Friday, June 24, 2011

SWG shuts down just in time for SWTOR launch?

The news dropped today that Star Wars Galaxies will be shutting down on December 15th due to the loss of the right to use the Star Wars intellectual property  It shouldn't come as a great surprise that Star Wars Galaxies and Star Wars: The Old Republic won't be coexisting.  I always thought it odd that Lucasarts sanctioned a second Star Wars MMO when they already had one running.

I'd like to say I'm sad to see the game go, but that would be a bit of an overstatement.  I played the game at release and enjoyed the ways in which they innovated and expanded the MMO genre.  However, there really wasn't much content for an adventurer/combat gamer like myself, and I grew bored after a few months and quit.  I didn't go back until after the Everquestification of the game (NGE) which I absolutely despised (hey, let's take all the things about this game that are interesting and different and good and get rid of them!  Brilliant!) and I quickly canceled my account and never went back.

However, I am sorry that all the people who have worked so hard on the game over the years will presumably be losing their jobs.  One would hope SOE would find work for them elsewhere, but with how shaky SOE itself seems these days there's really no telling.

Now then, type to start a rumor.  If SWG closes on December 15th, and SWTOR has been promised for 2011 (multiple times), can we expect SWTOR to launch December 20th, 2011?  Just in time for Christmas, and the only Star Wars MMO in town.

Update:  Well, per the article at Massively nobody from the SWG team will be losing their jobs over this, so I guess I have nothing to feel bad about at all.

3 comments:

  1. I like the rumor. Might have legs.

    They seem to know this was coming with the expiration of the license.

    It'd be a nice migration for the suddenly disenfranchised SWG players to go to SWTOR. In fact, I'd offer some kind of parting deal to nudge them to SWTOR.

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  2. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a special offer out there for SWG players. Surely someone would be smart enough to do that. Maybe. Possibly.

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  3. You'd think so, but I'm not sure they'll bother. The number of SWG players is pretty small compared to the number of players Bioware is hoping to attract to the game.

    Plus, I suspect many current SWG players will fall into one of two camps -- they'll either play whatever Star Wars title is available, or they'll never play SWTOR out of anger at the game killing SWG.

    I guess we'll see!

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