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Sony Sells Off Sony Online Entertainment

Posted by samzenpus on from the circle-of-business dept.

donniebaseball23 writes Sony Online Entertainment is to become Daybreak Game Company and turn its focus to multi-platform gaming. The company has been acquired by Columbus Nova and is now an indie studio. "We will continue to focus on delivering exceptional games to players around the world, as well as bringing our portfolio to new platforms, fully embracing the multi-platform world in which we all live," said Daybreak president John Smedley. But why did Sony shed SOE? Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter believes an online gaming company "isn't a great fit, particularly as games are shifting increasingly to a free-to-play mobile model."

60 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. The Zynga business model by Orion+Blastar · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Make social network and mobile games that are free to play but require you to buy in-game items in order to complete quests and become better.

    Make sure you copy the ideas of other game companies.

    When the game isn't doing too well, move it to the location in India and let the India division support it until it dies off and has an end of life.

    Hire and fire developers all willy nilly, to save on research costs.

    Release the first version all buggy so that people have to buy the DLC that changes the game and fixes the bugs for more money.

    --
    Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
    1. Re:The Zynga business model by Stormy+Dragon · · Score: 1

      I theenk ee as seen through the charade!

    2. Re:The Zynga business model by frank_adrian314159 · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      A large market of people who buy and play games on phones is worth more than the smaller market of people who buy and play games on computers. Phone games cost much less to develop, but also provide much larger margins when they hit. This lower cost allows more nimble execution by smaller development teams and more product portfolio diversification. Why wouldn't I copycat a successful game design? It saves me money. As for outsourcing, what business wouldn't provide a particular quality point at a lower price point? And as for overall quality, why would they provide more than the consumers demand without charging more?

      More importantly, why do the gamesters think their little fantasy world should be more immune to economic impulses in the real world than any other software product? In reality, your entertainment software is of much less importance than a lot of other software out there (or that could be out there) that costs less to develop and probably provides a lot more benefit. And, if you're too lazy as a customer to do anything about it, why come bitching to us?

      TL;DR version: Gamesters be hatin' on the big C - Capitalism - and their lack of power under its system.

      --
      That is all.
    3. Re: The Zynga business model by Captain+Splendid · · Score: 1

      IT'S ABOUT ETHICS IN GAME JOURNALISM!

      Or something like that. I'm sure somebody who takes vidya far too seriously can enlighten us downthread.

      --
      Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
    4. Re:The Zynga business model by tompaulco · · Score: 1

      A large market of people who buy and play games on phones is worth more than the smaller market of people who buy and play games on computers.

      Not to me. I'd rather have 100 customers pay me $100 for a product than 10,000 pay me $1. People complain about the quality of phone games, but most of the time they are free or at most a couple of dollars. I'm not willing to spend millions of dollars to develop an app that somebody is only willing to pay me $1 for on the phone, but if it was on a PC, would be happy to pay me $60.

      --
      If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
    5. Re:The Zynga business model by mattack2 · · Score: 1

      Make social network and mobile games that are free to play but require you to buy in-game items in order to complete quests and become better.

      Umm, I play Words with Friends & Candy Crush daily, and have never spent a cent in them.

    6. Re:The Zynga business model by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Well, there goes any interest I had in Everquest Next/Landmark

      SOE brought stuff Japan like Wizardry Online, and then didn't do much with it. Finally killing it off due to lack of interest. See this repeat a few more times and you realize that if you want to play a MMORPG without being penny-pinched just to progress, you play one from a company that offers that, which is Square-Enix (FFXIV) or Blizzard(WoW)

      The entire Social Gaming thing may have more people playing, but it has relatively few people who pay, and it's those few people who support the entire game. If those few people see a new shiny game to play, the old game gets dumped and that's it.

      Non-online/non-micropayment games have the most longevity. But they are increasingly becoming rare.

    7. Re:The Zynga business model by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      you would be better(scorewise) in candy crush if you spent money.

      you would also be better(scorewise) in words with friends if you spent money.

      get it? want to appear to be smarter to your friends? you could do that with the inapp purchases, as long as they don't find out.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    8. Re:The Zynga business model by RavenLrD20k · · Score: 1

      How many "friends" do you have on facebook who get nagged by your games to join in? Of those, how many also play them? Of those, how many are flakes that actually give money to these guys?

      Also note: Of all the friends I've spoken to directly about sending me game invites to things like Words, Candy Crush, Slotmainia etc, only 2 out of 310 admitted to pressing any button to share. Also, only those two were able to see the post on their wall. The other 308 were completely clueless that the game was doing this in their name and couldn't find a wall post to corroborate. Of course, did they stop playing the games because of that? I think about 100 did. The others just told me to block the game app, it was too much fun for them to care. I think I culled another 250 out of that list down to keeping people I actually needed to associate with for one reason or another. Unfortunately, the 2 willful sharers I have to be in regular contact with for other things.

      The point of the last paragraph is to say that by playing these crap freemium casual games on a social media platform, you not only open up these games to make posts in your name to everyone in your contact list, but you're also granting the companies that make these games access to your contact list... Which means more people they can try to target as a sample for building into a new demographic if they won't play a game in the current one. Of course, they do this with the hopes of adding a few more suckers that would give them real-world money for in-game perks at best; A few hundred - thousand more people to add to their sample size at worst.

    9. Re:The Zynga business model by mattack2 · · Score: 1

      I *think* I have all of the "spam FB" stuff turned off. The only times I have them post to FB is the direct "get me access to more levels" stuff, and I specifically pick the people who have sent the same kind of thing to me. ...though I don't see how this relates directly to spending money.. Plenty of things _want_ to spam to FB. Heck, one grocery store has a "share & save" program to get some very good deals (sometimes free items, very often 50% off)... and whenever I do it, I always change it to share to "only me" every single time, so I'm not spamming FB.. but I still get the deal.

  2. free-to-pay model by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seriously, fuck the 'free-to-play/pay mobile model.' It has ruined gaming. Even better is when you find you paid for a game and the fucking thing is STILL free-to-pay if you intend on having a chance to win.

    1. Re:free-to-pay model by mlts · · Score: 2

      This is exactly what is killing the app model. Once IAP became standard, almost all games went from decent standalone apps with a reasonable difficulty level to ratty treadmills designed to stymie, obstruct, and frustrate the user so they would pay for more brains/smurfberries/tokens/simoleans/whatever to just clear that one hurdle... only to run into another one shortly after.

      Even the old tower defense games had their difficulty changed from doable to impossible unless one spent cash for additional points. Expansion content like towers or levels is understandable, but having to spend cash -per play- is something I'd do at an arcade, but not on my phone.

    2. Re:free-to-pay model by Bender+Unit+22 · · Score: 1

      I agree, I used to buy 1-3 apps/games pr. month. some for a dollar other a little more and a few more expensive.
      Now I stopped playing games on my phone or tablet because I am sick and tired of the virtual coin-up machine that is has become.
      I don't mind paying for the games I play, but I refuse keep paying for it.

    3. Re:free-to-pay model by _xeno_ · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The thing is, we (OK, so not all of us, but the population at large) did that to ourselves. People just don't want to pay for games any more. Instead they'll go for the "free" game and play that instead of the paid game.

      What was the last truly successful MMO that required a subscription? We all know the answer: World of Warcraft. Nothing has come close to it since then. People just don't want to pay for their games. So to remain alive, the competitors go free to play. But they still need to pay for servers and developers and recoup their costs. So what do they do? They go free-to-play, but then to ensure that there's a reason for people to give them money, they go pay-to-win.

      And people pay! That's the issue, people pay them. I think it turns out that the majority of players playing these games don't pay any money. Instead, some fraction of players (the whales) spend thousands of dollars to win. And it's these whales that the companies care about, not the gamers that just want a fun game to play.

      It'd be nice to just blame the "whales" but - ultimately, it's not their fault. Because they're willing to crack open their wallet and pay for their entertainment. The problem is the huge number of gamers that aren't willing to shell out even $5 for a mobile game and instead go after the "free" games. Video game development still costs money, so publishers have to find some way to get money - so they go with pay to win.

      Because that's where the money is. The market has spoken, and the market is us. Gamasutra was right, gamers really are dead.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
    4. Re:free-to-pay model by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      Free to play has helped some things out though. I know people hate it but much of that is knee jerk; they're angry at the fact that old school subscription models are leaving or that the hardcore players are a minority now. I've seen games that migrated to F2P and all the hysterical predictions of doom did not happen.

    5. Re:free-to-pay model by mlts · · Score: 1

      The P2W model is what ran me off from Rift. When you could spend cash in their store and buy raid gear, that was it for me.

      Both EQ and EQ2 offer gear from the store... but it would be about the equivalent of a set of WoW greens. Decent gear, but it won't annoy the people raiding because it doesn't compete with what comes from the bosses. It is mainly so someone can get caught up on gear, or at least get to a baseline offered, saving time that route.

      I'm just glad WoW hasn't buckled under. Even that MMO has taken a beating with the last expansion, and it took some interesting innovation [1] to bring subscribers back to that game.

      I think gaming is in the doldrums... something new will be around sooner or later, and the cycle will begin again new. It happened with "multimedia" games like MYST, then FPS, then MMOs, then smartphone/tablet apps, and now it is stagnant. Who knows. Maybe consoles will be a must have in a year or two.

      [1]: The garrison is an interesting mechanism. Player housing has been around since the MUD days, but WoW's implementation has made a way for people not playing often to catch up in raiding, something to advance with limited time, a place to start quests, and in general, something to help keep players involved in the game.

    6. Re:free-to-pay model by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      Indeed, fuck the Hurry-up-and-Wait, aka pay-to-win.

      Social Games, ironically, are neither social, nor games. The bigger problem however though is:

      They have ZERO respect for your time OR your space.

      i.e. Brave Frontier
      Units intentionally don't "stack", thus you are forced to waste gems to "unlock" more inventory space. Of corse you can RMT gems ...

  3. Real Reason: Hacker Attacks by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

    This is a way of insulating the rest of the Kirabuta (or whatever they call the "holding company" I owned ADR shares in) from the parts that hackers attack.

    Expect them to spin off the movie division the same way, changing it's name too, so that North Korea attacks only the film part that underpays women, not the rest of the holding company which underpays women.

    (personal opinion only, but based on many years watching shareholder meetings online as an owner)

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    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
    1. Re:Real Reason: Hacker Attacks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Kirabuta

      Keiretsu

    2. Re: Real Reason: Hacker Attacks by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

      Of course I am. Ignore the trial going on in the Air India case that I may or may not have done certain CT ops in BC. And my dad had nothing to do with anything that became the NSA.

      I believe you, because you're "well informed". Like most people who think we haven't been doing this stuff for many decades.

      --
      -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  4. Um, so what about the Playstation? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    "games are shifting increasingly to a free-to-play mobile model."

    The Playstation is not a free-to-play mobile system. Is this the beginning of the death of Sony gaming?

  5. Everquest by Rinikusu · · Score: 1

    So.. we still have Everquest?

    --
    If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
    1. Re:Everquest by sahuxley · · Score: 1

      You should try this. http://www.project1999.com/

    2. Re:Everquest by mlts · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yep, every year or so, it gets an expansion. The engine is dated, but it has the most content of any MMO out there just due to its age. The old quests are still there, but the game has moved to missions. The grinding is somewhat present, but with missions, one does level up decently quickly. If you die, summon your corpse to the guild lobby, have your merc res you, then go back swinging.

      There is an "EQ3" in the works, or Everquest Next. It is interesting how that develops over time with the press releases, and it appears the devs are doing it right, and will release when it is ready, and no earlier.

    3. Re:Everquest by mlts · · Score: 1

      That wouldn't be too bad. Everquest and EQ2 have a difficulty level that is significantly higher than the mainstream MMO out there. Not too high, but it takes some planning before running in a raid zone and pulling mobs willy-nilly. If more hipsters learned how to raid, that would be nice.

    4. Re:Everquest by blackicye · · Score: 1

      If you'd tried Final Fantasy XIV and Wildstar, you'd have seen multiplayer difficulty levels that far eclipsed those of EQ1 and 2.

      Wildstar had to lower difficulty levels significantly to preserve subscription numbers.

      Though the Corpse Run mechanics of EQ1 arguably made it way more risky / intense / tedious depending on your perspective.

      The full corpse looting in UO also greatly increased risk and "difficulty."

      No modern MMO developer has been insane enough to dabble with these brutal mechanics, though Darkfall did go the open PvP, full corpse looting route, and couldn't gain any significant traction.

    5. Re:Everquest by don+depresor · · Score: 1

      You should check EVE online if you want brutal mechanics :P

    6. Re:Everquest by Ranbot · · Score: 3, Informative

      You should check EVE online if you want brutal mechanics :P

      Or you could get the same effect by balancing your checkbook in MS Excel in front of a background of stars. The brutality of gameplay depends your personal finances.

    7. Re:Everquest by Kaenneth · · Score: 1

      They still keep updating the engine tho,

      January 21, 2015 update included: "- Made an adjustment to the way that NPC character models created prior to the Omens of War expansion are loaded and displayed. This change coincides with a number of graphical updates and fixes to these models."

      It's slow, but still progressing.

    8. Re:Everquest by blackicye · · Score: 1

      Or you could get the same effect by balancing your checkbook in MS Excel in front of a background of stars. The brutality of gameplay depends your personal finances.

      Unless you're cozy with a developer, you can just get them to spawn assets for you.

    9. Re:Everquest by forgottenusername · · Score: 1

      EQN is interesting, I have hope for it and kind of see this as a positive. SOE has always been awful for EQ* with in-game station cash etc.

      If you have the urge to scratch the old EQ nostalgia itch, try project 1999 ;)

    10. Re:Everquest by MadKeithV · · Score: 1

      it appears the devs are doing it right, and will release when it is ready, and no earlier.

      That's what 3DRealms kept saying about Duke Nukem Forever, and we all know how that ended up.

    11. Re:Everquest by vux984 · · Score: 1

      That's what 3DRealms kept saying about Duke Nukem Forever, and we all know how that ended up.

      A good, if not great single person FPS romp? DNF was fun, and well worth the money i dropped on it on steam. (on sale)

      Yes, a couple of the physics puzzles missed the mark, it was needlessly gratuitious and vulgar, and the whole strip club dream sequence level was retarded.

      But I still can't decide if they were deliberately silly, deliberately over the top vulger, and the whole strip club dream sequence was deliberately stupid all as a truly brilliant satire of the entire modern FPS genre.

      And honestly even if it was unintentional, that just makes the parody even funnier.

  6. Free Realms by The12thRonin · · Score: 1

    Sony murdered the games that were the Free to Play/pay model last year like Free Realms and now that's the future. I'm confused.

  7. Hopefully...... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Tanarus, Infantry and Cosmic Rift (the two Totally-Isnt-Subspace variants) can be open sourced.

  8. Likely for the best, quoted "analyst" is dumb by jacks+smirking+reven · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This isn't about Sony jumping in with F2P, it's about the high cost of developing MMO games. When a game costs north of $100,000,000 to develop as well as the high number of servers and support staff you need to be able to reach as many gamers as possible. Being restricted to Sony/PC platform still leaves out the XBox audience (while smaller than PS4/PC it's still a large enough chunk to not ignore) and being under Sony's control means cross-platform is something of a conflict of interest.

    Sony will still be more than amicable with having the new studios games on it's hardware it just gives the developers more flexibility. Sony still collects it's license fees by the game being on PS4 and they'd rather collect those fees (the bread and butter of consoles) and not be responsible for the day-to-day operations, which will likely operate better as an entity who does and only does MMO as opposed to cog in a huge corporate umbrella.

    1. Re:Likely for the best, quoted "analyst" is dumb by halofan_sd · · Score: 2, Informative

      no it's about Sony having to sell assets, they have been selling buildings, now selling other assets. last fiscal year they have a net loss of $2.15 billion

    2. Re:Likely for the best, quoted "analyst" is dumb by Kaenneth · · Score: 1

      I've read that Sony makes most of it's income from Insurance in Japan...

      Did the payouts from the 2011 Earthquake/Tsunami/Meltdown have much of an impact?

    3. Re:Likely for the best, quoted "analyst" is dumb by Xest · · Score: 1

      I don't know if the payouts had much of an impact, but the earthquake itself did:

      http://business.time.com/2011/...

  9. "Indie" LOL. by Jahoda · · Score: 1

    "We will continue to focus on delivering exceptional games to players around the world, as well as bringing our portfolio to new platforms, fully embracing the multi-platform world in which we all live,"

    Spoken like a true indie, working outside that big corporate studio system!!

  10. Prediction by Dunbal · · Score: 1

    I predict that before the year is out it will be bought out and cannibalized by Electronic Arts anyway.

    --
    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  11. We have different definition of indie... by aepervius · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you get acquired by somebody, like say, colombus nova, and work under them, you are not an independent studio anymore.

    --
    C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
    visit randi.org
  12. You can run but you can't hide by portwojc · · Score: 1

    Just like IBM Deathstars moving on to other manufactures I will remember Daybreak Game Company was once SOE and they made and ruined Star Wars Galaxies. Good luck with the zombie apocalypse clone...

  13. Wow by Charliemopps · · Score: 1

    Smeadly finally drove them into the ground. Without Sony propping them up they'll be dead in less than a year. That morons done more to hurt gaming than just about anyone else in the industry.

    The Frogloks and Jedi finally have their revenge on that lying scum.

    1. Re:Wow by bloodhawk · · Score: 1

      Sony propping someone up? perhaps you haven't looked at Sony's financial situation for the last few years, they are drowning in debt. SOE is probably going to be far better off without Sony. getting split off from Sony is like winning a place on one of the few life rafts on the titanic.

  14. Sony Boycott. by Kaenneth · · Score: 1

    I had semi-boycotted Sony since the CD Rootkit and PS3 other-OS fiascos; I had 'grandfathered' in EQ, because I had already invested too much time and money into one MMO, and wasn't going to switch.

    Not sure how I feel about Russian oil/mineral conglomerates.

  15. Great news! by JThundley · · Score: 1

    This is great news to me! I've been boycotting Sony Online Entertainment since they're part of Sony. I've been boycotting Sony ever since they put rootkits on music CDs and I learned about all the other shady stuff they've done. Now I can actually spend some money on PlanetSide 2 which is a pretty damn good game.

    1. Re:Great news! by JThundley · · Score: 1

      Yes actually, I do boycott Windows as well.

      Sure Windows allowed this to happen, but Sony *engineered* this to happen. If this is what they do to their customers, I don't want to be one of them. I don't want to be a victim of their next stunt, of which there have been many in the past after the CD DRM.

    2. Re:Great news! by JustNiz · · Score: 1

      I'm thinking that no company is really any better than Sony in actually caring about their customers rights and privacy. Its just that Sony and Microsoft are incompetent enough to make it obvious, while companies like Google and Apple have smarter PR people and a larger marketing budget.

    3. Re:Great news! by JThundley · · Score: 1

      Neither Google or Apple have tried to install a rootkit on my computer. Sony really is a special breed of terrible.

    4. Re:Great news! by JustNiz · · Score: 1

      I think they all would if they thought they could get away with it.

  16. The Zynga business model by stonecutter2 · · Score: 1

    Release the first version all buggy so that people have to buy the DLC that changes the game and fixes the bugs for more money.

    No, no - this is SOE. All versions are buggy...and bugs aren't fixed...they're working as intended, until they mysteriously get resolved. Then they reappear in later fix packs.

  17. Ho hum by stonecutter2 · · Score: 1

    They'll do things just as half-heartedly as before, only with a shiny new name. I'm not shocked Sony ditched SOE, I'm shocked it took them this long. The joke is on Columbus Nova, and Sony's laughing pretty hard right now.

  18. Sony is hemorrhaging by vix86 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Regardless of what any of the articles say about the decision to do this, I personally believe the reason behind this is because Sony is bleeding money left and right. Sony has been selling off parts of their company for the past year now. It's no secret, Sony has been sinking slowly. They sold their mobile division, they sold their Vaio division, and probably came pretty close to selling their TV division as well, before thinking better of it and simply split it off into a new company. Now they are selling one of their big game studios. If Sony can't find a new market to be successful in, then I wouldn't be surprised to hear about Sony being bought by another company here in the next 3-5 years.

    1. Re:Sony is hemorrhaging by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      Sony's bread and butter isn't electronics though; it is insurance !?

      * http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05...

      While they made some pretty bone headed decisions in the past, i.e. flooding the market with too many TV's that consumers don't give a crap about, pouring billions of R&D into the PS3, and have never really recovered from Apple envy, they are slowly turning the Titanic around.

      When a company is so big that they end up suing themselves they aren't going to disappear overnight.

  19. FYI, subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment by mattack2 · · Score: 1

    OK, maybe this is obvious since it contained the word "Online" in the name, but this was a subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment.

    I was worried I'd no longer get "free" Sony games (reimbursed on my Sony credit card, at higher rates than I get from other credit cards, for certain areas).

  20. Re: SOE Management by Lonewolf666 · · Score: 1

    Agreed.

    There is at least one game that may be of interest to me (Planetside 2), but before I touch that one, the former Sony Online Entertainment has to distance itself from its past.

    Selling the company is a good start, but not sufficient. Once they have gotten rid of the old management too, I may take a chance on them. But not before.

    --
    C - the footgun of programming languages
  21. Re:Finally by fibonacci8 · · Score: 1

    they have an amazing habit of having a good game, then with no notice running it into the ground

    The word for that in English is "monetizing".

    --
    Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
  22. Great news! by unapersson · · Score: 1

    I've always found the rootkit story an interesting one. There are a large number of third party DRM systems that have been in use on Windows over the years. This was just another one of them. Sure this one had some nasty side affects, but so do a lot of DRM systems that Windows has supported. As far as I'm aware this DRM did nothing on any other system. So why is Windows given a free pass on this one? It was designed to allow auto-install of software from CDs that were placed in the drive. Designed to be a DRM friendly system. So you you boycott Windows as well?

  23. Not even surprised by CoachKervan · · Score: 1

    Not surprised, they are really heading down the drain fast!