January for shiftless UK games freelancers means frantic tax return time, in which we hand an eye-watering amount of the money we thought we’d earned in the last year back to the Inland Revenue. Going through the terrifying mountain of paperwork involved, something on a recent bank statement catches my eye.
SOE*SUBSCRIPTIONS GBP 9.20
SOE Subscriptions? Y’what? A frantic search reveals that whatever it is, I’ve been paying it for the last 11 months. SOE is, of course, Sony Online Entertainment, the MMO-centric arm of the Japanese games/tech despot. I log into Station, their central account service for all their games, and check what I’ve been charged for. It’s not Pirates of the Burning Sea, the beta of which I tinkered with a while back. It’s not Planetside, which is now free, and whose glory days I miss terribly. It’s not Star Wars Galaxies, which I haven’t played since 2004 (though I’m strongly tempted to revisit it for an RPS post some time). That means it’s…. Oh no. Read the rest of this entry »
