by Judy on Feb. 20, 2008 @ 11:59 a.m. PST | Filed under
News
In response to online survey findings, Sony Online Entertainment today announced the G.I.R.L. scholarship program (Gamers in Real Life) with The Art Institutes that's designed to educate and recruit more women into the video game industry. The prize is a $10,000 tuition scholarship for The Art Institutes school at which winner is currently enrolled and a paid internship of up to 10 weeks at an SOE studio. The entry deadline is May 31, 2008.
by Rainier on Feb. 13, 2008 @ 1:27 p.m. PST | Filed under
News
Sony Online Entertainment is showing its love for the players this week by hosting a variety of in-game events themed around Valentine’s Day in EverQuest II, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, EverQuest Online Adventures and even Planetside. Read more for details...
by Rainier on Jan. 7, 2008 @ 6:22 a.m. PST | Filed under
News
Emergent Game Technologies announced that Sony Online Entertainment has selected Gamebryo to create titles for the PlayStation Network.
by Rainier on Dec. 23, 2007 @ 2:32 a.m. PST | Filed under
News
Late last night, there was a little bit of a stir when
Reuters ran a story based on an article that appeared in the
Indian edition of the Economic Times newspaper stating that India's Zapak Digital Entertainment, part of the Anil Ambani-led ADAG group, was about to acquire Sony Online Entertainment for $300 million. Shortly thereafter, SOE CEO John Smedley
strongly denied the rumor, "No idea who made this up. We are in discussions with various companies in India about bringing our games to this growing market but that's it. We aren't for sale."
by Rainier on Dec. 12, 2007 @ 11:57 a.m. PST | Filed under
News
EverQuest II players will enjoy yet another year of the Frostfell celebration while the EverQuest online trading card game, Legends of Norrath, will start a new tradition. Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is celebrating the holiday season in Telon, and in a galaxy far, far away; Star Wars Galaxies players will enjoy the experience of Wookiee Life Day.
by Rainier on Nov. 28, 2007 @ 8:04 a.m. PST | Filed under
News
Sony Online Entertainment plans to set up a
development studio in India for online games that would have local content, such as Ramayan 3329, a comic book written by self-help guru Deepak Chopra and filmmaker Shekhar Kapur that was inspired by a famous Indian epic about a battle against demons.
by Rainier on June 25, 2007 @ 10:50 p.m. PDT | Filed under
News
Pirates of the Burning Sea is a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game set in the Caribbean islands of the 18th Century. You play a bold sea captain, master of your own ship and crew, as you seek glory and adventure across the trackless deep. While Flying Labs stays indie, and is in charge of the development, SOE will handle the distribution and marketing.
by Rainier on May 15, 2007 @ 1:00 p.m. PDT | Filed under
News
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is an MMORPG with a vast, seamless, immersive virtual world filled with elements of familiar High Fantasy, including traditional themes and more. SOE announced it has acquired both Vanguard and its developer Sigil Online, re-hiring 50 people from the original staff.
by Rainier on Oct. 19, 2006 @ 3:06 p.m. PDT | Filed under
News
SCEA today announced its debut game titles and unveiled the online strategy for its PS3 system. More than 20 first- and third-party titles will be available, with most titles expected to retail under $60.
by Rainier on Aug. 10, 2006 @ 10:05 a.m. PDT | Filed under
News
Sony Online Entertainment today announced that it has acquired key assets of independent online trading card game developer Worlds Apart Productions. Key employees of Worlds Apart will form the core of the new SOE-Denver, integrating into SOE's worldwide group of studios.
by Rainier on July 20, 2006 @ 12:10 p.m. PDT | Filed under
News
Sony Online Entertainment today announced a licensing agreement with Epic Games to use their Unreal Engine 3 for the development of next-generation console and PC-based games. SOE will utilize this technology for a number of future projects, including the DC Comics-based game currently under development at SOE-Austin.
by Rainier on April 4, 2006 @ 1:55 p.m. PDT | Filed under
News
Sony Online Entertainment and Planetwide Games announced today that a web version of Planetwide's Comic Book Creator is under development for subscribers of SOE's Station Players service.
by Rainier on Jan. 31, 2006 @ 1:28 a.m. PST | Filed under
News
Since its launch Everquest II has grown to 36 servers and expanded from its initial 369 zones to over 600. To make sure users frequent populated areas and make the gameplay more continuous,
Sony Online decided to combine a few of its existing servers. On Feb 2, 2006, people will be allowed to move their character for free, while at the same time, Update #19 will be going live, and some database maintenance will occure to prepare for the server moves.
by Rainier on Jan. 27, 2006 @ 7:18 p.m. PST | Filed under
News
SOE announced their preparations for the 19th update to EverQuest II, slated to launch on game servers Feb 2. This update will bring significant changes to the game, and is a precursor to the launch of the new Player vs. Player game servers, scheduled for late February. Read more for more details and massive fix list.
by Rainier on Jan. 1, 2006 @ 1:30 a.m. PST | Filed under
E3 - Pre - E3 2003
Sony Online introduced several new video games and provided details on soon-to-be-released titles during the 2003 E3. The new games announced include Lords of EverQuest, a real-time strategy game for the PC and EverQuest Online Adventures: Frontiers, an expansion for North America's only massively multiplayer online game for the PlayStation2. Additionally, SOE provided new information for upcoming titles PlanetSide, the first massively multiplayer action game set in a persistent world and EverQuest II, the parallel universe to the original EverQuest PC MMO role-playing game.
"The coming year is going to be huge for us," said John Smedley, president, Sony Online Entertainment.
by Rainier on Jan. 1, 2006 @ 1:30 a.m. PST | Filed under
E3 - Post - E3 2003
by Rainier on Oct. 28, 2005 @ 3:42 p.m. PDT | Filed under
News
At the Austin Game Conference Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley revealed that SOE is looking to break from its traditional subscription-based MMO formula. Plans are on the board to release a game by next fall that can be played free of its monthly charges. With this new approach SOE hopes to make up for the steady cash flow by attracting more people to the game and make up revenue by continuously adding new weapons, levels and special items.
by Rainier on July 21, 2005 @ 1:49 a.m. PDT | Filed under
News
After concluding a two week pre-launch trial phase SOE launched its online auction site,
Station Exchange, providing players a secure method of buying and selling the right to use in game coin, items and characters in accordance with SOE's license agreement, rules and guidelines.
by Rainier on July 14, 2005 @ 10:44 a.m. PDT | Filed under
News
SOE's online auction site,
Station Exchange, has been in the pre-launch phase for a couple of weeks now and will officially launch on July 20. Yesterday the NDA for pre-launch participants was lifted and made the web site viewable to non-participants. Station Exchange provides players a secure method of buying and selling the right to use in game coin, items and characters in accordance with SOE's license agreement, rules and guidelines.
by Judy on June 17, 2005 @ 8:44 a.m. PDT | Filed under
News
Sony Online Entertainment and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment today announced exclusive long-term licensing agreements allowing SOE to develop a DC Comics massively multiplayer online game for PC and next generation consoles, as well as the acquisition of The Matrix Online game by SOE.
by Rainier on April 20, 2005 @ 10:08 a.m. PDT | Filed under
News
Sony Online Entertainment today announced plans for Station Exchange, the official auction site for SOE games. Station Exchange, scheduled for launch in late June, will be the official, secure way for EverQuest II subscribers to buy and sell the rights to use characters, items and coin in a player-to-player auction setting. The community has already raised questions about how SOE is going to handle item farmers or incompetent players just "buying" a high level character without either knowing to play the game, or having earned it.
by Rainier on April 6, 2005 @ 11:47 p.m. PDT | Filed under
News
Sony Online has continued efforts since launch to keep the EverQuest II game world free of players who use exploits to gain an unfair advantage, especially with bots and macros. Over 700 accounts were banned for various forms of cheating and exploiting during the past 2 weeks alone. It is our goal to continue investigations into suspicious in-game activity and ban accounts with violations. "A few hundred 'bot subscriptions just aren't worth the money when compared to keeping the game fun for hundreds of thousands of people" said EverQuest II Senior Producer Scott Hartsman.
by Rainier on March 3, 2005 @ 12:50 a.m. PST | Filed under
News
In a
statement posted on the official Everquest 2 website, Sony Online claims "EverQuest II continues to grow at an amazing rate, not just in the number of players that have fallen in love with the game's rich, entertaining content, but also in the physical size of the world. We've got over 350,000 people logging in to our servers every week, with no delays or wait times and the game they are playing is only getting better." An obvious remark aimed at Blizzard's continuous server problems with World of Warcraft. SOE offers
by Judy on Feb. 11, 2005 @ 4:17 p.m. PST | Filed under
News
Sony Online President John Smedley looks back at when EQ first luanched, but also towards the future and speaks out on where he sees Everquest going, and MMO's in general. Read more for the rest of his community statement ...
by Judy on Feb. 3, 2005 @ 4:34 p.m. PST | Filed under
News
Sony Online Entertainment announced today that it has expanded operations with the formation of a development studio in Seattle, Washington. SOE Seattle will be headed up by Matt Wilson, who some of you may remember from Microsoft’s cancelled Mythica MMO. Ed Fries (formerly of Microsoft) will also be working with the SOE Seattle team in an advisory role, but will not be joining the company full-time.
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