Everquest®: Entertainment or Addiction?¹

Abstract

SONY Online Entertainment (SOE) was planning to release a new version, EverQuest II®, of its popular online game, EverQuest®. The first EverQuest® game was very successful financially, generating approximately $5 million/month in 2002 for SOE. However, some issues surrounding addictions and corporate responsibility were interfering with the new product launch. These problems revolved around several deaths in which the EverQuest® game had been implicated. The case focuses on the dilemma faced by the Vice President of Marketing prior to the new product release: How far must a company go to protect possible misuse of a product by consumers?

Citation

Spain, J.W. and Vega, G. (2005), "Everquest®: Entertainment or Addiction?¹", , Vol. 1 No. 2, pp. 60-66. https://doi.org/10.1108/TCJ-01-2005-B006