You Never Shoulda Opened That Door: PSS1 & SOE

EQ2Wire has a typically excellent account of the latest development in the PSS1 saga. In the light of the many issues that have arisen during and since the transition of DCUO from SOE's stewardship to our putative PSS1 overlords, the conversion of EQ2, which was due around about now, has been postponed.

In the comments thread Seffrid, who's been highly active on the forums on this issue, has about the best summation of the situation that I've seen. I reproduce his comment and my reply here:

Seffrid
August 26, 2012 @ 2:47 am


As I commented on the EQ2 board, and Brasse was kind enough to acknowledge the validity of the point, there’s very little benefit in PSS1 going to an event in America in order to address the concerns of the affected players who by definition under this deal live in Europe!
I’ve no doubt that the EQ2 transition has been delayed because SOE have concerns over some of the problems they encountered in the DCUO transition, not because there are unresolved concerns that the players have. I haven’t seen any commitment not to make the transition until the players’ concerns have been fully resolved and I doubt they ever will be.
Players want choice. They want the new players who PSS1 recruit to have to sign up with them while existing players have the choice whether to do so or to stay with SOE until they can see that PSS1 are an equal company to SOE to hold an account with. If the companies truly believe they can in time bring those players on side then it must be better to keep them with SOE in the meantime rather than lose them to the company’s games now and for all time, which is how it’s looking for a lot of long-term players at the moment.
Recruiting a lot of new F2P players taking a non-committal look at the game is naturally a good thing, but so too is hanging onto a lot of established players who have for the most part subscribed to the games over many years thereby demonstrating a long-term commitment to them. That’s what SOE don’t seem to be able to get a grasp of at the moment.

  bhagpuss
August 26, 2012 @ 3:30 am

Seconded. And a fine summation of where we are now and where we should be going, Seffrid.
I am not rabidly anti-PSS1. I already have a PSS1 account, or rather I have an Allaplaya account. When I can fit in a session or two I play one of their games, Argo. It’s an enjoyable F2P title.
That does not mean I want to give up more than a dozen years of history with SoE. Much less does it mean I’m happy to be sold on like a bad debt.
A deal whereby PSS1 marketed SOE games in their territory and signed up all the new members that marketing brought them to their own financial benefit would not just have been accepted by the UK/EU players, it would almost certainly have been welcomed. This could have been a PR triumph instead of a PR disaster.
If any of these decisions really are within the remit of SOE, something I have always doubted, it’s still not too late to do this right. I suspect, however, that all meaningful decision-making on this takes place somewhere above Smed’s pay-grade and at that level we really are all just numbers.

 And now I'm off to play GW2 (assuming the servers are up). SOE have a lot of competition on their hands right now. My issue is more likely to be when I get time time to play their MMOs in future. They really don't need to be putting barriers in the way of me giving them my time or my money, now do they?