Gamespot confirmed the rumor. As Shild said, “I like my post more”.
Interesting bits:
Raph Koster, chief creative officer of Sony Online Entertainment, and one of the leaders behind the development of Star Wars Galaxies, has left the company, SOE reps confirmed today.
“Although his current interests take him into areas that don’t match SOE’s strategic goals, we wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors.”
Koster’s departure wasn’t the only piece of scuttlebutt making the rounds today, but it was perhaps the most accurate. There was also a rumor circulating that SOE would soon lose the rights to the Star Wars license–and suffer the fate of having to delete or otherwise retire the “Star Wars” component of its Galaxies MMORPG title; SOE called that speculation “completely untrue.”
Three cheers for “creative divergences”! First time that it is stated quite clearly.
That the whole SWG wouldn’t have switched hands in a week was already quite obvious. It’s not like the game is full property of Lucasart and I’m not sure that SOE will sell lightheartedly the whole code and infrastructure to whoever is going to take over. I’m pretty sure that right now noone knows how things will go, not even those involved. SOE is probably pissed off beyond what you can imagine. They are going to fight over this, it won’t be all smileys anymore.
That things are going to change is obvious. SWG went through the last revolution (NGE – Neon Genesis Evangelion) not because it was overly successful to the point that they wanted to burn some money, but because the previous situation wasn’t commercially viable. It wasn’t satisfactory. Well, if it wasn’t satisfactory back then you can bet that they aren’t overly pleased right now.
The countdown started. Things will blow up. There will be fireworks.
“Ring around the rosey
Pocket full of posies
Ashes, ashes
They all fall down”
Let’s just hope that the “winners” won’t be the same people responsible, swapping sides and wearing new masks. Because those who lose are always the players.
Always.