Well shit. Daybreak is the publisher for Standing Stone Games for both Dungeons and Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online. Daybreak going dark would spell problems for both those properties in addition to all the former SOE titles.
Yeah, they operate tons of ancient MMOs. They’re a MMNH1 .
- Massively Multiplayer Nursing Home2
- This was an unnecessary postscript
Well, SSG sort of addressed this in it’s live stream kicking off the 11th Anniversary Event in LOTRO. They basically said “we don’t think it will effect LOTRO and DDO”, which is a very odd stance to take given that, while both IPs are still wholly owned and operated by SSG, they rely heavily on Daybreak for server space and payment processing, so anything that interrupts Daybreak’s operations will impact SSG’s games.
Perhaps SSG knows something we don’t, or perhaps they’re confident in their ability to switch hosts/publishers quickly should Daybreak find itself being shuttered…but with the way Daybreak seems to be handling the whole affair, I don’t think I share SSG’s confidence.
Did you coin MMNH? That’s pretty good.
Yes1.
- Yes I did.
I think MMNH is a solid business model going forward…if They Break Games goes under, there may be an opportunity here.
If they’re in maintenance mode, certainly. But Daybreak was still updating their games with new content-- EQ1 and EQ2 expansions came out last year.
Still seems like a good way to make money, assuming you’re not backed by Russian oligarchs.
Just 'cause.
I’m frankly astonished selling EQ1 expansions still makes money. I mean, how many subscribers could EQ1 have in 2018? 50k, maybe? So you bring in ~$2 million for the expansion, but can you make it for that? That pays for a team size of what, 20 people max? For a MMO expansion?!
The team is probably 6 or 7 people at this point.
I have a friend at Daybreak who is saying there’s currently a decent sized layoff occurring right now. I can’t say whether the above items are causal, but it’s hard to believe they wouldn’t be. I don’t want to speak out of turn, however; I have no idea why it’s happening, and no matter the ownership of the company, layoffs hit the employees in the trenches, and suck for the people involved.
That really sucks. I interviewed for a position there back in December and didn’t get it. I was bummed because I thought it would be a good fit for me, but boy am I feeling like I dodged a bullet on that one.
They don’t seem to be introducing any new tech (unlike Planetside 2, which a year(?) or so ago introduced a construction system), at least the last time I peeked in about two years back. A couple artists, animators and level designers would seem to be all that’s needed.
You’re really substantially underestimating the amount of work that goes into a MMO expansion. They are enormous undertakings. Not saying EQ1 expansions take as much work as WoW ones, but they aren’t 5 guys in a room type projects either.
They’re still subscription-based, aren’t they? So I think you have to factor in that new expansions also leads to player retention and continued subscriptions/MT purchases/etc.
That makes sense at first glance, but my feeling is once you start going into the red on box sales, an argument that you’re helping overall retention is difficult to sell. But of course we don’t know for sure.
Nobody believes you, @DaybreakGames
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/regarding-daybreak’s-ownership.248981/
That’s some serious Trumpian/Cohenian walkback there.
Daybreaks banks will have had to independently verify the full ownership of Daybreak to allow it to continue trading. As its still running, I’m sure they’ve told the truth. Any banks of note will have Vekselbergs/Renova subsidiaries deauthorised within 24 hours of the OFAC release.