So any bets on his next gig working for the FBI hunting down Lizard Squad? Lizard Hunter (instead of Nazi Hunter)?
Basically Batman
Basically Batman
SOE Becomes Daybreak / Russian shutdown
- Thread starter Laerazi_sl
- Start date
spronk
FPS noob
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it frankly sounds like he is getting promoted, going from ceo of a small part of the hedge funds burgeoning tech empire to becoming maybe a bigger part of it. or it could just be a preamble to him getting booted, but its quite possible you may see him take on a bigger role managing all their little bought companies. which is expected, places like that keep promoting incompetent but fast talking people until they get to a spot where they can really do some big damage.
Anomander Rake
Golden Knight of the Realm
- 704
- 14
I stand by my statement. MMO gamers are very loyal to the genre. Even ill-recieved, and frankly, poorly designed games like SWTOR and ESO are financial successes. For SoE to do so badly considering they were a studio that was once on the frontiers of MMO development shows how terribly the company has been steered.
Good games are designed by gamers. I feel like that is what has been missing.
Malakriss
Golden Baronet of the Realm
- 12,330
- 11,713
SWTOR was not a financial success. The barbie dress-up game they made after to whore themselves out was a financial success. They will still be down to 4 NA servers by the end of the year.
It's being used to launder money through stolen CC numbers.
It's being used to launder money through stolen CC numbers.
Fight
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
- 4,559
- 5,363
I don't think we will ever really know Smed's true contribution to the EQ franchise, so I will give him some benefit of the doubt. Though, to come out of the gates with such a phenomenal success and surprise like EQ and to piss away the next 16 years is pretty sad.
EQ:Next appears to be an ill conceived shit show. Let's just start with the name, EQ:Next, and you can see the lack of vision and direction. It is embarrassing. It is games development by committee, where nobody has a strong enough voice to say, "here is what it is, and here is where we are going". It is a tech demo that stole WoW's art-style and lost it's way.
At the end of it all, Smed got taken down by some bro on the other-side of the world, that strangely, looks like his kid. Smed obviously had the time, money, and resources to try to do something with the EQ brand, and the only thing we have to show for it is progression servers of the same fucking game, 16 years later... depressing. It hurts man.
EQ:Next appears to be an ill conceived shit show. Let's just start with the name, EQ:Next, and you can see the lack of vision and direction. It is embarrassing. It is games development by committee, where nobody has a strong enough voice to say, "here is what it is, and here is where we are going". It is a tech demo that stole WoW's art-style and lost it's way.
At the end of it all, Smed got taken down by some bro on the other-side of the world, that strangely, looks like his kid. Smed obviously had the time, money, and resources to try to do something with the EQ brand, and the only thing we have to show for it is progression servers of the same fucking game, 16 years later... depressing. It hurts man.
Tor made well over 100 million in 2013 and then again in 2014. I hate the game, but the financial numbers are there. I mean, Tor is about to release an expansion. Games that are losing money dont release expansions. Did I mention that I hate SWToR?
Mughal
Bronze Knight of the Realm
- 279
- 39
Basically Batman only if Batman was first a salaryman of a Japanese conglomerate and then hired (and fired) by the Russian mafia.
Mughal
Bronze Knight of the Realm
- 279
- 39
SWTOR was a crater, as it burned about $200m in development and EA spent $800m to acquire BioWare for that (analysts predicted that the actual worth of that company was under $50m)
Utnayan
I Love Utnayan he’s awesome
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You would be surprised how many people are buying Cartel Packs, new outfits, vehicles, etc.
hodj
Vox Populi Jihadi
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Xaxius
Lord Nagafen Raider
- 531
- 147
It sad what people consider to be expansions these days. SWTOR expansions are the equivalent in size and scope to FFXIV quarterly content patches. It's pathetic.
In the article you link, 2 million units sold, and people were paying 15$ a month at the time. That was 2012. 2013 and 2014 both made over $100 million. The game did not meet expectations for players OR investors, but it is profitable.
Im not going to get into a back and forth about SWToR beyond this, but there is money to be made in the industry(obviously), even with sub-par MMO's. The fact that SoE, with a squad of artists and programmers, couldn't make a great game baffles me.
Utnayan
I Love Utnayan he’s awesome
- 16,290
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If you look at it in a different context - it's easily explained.
Let's say a guy from the ghetto who had nothing before but has a huge talent for football, gets a shot at the NFL and becomes a star. They had no upbringing or teaching on how to handle money, they are surrounded by idiots that are going to bleed them fry for cash and a free ride, and the success that person had was never fully anticipated, that person was never groomed for it, and subsequently, like most idiots in the NFL, squander all their money, never thinking of the future, live for the here and now, and are just flat flat out stupid. Within 5 years, they are bankrupt. Then they realize how stupid they were, and realize they wish they could go back 15 years ago and change it.
SOE was the culmination of not anticipating success, had wild success, lots of cash flowing in, and a bunch of morons in charge that didn't know how to handle that success. Their posse was the good ol' boy club, their mentality boiled down to being the leaders of the Posse, and after they couldn't think of anything other than how to make the same amount of money as they did before, without the drive and hunger for what made them the success in the first place. They chased the dollar days from yesteryear instead of focusing on the products. Which in turn led to that mentality from the top down and it completely fucked up the entire organization and anyone that was brought up in that environment. It even continued with Sigil because they were "Trained" that way.
Poof. There goes SOE. A group of bankrupt football players without a leg to stand on wondering how it all got so bad, and they can only blame their dumbass self.
Agraza
Registered Hutt
- 6,890
- 521
Poor leadership leads to systemic failure. We all watched hundreds of mediocre guilds repeatedly fail despite skilled players and/or simple mechanics. The greatest sin of their leaders was often a failure to hold people accountable, putting the entire guild on the level of the weakest member, but there were other issues. MMOs are such a long time investment and so ridiculously complex that it's very easy to hide mediocrity and fail to pivot away from failing designs.
Inability to abandon poor design elements is what frustrates me the most about SOE specifically. EQ and EQ2 both have sacred cows in their design which hurt the game, but which the pathetic few remaining players are acclimated to, so they refuse to change them for fear of losing even more subscriptions. When your project is more interested in losing less than gaining more you should be concerned.
Meanwhile, like Blizzard, they failed to actually understand an element of their product's appeal to the public, and have been very late to embrace an element that has grown outside their company, classic servers, and for Blizzard MOBAs. When people are working for free to create a whole separate game within your game, you should get on that. Like Napster, Kazaa, etc. predating the digital music service industry we see today, p99, DoTA, and the like were a hint to a better understanding of these companies' customer base, and one which their leadership responded to very slowly.
Inability to abandon poor design elements is what frustrates me the most about SOE specifically. EQ and EQ2 both have sacred cows in their design which hurt the game, but which the pathetic few remaining players are acclimated to, so they refuse to change them for fear of losing even more subscriptions. When your project is more interested in losing less than gaining more you should be concerned.
Meanwhile, like Blizzard, they failed to actually understand an element of their product's appeal to the public, and have been very late to embrace an element that has grown outside their company, classic servers, and for Blizzard MOBAs. When people are working for free to create a whole separate game within your game, you should get on that. Like Napster, Kazaa, etc. predating the digital music service industry we see today, p99, DoTA, and the like were a hint to a better understanding of these companies' customer base, and one which their leadership responded to very slowly.