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Sony's MMORPG "Sovereign" Dead
Gudlyf writes "Although the main site for this massive-multiplayer game by Sony (once known as Verant) was updated at some point late last year, it seems that according to CNN Money, it's gone quietly dead after 4.5 years in development (reminds me of why I posted my vote in a previous story on vaporware): "Work on 'Sovereign,' a massively multiplayer real time strategy game, has been terminated after more than four-and-a-half years of development. Ambitious in nature, the game had hoped to replicate a continuous global war that supported up to 500 players. Diplomacy would have played as significant a role as the player's tactical abilities. 'We came to a decision that it was not going to be what we wanted it to be,' said McDaniel. 'It never really had the magic.'""
will still put you back fifty bucks, even though it could turn a profit for less than half that.
Just as in the book and movie businesses most games are complete busts, after *first* sucking up years of time and millions of dollars in development.
For the company overall to ever show a profit the ones that *do* hit have to sell for enough to not just make a profit on that one game, but also to cover the losses of all those games they had to develop just to find out *which* one was going to be the winner.
Want major releases to only cost twenty bucks? It's easy, just find an infallible way to predict before development starts which potential projects will be the best sellers.
It's an "easy" way for you to become a multi-millionaire in year or two as well.
Good luck.
KFG
You've _GOT_ to be kidding me. This is what the article says:
Meanwhile, "PlanetSide" is nearing completion, with a public beta test scheduled for the end of this month.
So far, so good... now here's the kicker:
The game, which has seen "drastic design changes in the last four months" according to McDaniel
So basically Scott McDaniel, which is the vice president of marketing and public relations for Sony Online Entertainment, is saying that instead of the QA-only sessions meant to go at the end of a project, they've just implemented DRASTIC DESIGN CHANGES and they're going to release it soon?!
Hello, anyone home? The PR-guy is basically confessing that this is going to be a fucked bugfest which was largely developed with no clear design in mind.
Sound great. Gotta admire the honesty though. Haha.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
I followed Sovereign from when it was first annouced then lost interest as the years kept ticking by.
It started off as an incredibly cool concept, a modern day world with modern units. You inhabited a single planet, scalable to support to 500 "countries".. so each world would be server. Then had some awesome looking models functioning in the alpha.. aircraft carriers, fighters, nuclear subs. Battle tanks etc. It look like things were progressing smoothly, they had a nice look UI finished, you could zoom into a single infantry man all the way out to the whole planet.. this was supposed to be scaled to what your Satelite technology was. Resource system was in.. you had a character.. which effected how you ruled your empire/citizens.. such as Diplomat, Theocrat, Warmonger etc...
THEN... they completely ditched the concept and basically started from scratch. So it was 4.5 years for the name "Sovereign" but them dumped the first game after about 2 years and started all over again. The new concept was retarded and thats when I stopped following it. They moved it from modern times to into the future.. where you controlled an entire planet with space ships and other junk. All the cool modern-era tech was replaced with goofy space-shit and all the gorgeous models were replaced with cartoony crap.
The original concept was ambitious and amazing, too bad they didn't have the balls to make it work. Instead they opted for Trade Wars 2002 MMORPG and it tanked. Glad it happened too.