Star Wars – The Old Republic: Sony’s reasons for Galaxies server shutdown

Most products have a product life cycle. This is the range of years that mark a product’s usefulness and vitality. While this concept is very easy to understand if you’re dealing with tangible items like washing mashines or even cars, this concept doesn’t really apply to software uniformly and definitely has issues of applicability when used on online applications – online games in particular. Sony Online Entertainment couldn’t use the product line excuse for the closure of Star Wars Galaxies. While it did have expiring licenses for the game, these could have been renegotiated. Who would want to kill off a revenue stream, right? No, the real reason is the impending commercial debut of Star Wars – The Old Republic. That’s quite a bit of pressure.

Screenshot of Star Wars - The Old Republic (Credit: LucasArts)

From a business perspective, Sony Online Entertainment’s decision to yield to an impending Star Wars – The Old Republic release makes a lot of sense. Much of the current user base for Galaxies will probably migrate over to Star Wars – The Old Republic. Moreover, it costs money to keep Galaxies running. There is just way too much uncertainty determining if the people who decide to hang on will pay enough subscriber fees to cover operating costs. Then there’s the problem of licenses. While Sony can renegotiate the licenses, they are not guaranteed they will get the terms they want. Overall, this was the right decision.

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