As Shayde pointed out over on the rlmmo forums today, the news may have broken that Sony Online Entertainment is being sold to Zapak Entertainment, a company based in India.

Zapak Digital entertainment, the online gaming company promoted by Anil Ambani-led ADAG group, is all set to buy out Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) for around $300 million (Rs 1,200 crore).

According to sources close to the development, the deal will be finalised within the next few days. Sony Online was on the block for the past two weeks and Zapak, which has been looking for acquiring international studios, is finally said to have reached a consensus over the valuation of Sony Online.

Zapak has recently become somewhat of a power in India in the realm of online gaming, and has been publicly stating their goal to aggressively expand in that area. Interesting. But wait…there’s more!

The major expenses in the gaming industry is on content and marketing, and Zapak aims to reduce the cost of publishing a game by buying out those studios and relocating them to India. “This will reduce the cost drastically from $30 mn to $10mn, which will give us the advantage to channelise our funds towards marketing and other activities,” the official said.

Relocate…to India. This would seem to indicate that one of the plans for SOE is to move the studios from San Diego and San Antonio to New Delhi. This does bring up some questions, however.

If the studios are relocated, will the staff be transferred (if they even agree to move to India to begin with), or let go in favor of local employees?

Will the games be changed to reflect a more RMT or “grindy” approach?

Will a company with limited “major” MMORPG experience be able to handle SOE’s stable of games, such as EQII?

And one particular question…will Lucasarts pull the licensing agreement that allows Star Wars Galaxies to exist, especially with their star IP’s only MMO presence being sold to a company with no MMORPG experience?

Bioware has been extremely tight-lipped with details on their upcoming MMORPG project, as well as their joint project with Lucasarts. Some have speculated that this is because it will be Knights of the Old Republic Online, and that the deal with SOE for SWG prohibits any other MMORPG game. This would lead to an inability to even announce the game. Couple the announcement of this sale with the fact that Bioware has said they will be releasing details on their MMO project “after the first of the year”, and it makes you think it’s possible that the licensing rights to SWG will be pulled by Lucas, and once that is done, Bioware will be free to announce KOTOR Online.

Personally, however…I’m still pulling for Zak McKracken Online.

(Note: John Smedley has responded to this story over at eq2flames.com, saying it’s not true.

This story is completely false. We aren’t for sale

No idea who made this up. We are in discussions with various companies in India about bringing our games to this growing market but that’s it. We aren’t for sale.

Smed

So either it’s not true, or no one has let Smed know yet.)

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Tags: EQ, EQII, Everquest, games, gaming, mmo, mmog, mmorpg, SOE, Sony Online Entertainment, Star Wars Galaxies, SWG