Feelings in the blogosphere (and indeed in online gaming generally) towards Sony Online Entertainment are decidedly mixed. While they’ve made some amazing strides with EverQuest 2 and other titles under their umbrella, some folks are still left with a sour taste in their mouth over past stumbles. Whether griping over the Star Wars Galaxies NGE or complaints going all the way back to the Verant days, people love to grind their axes on Sony’s mega-subsidiary.

So I’ve been kind of surprised that more of a big deal hasn’t been made of the talent drain the company has been undergoing for the past year or so. From high profile folks like Moorgard, Blackguard, and now Scott Hartsman to lower-level community folks, programmers, designers, and artists, there seems to be a general current of talented people flowing away from the monolith.

So why are people leaving the company? What’s prompting this trend? Is it very widespread and (more importantly for the players) what does it mean for their games? And, of course, you can’t help but wonder what this means for the industry in general. Or, at least, I can’t.

The why is the easy part, of course. I don’t have anyone’s job offer in front of me, but it’s easy to make educated guesses. In high-profile cases like the former EQ community folks, small and well-funded studios probably used the ‘dumptruck full of money’ argument. While I’m sure they were being well compensated by Sony, startups tend to be in that ‘long on cash, short of manpower’ phase that makes for some crazy salary offers. Even without the big bucks, both high-profile and tireless trench-worker alike could easily be swayed by the allure of new blood. Why work for the man when someone is trying something new and different?

The trend of folks leaving is harder to pin down, but I think it’s a case of timing and (of course) World of Warcraft. But not directly; I don’t think WoW is making people leave SOE through any direct application. What WoW is doing is 1.) shaking the money trees to make it possible for startups to happen and 2.) training up rafts and rafts of designers/programmers/artists which will look good staffing up these new companies. SOE folks will get hired into the mix too, of course, because they don’t hire slouches over there. Then on the marketing page you can say stuff like ‘developed by veterans of seven different publishers’, or something like that.

The widespread nature of this trend is something I can’t speak to at all, but the departure of several high-profile folks says a few things clearly. Some less visible folks have also made their way to greener pastures, but how many … that’s why this is an editorial and not an article, you know?

What will this mean for their games? If this is general trend at the company, this could eventually lead to problems. Not because of lack of staffing, or of poor staff … but most likely from a lot of new staff. It takes time to train people in how to make these games, in some cases a loooong time. Every developer, producer, or CM they lose results in an intimidating training period for replacements. Enough of those and you could have some pushed release dates or unhappy players.

I definitely think that these departures are indicative of the industry in general. So far in the MMOG market the SOP has been for large publishers to release portfolios of AAA games, banking on the successful ones to shore up the ones that are less so. But all signs now point to that being a thing of the past. Auto Assault was canned outright, a choice NCsoft may not have made a few years ago. Perpetual’s explosion speaks volumes. SOE itself seems to be unaffected at the moment, but I think their decision to entertain alternative payment options for their upcoming games says a lot about the way the winds are blowing.

In the not-too-distant-future all these startups are going to be hatching their several-million-dollar eggs onto the MMOG scene. While most of us are spending time thinking about games like Warhammer, Conan, and BioWare’s game KOTORO, Carbine Studios, 38 Studios and Red 5 are doing seekrit things in the darkness. The folks that are going to make those games have to come from somewhere. The MMOG industry is finally getting to the point where there are plenty of talented workers with past MMOG releases on their resumes … and a lot of them work for those big publishers that these new kids are hoping to usurp.

That makes NCsoft, Blizzard, and SOE prime candidates for employee poaching. In fact, I actually imagine that SOE’s departures are only ‘notable’ insofar as people have had names to attach to the departures. Folks hired away from the developers of Lineage or Final Fantasy XI aren’t going to be noticed as much as ‘names’ like Blackguard.

So in the end, this isn’t really an ‘SOE Brain Drain’. It’s more of a trend of folks taking the chance to get in on the ground floor of the ‘next phase’ of the MMO industry. While these departures may eventually have an effect on games from the big publishers, I think in the larger picture they’re indicative of industry growth. And that … in the long run … is a good thing for everybody.