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I thought I put on my tinfoil hat of conspiracy theorizing (+5) and play Karnak in regards to how the online gaming market is shaping up (among other factors too). So, I've decided to focus mainly on the fate of SOE within a time frame of five to ten years. First, let me state that this isn't to be taken as 100% serious because I'm no market analysis, nor would I even be good at it because I always second guess myself, but I still hope that this post will spawn a thoughtful consideration of where online gaming is going and maybe how we all think or feel about (or even what we should do about it too). Second, this isn't a troll post, so any so-called counter-trolling or stealth trolling is pointless in light of the previous point, and thus I hope you take your time reading what I state and consider it critically and be ready to either refute my prediction or even pose some of your own. With all that said, lets start with my three predictions of SOE's fate.
1) Less than 'okay' games in the SOE bill will either be put on full maintenance mode or totally shut down within five years.
Whether it's MxO, VGSOH, or Planetside these games are not generally the sort that one would see as investment successes in light of their costs to maintain and update. And these are the sort of games that outside of the SOE's own inordinate amount of capital 'mass' would have fell within six months alone. So, it doesn't seem to follow that these are games that SOE is going to keep in light of their re-alignment under SCE which signals that SCE is seeking to make an established footing in online gaming for the PS3 versus it's experimentation as done with the PS2.
2) Any freed personnel from other closed games or maintenance mode games will go to other SCE specific projects under SOE.
Things like the Agency or Home will probably be part of a larger cluster of games that will be offered by SCE through SOE on the PS3 online platform. As such, these games will probably also be PS3 only in light of the added costs of attempting to work on the PC platform (IBM and Apple). And it would be self-defeating to split focus between the PC market and the console market (SCE's main profit maker).
3) SOE within ten years will effectively cease to exist.
This prediction I think is one that anyone can contest on a large number of variables, but I think it will be the one prediction out of all three that will stand up to long term analysis if one considers the one viable reason for SCE being put in charge of SOE: the gaming industry is focusing on the online experience and SOE has assets for just that. As such it makes little sense for Sony proper to have a superficial (and legal) division of authority and personnel in which is more costly to maintain and pointless too. Ultimately, a consolidation of these two companies, where the best personnel go to SCE and the extraneous bits of SOE are either sold off or simply abandoned for the sake of efficiency and profit margins, will benefit Sony proper in the long run more so than keeping SOE and SCE apart.
I hope you enjoyed reading my little "tinfoilery" because it was fun to write in light of a few things that have come on the radar in regards to electronics, one of which is the most significant: HP has developed the first practical (economically wise and engineering wise) memristor which could signal the birth of real AI computing (among other things). Such developments don't have their effects felt until they're squarely upon us as a de facto standard for all computing, but it's one that I believe will take hold within the coming decade as memristors can virtually take the place of any complex circuit design that NAND and NOR gates can produce in themselves. Thus, this development and others will accelerate software development too in regards to decades old theoretical constructs being made practical.
-- Brede
Comments
Your predictions are interesting, however I seriously doubt SOE will totally destroy itself in the short term. When push comes to shove SOE has proven that they can pull something decent out of their ass, take a look at what they did to EQ2. Terrible launch, but they knew that if they screwed up the EQ franchise they were facing major long term problems so they got their act together and made it a decent game.
The SOE pass titles they have are minimal investments on their part, games like MxO, Vanguard, Planetside, PotBS, even SWG receive very little developer attention yet probably make them a decent profit.
Even seemingly unprofitable games like Planetside do make a profit for two reasons: One, SOE has like three people working on Planetside full time, and 2. the European and Chinese markets. (Especially Chinese in Planetside's case) keep the game running.
In conclusion I think SOE will continue as one of the premier MMO companies in existence, however I think their glory days of EQ1 are long over. Now they face some pretty stiff competition from Asian developers, Blizzard, and EA/Mythic.