'In April 2018, Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian businessman and owner of portfolio company Renova Group, was sanctioned by the United States Department of the Treasury as part of an investigation on Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.[26] Columbus Nova had previously identified itself as an affiliate of Renova Group, while Renova Group had listed Columbus Nova as part of its corporate structure.[27] Subsequently, it was believed that Columbus Nova, and consequently Daybreak, had also been affected by these sanctions. Daybreak subsequently began to deny that it had been sold to Columbus Nova, stating that the company had actually been acquired by Jason Epstein through his company Inception Acquisitions, LLC instead. At the time of the acquisition, Epstein had been a partner to Columbus Nova, though he left that company in 2017. A Daybreak spokesperson claimed that Epstein's exact ties to Columbus Nova had caused confusion in media reporting of the sale, even though its deleted press release made the same claim.[28][29][30][31] Columbus Nova also stated that it had never been owned by Renova Group, though Renova Group had been their largest client.'
I mean I am honestly not surprised when they focused on money making only instead of listening to the community....
They shut planetside 1 because many of the big guilds quit planetside 2 and went back so they tried to force it.
They killed vanguard because they were too focused on money making with another game and refused to fix it.
They left Sony because they decided they could make more money and as a result lost their infrastructure and backing...
It's just been a long line of awful decisions. Case in point? "let's refocus the planetside dev team onto a battle Royale game spin off instead of fixing the Meta problem in our existing game!"
SONY sold SOE for a reason. It seems they were already doing really poorly back then. THey just kept going downhill ever since.
PlanetSide 2 had so much potential to be the best online FPS ever made, but that was never meant to happen on a F2P cash shop driven game with limited content updates and support.
'In April 2018, Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian businessman and owner of portfolio company Renova Group, was sanctioned by the United States Department of the Treasury as part of an investigation on Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.[26] Columbus Nova had previously identified itself as an affiliate of Renova Group, while Renova Group had listed Columbus Nova as part of its corporate structure.[27] Subsequently, it was believed that Columbus Nova, and consequently Daybreak, had also been affected by these sanctions. Daybreak subsequently began to deny that it had been sold to Columbus Nova, stating that the company had actually been acquired by Jason Epstein through his company Inception Acquisitions, LLC instead. At the time of the acquisition, Epstein had been a partner to Columbus Nova, though he left that company in 2017. A Daybreak spokesperson claimed that Epstein's exact ties to Columbus Nova had caused confusion in media reporting of the sale, even though its deleted press release made the same claim.[28][29][30][31] Columbus Nova also stated that it had never been owned by Renova Group, though Renova Group had been their largest client.'
From the link.
I nearly reported you as an adbot there, all that blue.
SONY sold SOE for a reason. It seems they were already doing really poorly back then. THey just kept going downhill ever since.
PlanetSide 2 had so much potential to be the best online FPS ever made, but that was never meant to happen on a F2P cash shop driven game with limited content updates and support.
My thoughts.
Sony wrote off $60M in the financial report they released just prior to announcing the sale of SoE.
I don't think they ever actually had a game tbh......I think someone just threw the name out there with a bunch of wild ideas, and then it gave people incentive to buy Landmark....If anything the community was trying to build EQN, not Daybreak.
If you are going to copy the original story might as well copy the follow up. Since it's not like you do any actual journalism here and find out how many were let go or why.
Daybreak confirms yesterday’s layoffs and ‘realignment of the company into separate franchise teams’
If you are going to copy the original story might as well copy the follow up. Since it's not like you do any actual journalism here and find out how many were let go or why.
Daybreak confirms yesterday’s layoffs and ‘realignment of the company into separate franchise teams’
I'm wondering how far down the totem pole MMORPG.com is. It seems that game companies turn to massivelyop or gamasutra to release any news. Certainly, the "news" we get here is strictly second- or third-hand.
----------
The "realignment of the company into separate franchise teams" part is interesting. I thought that most of the developers worked on individual games, making Daybreak already operating with separate teams for different products.
Daybreak (or possibly massivelyop) mentions "long-term plans" including "new games". Do they have enough staff in any one franchise team to actually undertake a new game? Are they planning some kind of floating development team across all franchises with the franchise teams dealing with maintenance and operations? Does anyone really know what's going on under the hood at Daybreak?
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
'In April 2018, Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian businessman and owner of portfolio company Renova Group, was sanctioned by the United States Department of the Treasury as part of an investigation on Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.[26] Columbus Nova had previously identified itself as an affiliate of Renova Group, while Renova Group had listed Columbus Nova as part of its corporate structure.[27] Subsequently, it was believed that Columbus Nova, and consequently Daybreak, had also been affected by these sanctions. Daybreak subsequently began to deny that it had been sold to Columbus Nova, stating that the company had actually been acquired by Jason Epstein through his company Inception Acquisitions, LLC instead. At the time of the acquisition, Epstein had been a partner to Columbus Nova, though he left that company in 2017. A Daybreak spokesperson claimed that Epstein's exact ties to Columbus Nova had caused confusion in media reporting of the sale, even though its deleted press release made the same claim.[28][29][30][31] Columbus Nova also stated that it had never been owned by Renova Group, though Renova Group had been their largest client.'
From the link.
I nearly reported you as an adbot there, all that blue.
'In April 2018, Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian businessman and owner of portfolio company Renova Group, was sanctioned by the United States Department of the Treasury as part of an investigation on Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.[26] Columbus Nova had previously identified itself as an affiliate of Renova Group, while Renova Group had listed Columbus Nova as part of its corporate structure.[27] Subsequently, it was believed that Columbus Nova, and consequently Daybreak, had also been affected by these sanctions. Daybreak subsequently began to deny that it had been sold to Columbus Nova, stating that the company had actually been acquired by Jason Epstein through his company Inception Acquisitions, LLC instead. At the time of the acquisition, Epstein had been a partner to Columbus Nova, though he left that company in 2017. A Daybreak spokesperson claimed that Epstein's exact ties to Columbus Nova had caused confusion in media reporting of the sale, even though its deleted press release made the same claim.[28][29][30][31] Columbus Nova also stated that it had never been owned by Renova Group, though Renova Group had been their largest client.'
From the link.
Exactly, the only common knowledge is that it was falsely reported. But listening to facts is so boring when there is drama to be had.
Follow uo: I really hope Everquest, Vanguard and Planetside can find new homes.
Vanguard and Planetside will find new homes in the trash bin. They are worthless IPs.
Someone would definitely buy Everquest for the name recognition, but not to release a worthy successor to the Everquest legacy.
You are obviously entitled to your opinion however flawed it is. Planetside has a cult-like following and was still being played when they shuttered it to focus on PS2, PS still makes money and is a mediocre game that could be great with a management team that had a clue. I am BR 100/ASP 100 on PS2.
Vanguard - you are just very very ill-informed here. If someone got their hands on that IP, squashed bugs and finished the game it would be a huge hit. Ergo I keep saying they were handed success, they just threw it out. Because they are dumb.
SONY sold SOE for a reason. It seems they were already doing really poorly back then. THey just kept going downhill ever since.
PlanetSide 2 had so much potential to be the best online FPS ever made, but that was never meant to happen on a F2P cash shop driven game with limited content updates and support.
My thoughts.
Sony wrote off $60M in the financial report they released just prior to announcing the sale of SoE.
Yes, and I will say what I have said since SWG was destroyed, they hire horrible managers and give people responsibility beyond their capabilities. SO both companies have been mismanaged to death and I won't be surprised when DBG gets sold again. All I hope is it is too a competent company that will do something with it. But They Won't, EA will buy it and make Dragon Age Star Wars, and Vanguard 2K20 the NBA edition.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
I mean I am honestly not surprised when they focused on money making only instead of listening to the community....
They shut planetside 1 because many of the big guilds quit planetside 2 and went back so they tried to force it.
They killed vanguard because they were too focused on money making with another game and refused to fix it.
They left Sony because they decided they could make more money and as a result lost their infrastructure and backing...
It's just been a long line of awful decisions. Case in point? "let's refocus the planetside dev team onto a battle Royale game spin off instead of fixing the Meta problem in our existing game!"
PS1 - Not one big guild left to go back, people just quit in droves when they realized how unbalanced and boring the gameplay is. PS1 was not making money and yes they wanted the few that still played to move on. A few players went back, and the last day hundreds did, but it was nothing long term.
Vanguard got shut down because the manager/owner was a well know drunk and mismanaged funds so horribly he had to sell to SOE. SOE shuttered it because they didn't want to take numbers away from EQ1/2 on either production side or player side. Microsoft was involved in this as well, which is another death knell for anything.
Sony sold SOE because it was hemorrhaging money due to mismanagement and not taking advantage of money-making IP (Vanguard).
So yes, horrible decisions all over the place, just your descriptions aren't all that accurate.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
SONY sold SOE for a reason. It seems they were already doing really poorly back then. THey just kept going downhill ever since.
PlanetSide 2 had so much potential to be the best online FPS ever made, but that was never meant to happen on a F2P cash shop driven game with limited content updates and support.
My thoughts.
The aimbots at release were brutal. Wasn't apparent, last time I played. That didn't help either.
Of course SOE was doing badly,you can see it several years prior.They shut down many games,he tried the cash shop idea,then he tried the idea of all in one pack,then began with cash grabs.
I still remember Smedley bragging about having a million players in that kids game and then it shut down about 2 years later.His TCG was actually a great idea on paper but SOE put in so little effort after that i soon realized this was just a cash grab and never intended to do anymore after the first wave of card sales.
Then the Landmark idea was lol,very few seem to have caught on.Another cash grab enticed by the promise of a EQNext.Then the H1Z1 a very fast,maybe 3 months tops cash grab,something to get Daybreak to bite on.However i feel Daybreak was going to buy in no matter what for oTHER reasons so none of it really matters.
Personally i feel the problems began with Smedley and is typical of big business,the decision makers are the ones to blame.I feel just the TCG alone if effort was poured in could have saved SOE but they didn't even want to fix the bugs.
Side note,i have yet to see a game take care of botting,Square Enix was the first but only after about 5+ years of allowing it to happen.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Well, I think we were all aware that the PS Arena thing was a last ditch effort to scrounge up... well, anything really.
H1Z1 before that was basically the exact same sorry attempt at scavenging.
Trying to cash in on the pop-culture crazes has failed them miserably. Maybe if they could actually produce something that isn't garbage, it would have worked.
When those are your crowning achievements, it's only a matter of time before the studio is sold or vacated.
Wasn't it bought by a hedgefund? My initial thought was they bought cheap and bled their receivables until nothing was left. Close shop and move on to thier nrxt target.
Sort of. Except it turned out that the press release they put out saying that Columbus Nova had bought SoE was..... n't the case and it was just this guy - who was a partner in CN. See @Kyleran 's comment above.
Daybreak was actually purchased in 2015 by Jason Epstein through his wholly-owned LLC, Inception Acquisitions. Epstein was an ownership partner of Columbus Nova at the time, leading his purchase to be conflated with ownership by Columbus Nova itself in statements and reporting, the source explained.
At the time, they just didn't think that that was a big deal, because both Inception and Columbus Nova were Jason's. Jason was the primary owner, and he owned both. Saying Columbus Nova as an investment firm seemed to make more sense [at the time]... What they should have said was 'Jason Epstein, owner of Harmonix, purchased Daybreak,' [or] ''Partners of Columbus Nova purchase Daybreak.'"
Not denying he was there, but when Epstein left Columbus Nova, any association between the investment firm and Daybreak (through Epstein) ended. Daybreak and Columbus Nova let an announcement of that distinction "fall through the cracks" when Epstein departed.
Also, Vekselberg's Renova Group does not actually own Columbus Nova, despite widespread reporting through the years suggesting they do. Instead, Columbus Nova merely "managed some accounts," for the Russian conglomerate, and those accounts were not tied to Russia.
What is daybreak doing with Vanguard??? They could open up a few servers and add value to the station pass. Or all the assets from EQNext? I mean with the stuff being pushed out now a days they could have put something together from Landmark???
They're not game developers they're vampires they suck these games dry for profit. I'm surprised they lasted this long.
Surprised they haven't shut down the studio at this point.
Do EQ1 and 2 still make that much money? I know last time I logged into EQ1 they must've had 10 progression servers going in addition to the regular servers.
Comments
MAGA
'In April 2018, Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian businessman and owner of portfolio company Renova Group, was sanctioned by the United States Department of the Treasury as part of an investigation on Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.[26] Columbus Nova had previously identified itself as an affiliate of Renova Group, while Renova Group had listed Columbus Nova as part of its corporate structure.[27] Subsequently, it was believed that Columbus Nova, and consequently Daybreak, had also been affected by these sanctions. Daybreak subsequently began to deny that it had been sold to Columbus Nova, stating that the company had actually been acquired by Jason Epstein through his company Inception Acquisitions, LLC instead. At the time of the acquisition, Epstein had been a partner to Columbus Nova, though he left that company in 2017. A Daybreak spokesperson claimed that Epstein's exact ties to Columbus Nova had caused confusion in media reporting of the sale, even though its deleted press release made the same claim.[28][29][30][31] Columbus Nova also stated that it had never been owned by Renova Group, though Renova Group had been their largest client.'
From the link.
They shut planetside 1 because many of the big guilds quit planetside 2 and went back so they tried to force it.
They killed vanguard because they were too focused on money making with another game and refused to fix it.
They left Sony because they decided they could make more money and as a result lost their infrastructure and backing...
It's just been a long line of awful decisions. Case in point? "let's refocus the planetside dev team onto a battle Royale game spin off instead of fixing the Meta problem in our existing game!"
Daybreak confirms yesterday’s layoffs and ‘realignment of the company into separate franchise teams’
"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/Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
You are obviously entitled to your opinion however flawed it is. Planetside has a cult-like following and was still being played when they shuttered it to focus on PS2, PS still makes money and is a mediocre game that could be great with a management team that had a clue. I am BR 100/ASP 100 on PS2.
Vanguard - you are just very very ill-informed here. If someone got their hands on that IP, squashed bugs and finished the game it would be a huge hit. Ergo I keep saying they were handed success, they just threw it out. Because they are dumb.
Yes, and I will say what I have said since SWG was destroyed, they hire horrible managers and give people responsibility beyond their capabilities. SO both companies have been mismanaged to death and I won't be surprised when DBG gets sold again. All I hope is it is too a competent company that will do something with it. But They Won't, EA will buy it and make Dragon Age Star Wars, and Vanguard 2K20 the NBA edition.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
Vanguard got shut down because the manager/owner was a well know drunk and mismanaged funds so horribly he had to sell to SOE. SOE shuttered it because they didn't want to take numbers away from EQ1/2 on either production side or player side. Microsoft was involved in this as well, which is another death knell for anything.
Sony sold SOE because it was hemorrhaging money due to mismanagement and not taking advantage of money-making IP (Vanguard).
So yes, horrible decisions all over the place, just your descriptions aren't all that accurate.
If you want a new idea, go read an old book.
In order to be insulted, I must first value your opinion.
I still remember Smedley bragging about having a million players in that kids game and then it shut down about 2 years later.His TCG was actually a great idea on paper but SOE put in so little effort after that i soon realized this was just a cash grab and never intended to do anymore after the first wave of card sales.
Then the Landmark idea was lol,very few seem to have caught on.Another cash grab enticed by the promise of a EQNext.Then the H1Z1 a very fast,maybe 3 months tops cash grab,something to get Daybreak to bite on.However i feel Daybreak was going to buy in no matter what for oTHER reasons so none of it really matters.
Personally i feel the problems began with Smedley and is typical of big business,the decision makers are the ones to blame.I feel just the TCG alone if effort was poured in could have saved SOE but they didn't even want to fix the bugs.
Side note,i have yet to see a game take care of botting,Square Enix was the first but only after about 5+ years of allowing it to happen.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Daybreak was actually purchased in 2015 by Jason Epstein through his wholly-owned LLC, Inception Acquisitions. Epstein was an ownership partner of Columbus Nova at the time, leading his purchase to be conflated with ownership by Columbus Nova itself in statements and reporting, the source explained.
At the time, they just didn't think that that was a big deal, because both Inception and Columbus Nova were Jason's. Jason was the primary owner, and he owned both. Saying Columbus Nova as an investment firm seemed to make more sense [at the time]... What they should have said was 'Jason Epstein, owner of Harmonix, purchased Daybreak,' [or] ''Partners of Columbus Nova purchase Daybreak.'"
Not denying he was there, but when Epstein left Columbus Nova, any association between the investment firm and Daybreak (through Epstein) ended. Daybreak and Columbus Nova let an announcement of that distinction "fall through the cracks" when Epstein departed.
Also, Vekselberg's Renova Group does not actually own Columbus Nova, despite widespread reporting through the years suggesting they do. Instead, Columbus Nova merely "managed some accounts," for the Russian conglomerate, and those accounts were not tied to Russia.
They're not game developers they're vampires they suck these games dry for profit. I'm surprised they lasted this long.
I never like to see people lose their jobs.
This is the company that bungled EQNext, so I hate them.
This is also the company that owns the EQ IP, so I don't want them to tank.
Don't know what to say.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests