So I wonder if The Agency and Planetside Next are going to be cancelled now.
well half right.. The Agency has been cancelled or.. discontinued.. they made a statement that they'll continue with planetside next and everquest next though.. .. i wouldnt hold my breath though.. the cuts may get deeper soon..
Smed took this gamble. He paid a lot of upfront cost for the development of DCUO. He thought he could bring console gamers into the mindset of paying monthly subscriptions, and unfortunately his gamble may have lost. DCUO is considered a MMO, it charges a monthly price, so there has to be a sizable monthly subscribers. With this layoff it seems clear they did not have enough people subscribing to DCUO.
It's too bad.
Edit: According to that link above, it doesn't affect live games including DCUO. So I could be wrong, maybe SOE just wants to (finally) downsize and focus more on the quality of games rather than quantity. That could be a good thing.
Smed took this gamble. He paid a lot of upfront cost for the development of DCUO. He thought he could bring console gamers into the mindset of paying monthly subscriptions, and unfortunately his gamble may have lost. DCUO is considered a MMO, it charges a monthly price, so there has to be a sizable monthly subscribers. With this layoff it seems clear they did not have enough people subscribing to DCUO.
It's too bad.
i hope dcuo and ffxiv's failures end the console mmorpg fad for good. they do not work together!
Smed took this gamble. He paid a lot of upfront cost for the development of DCUO. He thought he could bring console gamers into the mindset of paying monthly subscriptions, and unfortunately his gamble may have lost. DCUO is considered a MMO, it charges a monthly price, so there has to be a sizable monthly subscribers. With this layoff it seems clear they did not have enough people subscribing to DCUO.
It's too bad.
considering how badly his previous gambles went.. i'm surprised he isnt one of the ones getting canned.. but as for DCUO its not like the writing wasnt on the wall even before the game was released.. .. but i dont think DCUO is the cause of all SOE's woes.. it just didnt save them is all.. so The Agency takes the fall, and Smedley gets to roll those dice again.. next time with Planetside Next.. and Everquest Next.. .. providing further cuts doesnt end up making one of those get 'discontinued' that is.. but.. everybody has faith with Mr Smedley at the helm right... .. .. .. /... icebergs in sight.. full steam ahead!!!
Either way you look at it the remaining dev staff for DCUO will be moved 3 stats away, so there goes your monthly updates. At least until the dust settles down.
Smed took this gamble. He paid a lot of upfront cost for the development of DCUO. He thought he could bring console gamers into the mindset of paying monthly subscriptions, and unfortunately his gamble may have lost. DCUO is considered a MMO, it charges a monthly price, so there has to be a sizable monthly subscribers. With this layoff it seems clear they did not have enough people subscribing to DCUO.
It's too bad.
i hope dcuo and ffxiv's failures end the console mmorpg fad for good. they do not work together!
Edit: According to that link above, it doesn't affect live games including DCUO. So I could be wrong, maybe SOE just wants to (finally) downsize and focus more on the quality of games rather than quantity. That could be a good thing.
There is just no way to have a 3rd round of layoffs with the current one being 30% of the overall workforce not affect the current live games.
SOE can make all the claims in the world they want, but cuts that deep will have an effect somewhere and most likely everywhere.
This pretty much means that all of SOEs current games are not generating enough money to sustain the company and there isn't much to suggest that they will grow, but rather continue to decline as they have been across the board. Given the choice to support games with little hope of boosting up the company or put all their effort into games that have not released yet and have a chance to revive the companies future, which do you think they are going to choose?
This pretty much means that all of SOEs current games are not generating enough money to sustain the company and there isn't much to suggest that they will grow, but rather continue to decline as they have been across the board. Given the choice to support games with little hope of boosting up the company or put all their effort into games that have not released yet and have a chance to revive the companies future, which do you think they are going to choose?
This doesn't mean all of current SOE games are not generating enough money, it could very well mean that the latest large sum they spent on DCUO isn't paying off. They paid upfront the development cost of DCUO and licensing, and they were banking on the returns. So if the returns didn't do well, they of course would can further development of games that they aren't sure will work out, like The Agency.
They can't be doing too bad if they openly stated Planetside Next and Everquest Next will continue to be developed, and those re-assigned to San Diego will get put on those projects.
Smed took this gamble. He paid a lot of upfront cost for the development of DCUO. He thought he could bring console gamers into the mindset of paying monthly subscriptions, and unfortunately his gamble may have lost. DCUO is considered a MMO, it charges a monthly price, so there has to be a sizable monthly subscribers. With this layoff it seems clear they did not have enough people subscribing to DCUO.
It's too bad.
i hope dcuo and ffxiv's failures end the console mmorpg fad for good. they do not work together!
Amen.
FFXI was fantastic.
FFXIV was just a poorly designed game. It doesn't seem like platform matters in this area. They did a bad job at a thing that could have gone either way.
Keyboards have like 108 buttons and gaming mice go up to 17? (Most of these are mapped to keyboard keys). I prefer controller oriented interface, I think they have the potential to make the game matter more than the UI again.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug. 12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
lol Maybe this is why we didnt see an update this month.
That sucks man.
I didnt see a big future with DCUO myself as a player but i do play it casually and i do raid and ya know ive played the whole game already. Its fun as hell, it just needed a bit more to do other than dungeon grinding. But thats why i play it casually. Maybe more levels you know? More skills. Whatevs, great fun game tho.
FFXI's gameplay was cool, the graphics i thought were beautiful then, cool game but i was extatic to leave Everquests grind and FFXI was not it, WoW was tho. Ive thought about goin back and playin FFXI now tho.
Jeremiah 8:21 I weep for the hurt of my people; I stand amazed, silent, dumb with grief. Join me on TwitchFacebook Twitter
This doesn't mean all of current SOE games are not generating enough money, it could very well mean that the latest large sum they spent on DCUO isn't paying off. They paid upfront the development cost of DCUO and licensing, and they were banking on the returns. So if the returns didn't do well, they of course would can further development of games that they aren't sure will work out, like The Agency.
They can't be doing too bad if they openly stated Planetside Next and Everquest Next will continue to be developed, and those re-assigned to San Diego will get put on those projects.
I didn't mean to imply they are not making money on some games, but at the same time the trend is that soe keeps cutting resources to games, merging servers, downsizing staff, delyaing and reducing updates, etc. Soe just finally ran out of small corners to cut and extra cash grabs thrown at players. They have released everything the possibly could and the revenue hole was so large this is the result.
It is a pretty bold statement to say "they can't be doing too bad" after they just had their 3rd consecutive year of layoffs. This one being 30% of the entire staff, closing 3 studios and cancelling 1 game. I think that is pretty much a clear case of a company that is in trouble.
They can talk about their future plans to release games all they want, but they were doing that about The Agency just a few months ago. The same applies to DCU and look how that turned out.
My point was that all of their current games are not going to grow and will most likely just continue to decline more as the layoffs take effect on their ability to support them. Given the choice to support a stable filled with declining games or trying to regain some lost ground with new releases, where do you think soe is going to put the remaining resources they have left? What then will feel the effect of the layoffs?
I thinkt they're going to focus on the games they know work for them, the Everquest franchise. Here's what EQ2 producer just posted:
I'm only going to speak about "EverQuest II" because that's the project I'm authorized to speak about.
We were impacted also today. We lost two people from the team that we'll miss. I'm not going to mention who they are because I think privacy is important.
However, we still have a large team on this project, in fact, one of the largest in the company. SOE fully supports not only EQII and EQ2X, but also EverQuest and EQ Next as well. The "EverQuest" franchise is the backbone of this company and we'll do what it takes to ensure that the world of Norrath and the EverQuest games are as close to ForeverQuest(tm) as possible.
I'll post a Producer's Letter, probably next week, outlining where we're going and what we're doing in the coming year. I'm enthusiastic about it and I think you will be also. This year is going to be an extremely good year for EQII.
But today...well...today's just sad. If you know anyone that was affected, please extend your sympathies. Losing a loved job is like losing a friend. There's nothing good about it.
Smeldey was the one behind the CU and NGE and other huge decisions that changed SOE games that were once great. He is the only person at SOE that I know of who deserves the boot.
I was just about to share this info with some of my co-workers, when I loked down at the date. Tomorrow is April 1st or "April Fool's Day". I'm wondering what the odds are that this is just an April Fool's prank that SoE is playing on the public. If it is it's not very funny, but if it's not I truly feel bad for the Dev's who lost their jobs.
I was just about to share this info with some of my co-workers, when I loked down at the date. Tomorrow is April 1st or "April Fool's Day". I'm wondering what the odds are that this is just an April Fool's prank that SoE is playing on the public. If it is it's not very funny, but if it's not I truly feel bad for the Dev's who lost their jobs.
Way too damaging. They have too many games in a precocious position and though I'm subscribed to no SOE games, I'd imagine the billing cycle probably fires soon.
WoW could pull off a PR like this and laugh it off, RIFT could (but wouldn't because some subs would be lost), but other games, while not on life support, couldn't take the bullet for the sake of a joke.
Maybe you're right though and this infamous Smedley is behind it, it might be the kick that gets him fired .
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug. 12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
I thinkt they're going to focus on the games they know work for them, the Everquest franchise. Here's what EQ2 producer just posted:
I agree. The everquest IP is about the only thing of real value that SOE has left to build from. Where else can they go at this point?
Cutting staff from EQ3 or Planetside to keep support levels on their stable of dying games doesn't make good business sense. Obviously the developers of each game are going to make posts pointing to rainbows and unicorns coming to their games and that there is nothing to worry about. They can't exactly talk about how bad things are going, but there is no hiding that anymore.
The real question now is soe going to change as a result of this and will they be able to deliver? They have not exactly been producing hits since... well EQ. DCU was made by their alpha team, with a massive budget and huge marketing on 2 platforms (bigger playerbase to draw from) and it is already dying.
Sony Online Entertainment has confirmed that it is closing three offices, laying off 205 employees and cancelling production of its spy-based MMO The Agency. The studio intends to focus on developing MMOs based on its EverQuest and PlanetSide brands. "
I ve been saying that Smedley should have been replaced since the NGE debacle, not for revenge but for the lack of vision.
Suddely he put his WoW googles on and ruined one of the best PvE sandbox game (SWG), he then released games that got more shallow EQ2 > Free Realm > DCU > The Agency (probably axed by someone at Sony that has more sense than Mr Smedley)
In the end SoE was overlapping the other branch of Sony Games hence making it difficult for Sony to justify a separate brand for the MMORPG genre.
DCU could have been done easily by any of the other branches of Sony Games division, there were no need for SoE to make such game (or Free Realms or The Agency for the matter)
SoE needs to make real MMORPGs or it is better be absorbed by the Sony Games division.
The only way SoE can survive is if they can make Everquest Next a success, and it will be a success only if Smedley takes his WoW google off
I thought it could be an april fools joke too but i mean i dunno, personally i think a real good aprils fools joke is wasted when its not done on the actual day.
I suppose its april 1st in some part of the world already tho so ok.
Jeremiah 8:21 I weep for the hurt of my people; I stand amazed, silent, dumb with grief. Join me on TwitchFacebook Twitter
I only waited for this day for many years...........
Now my biggest wish is that SWG is shut down for good
They brought this on themselves and I don't have to tell anyone here of all the evil they have done to gamers.
I've watched other game companies shut down promising games but yet somehow SOE always kept crap titles alive by mysterious reasons a.k.a Star Wars Galaxies with a player base of like 5 people.
Comments
Sony: "its just... good business"
pitch the crew overboard to save the sinking ship
So I wonder if The Agency and Planetside Next are going to be cancelled now.
According to SOE, The Agency has just been discontinued. Another thread posted the link.
well half right.. The Agency has been cancelled or.. discontinued.. they made a statement that they'll continue with planetside next and everquest next though.. .. i wouldnt hold my breath though.. the cuts may get deeper soon..
http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/03/31/soe-closes-three-studios-lays-off-205-employees-cancels-the-agency-live-games-unaffected/
Well thats mildly good about Planetside Next still in the works. I hope those that lost jobs can find a new one.
Smed took this gamble. He paid a lot of upfront cost for the development of DCUO. He thought he could bring console gamers into the mindset of paying monthly subscriptions, and unfortunately his gamble may have lost. DCUO is considered a MMO, it charges a monthly price, so there has to be a sizable monthly subscribers. With this layoff it seems clear they did not have enough people subscribing to DCUO.
It's too bad.
Edit: According to that link above, it doesn't affect live games including DCUO. So I could be wrong, maybe SOE just wants to (finally) downsize and focus more on the quality of games rather than quantity. That could be a good thing.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
i hope dcuo and ffxiv's failures end the console mmorpg fad for good. they do not work together!
considering how badly his previous gambles went.. i'm surprised he isnt one of the ones getting canned.. but as for DCUO its not like the writing wasnt on the wall even before the game was released.. .. but i dont think DCUO is the cause of all SOE's woes.. it just didnt save them is all.. so The Agency takes the fall, and Smedley gets to roll those dice again.. next time with Planetside Next.. and Everquest Next.. .. providing further cuts doesnt end up making one of those get 'discontinued' that is.. but.. everybody has faith with Mr Smedley at the helm right... .. .. .. /... icebergs in sight.. full steam ahead!!!
I was about 5 days from buying this game.
Glad this news didn't come a week later. Sorry it came at all.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug.
12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
Either way you look at it the remaining dev staff for DCUO will be moved 3 stats away, so there goes your monthly updates. At least until the dust settles down.
Amen.
There is just no way to have a 3rd round of layoffs with the current one being 30% of the overall workforce not affect the current live games.
SOE can make all the claims in the world they want, but cuts that deep will have an effect somewhere and most likely everywhere.
This pretty much means that all of SOEs current games are not generating enough money to sustain the company and there isn't much to suggest that they will grow, but rather continue to decline as they have been across the board. Given the choice to support games with little hope of boosting up the company or put all their effort into games that have not released yet and have a chance to revive the companies future, which do you think they are going to choose?
This doesn't mean all of current SOE games are not generating enough money, it could very well mean that the latest large sum they spent on DCUO isn't paying off. They paid upfront the development cost of DCUO and licensing, and they were banking on the returns. So if the returns didn't do well, they of course would can further development of games that they aren't sure will work out, like The Agency.
They can't be doing too bad if they openly stated Planetside Next and Everquest Next will continue to be developed, and those re-assigned to San Diego will get put on those projects.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
FFXI was fantastic.
FFXIV was just a poorly designed game. It doesn't seem like platform matters in this area. They did a bad job at a thing that could have gone either way.
Keyboards have like 108 buttons and gaming mice go up to 17? (Most of these are mapped to keyboard keys). I prefer controller oriented interface, I think they have the potential to make the game matter more than the UI again.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug.
12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
lol Maybe this is why we didnt see an update this month.
That sucks man.
I didnt see a big future with DCUO myself as a player but i do play it casually and i do raid and ya know ive played the whole game already. Its fun as hell, it just needed a bit more to do other than dungeon grinding. But thats why i play it casually. Maybe more levels you know? More skills. Whatevs, great fun game tho.
FFXI's gameplay was cool, the graphics i thought were beautiful then, cool game but i was extatic to leave Everquests grind and FFXI was not it, WoW was tho.
Ive thought about goin back and playin FFXI now tho.
Jeremiah 8:21 I weep for the hurt of my people; I stand amazed, silent, dumb with grief.
Join me on Twitch Facebook Twitter
I didn't mean to imply they are not making money on some games, but at the same time the trend is that soe keeps cutting resources to games, merging servers, downsizing staff, delyaing and reducing updates, etc. Soe just finally ran out of small corners to cut and extra cash grabs thrown at players. They have released everything the possibly could and the revenue hole was so large this is the result.
It is a pretty bold statement to say "they can't be doing too bad" after they just had their 3rd consecutive year of layoffs. This one being 30% of the entire staff, closing 3 studios and cancelling 1 game. I think that is pretty much a clear case of a company that is in trouble.
They can talk about their future plans to release games all they want, but they were doing that about The Agency just a few months ago. The same applies to DCU and look how that turned out.
My point was that all of their current games are not going to grow and will most likely just continue to decline more as the layoffs take effect on their ability to support them. Given the choice to support a stable filled with declining games or trying to regain some lost ground with new releases, where do you think soe is going to put the remaining resources they have left? What then will feel the effect of the layoffs?
I thinkt they're going to focus on the games they know work for them, the Everquest franchise. Here's what EQ2 producer just posted:
I'm only going to speak about "EverQuest II" because that's the project I'm authorized to speak about.
We were impacted also today. We lost two people from the team that we'll miss. I'm not going to mention who they are because I think privacy is important.
However, we still have a large team on this project, in fact, one of the largest in the company. SOE fully supports not only EQII and EQ2X, but also EverQuest and EQ Next as well. The "EverQuest" franchise is the backbone of this company and we'll do what it takes to ensure that the world of Norrath and the EverQuest games are as close to ForeverQuest(tm) as possible.
I'll post a Producer's Letter, probably next week, outlining where we're going and what we're doing in the coming year. I'm enthusiastic about it and I think you will be also. This year is going to be an extremely good year for EQII.
But today...well...today's just sad. If you know anyone that was affected, please extend your sympathies. Losing a loved job is like losing a friend. There's nothing good about it.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
Smeldey was the one behind the CU and NGE and other huge decisions that changed SOE games that were once great. He is the only person at SOE that I know of who deserves the boot.
Play as your fav retro characters: cnd-online.net. My site: www.lysle.net. Blog: creatingaworld.blogspot.com.
I was just about to share this info with some of my co-workers, when I loked down at the date. Tomorrow is April 1st or "April Fool's Day". I'm wondering what the odds are that this is just an April Fool's prank that SoE is playing on the public. If it is it's not very funny, but if it's not I truly feel bad for the Dev's who lost their jobs.
Way too damaging. They have too many games in a precocious position and though I'm subscribed to no SOE games, I'd imagine the billing cycle probably fires soon.
WoW could pull off a PR like this and laugh it off, RIFT could (but wouldn't because some subs would be lost), but other games, while not on life support, couldn't take the bullet for the sake of a joke.
Maybe you're right though and this infamous Smedley is behind it, it might be the kick that gets him fired
.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug.
12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
I agree. The everquest IP is about the only thing of real value that SOE has left to build from. Where else can they go at this point?
Cutting staff from EQ3 or Planetside to keep support levels on their stable of dying games doesn't make good business sense. Obviously the developers of each game are going to make posts pointing to rainbows and unicorns coming to their games and that there is nothing to worry about. They can't exactly talk about how bad things are going, but there is no hiding that anymore.
The real question now is soe going to change as a result of this and will they be able to deliver? They have not exactly been producing hits since... well EQ. DCU was made by their alpha team, with a massive budget and huge marketing on 2 platforms (bigger playerbase to draw from) and it is already dying.
Another link.
Sony Online Entertainment has confirmed that it is closing three offices, laying off 205 employees and cancelling production of its spy-based MMO The Agency. The studio intends to focus on developing MMOs based on its EverQuest and PlanetSide brands. "
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108895-UPDATE-SOE-Closing-Studios-Cutting-205-Staff
I ve been saying that Smedley should have been replaced since the NGE debacle, not for revenge but for the lack of vision.
Suddely he put his WoW googles on and ruined one of the best PvE sandbox game (SWG), he then released games that got more shallow EQ2 > Free Realm > DCU > The Agency (probably axed by someone at Sony that has more sense than Mr Smedley)
In the end SoE was overlapping the other branch of Sony Games hence making it difficult for Sony to justify a separate brand for the MMORPG genre.
DCU could have been done easily by any of the other branches of Sony Games division, there were no need for SoE to make such game (or Free Realms or The Agency for the matter)
SoE needs to make real MMORPGs or it is better be absorbed by the Sony Games division.
The only way SoE can survive is if they can make Everquest Next a success, and it will be a success only if Smedley takes his WoW google off
I thought it could be an april fools joke too but i mean i dunno, personally i think a real good aprils fools joke is wasted when its not done on the actual day.
I suppose its april 1st in some part of the world already tho so ok.
Jeremiah 8:21 I weep for the hurt of my people; I stand amazed, silent, dumb with grief.
Join me on Twitch Facebook Twitter
People losing their jobs makes me this happy too.
No wait..... it doesn't.