The MMO company Daybreak, formerly Sony Online Entertainment, states in its quarterly report that it had sold a “non-core brand” for $5.9 million. This appears to concern the MMO shooters Planetside 1 and 2. Players of Planetside are worried. MMORPG fans, on the other hand, are happy: This likely means that Daybreak is focusing on Everquest 3.
What is Planetside?
- It is a series of MMO first-person shooters in a sci-fi setting.
- The players in the “Planetside” series are the only games that are classic MMO shooters, as here truly massive numbers of players converge in an online world. We reported on MeinMMO about a battle that had 1283 players participating simultaneously.
- Planetside was released in 2003 – Planetside 2 came out in 2012.
Planetside 2 currently has an 81% positive rating on Steam and an average of 922 players online:
Planetside has big ambitions but is overshadowed by Warframe and Destiny
What is the deal with Planetside 2? The shooter was released in 2012 for PC but has never really gained much traction. It remains overshadowed by Warframe and Destiny, but is actually quite a different game.
The team had big ambitions as an MMO to further develop Planetside and become even better, but Sony sold the company Sony Online Entertainment in 2015.
At the new company Daybreak, the focus was on projects like the hyped H1Z1, the cash cow DC Universe Online, or the MMORPG revolution Everquest Next. Planetside remained a niche product.
Over the years, Planetside 2, which was supposed to be significantly expanded and was released for PS4 in 2015, fell somewhat into oblivion. Important people left the game, former chief John Smedley harshly criticized the current management.
There was even a new Planetside planned, Planetside Arena, which was shut down in January 2020 due to lack of success. Since then, things have been quite quiet around Planetside.
Sale for 5.9 million euros to a shell company
This is now the news: In the financial report of Daybreak’s parent company, ENAD Global 7, the following passage can be found (via storage):
“At the end of the year, Daybreak successfully completed the sale of a non-core brand for 5.9 million US dollars, which is a nice boost for our liquidity and a profit compared to the booked value of the asset in our business table.”
A passage that is clearly aimed at investors, not players.
What is so strange about this? It does not reveal that they apparently sold the rights to Planetside. People on reddit only found this out later.
The buyer seems to be a shell company.
As for what is actually going on, it’s unclear at the moment. There is no statement from Daybreak about what the sale entails and what is happening.
How is this being discussed? The action is being discussed on reddit and perceived quite differently, depending on which subreddit one looks at:
- In the MMORPG section, people believe this mainly means that Daybreak is focusing on the development of Everquest 3 and has no plans to develop a Planetside 3 anymore. Among MMORPG fans, there is a somewhat positive outlook.
- The actual players of Planetside 2 (via reddit) describe the situation as “scary.”
What happens to the license now is unclear. The buyer “BayTree Tower Limited” is an unknown entity. The list of titles that were sold includes the 6 different Planetside titles from Planetside 1 to Planetside Arena.
More on the topic: The 14 best multiplayer shooters for PC, Switch, PS4, PS5, and Xbox
Statement from Daybreak
Update February 15, 11:22 AM: The US site mmorpg.com received a statement from Daybreak:
“We have no information or comments regarding the revenue announcements from EG7. Should we have any news or updates about PlanetSide 2 that we wish to share, we will publish them on the game’s website or on the social media channels.”
This almost sounds like Daybreak itself is a bit surprised about what their parent company is communicating to investors.
