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Pirates of the Burning Sea Signs With SOE For Publishing
Flying Lab Software has been keeping its upcoming piratical Massively Multiplayer Game, Pirates of the Burning Sea, somewhat close to the chest. There's a Beta running, but outside of the forums and official website information has been thin on the ground. That changed last week with a flurry of posting to the Flying Lab Software site about a number of topics. This week there is big news: the game finally has a publisher. Flying Labs has partnered with SOE's Platform Publishing brand to put out Pirates of the Burning Sea. To clarify, if you're unfamiliar with Platform Publishing, Sony Online Entertainment will only be publishing the game; they will have nothing to do with development. "We had two other paths to launching this fall: going it alone and working with another independent outfit we've been spending time with. Both of these were good options in general (especially the partnership approach, as we really like those guys). But for either of those approaches to work for a fall launch, everything would have to go right the first time and we'd still need some luck. By working with SOE we know it'll just happen."
Nah. They're not selling their IP, they're just contracting with SOE for distribution and hosting.
Sounds like a good deal for all involved; Flying Labs keeps absolute creative control, and assumes the bulk of the financial risks. SOE makes money on the front end, and skims some off the top for hosting...If it flops, they've got very little stake in it, and if it doesn't they'll get a nice bit of cash, as well as positioning themselves as a friend to the independent MMO developer.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Different than Vanguard really... I mean, the publishing deal is probably similar - but the only reason that Vanguard's IP ended up getting acquired is due to the failures of Sigil. Provided the Burning Sea guys are less dynsfunctional (and let's face it - it's pretty hard to be more dysfunctional than Sigil was, according to most reports) I see this being a pretty standard publishing arrangement.
When exactly has SOE meddled with the design of a third party that they were publishing? All of their blunders had to do primarily with IP that they designed themselves. There's a lot of irrational SOE dread out there. Yeah, they screwed up Galaxies - but that was their own game, and you have to think they learned something from that experience.
"You can take our lives, but you can never take our Flerbage!!!!"
Want to quickly head off some of the more reactionary comments that are sure to appear here.
First, Flying Labs (the devs) maintain complete creative control. SOE is literally just publishing it. This won't be a SW:G repeat.
Second, Flying Labs is self financed. They have plenty of cash, and aren't going to have the problems Vanguard did.
SOE has a really bad -- and justly earned -- reputation these days, but it seems like Flying Labs got the deal they needed from them, so I'm thrilled. I've been following this game for like four years now, and they've always been adament about maintaining complete control of their game, and I was starting to get nervous they couldn't find any publisher who'd let them do that.
Want to quickly head off some of the more reactionary comments that are sure to appear here.
First, Flying Labs (the devs) maintain complete creative control. SOE is literally just publishing it. This won't be a SW:G repeat.
Second, Flying Labs is self financed. They have plenty of cash and aren't going to have the problems Vanguard did.
SOE has a really bad -- and justly earned -- reputation these days, but it seems like Flying Labs got the deal they needed from them, so I'm thrilled. I've been following this game for like four years now, and they've always been adament about maintaining complete control of their game, and I was starting to get nervous they couldn't find any publisher who'd let them do that.
Yeah, enough with the Pirates. Now an MMORPG with Ninjas, that would be cool.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is usually crucified.
Apparently, neither you or the person who modded you up could even be bothered to read the entire summary:
"Sony Online Entertainment will only be publishing the game; they will have nothing to do with development."
Nothing to do with development. As in, no hand in what or when things get patched or upgraded.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
I work on an MMO which is also being published by SOE Platform Publishing. They are not involved at all in game design or implementation--they will be doing publishing only, i.e. box sales, marketing. In my opinion they're a very good choice for publishing MMOs.
If the game is good or bad, it's the developer's fault, not the publisher's. Don't lump games that are published by SOE in with games that are developed by SOE.
Lots of people trying to calm everybody down by explaining how distant the relationship between Flying Labs and SOE will be. Those people are missing the point.
People choose what games to play based on more than just the quality of the game. I quit Everquest vowing never to give SOE (or any company with Brad McQuaid) another dime, no matter how good their future games might be. And I will avoid this Pirates game, not because I think SOE will somehow screw it up, but because part of its revenue would go to fund SOE. I choose not to fund incompetant and unethical companies.
Flying Labs just struck a deal with the devil, from many gamers' points of view. They shouldn't be surprised if people quietly cross themselves and scurry away from them, no matter how good their product may be.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
"Not enough cash apparently, otherwise why involve Sony at all?"
Because they already have the marketing, billing, and distribution services in place for us, so we don't have to do those things. We're good at making games. We don't really want to find out if we're good at marketing or not. With this deal, we don't have to.
Of course, that was in the FA, so I'm sure you already know that and are just ranting. Don't let my facts get in the way of you raging against the machine.
-isildur (PotBS Lead Designer)
I am not sure why Sony gets all this bad publicity in the MMO area. Face it SWG sucked before NGE, NGE made it actually FUN for some people. Vanguard is a mess, but it would not exist without Sony, you have Brad to lay that failure at. In fact to me it seems like going with Sony is a great idea. The people in Sony Online Entertainment are not the same people who put root kits on CD's they probably have never even met; nor are they the people who made the PS3, in fact I bet they have not talked a whole heck of a lot either. Sony is a REALLY HUGE company, you shouldn't blanket all of them under one roof.
As the FA says there is a lot of nasty things involved in setting up a MMOG; billing, bandwidth, and backed hosting. Say what you will about SOE but there servers are MUCH better than anyones (yes they had problems in the early years of EQ, but I have _NEVER_ had to wait in a queue with them; and unscheduled crashes have been very very rare for years). Why should content creators have to spend time worrying about if they have a redundant enough T3? I would rather they spend time making a good game.