SOE acquired by investment firm, is now Daybreak Gaming Company

[SirRobin]

Daybreak Gaming Company

Anyone else immediately think "zombie games" after reading that?

[Remilia]

Anyone else immediately think "zombie games" after reading that?

Yup. Zombie company!!!!

[Fencers]

Totally shocking.

[Tech614]

Also, now that all roots with Sony have been cut, it sounds like SOE (not gonna start calling it DBC yet) has much more freedom to do what they will now. No more Playstation on console MMO ports, etc etc, though they still retain the naughty board of executives they have to answer to, just different name.

The first thing some of their devs said on twitter about this is talking about porting their games to Xbox One. So yea, no. Now they have to deal with the overhead of a company who is going to want their games on EVERY platform, not just PS4 ports.

[Ferocity]

That one song comes to mind... It's a daybreak, if you wanna believe!....

Hopefully it means nothing bad. SOE (Daybreak?) CM has spoken such:

Dear Players, Partners and Friends,

Today, we are pleased to announce that we have been acquired by Columbus Nova, an investment management firm well known for its success with its existing portfolio of technology, media and entertainment focused companies. This means that effective immediately SOE will operate as an independent game development studio where we will continue to focus on creating exceptional online games for players around the world, and now as a multi-platform gaming company. Yes, that means PlayStation and Xbox, mobile and more!

As part of this transition, SOE will now become Daybreak Game Company. This name embodies who we are as an organization, and is a nod to the passion and dedication of our employees and players. It is also representative of our vision to approach each new day as an opportunity to move gaming forward.

So what exactly does this mean for you? It will be business as usual and all SOE games will continue on their current path of development and operation. In fact, we expect to have even more resources available to us as a result of this acquisition. It also means new exciting developments for our existing IP and games as we can now fully embrace the multi-platform world we are living in.

Our games and players are the heart and soul of our organization, and we are committed to maintaining our portfolio of online games and pushing the limits of where we can take online gaming together.

Thank you for your continued support. See you in game!

I hope it is as he says :) EQ games have very special place in my heart.

[Blueobelisk]

The first thing some of their devs said on twitter about this is talking about porting their games to Xbox One. So yea, no. Now they have to deal with the overhead of a company who is going to want their games on EVERY platform, not just PS4 ports.

Maybe I'm not understanding. Does that mean no more Play Statuon exclusives?

[Edge-]

Maybe I'm not understanding. Does that mean no more Play Statuon exclusives?

Yes. This means they'll be out on both major consoles (because Nintendo is like a mushroom, they're off doing their own thing as usual).

[Ferocity]

Yes. This means they'll be out on both major consoles (because Nintendo is like a mushroom, they're off doing their own thing as usual).

Cough, cough, they should seriously consider PC market. And by that I don't mean crappy ports of few games once in a blue moon.

[Edge-]

Cough, cough, they should seriously consider PC market. And by that I don't mean crappy ports of few games once in a blue moon.

?

H1Z1 is out and being tested on PC first right now. PlanetSide 2 was released on PC first and wasn't even announced for consoles until years after launch. Landmark is out on PC first, and I don't think that one is making it to consoles. IIRC EQ Next will be out on PC first.

What games have they ported from consoles other than DCUO?

[Ferocity]

?

H1Z1 is out and being tested on PC first right now. PlanetSide 2 was released on PC first and wasn't even announced for consoles until years after launch. Landmark is out on PC first, and I don't think that one is making it to consoles. IIRC EQ Next will be out on PC first.

What games have they ported from consoles other than DCUO?

Sorry, for some reason I thought the talk was about Sony console department (SCE), and not SOE department, and I thought that SCE is considering to make PS games available on other consoles... I know it sounds stupid and I know I wish too much :)

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The first thing some of their devs said on twitter about this is talking about porting their games to Xbox One. So yea, no. Now they have to deal with the overhead of a company who is going to want their games on EVERY platform, not just PS4 ports.

Did I say that? If I did, I probably meant Playstation only console ports. My fault

[apepi]

Cough, cough, they should seriously consider PC market. And by that I don't mean crappy ports of few games once in a blue moon.

Looking at their games list , they have many games released on the pc. But lets be honest, looking at their list, this does not suprise me. Their games recently looks like they did not profit at all.

[Kelimbror]

This is not good news, regardless of what happy face Smedley wants to put on. I was really looking forward to EQN, but I don't have high hopes for them going forward. Hope they can recover and keep it moving though.

[prwraith]

wait a fucking minute.

EQ Next better not get touched. Or I'm going to go destroy them

[Ferocity]

This is not good news, regardless of what happy face Smedley wants to put on. I was really looking forward to EQN, but I don't have high hopes for them going forward. Hope they can recover and keep it moving though.

From reading the forums, most of people are afraid that nothing good will come out of merge, and Columbus Nova doesn't have that much good history.

Possible outcome might be like in case with ActiBlizzard and WoW, games to be watered down to oblivion to make them maximum accessible (in other words - sterilizing game, so it would be interesting for every housewife even if actual gamers will be pissed off) and cash in (there was no cash-shop in WoW before merge with Activision). I hope not, but there were already precedents with Meridian59, Neverwinter (old one), LotrO and ActiBlizzard. Games had nothing good coming for them after switch (or merge) of companies.

Still I want to stay positive. EQ games are among oldest still running MMOs. It would be just too heartbreaking to see them compromised or outright closed.

[Edge-]

http://venturebeat.com/2015/02/02/co...tainment-games

Some additional info on the deal. It appears they do have a bit of experience in dealing with gaming companies (a bit) and "want" to plan for the longterm/keep everything up and running.

We'll see, but I'm not quite ready to pull out the "doom and gloom" boots and start stomping around just yet.

[Kathranis]

I don't imagine that SOE/DGC will be changing their operations too much, but they seemed to only ever be a drain on Sony and they've always mismanaged most of their IPs. I've never had much confidence in SOE, so I don't really expect them to improve now. I hope they succeed, with EQN in particular, but their track record is just really poor.

[Ighox]

The first thing some of their devs said on twitter about this is talking about porting their games to Xbox One. So yea, no. Now they have to deal with the overhead of a company who is going to want their games on EVERY platform, not just PS4 ports.

Smedley has talked about that for years, that he really wish he could port games to xbox, now he can.

This is not good news, regardless of what happy face Smedley wants to put on. I was really looking forward to EQN, but I don't have high hopes for them going forward. Hope they can recover and keep it moving though.

They never had good funding from Sony though, so who knows, this might actually be better.
Too early to tell, but we'll see.

[Tech614]

Smedley has talked about that for years, that he really wish he could port games to xbox, now he can.



They never had good funding from Sony though, so who knows, this might actually be better.
Too early to tell, but we'll see.

They apparently had enough funding from sony to lose them $60 mil last year. By comparison The Last of Us costed Naughty Dog $42 mil to develop(and they tripled their money back in profits from the game). It's no surprise they got rid of a company bleeding them dry that wasn't even supporting their biggest money maker.

[stellvia]

What's worrisome is them stating the renamed SOE would be releasing multi-platform games for PS4 and XB1 -- when they are primarily a PC-based developer atm.

It seems highly likely EQN will get fucked over in all of this, and be forced into being multi-platform and compromising its capabilities. Or that it may be the last PC game they do, and then they will be forced to focus on gimped console and mobile games from now on =\

Really though, Sony was rather incompetent with dealing with SOE anyways. They had an integrated subscription fee for their MMOs which was good -- but why not integrate PSN access into the SOE launcher? Could have leveraged PSN to allow people to chat across all the platforms, seeing as they have the web app that allows you to chat via PSN. Although it was wonky -- I dusted off my PS3 the other day, and I couldn't seamlessly use it with my friends on PSN with their PS4s: It just said they were on another device and I couldn't send them messages or such.