Community Relations Archive

SOE CFO John Needham announces at conference not to try futuristic MMORPG's in Asian markets.

In rebuttal, critics ofSOE performance have been quoted as saying, "maybe like Disney initially failed in Paris, and learned their lessons when planning Hong Kong, that not every market can be approached the same way, and different marketing approaches may be necessary in different markets." In other words, its not the game, but a marketing approach failure.

Other critics countered, "It could be both a marketing failure, and the nature of the game today, particularly post Publish 24."

People on the street are scratching their heads wondering how the largest gaming market in the world, the Asian gaming market, could have been so mishandled.

One person was quoted as saying, "Well, I've seen it before, they (SOE management) were probably sitting around blaming the usual subjects - difficulty in providing staffing and service, and recruiting in an Asian market, costs of operating that service segment, and low subscription numbers. But in the end, its really a cop out and a marketing failure, isn't it?"