I wasn’t going to do this any more. I wasn’t going to look at NCsoft’s quarterly financials, yet again track how City of Heroes / Villains had yet again dropped in terms of revenue, make a guesstimate of how many players it still had, then move on to some other bete noire. I wasn’t going … Continue reading
Filed under Subscription / Recurring Payment …
EA BioWare Cancels Christmas, New Year…
… for its employees working on Star Wars: The Old Republic anyway. With the announcement that SWOR is launching December 20 (US) / December 22 (EU), EA BioWare have basically put the SWOR team (and related infrastructure teams) on the crunch to launch on pretty much the last possible date of this year. But MMOs … Continue reading
DCUO: Up, Up and Free-to-Play
As expected, Sony Online Entertainment have announced that DC Universe Online is going free-to-play (F2P). Starting in October – roughly 9 months following the subscription-based launch of DCUO – players can get back into Gotham and Metropolis with no money down. I could point and mock and make fun of some of the patently ridiculous … Continue reading
Star Wars: The Old Republic – The Risk in Being Too Big
There is a risk in being too big. Although the modern cliche is “too big to fail”, it is a term that originally referenced companies who were saved by Government money because their collapse would have resulted in unbearably devastation on the economy around them. In a short period of time, it seems this saying … Continue reading
DCUO: The Power of The Green
Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) had its fan gathering recently and used it (as they typically do) to announce new content and features to those in attendance. DC Universe Online got its own announcement – the Green Lantern-based “Fight for the Light” expansion, with new powers, new areas, new missions, new costumes and probably some other … Continue reading
DCUO: Price Drop (Maybe) For Australia, An Empty Cash Shop And Still Not F2P
I’ve already made fun of Sony Online Entertainment for pricing DC Universe Online weirdly in a lot of places that weren’t the United States. This might have changed with SOE’s recent price drop for the all-in-one Station Access pass, where you now pay US$19.99 to access all of SOE’s game stable (there are some details, … Continue reading
City of Heroes / Villains and LEGO Universe Go Free-To-Play
Both City of Heroes / Villains and LEGO Universe have announced that they are heading towards free-to-play / freemium payment models in the near future. This adds them to a list that has swelled recently to also include Age of Conan and Fallen Earth. This highlights to me perhaps an unexpected impact of the F2P … Continue reading
Insert Coin To Continue: Perfect World Buys Cryptic Studios
Atari has sold Cryptic Studios to Chinese online game developer Perfect World for €35 million (US$50.5m), pending the final factors of the deal coming together. I’m sure it will, which is why they announced it, so Cryptic’s ownership will be transferred over and thus Cryptic will continue under its third master after NCsoft (sure, not really … Continue reading
Cloudbursting And The Sad Case of Sony Online Entertainment
By now I’m sure you will have heard of Sony’s PlayStation Network (PSN) being hacked, 77 million account details stolen, Sony Online Entertainment having to go offline and may remain offline until the end of May. And if you haven’t, well, there you go. Bad times to be online at Sony. There are a ton … Continue reading
The Very, Very Late 2010 MMO Recap: Here Comes the New Stuff, Same As the Old Stuff
(All you have is my word that I haven’t made any substantive revisions to this document since January 30, 2011. Trust me. I’m a blogger. For a point-by-point recap of 2010, see either the January to June or the July to December articles.) 2010 was an interesting year for the MMO industry in that it … Continue reading
World Class Villains 