Based on the above - they probably paid 10 million for SOE or more up to a max of 100 million but that's unlikely.
Their goal is long term consistent value based on their about us. I would be more concerned about the IP s being canibalized for the mobile market than anything honestly. It's the biggest bang for the buck with the least amount of additional investment.
Now the crazy positive spin on this could be that Smedley went and found these guys to buy it from Sony. I say that because there was no rumor of Sony looking to sell. And why just SOE? Usually when a giant corporation makes a move to sell off parts of ownership, you hear about a deal happening first. Why would this happen? Cause Sony isn't doing well in Japan and THEIR stockholders aren't happy. This at least looks like they are doing something and the suits have time to get their golden parachute before some other loser sits on the board making more ill informed decisions. It's possible that this firm saw something with SOE new tech. Like Apple at the Xerox R&D. And just like Xerox, the parent company Sony doesn't know what they had.
An investment banker or cooperation will not care about things that much. All they care about is deathlines and investment returns. This will definately lead towards rushed releases and half baked sollutions for upcomming problems. Im pretty sure that this will lead to no good,
Thra are simply not dedicated enough.
Oh for certain,we have and are still seeing it.
EVERY single thing SOE has put out over the last 4 years or so has been super rushed and just not a valid effort.
We can skip what i know from my EQ2 and fast forward to present day.
Landmark?What is it ,how did it just come out of thin air and bounce right into making money?EASY it was a part of NEXT but they saw a quick gimmick and Voxel Farm licensing that made it easy to put literally nothing out there and make money from it.
H1Z1 :A million Zombie games so not really a surprise that any dev jumps on it.However this is yet again SOE putting out VERY little and trying to make money from it.They are charging for a game that does not even resemble half finished.
Does anyone actually think SOE is going to at least double the content in H1Z1?There actually is NO CONTENT at this present time,just a Zombie model and a rather small database for items.What i see so far is about 6 months of work,all SOE is doing is that EARLY ACCESS gimmick to make money BEFORE they should.
The TIMING was obvious they managed to rush this out there BEFORE the takeover announcement,beautiful timing.What it all adds up to is should we trust them at all?
As to everyone thinking that this new owner will be strict,we don't know what the real deal was.Smedley might have a guarantee contract,that may have been part of the deal and i have a gut feeling it is part of the deal.
The real question is WHY,did this business want to take over SOE?Does the big shot have some people telling him how and what to invest in,does he see SOE as a good way to get into some aspect of gaming?Was the deal just too good to turn down and were these new owners monitoring the books for several months prior?Perhaps that is why SOE went on that cleaning of the house,they were trying to prove to this new busiess that they could cut the overhead and losses and turn a profit.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
An investment banker or cooperation will not care about things that much. All they care about is deathlines and investment returns. This will definately lead towards rushed releases and half baked sollutions for upcomming problems. Im pretty sure that this will lead to no good,
Thra are simply not dedicated enough.
They did alright by Harmonix.
Yes ? Lets see:
Following the purchase, Harmonix underwent a restructuring in February 2011, laying off about 12-15% of the 240-person staff.[31] Shortly after this, Activision announced it was shuttering its Guitar Hero division and cancelling planned games for 2011, which many journalists considered to mark the end of the rhythm game genre; Harmonix's Director of Communications, John Drake, in response to this closure, called the news "discouraging"
You stopped a bit early:
Approximately 6 to 9 months after its sale from Viacom, Harmonix started to grow again, boosted by sales of Dance Central which led to the development of its sequel Dance Central 2 in late 2011.[39] By mid-2011, the company began developing new IP in both the mobile and social game markets, and began rehiring to aid in the development of these games.[39] Continued support of the Rock Band franchise has remained a "meaningful source of profitability" to Harmonix through 2011, according to Rigopulos.[39]Bloombergthen projected that Harmonix would post $100 million in profit in 2011, based on sales of Dance Central and continued downloadable content for the game.[40]
An investment banker or cooperation will not care about things that much. All they care about is deathlines and investment returns. This will definately lead towards rushed releases and half baked sollutions for upcomming problems. Im pretty sure that this will lead to no good,
Thra are simply not dedicated enough.
They did alright by Harmonix.
Yes ? Lets see:
Following the purchase, Harmonix underwent a restructuring in February 2011, laying off about 12-15% of the 240-person staff.[31] Shortly after this, Activision announced it was shuttering its Guitar Hero division and cancelling planned games for 2011, which many journalists considered to mark the end of the rhythm game genre; Harmonix's Director of Communications, John Drake, in response to this closure, called the news "discouraging"
You stopped a bit early:
Approximately 6 to 9 months after its sale from Viacom, Harmonix started to grow again, boosted by sales of Dance Central which led to the development of its sequel Dance Central 2 in late 2011.[39] By mid-2011, the company began developing new IP in both the mobile and social game markets, and began rehiring to aid in the development of these games.[39] Continued support of the Rock Band franchise has remained a "meaningful source of profitability" to Harmonix through 2011, according to Rigopulos.[39]Bloombergthen projected that Harmonix would post $100 million in profit in 2011, based on sales of Dance Central and continued downloadable content for the game.[40]
By mid-2011, the company began developing new IP in both the mobile and social game markets
An investment banker or cooperation will not care about things that much. All they care about is deathlines and investment returns. This will definately lead towards rushed releases and half baked sollutions for upcomming problems. Im pretty sure that this will lead to no good,
Thra are simply not dedicated enough.
They did alright by Harmonix.
Yes ? Lets see:
Following the purchase, Harmonix underwent a restructuring in February 2011, laying off about 12-15% of the 240-person staff.[31] Shortly after this, Activision announced it was shuttering its Guitar Hero division and cancelling planned games for 2011, which many journalists considered to mark the end of the rhythm game genre; Harmonix's Director of Communications, John Drake, in response to this closure, called the news "discouraging"
You stopped a bit early:
Approximately 6 to 9 months after its sale from Viacom, Harmonix started to grow again, boosted by sales of Dance Central which led to the development of its sequel Dance Central 2 in late 2011.[39] By mid-2011, the company began developing new IP in both the mobile and social game markets, and began rehiring to aid in the development of these games.[39] Continued support of the Rock Band franchise has remained a "meaningful source of profitability" to Harmonix through 2011, according to Rigopulos.[39]Bloombergthen projected that Harmonix would post $100 million in profit in 2011, based on sales of Dance Central and continued downloadable content for the game.[40]
By mid-2011, the company began developing new IP in both the mobile and social game markets
Ah yes... thanks, missed that.
They are also working on project for Samsung Gear VR (Occulus Rift competitor), made Fantasia Music Evolved for console, A City Sleeps for PC/MAC, Dance Central Spotlight for console, Dance Central 3 for console, Rock Band Blitz for console, and Dance Central 2 for console since the purchase. They also Kickstarted Amplitude and that's coming in the future and are working on a project called Chroma.
I wouldn't say that it sounds like they moved all their business to Facebook.
Sony was smart enough to get rid of this "dead weight", though they should've done it much earlier. And yes, they were always (and still are) heavily invested into video games. My PS4 is being used often enough to support this fact ;-)
As to what will happen with "Daybreak" - what usually happens in 99% of the cases like this: they will be forced to restructure itself (as it should've been done long, long time ago), "trim" some people (anywhere from 5-25%, hopefully Smedley would be the first one), have more strict deadlines implemented with lower budget to waste on procrastination ;-) Most likely will be re-sold some time later if some other corporation will show an interest in EQ's intellectual property.
I think that Sony was overly lenient with SoE. I expect that Columbus Nova will be far less forgiving and will have hard financial goals with hard deadlines.
There will even be real consequences if these goals and deadlines are missed - this actually might be really good for the current staff IMO. It will show who is up to the task and who needs to be shown the door
We can only pray you're right about this. It feels like way too many people have been coasting for a decade over at SoE.
Whether we see EQN or not now depends on how much money they have spent up to this point on it.
At this time, it might be so much, even with the revenue Landmark has generated, that they are tied into releasing it.
Sometimes it just makes makes more sense to launch and recoup as much as possible, especially when other costs such as advertising and infrastructure are as relatively cheap as they are for an established operator as SOE.
I fully see EQN launching, I must be honest. I do think that it will be the very last MMORPG made by SOE/ DBS though. I expect their next game to be something that you will play on your phone or whatever.
Whether we see EQN or not now depends on how much money they have spent up to this point on it.
At this time, it might be so much, even with the revenue Landmark has generated, that they are tied into releasing it.
Sometimes it just makes makes more sense to launch and recoup as much as possible, especially when other costs such as advertising and infrastructure are as relatively cheap as they are for an established operator as SOE.
I fully see EQN launching, I must be honest. I do think that it will be the very last MMORPG made by SOE/ DBS though. I expect their next game to be something that you will play on your phone or whatever.
Aside from the fact that this a "sunk cost fallacy", it does not even apply.
They purchased SOE for one fixed price, they did not buy the separate pieces. What will determine EQNOt!s fate is how much of the current owners money it will cost from now on versus how much revenue they expect it to generate.
Daybreak Games will go on to launch new products but Smedley has already indicated that they emphasis will be on console games and not PC games.
Whether we see EQN or not now depends on how much money they have spent up to this point on it.
At this time, it might be so much, even with the revenue Landmark has generated, that they are tied into releasing it.
Sometimes it just makes makes more sense to launch and recoup as much as possible, especially when other costs such as advertising and infrastructure are as relatively cheap as they are for an established operator as SOE.
I fully see EQN launching, I must be honest. I do think that it will be the very last MMORPG made by SOE/ DBS though. I expect their next game to be something that you will play on your phone or whatever.
So basically, EQN will be Vanguard: The Sequel.
I could only hope.
Terrible launch and mismanagement aside, I loved the core systems and design philosophy of VG.
What doesnt fit into multi-platform either profits or gine. If it goes multiplatform it will be simple crap for cash shop, or gone. I expect deadlines for current stationcash to be spent or price changes. SOE was run by gamers, their problem and their merit, now will be chopped up and filtered into just another label.
Originally posted by Ludwik C'Mon, we're not all idiots.
Quit trying to pass off this company sale as good news. It's just insulting...
Quit trying to act like any of us knows what the future holds and what's going on in the closed door meetings. I've already posted that the same company bought Harmonix and they are still doing well for themselves. Nothing is set in stone right now, we've all got to wait and see and you don't know any better than any one else what's going on.
Originally posted by justmemyselfandi So, when are they renaming Qeynos?
Qekaerbyad just doesn't have the same ring to it. Maybe Kaerbyadeq?
Couldnt possibly be getting enough money through cash shop sales currently as few people even play the game. That means it is either going to go into Open Beta really soon ( 1-2 months ) or it will be canned. The obvious choice is to see if Open Beta brings any money in ready or not.
H1Z1
A genre that makes millions no matter how bad the games are.. They will keep this game going.
EQN
Hard to say now. I was expecting early access later this year but now I am not sure. I dont think it will be cancelled as it is a big player in a big genre. I will continue to think early access this year.
Daybreaks future outside of the big 3.
I think they will make their Norrath card game as a standalone product in the future as a PC / Mobile game. We will probably see other mobile EQ games too possibly bringing back EQ Adventures on mobile platforms.
They will only do things that will increase their value in the eyes of other potential buyers. The investment group is looking for its new asset to provide quick wins while they gobble up other studios. Once done, they'll package them all together and then sell them as one studio to an interested party. That's how investment groups profit when they acquire other companies.
Maybe then should change the name from Daybreak to Sunset... SOE is headed that way. lol
Can I still get my money back for buying Landmark?
I think Landmark is the next Vanguard, no more funding and unfinished and canceled.
Why would they cancel Landmark? Almost every single asset and piece of technology that goes into Landmark goes into Everquest Next.
Things like that don't really matter, after an acquisition of such type there is only one real target, and that is profitability, and the new owners will not be so concerned about 'history' as they are about the future. The focus will no doubt be on making existing games more profitable and looking at how to release unfinished ones with absolute minimum of outlay, its probably inevitable that any games that are not near or close to completion, are likely to be dropped, or sold off.
It's going to be interesting to see what happens, that's for certain. Whether they sunset current games or not most likely depends a lot on cash flow (obviously), but more importantly, how much cash is generated from the All Access option from SoE. Looking at the current all access page H1Z1, Landmark and Dragon's Prophet are scheduled to be included into the All Access. If a good portion of cash flow is being generated by the All Access option, they will need to keep up the illusion of value. Sunsetting even one or two games from the program devalues the All Access pass outright and could wind up hurting cash flow. With the potential of EQN being added into the package only adds additional value.
I could see EQN being released to PS4 and Xbone along side the PC counterpart. FFXIV has done well for itself being available on PC and consoles. ESO is the next test with the switch to B2P and console options.
Additionally, I could also see Landmark becoming more of a standalone game with multiplayer option. Basically Minecraft+Realms model. Considering how insanely popular Minecraft has been and still is, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Landmark wasn't retooled to attempt to cash in.
This has been SoE history. Indy to bought out and back again. They did fine the first time, how they will do this time is really in their hands. I wish them the best but they dont have an easy road ahead of them. Thing I am worried about is MMOs are a long haul investment and investment groups are more about fast turn arounds. Did they know what they were getting into with SoE having 3 MMOs in development?
The sale and the company it was sold to are hard to spin into positives. The best anyone can hope for is a lack of negatives. Does this mean the cancellation of EQN? Who knows... but if it gets cancelled it won't be for any reason that would make much sense to gamers.
Real peach of a new puppet master pulling the strings.
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“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
an innovative tripple a mmo is a huge endevor...so i dunno if they will just scrap it all together or if it is already developed enough that they will look it through... at this point i really think its 50/50...they might want to turn eqn into something smaller that makes money faster, like a moba...
Comments
It's private so this isn't about short sale or stocks.
http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=106475241
Based on the above - they probably paid 10 million for SOE or more up to a max of 100 million but that's unlikely.
Their goal is long term consistent value based on their about us. I would be more concerned about the IP s being canibalized for the mobile market than anything honestly. It's the biggest bang for the buck with the least amount of additional investment.
Now the crazy positive spin on this could be that Smedley went and found these guys to buy it from Sony. I say that because there was no rumor of Sony looking to sell. And why just SOE? Usually when a giant corporation makes a move to sell off parts of ownership, you hear about a deal happening first. Why would this happen? Cause Sony isn't doing well in Japan and THEIR stockholders aren't happy. This at least looks like they are doing something and the suits have time to get their golden parachute before some other loser sits on the board making more ill informed decisions. It's possible that this firm saw something with SOE new tech. Like Apple at the Xerox R&D. And just like Xerox, the parent company Sony doesn't know what they had.
thats the positive, rainbow side of things.
Oh for certain,we have and are still seeing it.
EVERY single thing SOE has put out over the last 4 years or so has been super rushed and just not a valid effort.
We can skip what i know from my EQ2 and fast forward to present day.
Landmark?What is it ,how did it just come out of thin air and bounce right into making money?EASY it was a part of NEXT but they saw a quick gimmick and Voxel Farm licensing that made it easy to put literally nothing out there and make money from it.
H1Z1 :A million Zombie games so not really a surprise that any dev jumps on it.However this is yet again SOE putting out VERY little and trying to make money from it.They are charging for a game that does not even resemble half finished.
Does anyone actually think SOE is going to at least double the content in H1Z1?There actually is NO CONTENT at this present time,just a Zombie model and a rather small database for items.What i see so far is about 6 months of work,all SOE is doing is that EARLY ACCESS gimmick to make money BEFORE they should.
The TIMING was obvious they managed to rush this out there BEFORE the takeover announcement,beautiful timing.What it all adds up to is should we trust them at all?
As to everyone thinking that this new owner will be strict,we don't know what the real deal was.Smedley might have a guarantee contract,that may have been part of the deal and i have a gut feeling it is part of the deal.
The real question is WHY,did this business want to take over SOE?Does the big shot have some people telling him how and what to invest in,does he see SOE as a good way to get into some aspect of gaming?Was the deal just too good to turn down and were these new owners monitoring the books for several months prior?Perhaps that is why SOE went on that cleaning of the house,they were trying to prove to this new busiess that they could cut the overhead and losses and turn a profit.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
You stopped a bit early:
Approximately 6 to 9 months after its sale from Viacom, Harmonix started to grow again, boosted by sales of Dance Central which led to the development of its sequel Dance Central 2 in late 2011.[39] By mid-2011, the company began developing new IP in both the mobile and social game markets, and began rehiring to aid in the development of these games.[39] Continued support of the Rock Band franchise has remained a "meaningful source of profitability" to Harmonix through 2011, according to Rigopulos.[39] Bloombergthen projected that Harmonix would post $100 million in profit in 2011, based on sales of Dance Central and continued downloadable content for the game.[40]
By mid-2011, the company began developing new IP in both the mobile and social game markets
Ah yes... thanks, missed that.
They are also working on project for Samsung Gear VR (Occulus Rift competitor), made Fantasia Music Evolved for console, A City Sleeps for PC/MAC, Dance Central Spotlight for console, Dance Central 3 for console, Rock Band Blitz for console, and Dance Central 2 for console since the purchase. They also Kickstarted Amplitude and that's coming in the future and are working on a project called Chroma.
I wouldn't say that it sounds like they moved all their business to Facebook.
Quit trying to pass off this company sale as good news. It's just insulting...
Sony was smart enough to get rid of this "dead weight", though they should've done it much earlier. And yes, they were always (and still are) heavily invested into video games. My PS4 is being used often enough to support this fact ;-)
As to what will happen with "Daybreak" - what usually happens in 99% of the cases like this: they will be forced to restructure itself (as it should've been done long, long time ago), "trim" some people (anywhere from 5-25%, hopefully Smedley would be the first one), have more strict deadlines implemented with lower budget to waste on procrastination ;-) Most likely will be re-sold some time later if some other corporation will show an interest in EQ's intellectual property.
We can only pray you're right about this. It feels like way too many people have been coasting for a decade over at SoE.
Whether we see EQN or not now depends on how much money they have spent up to this point on it.
At this time, it might be so much, even with the revenue Landmark has generated, that they are tied into releasing it.
Sometimes it just makes makes more sense to launch and recoup as much as possible, especially when other costs such as advertising and infrastructure are as relatively cheap as they are for an established operator as SOE.
I fully see EQN launching, I must be honest. I do think that it will be the very last MMORPG made by SOE/ DBS though. I expect their next game to be something that you will play on your phone or whatever.
Aside from the fact that this a "sunk cost fallacy", it does not even apply.
They purchased SOE for one fixed price, they did not buy the separate pieces. What will determine EQNOt!s fate is how much of the current owners money it will cost from now on versus how much revenue they expect it to generate.
Daybreak Games will go on to launch new products but Smedley has already indicated that they emphasis will be on console games and not PC games.
I could only hope.
Terrible launch and mismanagement aside, I loved the core systems and design philosophy of VG.
It will all go downhill from here, no matter how some officials or this site are trying to spin it.
They've had it coming, i give them 2 years from now before heads roll.
Qekaerbyad just doesn't have the same ring to it. Maybe Kaerbyadeq?
If we have learned one thing by now, it's that do not trust a single word that comes out of Smedley's mouth.
If he says that everything is staying on course, I will assume the exact opposite.
Landmark
Couldnt possibly be getting enough money through cash shop sales currently as few people even play the game. That means it is either going to go into Open Beta really soon ( 1-2 months ) or it will be canned. The obvious choice is to see if Open Beta brings any money in ready or not.
H1Z1
A genre that makes millions no matter how bad the games are.. They will keep this game going.
EQN
Hard to say now. I was expecting early access later this year but now I am not sure. I dont think it will be cancelled as it is a big player in a big genre. I will continue to think early access this year.
Daybreaks future outside of the big 3.
I think they will make their Norrath card game as a standalone product in the future as a PC / Mobile game. We will probably see other mobile EQ games too possibly bringing back EQ Adventures on mobile platforms.
That is if they arent stripped down and sold off.
Maybe then should change the name from Daybreak to Sunset... SOE is headed that way. lol
Can I still get my money back for buying Landmark?
I think Landmark is the next Vanguard, no more funding and unfinished and canceled.
Proud MMORPG.com member since March 2004! Make PvE GREAT Again!
Why would they cancel Landmark? Almost every single asset and piece of technology that goes into Landmark goes into Everquest Next.
Things like that don't really matter, after an acquisition of such type there is only one real target, and that is profitability, and the new owners will not be so concerned about 'history' as they are about the future. The focus will no doubt be on making existing games more profitable and looking at how to release unfinished ones with absolute minimum of outlay, its probably inevitable that any games that are not near or close to completion, are likely to be dropped, or sold off.
It's going to be interesting to see what happens, that's for certain. Whether they sunset current games or not most likely depends a lot on cash flow (obviously), but more importantly, how much cash is generated from the All Access option from SoE. Looking at the current all access page H1Z1, Landmark and Dragon's Prophet are scheduled to be included into the All Access. If a good portion of cash flow is being generated by the All Access option, they will need to keep up the illusion of value. Sunsetting even one or two games from the program devalues the All Access pass outright and could wind up hurting cash flow. With the potential of EQN being added into the package only adds additional value.
I could see EQN being released to PS4 and Xbone along side the PC counterpart. FFXIV has done well for itself being available on PC and consoles. ESO is the next test with the switch to B2P and console options.
Additionally, I could also see Landmark becoming more of a standalone game with multiplayer option. Basically Minecraft+Realms model. Considering how insanely popular Minecraft has been and still is, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Landmark wasn't retooled to attempt to cash in.
The sale and the company it was sold to are hard to spin into positives. The best anyone can hope for is a lack of negatives. Does this mean the cancellation of EQN? Who knows... but if it gets cancelled it won't be for any reason that would make much sense to gamers.
In 2008, The owner of Columbus Nova's parent Russian corporation (Renova), Viktor Vekselberg was fined $38 Million by the Swiss government for securities violations
Real peach of a new puppet master pulling the strings.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED