SOE Points To The Old Republic For Star War Galaxies Closure
Sony Online Entertainment announced last month that Star Wars Galaxies will close for good come this December, citing a number of reasons, including expiring contracts and more importantly, the coming launch of BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic.
"It was time to turn it off. We have a contractual relationship that's ending in 2012, The Old Republic launching, a bunch of other business things with LucasArts," said CEO John Smedley. "And then you look at the odds of a pretty large portion of the audience moving to TOR, which looks like a terrific game. I think that's going to be really well-received by the population."
"But it hurts," Smedley added. "We knew, with the checkered past [of Galaxies], that this would not be a popular decision, but it was just one that we had to make."
Smedley also noted that if Galaxies were wholly owned by SOE like EverQuest, this would not happen by a long shot.
"That's the problem with licenses: they end," Smedley said. "We're going to continue to do some licensed work, but we're largely going to stick to original IP [going forward] because then we won't have this issue. We'll never have this problem with EverQuest."
"Could we have renegotiated? Maybe, but I don't think that would be the right thing for the company," he said.
