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Push Square Opinion: Sony's Server Shutdown Strategy Is Making the Publisher a Laughing Stock

Deleted member 34239

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A laughing stock? Who in the industry is laughing at Sony? A terrible article title and a terrible take. Do people think companies just run servers/services forever? Do we have access to the internal figures for player activity prior to shut down? How can you possibly judge or claim that their server shutdowns are premature without data? This is just uninformed, sensationalist "journalism" at best. A trashy article like this belongs on the likes of N4G not on ERA.
 
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VX1

VX1

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Oct 28, 2017
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joe_zazen said:
It is part of the pattern of penny pinching that makes me think they wont be able to compete now that we have MS et. al. investing in gaming. The conservative bean counting is really going to damage their competitiveness.

Some of my problems:

-e3 exit to save money, less interest in following their company
-shit NOISEY fans on hardware to save money
-fewer ps+ games
-no game pass competitor
-not allowing things like EA access
-closing of studios without replacing thrm
-narrowing of the focus of the types of games they make
-a barebones PR and community relations with poor communication

I get the sense that Sony is squeezing PlayStation as they want to make as much money as they can while the sun shines instead of actually trying to compete. If that is the case we are at peak PlayStation right now.

Edit: we wont really know their strat though until we see what they bring to next gen. but the signs are bad.
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I fully agree.End of this Push Square article is the best:

"The most amusing thing is that Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida recently said that the publisher wants to develop more online multiplayer titles. At this rate, give us all a break and don't even bother."

Yup.
 
TheGummyBear

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Jan 6, 2018
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SG-17 said:
Were people concern trolling like this when Microsoft shut down the entire original Xbox Live?
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How many games on the original Xbox Live had swathes of content that required the servers to access?

It's not the same thing, and the article even points this out in the first sentence. We live in an era where online functionality and digital sales are becoming more central to industry.

Erasing games from sale, and blocking off content within those said games, is not a good look from the perspective of preserving video game history.
 
RedHeat

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Oct 25, 2017
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Meh, I agree with others here saying that shutting down the servers for a dead game from a now defunct company isn't really a big deal.
 
joe_zazen

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Oct 25, 2017
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nolifebr said:
Spend that kind of money to show the same games AGAIN and be criticised by many isn't very smart. They know what people expect from them in these big events, and if they aren't go to deliver, is by far the best to stay out of it.

What they really need to do is stop to announce games so early and buy/create some studios to generate even more content throughout the whole generation without skipping a year or two.
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If ms can use e3 to create buzz and hype without showing big blockbuster new games (which is what they've done the last couple of years), so could sony.
 
cmdrshepard

cmdrshepard

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Oct 30, 2017
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I think it is a great editorial that speaksto not just Sony but publishers in general that if they continue to make online focused games they need to be able to meet the costs of running it ongoing for a longer period of time then they might have in the past with simple tacked on MP.

However I will say that Sony has been especially poor of the major publishers as of late and I think how they handled Gravity Rush 2 less than a year after release wanting to shut down the (relatively minor granted) online leaderboards and other online features was really disgusting to see. Especially since as has been said, PS+ is only going up in costs but they are shutting down their self published games sooner then I and assume many other consumers expect.
 
JaseC64

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Oct 25, 2017
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We need more of this to be in gaming news. We need to fight back on this. Shit is ridiculous. Take $1 off every member ps+ membership to maintain the servers you greedy asshats.
 
Darknight

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It's examples like this that shows the point that I always make that it's not a question of if, but a question of when something will go down digitally. Once it's no longer in the financial interest of the company, a company will just shut it down removing all access from everyone. You're at the mercy of whoever owns it and their financial interest. I hope as more and more people see things like this shut down from major companies that are still thriving, that people will understand why people push back on the all digital future. I hope it's a dose of reality that wakes some people up about what going all digital really means and what you give up. It's not some unlikely event to happen way far down the line either.
 
Betty

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joe_zazen said:
If ms can use e3 to create buzz and hype without showing big blockbuster new games (which is what they've done the last couple of years), so could sony.
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Maybe Sony don't want to rest on multiplatform titles too strongly like MS did last E3, but even then Sony did show off Resident Evil 2 & Kingdom Hearts 3 among their first party offerings and people still generally gave their last E3 a thumbs down.

As long as Sony are bringing out games and they feel they don't have enough new content to show up at E3 then I don't see the issue.
 
benzopil

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ogo.on.the.go said:
A laughing stock? Who in the industry is laughing at Sony? A terrible article title and a terrible take. Do people think companies just run servers/services forever? Do we have access to the internal figures for player activity prior to shut down? How can you possibly judge or claim that their server shutdowns are premature without data? This is just uninformed, sensationalist "journalism" at best. This is a very trashy article that belongs on the likes of N4G.
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Why are we paying for PS+?

Equanimity said:
This can't be right, roughly 100 players world wide is atrocious
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Those are profiles of trophyhunters, and they got their platinum a few years ago. In reality more people are playing Driveclub, of course.
 
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Equanimity

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get2sammyb said:
PSN Profiles only tracks people who sign up for the site. It's currently tracking 3.9 million PSN accounts, and we know there are over 100 million worldwide I believe.
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Ah, I didn't know this, thanks for the info.

Btw, what do you make of this post?

ogo.on.the.go said:
A laughing stock? Who in the industry is laughing at Sony? A terrible article title and a terrible take. Do people think companies just run servers/services forever? Do we have access to the internal figures for player activity prior to shut down? How can you possibly judge or claim that their server shutdowns are premature without data? This is just uninformed, sensationalist "journalism" at best. A trashy article like this belongs on the likes of N4G not on ERA.
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nolifebr

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joe_zazen said:
If ms can use e3 to create buzz and hype without showing big blockbuster new games (which is what they've done the last couple of years), so could sony.
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But Microsoft can create buzz and hype because people don't expected much from them after a slow generation until now. People already expect AAA-GOTY Contender announcements from Sony every year.
 
BabyDontHurtMe

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I wouldn't say laughingstock but this is mainly Sony being incompetent in handling their multiplayer exclusives. Sony's strong suit has always been single-player and they've KILLED it in that front. However, multiplayer is lackluster and their premature server closures is indicative of that. Sony needs to have more faith and respect for the community and keep the servers alive when a community is active. If it's at maybe a couple thousand at most and less than 500 at least, why bother shutting it down? That's still dedicated gamers playing your games. I hope John Kodera learns from his mistakes and gets things right next gen.
 
GMM

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Oct 27, 2017
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Running servers aren't free, but the rate Sony is closing down services is well beyond everyone else and there should be an expectation for these services to run for as long the platform they are played on are relevant.

A well structured modern server infrastructure should scale according to daily/hourly demand and the costs of having them running idle without user activity should be minimum and using shared resources like database servers could make the per service cost much less per month.

The expense of running these services should be pennies in the grand scheme of things and I'm really curious how this was engineered if it's that big of a cost to keep them up even with very low activity.
 
Blackleg-sanji1

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At some point I think we all know these servers gonna come down at some point but the rate Sony does it compared to others is kinda bad
 
Betty

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benzopil said:
Why are we paying for PS+?
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Same reason we paid for Live, to play online.

Sony sweetened their service by offering free games, which MS followed.

Now Sony have reduced their free monthly games and are doing things like this because they likely believe they can get away with it.
 
Zeouter

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Title is a bit strong, but the message / article is close to the mark, it's not a good look when they're making so much money.
 
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Equanimity

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Ichi

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I mean if there aren't enough people playing, pretty sure they'd be losing money renting out servers.
 
[Sigma]

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Split/Second's dev was shutdown by Disney back in 2011 but yet Split/Second still has its servers up somehow. And no doubt has less players than Driveclub.
 
Hucast

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ogo.on.the.go said:
A laughing stock? Who in the industry is laughing at Sony? A terrible article title and a terrible take. Do people think companies just run servers/services forever? Do we have access to the internal figures for player activity prior to shut down? How can you possibly judge or claim that their server shutdowns are premature without data? This is just uninformed, sensationalist "journalism" at best. A trashy article like this belongs on the likes of N4G not on ERA.
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Context is that millions of people pay for ps+ and that sony is a healthy company for it. It makes them look greedy af, hence they become a laughing stock.
 
molnizzle

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Mediking said:
They have the audacity to remove Persona 5 or Final Fantasy XV or Kingdom Hearts 3 or Witcher 3 or any other game I love? Yeah, its time to start war.

Gravity Rush 2 wasn't even a good game to begin with. A sequel so boring that I almost fell asleep. Not throwing shots cuz I love the 1st one.

DriveClub is prolly facing licensing issues and Sony doesn't wanna deal with it heading into Playstation 5.

So I'm not even upset BUT its anti consumer and dumb.
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You understand that some people love DriveClub, right? The world doesn't revolve around you.
 
Precious Tritium

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ghostcrew said:
I think Starblood Arena was the most recent example? Not as high profile as Gravity Rush 2 but kinda more damning. It's an online only game that cannot be played offline even in the single player modes. It only came out two years ago and it'll be totally unusable for people who bought it as of July this year.
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It was basically unusable way before then because literally no one was playing it.
 

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Equanimity said:
It's a rather harsh opinion, but he does raise an arguable point that I would like to see someone discuss on here, if possible of course.
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get2sammyb said:
Haha, it's ogo.on.the.go's opinion -- naturally I disagree!
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benzopil said:
Why are we paying for PS+?
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I read through the whole article and I didn't see any relevant data that would allow me to form an opinion on their stance. Many of you are equating paying for PS+ to free games, servers and etc and frankly, that's a fairly linear way of looking at the situation. It's a business they're running that involves a cloud infrastructure, support staff, network engineers, etc.. It's not an a2 + b2 = c2 issue. There's a whole host of things going on in the background that we cannot even begin to form an opinion on without data. Unfortunately, no data was provided in the article.
 
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Equanimity

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ogo.on.the.go said:
I read through the whole article and I didn't see any relevant data that would allow me to form an opinion on their stance. Many of you are equating paying for PS+ to free games, servers and etc and frankly, that's a fairly linear way of looking at the situation. It's a business they're running that involves a cloud infrastructure, support staff, network engineers, etc.. It's not an a2 + b2 = c2 issue. There's a whole host of things going on in the background that we cannot even begin to form an opinion on without data. Unfortunately, no data was provided in the article.
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But in the absence of data from Sony, how should the consumers react if not with displeasure?
 
nib95

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Laughing stock is a bit strong, but good article and points, and I agree it's a really bad look. Like I said, gutting servers for super niche titles is one thing, but gutting servers for tentpole popular titles like DRIVECLUB, especially when we won't be getting a sequel, is another thing altogether. They need to reverse this course or precedence. Other publishers are not nearly as stingy with these things, and they arguably make less money from their paid services.
 
joe_zazen

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Betty said:
Maybe Sony don't want to rest on multiplatform titles too strongly like MS did last E3, but even then Sony did show off Resident Evil 2 & Kingdom Hearts 3 among their first party offerings and people still generally gave their last E3 a thumbs down.

As long as Sony are bringing out games and they feel they don't have enough new content to show up at E3 then I don't see the issue.
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I think we were discussing their motivation/reasons. I see it as a money motivated move, others as a strategic one. I just dont see how less exposure and less excitment is a good thing unless you factor in $ savings. I guess it is possible they think they are incapable of putting on a good show without giant new AAA announcements?
 
Godzilla24

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Nov 12, 2017
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Sony is making so much money from PS plus subs. What are they using the money for. The Microsoft too posts are so cringey and embarrassing. If more outlets spoke out on this issue maybe Sony would make the necessary changes. If Sony thinks they can get away with it will just be more and more common. I fear for the future of games like Dreams if it doesn't sell well, but even games that did sold well got servers axed relatively fast games like gt5 and gt6 got axed after 3 or 4 years. Just to get their fans to buy the next iteration. It's pathetic.
 
Betty

Betty

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Anthony Hopkins said:
Having great games does not give them a free pass to screw gamers in different ways.
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Yet it seems like it does. No backwards compatibility, dragging their heels on cross play, still no username changing, delisting games, removing servers, etc and still they suffer barely at all for it.

Maybe their fortunes will change in future though.

joe_zazen said:
I think we were discussing their motivation/reasons. I see it as a money motivated move, others as a strategic one. I just dont see how less exposure and less excitment is a good thing unless you factor in $ savings. I guess it is possible they think they are incapable of putting on a good show without giant new AAA announcements?
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Most agree Microsoft came out of last E3 with the best show, but despite all the goodwill and hype it didn't really translate into a great year for them and Sony still took home all the success, so more excitement doesn't mean more $.

And I liked Sony's last E3, minus the break, but despite no major new reveals people just weren't that enthused by it. So yeah, maybe they can't put on a good show without big AAA titles to prop them up.
 
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