Sony Set To Close Four Major MMO Titles
by ted2112, HSM team writer
In a major announcement this week from Sony Online Entertainment, SOE confirmed the closing of four Sony flagship MMO titles. SOE will shut down the servers on March 31st, effectively ending Free Realms, Star Wars: Clone War Adventure, Wizardry Online and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes.
The statement from Michele Cagle, Sony’s Senior Director of Global Communications:
“At Sony Online Entertainment, we are always evaluating our portfolio to ensure we’re providing players with the best gameplay experiences. At times, as part of this commitment, we have to make the difficult decision to sunset a game so we can refocus our resources on other areas in the best interest of our company and player community.”
The closing of these titles represents a major chunk of Sony Online Entertainment – and the closing of Free Realms in particular came as a shock to the MMO community. Free Realms was a family-friendly title that crossed over to the PS3 and had a major machinima community. Free Realms at its peak had numbers in the millions and released their own separate announcement:
“This game has been a true labor of love at SOE and we’ve experienced amazing memories with our players over the years. The game has reached a point in its life cycle where players are moving on to other games. We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished with this game and have unwavering praise for our players who joined us along the way. The game will sunset on March 31, 2014.”
SOE also said that game staff would be reassigned to other projects in the works and stressed that no game staff would be losing their jobs because of this move. Declining numbers is the most likely cause for the shutdown.
Sony Online Entertainment is a separate company from Sony’s Computer Entertainment divisions that Home is a part of. However, the closing of any Sony MMO is being carefully watched in the Home community with an already nervous feeling of the future of Home. I can say that the major difference between Home and the closing of these games is one of economic stability in Home, with a (hopefully) more mature and monetary supportive user base.
The thing that rattles nerves with these kinds of announcements, however, is one of being caught off-guard and a frantic scramble of players suddenly forced to move on. For some, major time and money is involved in these virtual communities and the feeling of loss and disappointment can be powerful. These out-of-the-blue closings can also make many of us wonder what we would do in these players’ situations if we here at Home were to be in their shoes.
…What would we do? Because, inevitably, at some point, Home’s two surviving regions are going to have the same announcement. It may not be tomorrow, or next week, or next month, but to all things there is a time — and with the PS4, GTA Online, Final Fantasy XIV and more, Home is starting to look a bit long in the tooth.
It’s always a shame when the plug is pulled on a fellow MMO, but I guess it’s the nature of the beast. MMOs ask us to get involved. To build and invest with our time and money and create something. And when that is successful, it’s a wonderful feeling. The success, however, can be fleeting for too many MMOs — and the winds of change are eventually felt by every gamer in time. We must cherish the memories we have of our games above the game itself.
Let’s support our soon-to-be MMO refugees from SOE and extend a welcome from the Home community. Let’s do what we can to be a landing spot, in case Home is where some of these players’ paths end up. My condolences to them on their loss.
January 26th, 2014 by ted2112 | 2 comments
ted2112 is a writer and a Bass player that has been both inspired and takes to heart Kurt Vonnegut words...."we are here on planet Earth to fart around, and don't let anyone tell you different."
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Everything has a beginning, everything has an end, there is no way to escape from that reality of life. For those who are losing these games I can only hope that they cherish the memories and find something new to invest their time in. Enjoying things while you have them and look for new experiences when they are gone, that is the cycle of the gaming industry. Nice read as always Ted.
MMOs are such a drain on resources etc because to keep them going you need new things to do and buy, plus being easy to use which free realms wasnt, be lucky to put a sentence together without it censoring a word. Being regional and broken into smaller parts has helped home though, because where home struggled to make money in Asia and Japan it meant the same fate didnt effect the other regions. and where home has then struggled to make money in America and EU regions they have either removed the space or just left it broken or neglected. But that has a side effect on whether Sony would want something that has a percentage of abandoned parts on its flagship console, it would have to make a load of money for it to be viable.