. DBG has done NOTHING <snip>
Stop thinking of DBG as a "game development" company. It never was. As such it never intended to have a great line of products - just ones that generated revenue.
Why buy it? Again think of it as putting money in a bank and collecting interest.
Sony wrote off c. $60M game development costs prior to the sale at which point SoE will have been "free from debt". SoE's financial books will have shown how much money EQ1, EQ2, PS2 and DCUO and on that basis a projected revenue flow will have been calculated. Revenue after allowing for staff and other costs. (Free cash flow.)
H1Z1 well the game launched just before SoE became DBG. So they will have worked out a range of revenue options. If it cost comes in at the low end (or less) "Jason E." pays Sony $X; if revenue comes in at the high end (or above) Sony get maybe 2 x $X. Some formula. OK more complicated but this is still a "put money in bank, collect interest" scenario.
Lastly there was EQN. Easy solution: allow a chunk of money to launch EQN - it was so close after all! A fixed sum of money and no more.
And this was the PLAN. To treat SoE as a bank that paid out interest. And to close down all the non-performing bits to maximise the interest.
Two years on though the "interest" is lower than expected. The revenue projections have turned out to be wrong. Which takes them back to getting rid of non-performing bits.
Umm for one i never once considered them a game developer,i have been saying the opposite.
As for money in the bank,they STOPPED production of EQ3 because it was NOT money in the bank,so how can anything be construed as money in the bank for DBG? There was only ONE game that surprised and made a lot of money from little investment at time of sale and that was H1Z1. Would dbg/CN buy this sinking ship based on the success H1Z1 was having,imo no way. Do i believe that somehow Smedley was a smooth talker and fished them in,only mildly possible. I have been saying all along there is something fishy going on and it is NOT about running a gaming business. Furthermore you have to SHOW signs you are serious and DBG has NOT shown any signs,they have done the exact opposite,shown me they are not serious at all but instead been using very lame tactics to create revenue.Tactics that take VERY little risk,very little revenue or time or manpower or investment,example running vanilla servers.A full year later and H1Z1 was still running the same map and very little else was done to a game that made them some profits,made no sense at all.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
If you were to ask ANY successful businessman they will tell you need to reinvest into your business or you will fail and that has been proven as fact over many years. So for DBG to virtually sit idle doing very little other than to hang onto the games SOE was losing money with and expect to recoup your investment makes no sense at all. Besides the obvious that purchasing the failed business is an investment long term,you are paying off debt you are not making money until the debt is paid.
I can simply look at the sale of the UFC.Even the law stepped in because the sale looked suspicious and they did try to block the sale.Now all the combined purchasers will NOT be making any money for a long time,they will not recoup that investment for many years.It is not the same thing as you or me putting 500k in the bank and watching it grow,this is a negative number that they HOPE will eventually turn into profits. Investments are not money in the bank because not every investment turns a profit,some can completely fail.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
lol if both EQ3 and PS3 were to be battle royale games they would be a hard pass for me. Not that they will happen anyway probably considering that Daybreak is all but dead at this point
Comments
PlanetSide 3 and EverQuest 3 being designed as another generic battle royal type game. I don't generally take to insults but if someone actually made that decision in a development capacity with the misguided belief that making a classic franchise like EverQuest, an MMORPG, emphasis on the MMORPG, into a battle royal and managed to say it would be competing with Pantheon with a straight face, should have been first laughed out of the room, then stripped of their position and been barred from making any future decisions relating to anything game development, and given a mental evaluation. I believe that I might also have to call that person an idiot.
And doing the same to PlanetSide, an open world massive combat base/territory capture type game that is original in its own right and then take that and turn it into a generic battle royal...no thanks. That's a horrible idea.
OK we don't know the fine details but there are things we do know.
1. EMPLOYEES: Maybe 200 before the lay-off now down to 130? A chunk will be working on DCUO under their own CEO - a "self-contained" unit basically.
So looking after EQ1, EQ2, PS2 and the various H1Z1 variants you have less than 100? Some of those will be the CEO, financial control etc. So not all game devs!
Say that again: less than 100 on EQ1, EQ2, PS2, all H1Z1 variants. You can do the maths.
2. PRODUCTS: EW1, EQ2, PS2, DCUO, H1Z1 and variants. A lot of products to support for under 100 staff let alone develop new content for.
3. SUPPORT COSTS: Massive in context. A legacy game - EQ1, a very old game - EQ2, an old game - PS2. Only DCUO and the H1Z1 titles can be called "recent". There are lots of interviews with th elikes of EA, UbiSoft etc. about the huge cost of having to support multiple engines, and the benefit of having a common engine.
4. REVENUE: Not great. You are "struggling" to make end meets. Revenue has declined. We know this because just over 2 years ago there were lay-offs which were supposed to "match employees to revenue". (And others under SoE as well. And Sony wrote of c. $60M (it was a yen value).
The short term solution: only way to cut costs is to cut staff. And we now know that between a c. third and half of the staff have gone. This is short term however since fewer staff = even less new content, patch support, poor publicity etc. so expect further revenue decline.
EXAM QUESTION: 101 Bussiness Strategy. What would you have been doing / what will you do to have a chance of keeping things running.
Cast the reddit post in thus light then closing EQ1, EQ2 and PS2 and moving everything to H1Z1 architecture would - clearly - save money. Could you just close 1 title or 2? Sure. If you are after minimum copst though they all have to go. With DCUO in its own bubble under its own CEO.
Once you take that decision to close EQ1, EQ2, PS2 you would tell staff to finish up any new content type stuff they are currently working on to push it out as a "final" pack.
Which only leaves future strategy. You potentially upset PS2 fans. You absolutely will have upset EQ fans. All you have is a H1Z1 engine / design / staff - so all you can do is plan on a PS3, EQ3 which are essentially a repurposing of H1Z1. What language you use to dress it up - kust marketing. And whether you actually deliver is another matter.
When the dust settles though - even without the post - if "we" had stepped back and asked the question ....... we could have come up with the sort of information in the post.
But hey in this one post "we" have worked on both the future EQ3 and the future "PS3". Which I throw in just to highlight how inconsequential some of comments in the post might be. The post could be true but have they taken these hard decisions or were they hoping that CN might throw them some money? Not that CN owns them of course.
A swing and a miss, on the first pitch of the game.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
I wonder what facts (or rumors) Daybreak doesn't want under intense public scrutiny?
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
. . . . I find this hard to believe. However, if it is.. rest in peace Everquest I will never forget our time together
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
Dwight D Eisenhower
My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.
Henry Rollins
If you are a sincere legit business,you try your best to PLAN a great line of products and then succeed at delivering them.
DBG has done NOTHING and to think they could layoff 70 and still have more employees,wtf were they all doing?
They moved whatever actual team there is from game to game,no way in hell that was 200 i refuse to believe even 100.IMO the total payroll is about more than just dbg they house employees for several reasons beyond gaming.
Factual game designers left in the business,imo no more than 20 and of the 70 laid off some were not really game designers but individual positions from community people to for example the one guy looking after the player made assets.
Seeing how they were going to produce the original EQ3 idea i have no doubt they could pull it off with a very small team but that was utilizing player made assets which is up in the air right now.
SO imo just PR talk,this DBG is going to be sold and very soon.The other option and that is if Epstein is listed as a simple US citizen with no proven ties to the Ogliarchs then he can follow some guidelines to keep the business afloat but imo this was NEVER a legit business so following government guidelines will not be an option to making profits.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Same for PS3. Battle Royale would totally ruin the game that PS1 & 2 fans expect.
I'm betting no one is looking to buy them even if they are for sale, because the parent company is under investigation by the US treasury dept and they just laid off 70 people.
I would also bet that they don't have a single new game in development.
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/Why buy it? Again think of it as putting money in a bank and collecting interest.
Sony wrote off c. $60M game development costs prior to the sale at which point SoE will have been "free from debt". SoE's financial books will have shown how much money EQ1, EQ2, PS2 and DCUO and on that basis a projected revenue flow will have been calculated. Revenue after allowing for staff and other costs. (Free cash flow.)
H1Z1 well the game launched just before SoE became DBG. So they will have worked out a range of revenue options. If it cost comes in at the low end (or less) "Jason E." pays Sony $X; if revenue comes in at the high end (or above) Sony get maybe 2 x $X. Some formula. OK more complicated but this is still a "put money in bank, collect interest" scenario.
Lastly there was EQN. Easy solution: allow a chunk of money to launch EQN - it was so close after all! A fixed sum of money and no more.
And this was the PLAN. To treat SoE as a bank that paid out interest. And to close down all the non-performing bits to maximise the interest.
Two years on though the "interest" is lower than expected. The revenue projections have turned out to be wrong. Which takes them back to getting rid of non-performing bits.
As for money in the bank,they STOPPED production of EQ3 because it was NOT money in the bank,so how can anything be construed as money in the bank for DBG?
There was only ONE game that surprised and made a lot of money from little investment at time of sale and that was H1Z1.
Would dbg/CN buy this sinking ship based on the success H1Z1 was having,imo no way.
Do i believe that somehow Smedley was a smooth talker and fished them in,only mildly possible.
I have been saying all along there is something fishy going on and it is NOT about running a gaming business.
Furthermore you have to SHOW signs you are serious and DBG has NOT shown any signs,they have done the exact opposite,shown me they are not serious at all but instead been using very lame tactics to create revenue.Tactics that take VERY little risk,very little revenue or time or manpower or investment,example running vanilla servers.A full year later and H1Z1 was still running the same map and very little else was done to a game that made them some profits,made no sense at all.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
So for DBG to virtually sit idle doing very little other than to hang onto the games SOE was losing money with and expect to recoup your investment makes no sense at all.
Besides the obvious that purchasing the failed business is an investment long term,you are paying off debt you are not making money until the debt is paid.
I can simply look at the sale of the UFC.Even the law stepped in because the sale looked suspicious and they did try to block the sale.Now all the combined purchasers will NOT be making any money for a long time,they will not recoup that investment for many years.It is not the same thing as you or me putting 500k in the bank and watching it grow,this is a negative number that they HOPE will eventually turn into profits.
Investments are not money in the bank because not every investment turns a profit,some can completely fail.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.