Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Sony To Delete Virtual Goods

Posted by Soulskill on from the satisfaction-is-not-guaranteed dept.

New submitter dommer2029 writes "A few years back, Sony bought up a small company running an online collectible card game called Star Chamber: The Harbinger Saga. Two days ago, they announced that the servers will be shutting down on March 29, 2012. All of our virtual collectible cards? Poof. It's not surprising — the user base is small and dwindling — but it's proof that any server-based digital goods you 'own' can vanish on a corporation's whim."

7 of 171 comments (clear)

  1. of course by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Of course the user base for star chamber is dwindling. There hasn't been an expansion since 2007. Collectible games need expansions to survive. Otherwise people get bored and move on.

    Sony Online Entertainment. Where games go to die.

    1. Re:of course by Charliemopps · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ARE YOU INSANE? SOE was the first major MMO publisher to start charging different rates for different levels of content, and then again the first major MMO to have a real money for items auction house. The current disaster that is the MMO market was almost entirely modeled after SOE. Do you ever wonder why MMOs are almost universally $15.99/month? SOE raised their rates almost 10 years ago now, and it stuck. Prior to that they were $10/month. SOE is the root of all evil as far as MMOs go.

  2. Wow... by mcgrew · · Score: 4, Insightful

    At first glance I was going to say "after XCP, OtherOS, and leaving unencrypted CC info on an internet facing database, what did you expect?" but on re-reading TFS, the data being deleted wasn't collected by Sony.

    Maybe I should point out that "buying" data is stupid, you should buy media? Or that trusting ANY corporation to not be evil is stupid?

    --
    Free Martian Whores!
  3. What did you think was going to happen? by 0racle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Virtual Collectable Cards. Did someone think the servers would be online forever so they could 'keep' these bits of data?

    --
    "I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
  4. The Cloud by blueforce · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Precisely why I don't trust Amazon's (or Apple's, or anyone else's) cloud to store books, music, movies, or other media that I purchase.

    --
    If you do what you always did, you get what you always got.
  5. Re:SUCK FONY by japhmi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why do you assume it is a nerd?

    He's posting on slashdot.

    --
    "Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys" P. J. O'Rourke
  6. Re:SUCK FONY by Guppy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why do you assume it is a nerd?

    He's posting on slashdot.

    On a Friday evening.