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"In a move to better align the company's resources against areas of growth that meet consumer demand in today's online market as well as improve operational efficiency, Sony Online Entertainment has eliminated just over 4% of its full-time workforce, equaling 35 people. The changes will better position SOE to deliver against its emphasis on developing games for a wider, more diverse audience and remaining a worldwide leader in online gaming."Read more
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Rank: One of the Main Weird
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That sounds very bad news delivered with the usual laughable marketting spiel, but I've looked around but failed to find any actual fiscal figures for SOE so I guess they are buried inside the Sony Computer entertainment results, there I see the losses continue although they halved.
As for the cuts Its hard to see where the cuts can fall in the development teams, Star Wars galaxies? Everquest 1? Vanguard? Everquest 2? With all the difficulties in getting the shader 3.0 update out I have fears for our one and only graphical dev, I do hope they can continue to improve the graphics engine as its one of the best and most interesting changes they've made in the past year to the game.
My guess is the community relations teams will get hit the worst.
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Rank: One of the Main Weird
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I've heard of two names so far that are posting on EQ2Flames, Saavedra who used to develop for EQ2 2004-2008 but up until now has been working on the agency, and Timetravelling :( You would have thought that encounter design was one of the last things the game needs less of, not good news for the future. As for the Agency, no idea what's going on there, but it could be just the team going from a pre-launch to post launch style team, however I'd expect with a company of SOE's size that they'd have work on the next big game lined up... Also news is Vanguard is losing Wigin and Ikik, that leaves just 2 devs there I think, seriously I wonder here now what the remaining devs here plan to actually achieve? Star Wars Galaxies too avoided the cuts last time, the problem I see here is that like the Matrix its profitability is effected by a license fee which I guess isn't shared with the new Star Wars game. It all makes me wonder just how profitable SOE really is, if at all, I hear big numbers from the Free Realms accounts, but are they matched by any money?
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Lomax wrote:
Also news is Vanguard is losing Wigin and Ikik, that leaves just 2 devs there I think, seriously I wonder here now what the remaining devs here plan to actually achieve?
I fear VG is pretty much on Life support at this point. Stinks because it did have some potential as a fun game. Lomax wrote:
It all makes me wonder just how profitable SOE really is, if at all, I hear big numbers from the Free Realms accounts, but are they matched by any money?
I think there are a lot of Play Station Network games in the pipeline (I get random emails about them all the time), so I think that we can all safely assume that SOE is moving towards a more console/recreational game future, which doesn't necessarily equate to a bad thing, just different than what we are used to. The video game market as a whole is just in a weird place right now. Seems everyone has been pushed to the extremes somewhere, I don't think SOE has found its place yet. As for FR, they just released a "life time" membership for $29, if even 10% of the purported FR accounts picked up on that, that is some serious money.
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The Devs have created a good game props to them. Those shitty customer service people deserve to be shot, lay them all off, have an online or automated CS system. although still frustrating, automated customer service won't give you attitude on the phone when a 10 year customer calls with 1st time problem.
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Cyanbane wrote:
I fear VG is pretty much on Life support at this point. Stinks because it did have some potential as a fun game.
As someone suggested maybe they should have made this free to play, stuck in a cash shop and seen where it went, although I guess its just too hardcore to appeal. Cyanbane wrote:
As for FR, they just released a "life time" membership for $29, if even 10% of the purported FR accounts picked up on that, that is some serious money.
It would be some serious money upfront, but I don't read that as a positive sign, I'm not sure what this lifetime membership actually gives you, but most games I've seen that have offered it haven't been doing well or planned for a long future. Really not sure where SOE are trying to go either, there are a raft of casual games going out which is fine, but are they going to carry on making the complicated EQ1 EQ2 style games again? Its also a bit of a paranoid thought too, but I'm wondering if the raiding side of EQ2 could be targetted here? While I don't raid myself and its probably given more effort then the rest of the game it still definitely needs to be there to always give that harder thing to do.
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On the Vanguard side, the only confirmed casualty was Raijinn who was in a community relations role. Ikik is still posting on the official forums about a patch on Monday so I don't think he has hit the streets yet. I've also heard Wigin was seen on test so the Vanguard losses may have been over estimated. All that said, Sillius and Jansen should still be around although Sillius has been working on EQ2 a lot recently. Vanguard is an interesting thing to watch as the game is now moving to one server. I can't imagine keeping a game open for long with only one server but stranger things have happened. I wonder if you can read anything into the relative health of EQ, EQ2 and Vanguard by looking at average forum numbers. Right now EQ leads with 973 players, EQ2 has 771 and VG has 13. I've seen that same ratio over the last few days at various time slots. I'd be willing to bet original EQ is still their number one product - revenue wise.
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Raijinn was an old friend of the site - a fond farewell to him. Saavedra was cool as well, he designed a large part of some of the old expansions, especially Echoes of Faydwer.
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