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Why SOE Decided To Cancel Star Wars Galaxies
Last month we discussed news that Sony Online Entertainment will be shutting down Star Wars Galaxies, which has been running since 2003. Sony officials recently spoke at Fan Faire to explain the business decisions behind the closure. Unsurprisingly, licensing and upcoming competition from BioWare's Star Wars MMO played a big part. CEO John Smedley said,
"We have a contractual relationship that's ending in 2012, The Old Republic launching, a bunch of other business things with LucasArts. And then you look at the odds of a pretty large portion of the audience moving to TOR, which looks like a terrific game. ... That's the problem with licenses: they end. We're going to continue to do some licensed work, but we're largely going to stick to original IP [going forward] because then we won't have this issue. We'll never have this problem with EverQuest. Back in 2001, not '03 when we launched, but back in 2001 when we [first] negotiated it, a five year license seemed like a really long g****** time. EverQuest was only a year or so old at that point. Could we have renegotiated? Maybe, but I don't think that would be the right thing for the company."
Smart move.
That's the problem with licenses: they end.
Are you telling me that in ~5 years I may or may not be able to play TOR after I invest tons of time into it? That could be a serious dealbreaker for something I've been following very closely. Or is this just some relatively small fee that Sony has to pay to keep a small but loyal set of fans happy (and, of course, they're in the screwing customers over business so why do that)?
Between this, the prequels and taking the license from Decipher and giving it to Wizards of the Coast who ruined it, I'm moving further and further away from Star Wars. And in my young adult years, this was my religion. Congratulations, Lucasfilm, you've done the impossible. You've made me hate and avoid something I once loved.
My work here is dung.
1. We made more money before newgame+ revamp
2. We keep on adding shitty stuff to the game, so more people leave
3. We don't feel like actually revamping it into something that does not resemble WoW, and then regain playerbase
4. God forbid that some dev could highjack the team if we attempted revamping, and turned it into something good.
5. We are still making a large profit of it, but not enough, so we axe it like the dicks we are
May not be everything wrong with capitalism and the industry, but it is enough of it.
So... what word starts with a g, has 7 letters, and is considered censorable?
C'mon. Do you really expect the straight shit from John 'the players know too much, ban them!' Working-As-Intended-Smedley?
Well, incompetence doesn't always guarantee market failure. The lack of alternative is the antidote to that.
If you're the only game in town (figurative, or literally in this case), you can suck quite a lot and still keep on sucking. But the moment anything competitively similar comes along, you're doomed unless you can prolong your existence with things like market lock-in. And what's the lock-in for an MMO? "You'll lose your characters and your hard-earned <in-game currency>" or whatever else you make your players grind after.
If you suck bad enough, they'll still drop all of that like and run like a scalded dog to your new competition.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
How can you talk about fucking up a franchise if it's running for almost 7 years.. In my book that doesn't count as fucking up, as enough people seemed to have liked it, you propably didn't, but that doesn't mean it wasn't successfull..
People who won't play an MMO unless they feel it'll be around forever because it is an "investment of time". No, it isn't. It is a game, it should be fun. You should play an MMO only for as long as it is fun to you. There is nothing wrong with buying an MMO, playing it for 3 months, having your fill and leaving. Nor is there anything wrong with buying an MMO, playing it for 5 years, deciding you are tired of it, and moving on.
It is not a life, not a job, not anything but a game. Play it so long as it is fun.
Seriously, these people who act like it is a commitment blow my mind. I played WoW on and off for about 6 years. It was 0 commitment. When I was tired of it, I'd deactivate my account. When it sounded like fun again, I'd reactivate it. It is a game, like any other.
Stop bitching and play TOR if it looks fun. If it is, great keep playing until it isn't.
maybe cause it blows?
I remember my time in SWG, as one of the shortest races, I could never fucking see anything just the asses of the 100000000 pets and blades of grass, or what about all those empty cities with 3 people maco dancing in the bar? good fucking times there!
SOE's version of Star Wars always sucked ;) It should have never been launched period ;) And yes I did play EQ through 5 expansions ;)
the 200 people on remaining 10 servers of swg were ....... forget that. there wasnt even 200 people.
Read radical news here
If that was a reason to shut the game down it would have happened years ago.
It is because they screwed up almost 6 years ago with the NGE patch which turned the game into a total rip-off of World of Warcraft. After a bunch of people on my SWG server jumped ship for World of Warcraft, I downloaded the demo and as I went through it and you could see where SOE copied the feature exactly. Even worse than that, they released the "new game enhancements" with the "legacy quest" that got you to level 40-something leaving you to essentially grind out the remaining 40-some levels to hit 90 (which was the cap when I quit). The worst part is after losing a massive chunk of their playerbase in the space of a month and forced to give refunds for the Trials of Obi-Wan expansion pack, they still refused to admit the NGE was a mistake. They did not test anything properly it seemed (anyone remember the Publish 27 Commando PvP of pointing the heavy weapon down, holding down the fire button, and then running at the person you wanted to kill?) and the game would change more radically than WoW ever has.
The irony is Blizzard's VP was quoted as saying they were actually afraid of Star Wars Galaxies because of the strong Star Wars intellectual property. However SOE, with LucasArts' assistance, managed to screw it up to the point not even the fanboys could save it
Anonymous Cowards generally receive no replies because you're a coward and I'm a bitch
A smart move on whose part? LucasArts? Probably not. Sony? Definitely not.
I have a couple friends who _still_ play Galaxies from time to time. They just manged to convince a third friend to hop back in and catch up when this announcement came out. (Needless to say he's given up on the game again now.) As far as i know SOE managed to drive a lot of people away with the one big stupid update, but it seems like they've still got enough people subscribed to pay for the server costs and then some.
If enough people _did_ drop Galaxies and switch to TOR after it come out to make Galaxies no longer cost effective then at _that_ point discontinuing Galaxies would make sense. However announcing the closing before TOR even comes out just comes across as a dick move.
Like they said, Everquest is _still_ going despite Everquest 2. There are still enough people interested in paying money for Everquest for it to be worth keeping the servers open. It's pretty clear that they're not adverse to taking money as long as people are willing to give it to them. On the other hand denying a continuation of the license is exactly the kind of thing Lucas/LucasArts loves to do. They've clearly demonstrated in the past a desire to force the consumer to adapt to what Lucas/LucasArts thinks is best for them.
LucasArts at least can hope that by killing Galaxies they'll convince the people still playing it to get TOR. (That may or may not work out well for them.) However SOE gains absolutely nothing from it.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Sony wrecked it just like everything else they touch in MMOs. They wrecked PlanetSide, it baffles me how a company like that can be so fucking daft.
Take the Red Pill.
yes, they shut it down. in incremental steps, so there wouldnt be fuss about it. they consolidated servers etc, then last year they suddenly shut down japanese swg servers out of the blue, and then eventually this.
Read radical news here
Well, incompetence doesn't always guarantee market failure
And unfortunately, success isn't based on competence. *small tear*
How can you talk about fucking up a franchise if it's running for almost 7 years.. In my book that doesn't count as fucking up, as enough people seemed to have liked it, you propably didn't, but that doesn't mean it wasn't successfull..
A) Not a franchise.
B) Existence is not proof of success (or profitability)
C) Your books don't count for nearly as much as you think, so don't worry if people disagree with you - It's a compliment that you got noticed at all!
I don't actually play SWG anymore. I do remember them giving Jedis to people who completed some quests. I remember hearing Jedis could only die once, and they were no longer a Jedi. But somewhere there is a guy who's jedi never died, and he's probably thinking this. Actually once you become a Master Jedi, I think they allowed you to die and not lose Jedi status.
God spoke to me
I wish anything to do with star wars would just die. I mean, this is the most overly marketed product in history and it is actually sad and retarded when another star wars "something" comes out. I mean, I was browsing a toy store looking for a gift for my nephew and could not believe that 1/2 of the lego isle was devoted to start wars lego sets, I mean, what 5 year old has even watched star wars? I remember when the special editions re-releases came out hearing 13 years old's say they never saw star wars and whether the movie was good enough to see.
Lucas has raped this concept for all that is worth and it is time that the franchise dies. There is nothing NEW in star wars, no new stories, no new characters, no new concepts. its a tired rehash of a movie that came out in the 70's and we have entered second decade of the 21st century now. The people involved in anything to do with star wars are only interested in money, period. Not artistic integrity, not advancing the franchise, not doing anything relevant or meaningful to encourage a new generation of people to get hooked into the series, only to offer crap for purchase to 40-something year old shut-ins.
I am saddened by anyone that is still enthralled by anything to do with star wars. What a simple mind and life to anticipate a new game release or to crone on reciting movie quotes or buy old memorabilia. When Lucas belched out the prequels, that is when I decided that would be the last time I would waste a dime on the star wars franchise. I can't even capitalize the title of the franchise because it has become so watered down and redundant to not warrant any special distinction, its two words from the dictionary IMHO.
Because once upon a time there was a whole lot of people that played a little game called SWG. But then Sony looked at the numbers and said "We aren't making teh WoW monies!" and put out a big update that was intended to lure in teh noobs but instead seriously broke shit for the regular players while the noobs said "Meh" and stayed with WoW. A lot of the players at that point, seeing things they had worked hard for made worthless and all their grinding turn to poo said "Ffffffuuuuuucccckkk!" and canceled their subscription while giving Sony the finger.
So you see SuperDre you can occasionally treat your customers as a commodity but when you openly take a big old dump on everything they worked for in chasing "teh WoW monies!" you can have very bad things happen. I have a feeling we'll be seeing the same thing soon with EVE Online as their developers are sounding like they are getting ready to have a taste of the horse armor of fail.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
> it baffles me how a company like that can be so fucking daft.
Because at their core they are a Japanese company that makes hardware. They
a) Don't get the American market (due to culture/pride),
b) Don't understand Hardware+Software+User Experience like Apple.
Try working for them for a while.
If you're the only game in town (figurative, or literally in this case)
I'm sure whatever towns the Star Wars Galaxies servers were located in had a few computers with Freecell or Minesweeper on them. At the very least this town is likely to have some old folk playing cards or a local sports team. This MMO is most likely not the only game in town in any literal sense.
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Try working for them for a while.
Meh. I had a dose of Asian pride when I was serving in Korea. You had to love the Korean Rock Soldiers though, they were all about proving they were #1 G.I. The people were pretty warm though and quick with a smile or a deal. My take on the Asian attitude at that time was they thought were were a bunch of giant barbarians who lumbered around like big dumb kids. As a nation, but not as soldiers. We have some monsters that are awesome to behold when they tower over you by a good half or third. They wish they had our power, they would romp around with it and not be bashful. We are timid and bashful with our power, or at least used to be. Now we are starting to shoot first ask questions later. I would say it's a product of our home environment.
What I can't figure out is why Sony throws away chances at really being great with their incredibly mediocre efforts into software, i.e. the big tuna: MMOs. They have the deep pockets to come up with something Earth shattering, and they sure as hell have the hardware capabilities, but they are simply "stuck on stupid".
I know people flipped out over the things they did in SWG. I knew I had to avoid them or I would be driving to their office loaded up like I was "Postal." They screwed Planetside up badly before I got in it, then they screwed it up more so I wouldn't feel left out. They know how to kill the ever living hell out of fun and piss off their user base. They only rank ahead of Microsoft as a really shitty company to manage an MMO.
If Sony had one fucking ounce of MMO brains, they would be outdoing EVE with the space aspect of SWG and WoW on the RPG part. Sweet Jesus, what the hell more could they have been handed than the Star Wars Franchise to work with. How can you fuck up something like that? Seriously? Fucking just shoot yourself if you are that damn retarded. Give me the franchise to work with...lol. And a mountain of money.
I would take EVE tech, and mash it together with something like a seriously upgraded version of Anarchy Online and sprinkle in some MineCraft type tech, and of course some RTS tech for drones...hirelings...etc...etc...etc. It would be one universe but a big one, with lots of room for lots of strange things to come out to play.
Take the Red Pill.
They've fucked up EverQuest, then relaunched as EQ2, and are fucking up that as well so they're now working on EQ Next...
Someone needs to explain to them that an MMO needs to be kept up to date, just churning out bad "me too" content without any regard to the technical side (EverQuest 2 must have about the worst graphical engine I've ever experienced) ignoring long standing bugs (really, bugs that hit every player sooner or later and have been open since launch?) and just plain ignoring user feedback (certain classes are just mostly unwanted in the endgame and have been for years).
Sony should just do the world a favour and sell their MMO division to some competent company, though a lot of the games they own are probably beyond fixing by now.
Not sure about that. The number of people actually playing SWG is abysmal after what Sony did to it.
And let's not forget one important thing: a lot of those are on a Station Account, which gives them access to all games for a flat monthly fee. A lot of them really have no interest whatsoever in the current SWG. I know I still show as a SWG subscriber because I once added it to the station account, and basically never bothered digging too deep to find out how to remove just SWG from it, because it doesn't cost anything to leave it there.
The vast majority of those don't make any income for SWG per se, because basically hardly any will leave because SWG shuts down. It's actually people who play EQ2 or even EQ1 or whatever, and they're not going to cancel their subscription because SWG shuts down.
Out of the few who still were specifically hanging around SWG to beg Sony to roll back the idiotic changes, most didn't really play much and their ranks are thinning out as it is. A lot of those can be expected to fuck off the instant there is another SW game out there, and those DO make a difference to revenue.
So let's look at it from Sony's POV: they could keep running a game which is hardly making them any money, and pay a shitload of money for servers, support, AND pay a shitload of money to Lucas for support. Or they could finally admit that they ran it into the fucking ground, and move on. The smart move is the latter.
Granted, I didn't expect Sony to do it, because they have this annoying habit of not admitting any mistakes and pretending they're Numero Uno, baby, even while they're digging themselves into a hole and alienating their player base. Must be one of those "losing face" things. In fact that's how they dug it into a hole with SWG in the first place. If they could admit they screwed up at any point instead of forging ahead into stupid land, they probably wouldn't be here.
Now let's look at it from Lucas's POV. Frankly, SWG never was the kind of game that is actually all that beneficial for their license.
I mean, at least with a Darth Vader t-shirt or plastic lightsaber, you know what you're getting, and no hard feelings afterwards. With SWG, you had millions of fans expecting it like the second cumming of Christ, and getting bitter and disappointed. It's not necessarily the kind of thing you want when selling licensed stuff. You don't license your toys to a turd-burger shop, you know?
And let's not pretend it was just NGE. While I can see why some people liked the skill system, pretty much that was all there was to it even before SWG. But that doesn't do much for Lucas. It wasn't exactly the best game for showcasing their license.
And in fact it was a game which did funky things to their license. The game launched without space stuff or Jedi. And for that matter without much stuff to do except some pointless PvP. The latter introduction of Jedi pissed all over the license, in making you acceptable as a Jedi only after you're a bitter old wreck that's been a dozen other professions and gave up. That's exactly opposite to canon, you know?
The NGE somewhat fixed that, but screwed everything else. But even the license issue wasn't really "fixed" except in as much as a kitten is "fixed" after a trip to the vet ;)
The NGE went full tilt into shameless merchandising exercise, and to such an extent that it left a bitter taste in the mouth of everyone who wasn't explicitly after that. Suddenly you had Darth Vader personally pursuing some fucking Twi'lek dancer if the player was one, Han Solo personally rescuing her, etc. It's stuff that didn't even make much sense. WTF did she do, to warrant that? Gave Palpatine some Iridorian clap, or what?
It wasn't some subtle use of canon characters, but some mass produced drivel that shoved them down the player's throat whether he wanted them or not.
If you will, it's like those cheap knock-off toys that give Superman a parachute (WTF, can't he fly?) or put Darth Vader on a motorcycle.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I think you're confusing Sony and Sony Online Entertainment. They've got their own building, CEO, and everything.
If the town is the world and the game is a Star Wars MMO, it is certainly the only one around until TOR arrives.
But the world isn't a town. So saying it is "literal" simply isn't true.
The word "town" may be used as a metaphor for "the world", but that's what makes it figurative, not literal.
"Literal" loses it's meaning if used as a mere supplative of "figurative", as if wanting to say "very, very figurative".
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