History
Sony Online Entertainment's history can be seen as starting with Sony Interactive Studios America (SISA), an internal game development studio of Sony that formed around 1995. In 1996, John Smedley was put in charge of SISA's development of an online role-playing video game that would evolve into the MMORPG EverQuest. Smedley hired programmers Brad McQuaid and Steve Clover who had come to Smedley's attention through their work on the single-player RPG Warwizard.
In April 1998, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) was formed by merging parts of Sony Online Ventures with Sony Pictures Entertainment. Within a matter of months after this change, Sony Interactive Studios America was renamed 989 Studios.
Towards the end of 1998, 989 Studios shifted its strategy to making PlayStation console games only. The company's computer game/online development branch spun off, initially calling itself RedEye Interactive and then soon after Verant Interactive.
EverQuest launched with modest expectations from Sony on March 16, 1999 under its Verant Interactive brand and quickly became successful. Numbers continued rising at a steady rate until mid-2001 when growth slowed. As of 2004, Sony reported subscription numbers close to 450,000. In March 2000, Verant released EverQuest: The Ruins of Kunark, the first in a long list of expansions for EverQuest.
In April 2000, Verant hired former Ultima Online developers Raph Koster and Rich Vogel forming its office in Austin, Texas to develop Star Wars Galaxies for LucasArts. SOE acquired Verant in June 2000 and eventually promoted Brad McQuaid to be its Chief Creative Officer. In October 2001, McQuaid resigned and went on to found Sigil Games Online, drawing many of the original developers of EverQuest from SOE to develop Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, an MMORPG that was released in January 2007.
Developed by Sony Online Entertainment, LucasArts released Star Wars Galaxies in 2003, which saw rapid growth as expected. Bruce Woodcock estimates that SWG reached nearly 300,000 subscribers within the year before trailing off. LucasArts has released three expansions for Star Wars Galaxies, Jump to Lightspeed October 2004, Rage of the Wookies May 2005 and Trials Of Obi-Wan November 2005.
In 2003, the company also explored relatively untouched MMO territory with the MMOFPS PlanetSide and the PlayStation 2 MMORPG EverQuest Online Adventures. PlanetSide enjoyed a reasonably successful launch, however the product never attracted wide popularity. SOE has released two expansions for PlanetSide, one a retail product called Core Combat, and a second free expansion titled Aftershock. EverQuest Online Adventures was not as successful but spawned an expansion EverQuest Online Adventures Frontiers, which is still maintained by SOE as of 2007.
The company continued the EverQuest universe through a sequel set hundreds of years after the original with the release of EverQuest II on November 9, 2004, which has seen similar success to the original phenomenon. Similar to its strategy with EverQuest, SOE has released several adventure packs and expansion packs for EverQuest II, starting with The Bloodline Chronicles in March 2005.
In November 2005, SOE added the New Game Enhancements to Star Wars Galaxies, changing many of the game's core mechanics. This upset players and critics alike, with the level of concurrent players reduced to around 10,000; relatively few for the MMO industry.
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