Star Wars Galaxies

The opinion piece takes a stab at the war for mmo's on the consoles and has this little bit to be said about the SOE reorganization:

"Sony Online Entertainment CEO John Smedley claims that SOE’s move is purely functional. That may be so, but even if that’s the case the move has a lot of symbolism behind it. SOE has always been the Sony outsider, doing very much its own thing.

Moving the experts in this field closer into the fold makes a great deal of sense. The goal, I believe is to bring the MMO-style of thinking ‘in house’ so that ideas can percolate in the right directions. With a firewall between Sony Online and the rest of the company there was little chance of that kind of business acumen influencing the right people.
....

The other thing going for Sony is simple history; they haven’t made a giant mess of every MMO they’ve previously touched. Microsoft now has a reputation in the industry."

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=18450

Vets, please discuss. ( ' :

"The other thing going for Sony is simple history; they haven’t made a giant mess of every MMO they’ve previously touched."

They certainly have made some bone-headed decisions since 2005 though.  SOE is now synonymous with unethical and failure within the MMO genre.

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Originally posted by therain93
"..they haven’t made a giant mess of every MMO they’ve previously touched."

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they should have emphasized "every"

Depends on what you would consider a "giant mess" I suppose.

To some I guess that something like SWG still making some money isn't a giant mess. But to me the fact that it hasn't ahieved it's goal in "attracting a much broader audience" means that the NGE has failed.

I personally think that SoE is a "giant mess" because they haven't made the blockbuster that they're so obviously trying to achieve. Instead they've relied on quantity over quality to get their sub numbers, and that philosophy does the consumer no good IMO as we are left with a ton of mediocre/disposable games.

Sony's reorganization again only implies to me that their philospohy is to gain a blockbuster by finding the largest audience thru a platform rather then finding the largest audience through a quality product regardless of platform.

Definitely an interesting read, i love reading these while I am compiling on IRC :)

The article is right about SOE not messing up the games. Really look at who was developing some of the  the game prior to the acquisition by SOE:

Matrix - Warner Brothers

Vanguard - Sigil

POTBS - FLS (not acquired)

SWG - LA/SOE

These games with the exception of SWG, were ruined by their original crew before getting put on the station pass. It appears to me that SOE sticks with putting their most effort on their own big name titles, EQ and EQ2. While I was never a EQ player,  was an original pre-order, day 1 EQ2 player. I enjoyed it alot and from what I have seen it has only gotten better. Planetside was ok for its time, but honestly after the first few months folks realized they could go back to their own free FPS games and have just as much fun.

For  all the love or hate, SOE is moving in the new direction of MMO's. Namely: RMT and PC/Console gaming and they are not the only company to do it. NCSoft is rolling out NCCoin as well. Soe is going to have a small uphill battle with their Console MMO's mostly due to their reputation from other games they owned in the past, but the good part for them is thay are starting this basically unchallenged.

My 2 cents.

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Originally posted by BaronJuJu
The article is right about SOE not messing up the games. Really look at who was developing some of the  the game prior to the acquisition by SOE:
Matrix - Warner Brothers
Vanguard - Sigil
POTBS - FLS (not acquired)
SWG - LA/SOE
These games with the exception of SWG, were ruined by their original crew before getting put on the station pass. It appears to me that SOE sticks with putting their most effort on their own big name titles, EQ and EQ2. While I was never a EQ player,  was an original pre-order, day 1 EQ2 player. I enjoyed it alot and from what I have seen it has only gotten better. Planetside was ok for its time, but honestly after the first few months folks realized they could go back to their own free FPS games and have just as much fun.
For  all the love or hate, SOE is moving in the new direction of MMO's. Namely: RMT and PC/Console gaming and they are not the only company to do it. NCSoft is rolling out NCCoin as well. Soe is going to have a small uphill battle with their Console MMO's mostly due to their reputation from other games they owned in the past, but the good part for them is thay are starting this basically unchallenged.
 
My 2 cents.

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This means they are bad developers AND bad analysts of other people's work.

We'll see how well the Agency does, but thus far, unimpressive.

Originally posted by Fishermage

 

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Originally posted by BaronJuJu
The article is right about SOE not messing up the games. Really look at who was developing some of the  the game prior to the acquisition by SOE:
Matrix - Warner Brothers
Vanguard - Sigil
POTBS - FLS (not acquired)
SWG - LA/SOE
These games with the exception of SWG, were ruined by their original crew before getting put on the station pass. It appears to me that SOE sticks with putting their most effort on their own big name titles, EQ and EQ2. While I was never a EQ player,  was an original pre-order, day 1 EQ2 player. I enjoyed it alot and from what I have seen it has only gotten better. Planetside was ok for its time, but honestly after the first few months folks realized they could go back to their own free FPS games and have just as much fun.
For  all the love or hate, SOE is moving in the new direction of MMO's. Namely: RMT and PC/Console gaming and they are not the only company to do it. NCSoft is rolling out NCCoin as well. Soe is going to have a small uphill battle with their Console MMO's mostly due to their reputation from other games they owned in the past, but the good part for them is thay are starting this basically unchallenged.
 
My 2 cents.

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Regardless of how you spin it, SOE has made either unsuccessful acquisitions or been unsuccessful in developing their games. They have yet to match the success of their first game.

 

This means they are bad developers AND bad analysts of other people's work.

We'll see how well the Agency does, but thus far, unimpressive.

Bad analysts of other peoples work?  No, I don't think they really ever had any intention of working on any of those acquisitions. Just pack them in the Station Pass and let them float for more $$$. It seems to have worked. 

Reguardless of how you try to spin it, SOE is doing rather well. The Agency is only going to help them and the PS3.