Sony Online Entertainment
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| Sony Online Entertainment LLC. | |
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| Type | subsidiary of Sony |
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| Founded | summer 1995 |
| Headquarters |  8928 Terman Court San Diego, California 92121 |
| Parent | Sony Pictures Digital SCEA |
| Website | www.soe.com |
Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) is a game development and game publishing division of Sony that is best known for creating massively multiplayer online games, including EverQuest, EverQuest II, PlanetSide, and Star Wars Galaxies, which have gained hundreds of thousands of paid subscribers link.
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[edit] History
Sony Online Entertainment and Verant's history can be seen as starting with Sony Interactive Studios America (SISA), an internal game development studio of Sony that formed around 1995. In 1996, John Smedley (known to the gaming community as "Smed") was put in charge of SISA's development of an online computer role-playing game, or MMORPG that would evolve into EverQuest. Smed hired programmers Brad McQuaid and Steve Clover who had come to Smedley's attention through their work on the singleplayer RPG Warwizard.
In April 1998, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) was formed by merging parts of Sony Online Ventures with Sony Pictures Entertainment. Within a matter of months after this change, Sony Interactive Studios America was renamed 989 Studios.
Towards the end of 1998, 989 Studios shifted its strategy to making PlayStation console games only. The company's computer game/online development branch spun off, initially calling itself RedEye Interactive and then soon after Verant Interactive.
EverQuest launched with modest expectations from Sony on March 16, 1999 under its Verant Interactive brand and quickly became successful. Numbers continued rising at a steady rate until mid-2001 when growth slowed. As of 2004, Sony reported subscription numbers close to 450,000.
In April 2000, Verant hired former Ultima Online developers Raph Koster and Rich Vogel forming its office in Austin, Texas to develop Star Wars Galaxies for LucasArts. SOE acquired Verant in June 2000 and eventually promoted Brad McQuaid to be its Chief Creative Officer link. EverQuest: The Ruins of Kunark (March 2000) was the first in a long list of expansions for its hit MMORPG. In October 2001, McQuaid resigned and went on to found Sigil Games Online, drawing many of the original developers of EverQuest from SOE to develop their Vanguard: Saga of Heroes MMORPG, released January 2007.
Developed by Sony Online Entertainment, LucasArts released Star Wars Galaxies in 2003, which saw rapid growth as expected. Bruce Woodcock of mmogchart.com estimates that SWG reached nearly 300,000 subscribers within the year before trailing off. LucasArts has released three expansions for Star Wars Galaxies, "Jump to Lightspeed" October 2004, "Rage of the Wookies" May 2005 and "Trials Of Obi-Wan" November 2005.
In 2003 the company also explored relatively untouched MMO territory with the MMOFPS PlanetSide and the PlayStation 2 MMORPG EverQuest Online Adventures. Planetside enjoyed a reasonably successful launch, however the product never attracted wide popularity. SOE has released two expansions for Planetside, one a retail product called Core Combat, and a second free expansion titled Aftershock. Planetside can be played for free under a "Reserves" program, that limits character advancement, but otherwise grants full access to the game. EverQuest Online Adventures was not as successful but spawned an expansion EverQuest Online Adventures Frontiers, which is stilled maintained by SOE as of 2007.
The company continued the EverQuest universe through a sequel set hundreds of years after the original with the release of EverQuest II on November 9, 2004, which has seen similar success link to the original phenomenon. SOE has released several adventure packs and expansion packs for EverQuest II, including "The Bloodline Chronicles" March 2005, "The Splitpaw Saga" June 2005, "Desert of Flames" September 2005, "Kingdom of Sky" February 2006, "The Fallen Dynasty" June 2006, and "Echoes of Faydwer" November 2006.
[edit] Recent History
Currently, John Smedley is the CEO of Sony Online Entertainment. SOE is headquartered in San Diego, California, with additional game development studios located in Austin, Texas, Denver, Colorado and Seattle, Washington.
In January 2005, Sony Online Entertainment announced the creation of Station Publishing, a new label for distributing titles made by external developers. The first products expected from Station Publishing are Turbine's Asheron's Call: Throne of Destiny and Asheron's Call 2: Legions expansions.
SOE has produced numerous EverQuest expansions and spin-off video games, including Champions of Norrath (for PlayStation 2) and Lords of EverQuest (Windows). They published the sequel to Champions of Norrath, called Champions: Return to Arms, in February 2005.
In August 2005 SOE entered a deal with Warner Bros. Entertainment which saw the acquisition and transition of The Matrix Online to the existing line up of Station games.
In April 2006, Sony Online Entertainment, Inc. became Sony Online Entertainment LLC, owned by Sony Pictures Digital and Sony Computer Entertainment America.
In May 2006, it was announced that SOE would be co-publisher of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. However, Sigil retains full development rights, and SOE's role is only that of marketing, distribution, technical support and hosting the game servers. SOE also announced the release of Field Commander, its third game for the PlayStation Portable System.
In August 2006 , SOE announced the acquisition of developer Worlds Apart Productions, renaming the studio SOE-Denver. Worlds Apart is known for online CCGs like Star Chamber, The Lord Of The Rings Online TCG, Star Trek Online CCG, and an online CCG based on NCSoft's MMO title Auto Assault. The studio has since released an online version of the Wizkids Pirates Constructible Strategy Game.
In November 2006, SOE released its first PlayStation 3 title, Untold Legends Dark Kingdom, within the launch window of the PlayStation 3 system, which was released in North America on November 17, 2006. SOE also released Pirates Online Constructible Strategy Game, which is the online version of the Wizkids Pirates Constructible Strategy Game.
In January 2007, SOE announced that it has licensed rights from Midway Home Entertainment to develop and release six classic Midway games for PlayStation 3 Digital Download, including Mortal Kombat II, Gauntlet II, Joust, Rampage World Tour, Rampart and Championship Sprint, which will be available off of the PlayStation 3 store. The announcement came shortly after SOE released its second PlayStation 3 digital download GripShift.
On January 30, 2007, Sony Online Entertainment and Sigil Games Online launched Vanguard: Saga of Heroes.
[edit] Criticisms
SOE has received widespread criticism within online gaming communities resulting from a tendency to 'dramatically' change gameplay long after games have been released and their gameplays established. Most commonly these views have revolved around the titles Everquest and Star Wars Galaxies.
Despite efforts to improve The Matrix Online, there have been constant problems during the time the game was first transitioned to SOE. Live Events have been limited when the Live Events Team was laid off during the game's transition from Monolith to SOE as of the summer of 2005, and certain Live Events have been server-exclusive as opposed to being accessible on all servers when the game was under Monolith Productions's management due to an under-staffed development team. The Live Events are only available during regular times in the United States, but players in Europe and Asia complain that they do not have such access to such events due to the time difference, making attendance impossible [1]. A recurring problem called the "Downtown Lag" had been problematic before the game's transfer to SOE, in which latency automatically skyrockets when players enter a certain part of the Downtown district,[2] most likely as a result of merging nine servers into three.[3] Despite numerous server restarts, this problem is on-going even as of today. Rarebit, one of the Matrix Online developers, stated that the Downtown Lag is a server configuration problem, which is something that the Matrix Online development team is currently trying to fix[4] As of Feburary 23, 2007, the Downtown Lag has shifted to the eastern portion of the map, though the developers are still working on it.[5]
[edit] Titles
- Cash Guns Chaos (December 2007 - PS3 Download)
- Champions of Norrath (February 2004 - PS2)
- Champions: Return to Arms (February 2005 - PS2)
- Cosmic Rift (? - PC)
- EverQuest (March 1999)
- The Ruins of Kunark (March 2000 - PC)
- The Scars of Velious (December 2000 - PC)
- The Shadows of Luclin (December 2001 - PC)
- The Planes of Power (October 2002 - PC)
- The Legacy of Ykesha (February 2003 - PC)
- Lost Dungeons of Norrath (September 2003 - PC)
- Gates of Discord (February 2004 - PC)
- Omens of War (September 2004 - PC)
- Dragons of Norrath (February 2005 - PC)
- Depths of Darkhollow (September 2005 - PC)
- Prophecy of Ro (February 2006 - PC)
- The Serpent's Spine (September 2006 - PC)
- The Buried Sea (February 2007 - PC)
- EverQuest II (November 2004 - PC)
- The Bloodline Chronicles (March 2005 - PC)
- The Splitpaw Saga (June 2005 - PC)
- Desert of Flames (September 2005 - PC)
- Kingdom of Sky (February 2006 - PC)
- The Fallen Dynasty (June 2006 - PC)
- Echoes of Faydwer (November 2006 - PC)
- Field Commander (May 2006 - PSP)
- Infantry (computer game) (? - PC)
- Lords of EverQuest (December 2003 - PC - Developed by Rapid Eye Entertainment)
- PlanetSide (May 2003 - PC)
- Core Combat (October 2003 - PC)
- Aftershock (October 2004 - PC)
- Star Wars Galaxies (June 2003 - PC - Published by LucasArts)
- Jump to Lightspeed (October 2004 - PC - Published by LucasArts)
- Rage of the Wookiees (May 2005 - PC - Published by LucasArts)
- Trials of Obi-Wan (November 2005 - PC - Published by LucasArts)
- Tanarus (1997 - PC)
- The Matrix Online (Assumed operation of August 2005 - PC)
- Untold Legends: Brotherhood of the Blade (March 2005 - PSP)
- Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom (December 2007 - PS3)
- Untold Legends: The Warrior's Code (March 2005 - PSP)
- Vanguard: Saga of Heroes (January 2007 - PC - Co-Publishing with Sigil Games)
[edit] Station.com
SOE's Station.com is a portal to its PC, console, casual and mobile games. Players can access and download games such as EverQuest, EverQuest II, Star Wars Galaxies, The Matrix Online and PlanetSide. Station.com also provides sneak previews to new games for Sony PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3 and PSP, including Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom November 2006. In August 2006, Station.com added several games by Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment.
[edit] References
- ^ Station.com's Matrix Online forum.. SONY. Retrieved on March 17, 2007.
- ^ Matrix Report. Retrieved on March 17, 2007.
- ^ Archive of Matrix Online page. Warner Bros Entertainment Inc.. Retrieved on March 17, 2007.
- ^ Station.com's Matrix Online forum.. SONY. Retrieved on March 17, 2007.
- ^ Station.com's Matrix Online forum.. SONY. Retrieved on March 17, 2007.
