EverQuest - Sony's Cash Cow

Posters Name: Kagato
Posters Email: kagato@mwgl.org
Subject: EverQuest - Sony's Cash Cow

News:
Those who know me and my gaming habits, know that I've always had an addiction towards playing Sony and Verant Entertainment's ever-popular EverQuest title. I know there's many who never got into it and don't see the attraction, but they're apparently doing something right according to this article over at Business 2.0, as they pull in an average of $5 million a month from their customers. Can you say cash cow? Mooooo! Snip:

On any given day, you can find John Smedley smiting the odd necromancer or brandishing his sword alongside wood elves who want to kill the emperor of the snakelike Shissars. Sometimes, though, he just strolls around observing his fellow citizens. To you, they might look like knights, wizards, and ogres, scuttling across a three-dimensional landscape of castles, caves, and dank swamps.

But to him, they must look like money.

Smedley, 33, is the chief operating officer of Sony Online Entertainment, where he's master of the virtual boomtown known as EverQuest. Once a destination for the fringe Dungeons & Dragons crowd, the online role-playing game now has 433,000 paying customers who generate $5 million a month for the Japanese entertainment giant. Given the 40 percent gross-profit margins, and the fact that this world practically runs itself, the dragon-slaying business is looking pretty good these days.