It was The Old Republic that killed Star Wars Galaxies

Star Wars Galaxies lived a contentious life, one whose wrinkles of age told the story of an MMO who, according to many,  fell from the precipice of greatness into a sea of banality. An MMO whose greatest achievement, and one true deficit, was that it tried to do something different.

Whether you agree or not that the changes to the MMO were ultimately for the better, both sides can have the peace of mind that SWG's controversial past had nothing to do with its ultimate demise.  Rather, it was nothing more than an 'out with the old, in with the new' model that ultimately led to its end.

"It was time to turn it off..We have a contractual relationship that's ending in 2012, The Old Republic launching, a bunch of other business things with LucasArts." stated CEO John Smedley, "And then you look at the odds of a pretty large portion of the audience moving to TOR, which looks like a terrific game. I think that's going to be really well-received by the population."

It seems as though the timing of The Old Republic and the expiration of the SWG licenses were most probably timed to coincide.  Smedly, for his part, admits that dealing with expiring licenses probably isn't the best model to work off of.

"Could we have renegotiated? Maybe, but I don't think that would be the right thing for the company. That's the problem with licenses: they end. We're going to continue to do some licensed work, but we're largely going to stick to original IP [going forward] because then we won't have this issue. We'll never have this problem with EverQuest."

All I have to say is this. Sir, I played SWG. I knew SWG. And EverQuest is no SWG.

[Source: CVG]