Crazy work is keeping me from posting much of value lately. And sleep, or lack thereof.  But being tired helps me not think, which is oddly relaxing.

Daybreak Shenanigans

That Sony sold off SOE makes sense. They are restructuring and have zero presence in the PC market… so you knew something was coming.  So quickly after the Joystiq news is what threw people off.

That the new company cleaned house? Also not surprising. That’s the first thing that happens in all takeovers. Either they move the HQ or clear off the top. I honestly can’t think of a single takeover where this didn’t happen.  I’m sorry people lost their jobs but there’s just something really weird in the gaming field where everyone is a temp worker.  It’s the main reason I am not in that field.

On the other hand, I despise nearly every single decision SOE has made in the past 10 years. They have super dedicated folk, granted, but the top level decisions have been borderline criminal.

EQ2’s F2P conversion was worse than SWTOR. Wilhelm has quite a few posts, and I think Bhag does as well.  It was a joke and they’ve rebuilt the model multiple times over the years.

Nearly everything about Planetside2 makes my eyes bleed – they had to nerf actual content and force people to the cash store to make money.

Landmark is the breaking point for people buying alpha at stupid prices.  People paid hundreds of dollars to test a system, play it for a few weeks, then stop playing altogether.

EQNext is a pipedream people actually believe will launch.  I’m serious here.  Anyone, who in their right mind thought that this game would ever leave the drawing table, at any point, I have a bridge to sell you.

H1Z1 is the straw that broke the internet.  Great concept, Smed decides to put in $ based actions, again in alpha, where it was clearly listed it wouldn’t happen, even the week before.

SOE deserves everything it got. For all the quirky innovation the folks on the bottom tried, someone at the top gave a call to Bobby K and asked “how can I squeeze more blood”.

The good news from this is that great people are going to find jobs elsewhere because they have a good standing.  The bad news is that not enough people got fired.  The worrisome news is that a new company is coming in, and will be asking some tough questions.   Should be interesting to see what happens in the months that follow.