Sony To Delete Virtual Goods

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Posted by Soulskill on Friday March 2, 2012 @09:30AM 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."

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of course by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-02 09:32 · 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 Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-02 10:33 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Ha. Ha. Reminds me of the old saying "Denny's, Where waitresses go to die."
  And diners, too... there's a saying around here: if you want to find excellent food, follow an old person to lunch. You'll either find the best food that 60 years of experience can find, or you'll arrive at Denny's.
2. Re:of course by Charliemopps · 2012-03-02 10:53 · 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.
3. Re:of course by iamhassi · 2012-03-02 11:02 · Score: 2
  
  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.
  Doesn't have to be that way, has Sony even looked for a new buyer? Perhaps one of the players might even be interested in paying for the game and taking over, any alternative has got to be better than "Sony To Delete Virtual Goods".
  
  Obviously someone is concerned enough over this to have the story posted on /.
  
  This story concerns me because I still regularly play Supreme Commander which was released in 2007. Fortunately it doesn't require an internet server to play, but what if it did, and they decided to disconnect it, saying "Well, it is from 2007"?
  
  --
  my karma will be here long after I'm gone
4. Re:of course by hairyfeet · 2012-03-02 20:34 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Have you ever actually TRIED that? I have, I wanted to rescue some of the really funky ass old shareware titles that are damned near impossible to play on modern Windows and give them a new lease on life. i quickly found most of these companies expect something to the tune of 300%-3000% profits or they won't give you the time of day. I wish I had saved the emails so i could post 'em, one company wanted six figures for their "very valuable IP" when we are talking about something that wasn't even up to the level of "Codename:Tenka" but was one of those 50 bazillion Wolfenstein knockoff that came out back when that old thing was a hit and everyone tried to cash in.
  I bet if you were to contact Sony their asking price is right around what you would expect to pay for GTA 3 or NWN, not some nearly dead card trading game. never underestimate the incredible all consuming greed of these people. This is why I'm so against the extended copyrights we now have, thanks to the insatiable greed of the megacorps by the time most things do come out of copyright they won't exist and any source code will have been destroyed decades ago. Thanks to these greedy bastards the history of electronic gaming is gonna be more spotty and incomplete than the fossil record and that's just sad.
  
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  ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I'll give you my Neopets... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-02 09:34 · Score: 2, Funny

...when you take them from my cold, dead hands!
1. Re:I'll give you my Neopets... by tripleevenfall · 2012-03-02 10:12 · Score: 2
  
  I put on my robe and wizard hat. And, play my Pickpocket Neopet +5 card.
SUCK FONY by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-02 09:34 · Score: 4, Funny

I'm all for Sony bashing, but I also hate whiney nerds. So... fuck both of you
1. Re:SUCK FONY by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-02 09:39 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Can't argue. Anyone who needed "proof" that virtual goods hosted on someone elses server could disappear pretty much got what they deserved, minus a punch in the face. I'll work on that though if I meet any of them.
2. Re:SUCK FONY by idontgno · 2012-03-02 09:43 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  ...but I also hate whiney nerds.
  The self-hatred is strong in this one.
  
  --
  Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
3. Re:SUCK FONY by japhmi · 2012-03-02 10:06 · 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
4. Re:SUCK FONY by tripleevenfall · 2012-03-02 10:20 · Score: 2
  
  Being butthurt about the virtual card collection you have amassed over a period of 10 years for a virtual card-based role playing game is a pretty friggin' good clue.
5. Re:SUCK FONY by retchdog · 2012-03-02 11:10 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  the money was wasted the moment it was spent... this is just driving home that point.
  
  --
  "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
6. Re:SUCK FONY by Guppy · 2012-03-02 14:17 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Why do you assume it is a nerd?
  He's posting on slashdot.
  On a Friday evening.
Yes, but... by Reasonable+Facsimile · 2012-03-02 09:35 · Score: 4, Funny

... you'll be able to trade in the collectibles for rootkit'd CDs.
1. Re:Yes, but... by arkane1234 · 2012-03-02 10:29 · Score: 2
  
  You realize the whole "derp" thing was only funny for like a week after the show, right?
  
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  -- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
Wow... by mcgrew · 2012-03-02 09:37 · 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!
1. Re:Wow... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-02 09:47 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Big companies are too stupid to be evil. I used to work for Sun and I work for a large-ish one right now, and I can tell you the admin and marketing staff in them are sometimes borderline retarded. Just a few weeks ago, some marketing dumbass renamed our product from what it's always been (internally and to our clients) to a name that's not only incomprehensible, but doesn't say anything about what our product does. Trust me, they're not evil, just really fucking stupid.
What did you think was going to happen? by 0racle · 2012-03-02 09:38 · 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."
1. Re:What did you think was going to happen? by Anubis+IV · 2012-03-02 10:20 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Seriously. A person's "ownership" is just as virtual as the goods themselves unless and until they're given something that will maintain its usefulness even in the absence of the service from which it came. Until they get that something, they're merely renting bits, not buying them.
2. Re:What did you think was going to happen? by JustSomeProgrammer · 2012-03-02 10:30 · Score: 2
  
  Completely agree. What do they expect to happen when the game is no longer profitable to run? A refund of any money they spent?
3. Re:What did you think was going to happen? by DanielRavenNest · 2012-03-02 10:35 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  The same thing that will happen to any "cloud" service. Think of this as an early warning about the future of the "cloud". If you are wise, keep personal copies locally, and use the cloud for extra backup or convenient access. Otherwise when someone else's server goes down for whatever reason (leap day, no profits, etc.), you are fucked.
Re:Bazinga! by wmbetts · 2012-03-02 09:44 · Score: 2

Don't worry, they'll get their virtual cards back. They just sent Penny to go kick Sony in the nuts.

--
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me". - stolen from Dan C alt.os.linux.slackware
The Cloud by blueforce · 2012-03-02 09:46 · 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.
1. Re:The Cloud by TWX · 2012-03-02 09:52 · Score: 2
  
  Worse than that, it's why I don't trust anyone to host anything for me that I don't also have a copy of and a way to use that copy.
  My wife wanted to get a subscription service for a Netflix-type movie service, given how much space 1600 titles take up with their packaging on our shelves. Thing is, they certainly don't have everything we have, and worse, if they choose to drop some titles or if their license ends, the titles are no longer available.
  I think that relying on others like that is not a good idea.
  
  --
  Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
2. Re:The Cloud by Rakishi · 2012-03-02 10:03 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  if they choose to drop some titles or if their license ends, the titles are no longer available.
  So? How many titles do you watch more than once? How much did all those titles cost you? Is having to, gasp, find another source for an occasional title that is dropped seriously going to cost you more than buying all those titles to begin with? Do you really need to have access to 1600 titles at a second's notice?
  Sounds like you've got an irrational hatred of cloud services that is, ahem, clouding your rational judgement.
3. Re:The Cloud by FooAtWFU · 2012-03-02 10:04 · Score: 2
  
  I trust Steam with my games... at least, I trust them to keep the games around longer on average than I can be trusted to keep the discs operational. There are also an operating-system lifetime issues, too.
  It helps that Steam wrecking my games like this would totally demolish their primary business model (not so much with Sony).
  
  --
  The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
4. Re:The Cloud by Sir_Sri · 2012-03-02 10:10 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Different problem. Books, movies, etc. have value outside of the cloud service that's hosting them. This game has characters... I'm sorry.. cards, in it, that people have spent time/money to acquire, but they aren't anything outside of the game. I suppose you could print off a PDF of all of the cards in game, but you can't do anything with it.
  You can't just have a gnome deathknight that you refuse to store on WoW because you don't trust blizzard to not shut down the servers. The gnome deathknight doesn't exist without the servers, regardless of how much you did, or didn't pay for it (directly or indirectly), if you prefer a more F2P comparison, ships in Star Trek Online, or some of the tanks in World Tanks are examples of a this. You can get a statue made of your ship, tank, or gnome deathknight, but it's not a ship, tank or DK, it's just a statue of it. Without the world that makes it exist it isn't anything. An ebook is just another variant on book, book on papyrus, book on paper, book from printing press, book in german, book in english, book in electronic format, and without amazon you'd be locked out of the only format of that book you paid for, even though one of the other book formats would still have had value to you. A Magic The gathering card stored 'in the cloud' that you could access anywhere would still have play value if you could take it out of the cloud if the service was to shut down, as you could still play the game without the cloud storage. In this case the game is shutting down, and the data it has can't be 'pulled out' separately.
  Whether or not it's a good idea to pay for virtual cards vs physical ones is a whole other argument.
  A more interesting question is whether or not you are more likely to lose your own data (house fire, hard drive/raid failure etc.) than amazon is. For most people on /. the answer is a definitive no, since we are savvy enough to have various layers of storage for our stuff. But that isn't true of everyone. If all your data is on one computer with one hard drive and it gets stolen/fails/etc you're SOL.
5. Re:The Cloud by spire3661 · 2012-03-02 10:29 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  The convergence of cheap hardware and cheap storage(thai floods or not, its still very cheap) means the barrier to entry for a PC jukebox is VERY low. I picked up a Lenovo dual core Athlon II desktop (with hardware virtualization, 500 GB HDD and 2 GB of ram new-in-box for $250). It now holds and serves about 350 movies in compressed HD format that i ripped from my DVD collection.
  
  It also connects to my HDHomerun PRIME cable tuners and records, compresses and serves HD Premium cable TV (ESPN, TNT etc ), in addition to serving up windows media center to my Xbox 360. It also serves those files to my family members in remote locations. We have all the Disney movies for all the kids in the family mirrored at each location for a total cost of $400 (desktop 'server' PC + Apple TV or ) per node. Do you see now why this could be compelling to have?
  
  --
  Good-bye
6. Re:The Cloud by GmExtremacy · 2012-03-02 10:32 · Score: 2
  
  Sounds like you've got an irrational hatred of cloud services that is, ahem, clouding your rational judgement.
  I always find it funny how certain people say it's irrational to have different preferences than them.
7. Re:The Cloud by Rakishi · 2012-03-02 14:27 · Score: 2
  
  Sigh. Cloud means many things. Please stop buying into the market speak that there is this single entity or system or idea called "the cloud."
  Netflix is a cloud based service provider. They do not host data for you and the data is not yours. You rent access to their data.
  That is very different from Amazon or iTunes which also store similar data on the cloud. But they claim to "sell" this data to you and then simply host a copy for you (for easy access).
  That in turn is different from, say, DropBox who host data provided by you on the cloud for easy access and sharing.
  Each of these is a different type of service and should be considered individually for the problem at hand. The person I replied to originally appeared to lump all cloud services together (given the tone of first post and his reply), not comprehend the differences, not understand what netflix actually did and not be able to judge a service on it's own merits.
Nothing to see here by Anonymous Coward · 2012-03-02 09:53 · Score: 5, Informative

I don't like Sony any more than most people here, but let's face it. Online game servers shutting down are bound to happen eventually. Accordingly, it's implied that purchases made in virtual worlds won't last beyond the life of the world itself. There's no need to spin this story into Sony taking candy from babies.
Re:morons will... by Sir_Sri · 2012-03-02 09:56 · Score: 2

That's slightly different, in that the data would still have value if you pulled it out of the cloud. The challenge with a online game (collectibles or otherwise) is that they only have a relative value within a narrow system of the cloud. Without the game they have no value other than sentimental, which is of course important to some degree, but because you can duplicate the cards infinitely outside of the system they have no meaningful value otherwise.
Email them by RichMan · 2012-03-02 10:06 · Score: 4, Funny

Sony should email people their virtual property.
---
Please find attached your items.
0x208910812
0x291919111
0x233311102
Translation by srussia · 2012-03-02 10:32 · Score: 3, Informative

In the real world "virtual goods" are called "services". That's why they exist on "servers".

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Set your phasers on "funky"!
card collections value by eudas · 2012-03-02 11:17 · Score: 2

for the most part, this statement is true of non-virtual cards as well.

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Blessed is he who expects the worst, for he shall not be disappointed.
Previous SOE Virtual Good Shutdowns by odie5533 · 2012-03-02 11:56 · Score: 3, Informative

SOE previously shut down Lord of the Rings Online TCG and Stargate Online TCG, so this is not their first time pressing the big delete key on everyone's purchases.
Re:And this is exactly why by Guppy · 2012-03-02 14:27 · Score: 2

I remain baffled at how companies like Wizards of the Coast think it's acceptable to charge as much for online versions of stuff as they do for the real items (example here is MTG cards).
WoTC attempted to answer this by allowing MTG:Online players to trade a completed set of online cards for their real physical equivalents (originally for no extra cost, although they have since started tacking on a redemption fee). So in theory you could arbitrage the real and virtual versions.
The goods aren't being destroyed by symbolset · 2012-03-02 14:42 · Score: 2

They'll still be there. They'll just be offline. Where they're safe.

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