Sony Online Entertainment Sold Off, Will Become a New Company

Sony Online Entertainment has been bought from Sony by investment management firm Columbus Nova, according to an announcement by a member of the company on Reddit. The publisher, responsible for massive multiplayer online role-playing game "Everquest," has been renamed Daybreak Game Company, foregoing the Sony brand entirely.

"This name," sais Reddit user SOE_Legion, "embodies who we are as an organization, and is a nod to the passion and dedication of our employees and players. It is also representative of our vision to approach each new day as an opportunity to move gaming forward."

Sony Online Entertainment has had a rough go of it over the past few years, with several MMOs (tied to expensive intellectual properties) that failed to meet expectations for various reasons, including "Star Wars Galaxies," "DC Universe Online," and "The Matrix Online." Last year, the company shed employees in both the San Diego and Austin offices. In a company-wide email that followed the layoffs, then SOE president, now Daybreak president John Smedley said: "I know most of the people we're laying off today. Some of them have been with us here since the beginning. None of them deserved this. Our goal as a company needs to be to make incredible games and grow again so we can bring our friends back."

According to Polygon, Columbus Nova will continue to support the publisher's online catalog, including "H1Z1," the zombie survival MMO, which recently launched via Early Access on Steam. And the company still plans to release "EverQuest Next," the follow-up to the publisher's most famous game, in the "near future."

In the Reddit post, the team points at console and mobile platforms playing an important role in Daybreak's future. "In fact," says SOE_Legion, "we expect to have even more resources available to us as a result of this acquisition. It also means new exciting developments for our existing IP and games as we can now fully embrace the multi-platform world we are living in."

To phrase that another way, Smedley succinctly tweeted earlier today: