"Deception Acquisitions" from my understanding has been trying to unload it's portfolio since May of last year, and has no takers, so I expected this..I think the best they can hope for at this point is for Gamingo to buy them, though I'm sure if that happens WB games will pull their DC licence.
Interesting point about trying to sell up. Wouldn't be unexpected. The surprise would have been if they had got any offers - even from the likes of Gamingo.
The problems they have trying to sell it will be twofold: 1. there can't be any "fat" to trim to allow a buyer to come in, slim down and thereby generate more profit. 2. Fortnite has happened. And whilst that may not impact EQ1/EQ2 the new LotR servers and looking ahead vanilla WoW could.
As far as DCUO goes pretty sure this isn't a "DBG" title. Some sites say it is but its development history called it a "Joint Venture" between WarnerBros, DC Comics and "DBG". Something I think DBG dealt with by bringing in Jack Emmert and making him CEO, in his own right, of DCUO. And there will be legal stuff about what can/cannot be done, how profits are split etc. Wouldn't surprise me if Sony are still on the paperwork with a side letter saying for Sony read DBG! Usually of you want to change 1 clause you open up the whole thing for possible tweaking!
This is not surprising as the Flagship game for DBG is H1z1 King of the Kill, the Battle Royale game that started the new craze in this new genre....However the new branded game Z1 isnt doing that good compared to Fortnite and Pug G, plus there has been a scandal on the Esports front of Z1, they dont have money to pay their winners and some of the pro teams are bailing, which has prety much shut the whole league down.
The second earner is Planetside 2, which has been diminishing for awhile. Everquest though I am not worried, if DBG shuts down I am pretty sure someone else will pick up the Everquest Franchise and that might be a good thing.
If at first you dont succeed, call it version 1.0
Maybe this is what DBG's owner (Epstein) was talking about on September 7th: (And more seriously it may have a bearing.)
“Daybreak Games is pleased to have NantWorks as our investment partner to support and accelerate the growth of our company,” Epstein said in a statement. “Working with NantWorks, NantStudio and Dr. Soon-Shiong will allow us to maintain our cutting-edge development in the video game industry and to benefit from Nant’s technological expertise and reach as a resource.”
John Smedley Most ruined the name of Everquest the GOAT of MMORPGs. With Everquest Next gone I’m so glad like that’s isn’t a mmorpg.. it was the worst idea of all time..
My only experience with Daybreak has been with EQ1 and 2 and from what I've seen, the content released under their ownership was good at first, and then it plummeted and has been copy/paste, slightly modified old content.
It's been that way since long before Daybreak took over.
When SOE first launched it felt like they were making games from the ethos of "What would the players really enjoy playing?" The games were fun, they were packed with options, choices, great storytelling and good gameplay.
Over the years, however, they slowly morphed into a company that started making new games from a standpoint of "How can we best monetize this to drag every penny out of our player's wallets per month?"
Planetside 1 and Planetside 2 are prime examples of this.
Planetside 1 felt like the developers sat down and said, "How can we make the best MMOFPS ever designed?" To this day it's truly some of the most fun I've ever had online in a game. The combined arms approach of Infantry, Armor and Air was done very well for the most part with a few missteps in the later years like adding the completely unnecessary mechs that really unbalanced the game.
Planetside 2 felt like the developers sat down and said, "Ok, how can we take Planetside 1 and re-imagine it to drain absolutely every penny from the player base on not just a monthly basis, but a daily basis if possible?" It was so monetized it was jaw dropping, and none of the tactics and charm of the first game were present whatsoever.
Sounds similar to the same bull shit speech they gave us upon takeover and laying off employees then.
I seriously didn't even realize they had that many employees,i figured maybe 50 tops.So the word is 1/3,meaning hey operate with about 200+,a lot more than i thought.
I still bet there is a HECK of a lot more to this than we will ever hear about but quite possible Smedley knows about.
Here is some thoughts...
Did they get some government aid or tax break if had a certain number of employees for at least 3 years.Did they purchase this outfit solely on the timely and unheard of success of H1Z1 at the time,i sure hope they weren't that stupid.
As to monetizing,well i said this from the first moment i saw how they looked after the games,they were doing nothing but finding ways to grind more money from us.The bait and switch with H1Z1 was a real scummy idea to split it into 2 games,sorry but battle royale with the EXACT same ONE map does not make 2 games.
I am certain there is still a very large crowd of EQ diehard fanbois that still purchase every expansion and why this ship has not sailed already that keeps this boat afloat but man alive.I liked the franchise a fair bit,not going to say 9/10 good but about a 6/10,i quit buying expansions way back about 5 years ago.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
They should have at least acknowledge the people they fired and wished them well. Signs of the times.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
So they shut down a portion of H1Z1 and laid off employees back early in year.They got a new partnered investor that took over H1Z1 BR as well licensed to operate mobile games of their games like the EQ franchise as well new mobile games.
So they were definitely struggling but got a huge cash injection from said partner.That money carried them for awhile but now feeling the crunch again.
So what can we expect,porting of the games to mobile and some new cheap fast to market mobile game,likely seeing how ev1 copies,likely a moba or ARPG.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
The company is going down the drain. Next year we will hear they are shutting down an selling off the ips to pay the debters.
Going? This company has been bottom dweller status for years. They destroyed EQ2 and their greed is at the top of charts when it comes to ripping off gamers. Only in EQ2 were you expected to pay full price for the game, pay 15 dollars a month, and still have a cash shop to buy anything that looked half decent. That company couldn't go under any faster.
Its easy to keep your employees when you managed to raise a golden cow that ends up funding lots of different projects. Problem is that their source of money drained long time ago and now each project has to fund themselves.
It would be interesting to know how much money they spent on EQ3/EQnext while only releasing Landmark.
Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
What a wonderful christmas gift to give their employees, are things really so bad at DBG that they had to do such an aweful thing to so many people before christmas, well if they were still on my christmas card list that would definitely have got them taken off of it!
They are the worst gaming company in the industry and from the sounds of it, continue to get worse.
Why worst?
Under SoE "structural optimisation" happened 6 times in the 7 years before DBG took over - not counting the staff who were laid off right after - which was obviously going to happen anyway.
Why worst?
Have you played any of their games? They're run by skeleton crews with little to no content and the content that is patched in is buggy as shit and takes many patches after to fix anything and even then a lot of shit doesn't get fixed. Why worse? Because they were pathetically bad before and now losing MORE people will just make their skeleton crew dev teams even smaller. On top of that, they try to milk any amount of dollar they can from people playing their games.
I seriously think what they're doing is milking any dollar they can make with the least amount of effort with each title before they go bye bye. A last ditch effort for money.
My only experience with Daybreak has been with EQ1 and 2 and from what I've seen, the content released under their ownership was good at first, and then it plummeted and has been copy/paste, slightly modified old content.
They already started doing that with EQ2 back when it was still SOE. /sigh
What a wonderful christmas gift to give their employees, are things really so bad at DBG that they had to do such an aweful thing to so many people before christmas, well if they were still on my christmas card list that would definitely have got them taken off of it!
There really is no "Good" time to lay off.. IMO they did them a favor doing it before Xmas , would it have been better to wait till first week of Jan, after they had blown a bunch of money of gifts thinking they had a job .. Id rather know before .. and be more frugal if i was in that situation
There really is no "Good" time to lay off.. IMO they did them a favor doing it before Xmas , would it have been better to wait till first week of Jan, after they had blown a bunch of money of gifts thinking they had a job .. Id rather know before .. and be more frugal if i was in that situation
I was considering the kids more than the adults. Dad or mom goes home right before christmas to announce they lost their job and although sally or johnny were good this year, Santa might not make it.
That sucks as I have know folks who have had to do that before. Unemployment does not pay shit so that does not help most people. Only thing that we do not know is if some package was offered on their way out.
I here ya i have 3 kids .. well 2 are out of college now , But i would still rather know beofre Xmas and handle my fiances properly , rather than blowing a big nut on Xmas and finding out 1/1/19 i dont have a fucking job ...
Comments
Interesting point about trying to sell up. Wouldn't be unexpected. The surprise would have been if they had got any offers - even from the likes of Gamingo.
The problems they have trying to sell it will be twofold: 1. there can't be any "fat" to trim to allow a buyer to come in, slim down and thereby generate more profit. 2. Fortnite has happened. And whilst that may not impact EQ1/EQ2 the new LotR servers and looking ahead vanilla WoW could.
As far as DCUO goes pretty sure this isn't a "DBG" title. Some sites say it is but its development history called it a "Joint Venture" between WarnerBros, DC Comics and "DBG". Something I think DBG dealt with by bringing in Jack Emmert and making him CEO, in his own right, of DCUO. And there will be legal stuff about what can/cannot be done, how profits are split etc. Wouldn't surprise me if Sony are still on the paperwork with a side letter saying for Sony read DBG! Usually of you want to change 1 clause you open up the whole thing for possible tweaking!
Interesting point about them looking to sell it.
If at first you dont succeed, call it version 1.0
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
“Daybreak Games is pleased to have NantWorks as our investment partner to support and accelerate the growth of our company,” Epstein said in a statement. “Working with NantWorks, NantStudio and Dr. Soon-Shiong will allow us to maintain our cutting-edge development in the video game industry and to benefit from Nant’s technological expertise and reach as a resource.”
It's been that way since long before Daybreak took over.
Over the years, however, they slowly morphed into a company that started making new games from a standpoint of "How can we best monetize this to drag every penny out of our player's wallets per month?"
Planetside 1 and Planetside 2 are prime examples of this.
Planetside 1 felt like the developers sat down and said, "How can we make the best MMOFPS ever designed?" To this day it's truly some of the most fun I've ever had online in a game. The combined arms approach of Infantry, Armor and Air was done very well for the most part with a few missteps in the later years like adding the completely unnecessary mechs that really unbalanced the game.
Planetside 2 felt like the developers sat down and said, "Ok, how can we take Planetside 1 and re-imagine it to drain absolutely every penny from the player base on not just a monthly basis, but a daily basis if possible?" It was so monetized it was jaw dropping, and none of the tactics and charm of the first game were present whatsoever.
I seriously didn't even realize they had that many employees,i figured maybe 50 tops.So the word is 1/3,meaning hey operate with about 200+,a lot more than i thought.
I still bet there is a HECK of a lot more to this than we will ever hear about but quite possible Smedley knows about.
Here is some thoughts...
Did they get some government aid or tax break if had a certain number of employees for at least 3 years.Did they purchase this outfit solely on the timely and unheard of success of H1Z1 at the time,i sure hope they weren't that stupid.
As to monetizing,well i said this from the first moment i saw how they looked after the games,they were doing nothing but finding ways to grind more money from us.The bait and switch with H1Z1 was a real scummy idea to split it into 2 games,sorry but battle royale with the EXACT same ONE map does not make 2 games.
I am certain there is still a very large crowd of EQ diehard fanbois that still purchase every expansion and why this ship has not sailed already that keeps this boat afloat but man alive.I liked the franchise a fair bit,not going to say 9/10 good but about a 6/10,i quit buying expansions way back about 5 years ago.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
So they shut down a portion of H1Z1 and laid off employees back early in year.They got a new partnered investor that took over H1Z1 BR as well licensed to operate mobile games of their games like the EQ franchise as well new mobile games.
So they were definitely struggling but got a huge cash injection from said partner.That money carried them for awhile but now feeling the crunch again.
So what can we expect,porting of the games to mobile and some new cheap fast to market mobile game,likely seeing how ev1 copies,likely a moba or ARPG.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
It would be interesting to know how much money they spent on EQ3/EQnext while only releasing Landmark.
Why worst?
Have you played any of their games? They're run by skeleton crews with little to no content and the content that is patched in is buggy as shit and takes many patches after to fix anything and even then a lot of shit doesn't get fixed. Why worse? Because they were pathetically bad before and now losing MORE people will just make their skeleton crew dev teams even smaller. On top of that, they try to milk any amount of dollar they can from people playing their games. I seriously think what they're doing is milking any dollar they can make with the least amount of effort with each title before they go bye bye. A last ditch effort for money.
They already started doing that with EQ2 back when it was still SOE. /sigh
How do you know that the employees are christian