free-realms posts

Sony Online Entertainment, known primarily for its MMO game titles, could be in the middle of a huge restructuring. Kotaku is reporting via unnamed sources that the company has shut down three of its five development studios based in Seattle, Tuscon and Denver. In addition the rumors claims the company has also laid off significant numbers of team members at its two remaining studios, San Diego and Austin. Kotaku claims in its article that the layoffs total nearly a third of Sony Online's employees.

The Tuscon offices are the the home to the team behind the fantasy collectible online card game PoxNora while the Denver team worked on several other collectible online games. The shutdown of the Seattle offices, if true, is perhaps the most significant since it was the studio in charge of developing the long awaited super-spy themed MMO The Agency which was first announced nearly four years ago.

Big Download has emailed Sony Online's PR reps for comment.

Yet another busy day is finally over. Tomorrow Activision reveals its quarterly financial numbers and on Friday we get a reveal of the next Battlefield game. And you never know what else is coming up in the wings:

• City of Heroes has released its new Origins Pack with 10 character auras and five caps for $9.99.
• Sony Online's free-to-play MMO Free Realms is now available on the Mac.
• Steam has a new Team Fortress 2 bug fix update.
• EA's full version of FIFA Manager 11 is now available to download and purchase from several sites like Steam and Impulse
• Steam has the Front Mission Evolved Wanzer Pack 2 with two "wanzers" available for download for $3.99.
• OnLive has added Dark Void and the Borderlands DLC content to the streaming PC game service

Today, Sony Online Entertainment announced that it was working alongside TransGaming Inc. to bring its popular family-friendly MMO, Free Realms, to the Mac platform this fall. With over 14 million registered players, Free Realms is an online adventure role-playing game where players can go on quests and connect with friends in a safe environment. No specific date was mentioned in the announcement, but Mac gamers can expect their chance to enter Free Realms later this fall.

Sony Online officially launched their free-to-play fantasy MMO Free Realms in April 2009 but today the publisher announced that in less than a year the game has hit the 8 million registered player mark. Since its launch the game has added a number of features including player housing as well as holding a number of live events such as the upcoming Valentine's Day themed Festival of Hearts.

While Free Realms has apparently been successful there's no word yet if Sony Online plan to extend the free-to-play model to upcoming games. Officially the publisher still has DC Universe Online and The Agency in development and the company has hinted about a major revamp of their Planetside game.

Last July Sony Online's head man John Smedley said their free-to-play MMO Free Realms was getting close to the 5 million mark in terms of registered players. This week Smedley made that figure for the game official during his keynote speach at the Austin Game Developers Conference. In fact that number was reached and exceeded sometime last month. The game officially launched last April

Massively reports (via their photo gallery of the keynote) that Free Realms' player base is under the age of 13 with 51 percent of their players belonging to that age group. That's a huge different from the typical MMO player who has an average ago of 33 years old.

While Big Download has been busy covering lots of big events this summer like QuakeCon. BlizzCon and the just completed PAX 2009, we will not be making it down to Austin, Texas for next week's GDC Austin. The conference, organized by the same company that also handles the main GDC event held in San Fransisco every March, covers all aspects of game development but tends to lean on the MMO genre.

That's why two of the event's keynotes will be all about massively multiplayer games. Sony Online founder John Smedley is scheduled to speak about their recent success with the free-to-play MMO Free Realms. Also Blizzard's Frank Pearce and J. Allen Brack will be making their own keynote address on the universe of their hit MMO World of Warcraft. If you happen to be in the Austin area there is still time to register before the event which runs from Sept 15-18.

Sony Online's launch of Free Realms, their free-to-play fantasy MMO game, is pretty much a success no matter how you cut it. Gamasutra reports that during a panel at the San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday, Sony Online's head John Smedley stated that Free Realms now has "close to" 5 million registered players.

Free Realms officially launched on April 28 and reached the 1 million registered player mark well within a month of that date In mid-June, Sony Online announced it had surppassed the 3 million registered player mark. For a game that's had little marketing outside the game industry that's a massive number to reach in so short a time. It also shows that the monhtly subscription model for MMO titles could be on its way out.

The poor economy may not be as bad as it was just a few months ago but layoffs are still continuing in the game industry. Our sister site Massively has just gotten word from Sony Online Entertainment that they are planning to lay off 41 of their team members, or about 5 percent of the company's total workforce.

Sony Online is not commenting on what specific positions are being affected. Sony has development studios in several locations including San Diego, Seattle, Denver and Austin. Earlier this year they announced that they were shutting down support for The Matrix Online after July 31. Sony Online recently launched the free-to-play MMO Free Realms and has two announced games in development, The Agency and DC Universe Online.

Late in April, Sony Online Entertainment launched their free-to-play MMO Free Realms and to day the game has been a success in signing up subscribers might be understating things a bit. After reaching the one million player registration mark in mid-May and the two million mark in late May, the game has now surpassed the three million mark according to a new press release today.

To celebrate this new milestone, Sony Online is giving the game's first three million subscribers a free "3M Pet Party Pack" which will be filled with in-game items specifically to be used by player characters' virtual pets.

On the last day of E3 2009, the Guinness World Records organization announced that a number of PC game developers and publishers were honored with brand new records for game sales. Above you can see Blizzard execs Mike Morhaime and Paul Sams accepting two awards; one for World of Warcraft becoming the most popular MMO with 11.6 million subscribers and the other for the original Starcraft becoming the world's most successul PC strategy game with 9.6 million copies sold.

Also honored during E3 was Bethesda Softworks for the fastest-selling multi-platform RPG. That would be for Fallout 3 which sold a total of 4.7 million copies in its first week on sale. Finally the US music group The Dares were honored as the first such group to hold a concert in both the real world and in the virtual world at the same time for a performace at E3 while also "performing" inside Sony Online's free-to-play MMO Free Realms.