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http://www.massively.com/2009/07/17/breaking-news-sony-online-entertainment-lays-off-41-full-time-w/ "In a move to increase operational efficiency and reduce costs, Sony Online Entertainment has eliminated 5% of its full-time workforce, equaling 41 people. SOE looks forward to continuing its leadership role in the online games industry as it celebrates the highly successful launch of Free Realms, the 10-year commemoration of its ground-breaking EverQuest franchise, and the continued performance of the company's other games."
This was also posted about on the O-Boards. Virrago directed ev1 to the official statements and said they could make no other comments. |
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Why not fire Smed and hire 20 more devs instead?
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Originally posted by Sandbox
Yeah, those 41 people probably made about the same as Smed does, and eliminating Smed would definitely make for a good PR move. Tried: LotR, CoH, AoC, WAR, Jumpgate Classic |
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ArcAngel3
 Elite Member
Joined: 9/25/06
What makes a good MMO? Good quality, good customer service, good business model, good fun. |
Originally posted by Esquire1980 Highly successful launch of Free Realms, ground-breaking Everquest franchise, continuing leadership role in the online games industry = the elimination of 5% of its full-time work-force. Hmm. I don't even think the person who wrote this believes the overly optimistic tone of the message. The highly successful launch of Free Realms has been questioned by those finding themselves listed as active players of the game, despite never once playing it. It also happens to be free to play. Revenue seems to depend on people being drawn into RMT (e.g. choosing to be a pet trainer for free, but then agreeing to pay extra cash for an actual pet). I guess "Free Catalogue" isn't hooking as many people into the RMT market as SOE may have hoped. Everquest was ground-breaking many years ago; and since they've added RMT shops (after Smed said he was opposed to this), even its players are protesting. The other games show "continued performance." What does that mean? I guess that they're still running, although I suppose this no longer applies to the Matrix online. Judging from apparent financial woes, I'd guess that the RMT loot lottery in SWG isn't making up for the lost subscriptions and bad P.R. it seems to be generating either. If former players of SOE games created an "I told you so list" for Smed, I wonder how many pages long it would be? I've watched SOE games continue to shed players and staff over the years. A bad experience for all I'm sure; especially those who were looking to a job with SOE to meet their financial needs. Very sad. I share the opinion of others that bad leadership has been a factor. If Smed was a coach or General Manager in the NHL, he'd have been sacked years ago. |
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FikusOfAhazi
 Hard Core Member
Joined: 12/05/05
"all of the places and people belong, to the puzzle but one of the peices is gone. And it's you" |
The usual people should be stopping by this thread to blame it on the swg vets anytime. Pre-cu servers prolly could have saved a few of those jobs..but a a couple million in profit is nothing for SOE we're told. Is Smed still laughing his way to the bank? 
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It is hard times right now, most gaming companys fire some employes. A few ones still make a lot of cash, like Blizzard, Maxis and Valve but it is actually hard to say if this have something to do with Smedley incompetence, the fact that SOE have a lot of games they work on right now (that costs a lot of money and generates none), the fact that Sony loses money or just that people are poorer and many who played 2 games go down to one. SOE might get back into business if their PS2 games actually sells, the market there is almost empty and a desent game could make the same impact Everquest did to the PC market. Or not. But I am not surprised. EA have already kicked a lot more people, Mythic is just a shadow what it used to be today. NC soft and Funcom kicked some, not sure about Turbine but even Blizzard have started losing subs now and might have to fire people sooner or later. So I would say this have a lot to do with the world market and little with RMT and Smedley. But Smed might still be fired of course, we can always hope even though I think he actually is innocent, or at least almost this time. |
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when wow came out it was the biggest succsess ever and all the other companys where going We gotta do to the same thing or else we wont catch the audience!!11! it was like when knightrider was losing ratings so they added a black guy to pimp kitt up and look at how they failed there lol people never learn 
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FikusOfAhazi
Hard Core Member
Joined: 12/05/05
"all of the places and people belong, to the puzzle but one of the peices is gone. And it's you" |
RMT is bad during a major recession. Hard to justify 5 bucks for virtual items. To really enjoy them you spend 50-100 dollars. RMT is probably hurting all around the industry. Too bad the whole Industry does what Smed does. 15 bucks for an mmo that includes everything for a month of entertainment is the cheapest entertainment around.
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So what dev did they let go? |
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The Matrix Online is closing the 31st I think. |
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Originally posted by Little-Nemo
The last dev on MxO left a month before it was announced the game was shutting down. MxO is uneffected by the current layoffs, even if it wasn't already shutting down.
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Wake up people, seriously last month in the US alone 467,000 lost there jobs ( thats only in 1 month), so how's that for being brought back down to earth instead of making a whole topic about only 41 people who lost there jobs, seriously it seems some need to get some real perspective. Of course like I said in the news section on this site it is always bad for people to lose their jobs, but common....lets try to keep it real............. ------------------------------------------------------------ |
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JestorRodo
 Hard Core Member
Joined: 2/24/05
Avoid the DarkDownload - Come to MMOfringe.com Love that Jestor! |
41 more to join our cause ..but these folks have floor plans! The Turkey Day Rodo Report! Love that Jestor! |
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Why couldn' it be 95%?! "Life is not judged by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." |
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"The price of freedom is steep." - Zack Fair, Crisis Core
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Dracus
 Apprentice Member
Joined: 7/14/04
"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars." |
Once again SOE has been caught Spinning... With all of the market pumping of the hype for Free Realms success, and yet layoffs.
Welp, there you go, millions of registered accounts <> (do not equal) the same as millions of active accounts. And that is why... Conservatives' pessimism is conducive to their happiness in three ways. First, they are rarely surprised -- they are right more often than not about the course of events. Second, when they are wrong they are happy to be so. Third, because pessimistic conservatives put not their faith in princes -- government -- they accept that happiness is a function of fending for oneself. They believe that happiness is an activity -- it is inseparable from the pursuit of happiness. |
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proof that even a depression has its upside!
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ArcAngel3
Elite Member
Joined: 9/25/06
What makes a good MMO? Good quality, good customer service, good business model, good fun. |
Originally posted by Reklaw And Blizzard has just posted 66 new job opportunities: http://www.blizzard.com/us/jobopp/ That's real. It also may give the laid off employees from SOE a better place to work. I hope they find success and more security elsewhere. 45 postings for jobs at NCsoft: They're also hiring at Cryptic and Turbine, in case anyone's looking. |
Originally posted by ArcAngel3 And Blizzard has just posted 66 new job opportunities: http://www.blizzard.com/us/jobopp/ That's real. It also may give the laid off employees from SOE a better place to work. I hope they find success and more security elsewhere. 45 postings for jobs at NCsoft: They're also hiring at Cryptic and Turbine, in case anyone's looking. Like I said 467,000 people lost their job in just one month and here we are debaten something that minor compared to the things happening around us. Not sure what your links try to do here, as any company yes even if you look for Sony Online you will find job oppertunities. I also wonder WHO are the people that got fired, I mean for all we know it was the cleaning crew and now developers might need to clean up after themselfs? Who knows?, or do some of you have inside info about who got fired to make topics like this? Also like to mention how some of you react about the "world leader ship" I mean again lets get real and we all see and know for a fact that many gamecompany's use the phrase, while almost anyone into MMO's knows for a fact that it seems to be Blizzard that is truly the world leader in MMO space regardless what any other company makes it out to be. ------------------------------------------------------------ |
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Originally posted by Reklaw Like I said 467,000 people lost their job in just one month and here we are debaten something that minor compared to the things happening around us. Not sure what your links try to do here, as any company yes even if you look for Sony Online you will find job oppertunities. I also wonder WHO are the people that got fired, I mean for all we know it was the cleaning crew and now developers might need to clean up after themselfs? Who knows?, or do some of you have inside info about who got fired to make topics like this? Also like to mention how some of you react about the "world leader ship" I mean again lets get real and we all see and know for a fact that many gamecompany's use the phrase, while almost anyone into MMO's knows for a fact that it seems to be Blizzard that is truly the world leader in MMO space regardless what any other company makes it out to be.
For me, it's the spin that SOE puts out. FR new release is supposed to have millions playing with all kinds of $ and sucess associated with it. What I got from Arc's post, is the gameing Cos that run their games for subscriptions are all doing pretty good weathering the recession. I would anticipate that online gameing might just see a little boost in sales due to people not wanting to spend money on high-ticket items and still needing someting to do in their off hours. $15 bucks a month is pretty cheap entertainment. As for who got laid off, official SOE channels are very tight-lipped. The official announcement is all any1 is going to get. However, we have already seen a goodbye post from Moonlight on the SWG forums giving the lead GM thier duties. |
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ArcAngel3
Elite Member
Joined: 9/25/06
What makes a good MMO? Good quality, good customer service, good business model, good fun. |
Originally posted by Reklaw Like I said 467,000 people lost their job in just one month and here we are debaten something that minor compared to the things happening around us. Not sure what your links try to do here, as any company yes even if you look for Sony Online you will find job oppertunities. I also wonder WHO are the people that got fired, I mean for all we know it was the cleaning crew and now developers might need to clean up after themselfs? Who knows?, or do some of you have inside info about who got fired to make topics like this? Also like to mention how some of you react about the "world leader ship" I mean again lets get real and we all see and know for a fact that many gamecompany's use the phrase, while almost anyone into MMO's knows for a fact that it seems to be Blizzard that is truly the world leader in MMO space regardless what any other company makes it out to be.
What I'm saying is that despite the recession, some MMO companies appear to be expanding. Others, like SOE, seem to be shrinking. So, the recession in and of itself does not appear to be hitting all MMO companies equally. Other factors seem to be at work. Business model could be one factor, so could quality assurance and customer satisfaction. I'm sure there are many factors over and above the recession. I agree that Blizzard has more claim to the "leadership" title than SOE; at least in terms of how I think of leadership. It also appears that their business model is very up front and reasonably stable regarding costs and what you can expect to receive. They also seem to excel at quality assurance, population growth, and population retention. Their marketting is very well done, and comes across as honest and accurate. They have had no massive rewrites of their live game. Now, compare SOE on those bench marks: business model stability, quality assurance, population growth, population retention, accurate marketting, massive rewrites. All of these variables bring one word to mind: ouch. I'm persuaded that all of these variables are highly significant regarding the success of an MMO. |
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FikusOfAhazi
Hard Core Member
Joined: 12/05/05
"all of the places and people belong, to the puzzle but one of the peices is gone. And it's you" |
It could be anything. Not necessarily to do with SOE's performance. They could be doing fine. It's a recession, that's the only excuse someone needs to make themselves look better on paper. Although most reports are showing a drop in gaming profits for this recession, does that include mmorpgs? I dont know. Maybe they scrapped dcu on ps3 since marvel just got the diablo 1 and 2 and battle.net guy. they mine as well.
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ArcAngel3
Elite Member
Joined: 9/25/06
What makes a good MMO? Good quality, good customer service, good business model, good fun. |
Originally posted by FikusOfAhazi
My favourite part of your comment: "it's a recession, that's the only excuse someone needs to make themselves look better on paper." I agree. Having said that I'm sure it's one factor in the mix; one of many. I think it's long past time SOE was subjected to a rigorous, third-party, organizational review--starting from the top-down. When you're laying off 5% of your full-time workforce, and your major competitor is on a hiring blitz, crying "recession" is a loser's game imo. |
Originally posted by Reklaw Like I said 467,000 people lost their job in just one month and here we are debaten something that minor compared to the things happening around us. Yes there is a recession, but overall the video game market (PC and Console) are still seeing growth last year and this year. This isn't just a case of 'time are hard everywhere', because it doesn't apply in this case. Soe has a self proclaimed massive hit on their hands, so there should be no reason to lay people off in a market that is still seeing growth. They should be taking bags of money to the bank, but most indications say they are not.
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honestly when an employer like soe witch by the way has a big futur with free realm ,i dont believe wow should employ those guys ,if soe laid those off its for a reason espacially dev.i mean blizzard would probably have to keep them so short a leach it wouldnt be productive blizzard has to keep with successfull game maker or dev.like employe from ubisoft,or ea wich makes ton of great successfull game even tho im mmo they do soso ,the sim ,all the sport game etc soe only real good is in console in computer game the just begin to have succes again with free realm so it makes me wonder what all these computer game maker have been doing all these years while blizzard was busy churning out bc ,wotlk ,soon doom3,starcraft 2 etc blizzard as too big a squedule to bother with ex employe from soe that have been sleeping on the jobs for years ,i believe soe made a good call in lowering their workforce loli bet free realm as probably been conceived from a partnership loland prob no computer game maker from soe touched it it must be frustrating for soe to have all those employe and almost no succes to speak of like blizzard check on xfire warcraft 3 is still among the top hell that game is so old nobody remember when it was made imagine soe seeing that they must like "/$%"%/?%$/?&%$&* and rightly so |
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