EverQuest was Verant's breakthrough success and the franchise continues its popularity with Sony Online Entertainment.

SWG was a big production that attempted to reach out to the vast Star Wars audience.

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Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) is a computer game development division of Sony that mostly creates massively multiplayer online games. more...

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SOE is best known for producing EverQuest, PlanetSide, and Star Wars Galaxies, which have gained hundreds of thousands of subscribers. SOE also owns Verant Interactive.

History

Sony Online Entertainment and Verant's history can be seen as starting with Sony Interactive Studios America (SISA), an internal game development studio of Sony that formed around 1995. In 1996, John Smedley was put in charge of SISA's development of an online computer role-playing game that would evolve into EverQuest. He hired Brad McQuaid and Steve Clover as programmers for the game in March.

In April 1998, Sony Online Entertainment was formed by merging Sony Online Ventures with Sony Pictures Entertainment. Within months SISA was renamed 989 Studios. EverQuest, which was credited to being developed by 989 and published by SOE at launch, entered beta in 1998.

Towards the end of 1998, 989 Studios shifted strategy to making PlayStation console games only. The company's computer game/online development branch spun off, initially calling itself RedEye Interactive and then soon after Verant Interactive. EverQuest was released in March 1999 and promptly earned commercial success.

Post EverQuest

In April 2000, Verant hired former Ultima Online developers Raph Koster and Rich Vogel forming its office in Austin, Texas to develop Star Wars Galaxies. SOE acquired Verant on June 1, 2000 and eventually promoted Brad McQuaid to be SOE's Chief Creative Officer. EverQuest: The Ruins of Kunark (March 2000) was the first in a long list of expansions for SOE/Verant's hit MMORPG. In October 2001, McQuaid resigned and went on to found Sigil Games Online, drawing many of the original developers of EverQuest from SOE to develop their Vanguard: Saga of Heroes MMORPG.

Star Wars Galaxies

SOE released Star Wars Galaxies in 2003, which saw rapid growth as expected. Bruce Woodcock of MMOGCHART.COM estimates that SWG reached nearly 300,000 subscribers within the year before trailing off. SOE has released three expansions for Star Wars Galaxies, "Jump to Lightspeed" which released in October 2004, "Rage of the Wookies" released in May 2005 and "Trials Of Obi-Wan" in November 2005. In 2003 the company also explored relatively untouched MMO territory with the MMOFPS PlanetSide and the PlayStation 2 MMORPG EverQuest Online Adventures. Planetside enjoyed a reasonably successful launch, however the product never attracted wide popularity. SOE has released two expansions for Planetside, one a retail product called Core Combat, and a second free expansion titled Aftershock. Also, Planetside can be played for free under a "Reserves" program, that limits character advancement, but otherwise grants full access to the game. " EQ Online Adventures was not as successful but has spawned an expansion, and SOE still maintains it (as of 2006). SOE continued producing EverQuest expansions, launching The Legacy of Ykesha in March and Lost Dungeons of Norrath in September.