Sony goes over to the dark side...

"Star Wars" gamers have been thrown overboard in favor of filthy lucre, Skywalker.

Sadness in 'Star Wars' World

Such success, by a rival that doesn't carry the sort of hefty tie-in magic that "Star Wars" does, has got to hurt Sony. The "Star Wars" series is still one of the most successful franchises in the video-game world: Four of the five top-selling Hollywood-licensed games of 2005 in North America were "Star Wars" tie-ins, according to research firm NPD Group Inc.

So the company made over its game. John Blakely, the vice president of development at Sony Online Entertainment's game studio, said in a phone interview that the changes were made to make the game feel more "Star Wars-y" to new players, who sometimes found the original version of the game confusing and impenetrable.

Where spotting iconic characters like Han Solo was once akin to a celebrity sighting in the world of Star Wars Galaxies, that character is now front and center as new players launch their virtual lives on Luke Skywalker's home planet of Tatooine. Where the previous game let players take on nonviolent career paths as, say, cooks or hairdressers, the number of career paths has been vastly reduced to an action-happy few, such as Jedi or smuggler.

Longtime Galaxies fan Jenny Steberl, who once played the game as a "creature handler," canceled her account when her profession was removed from the game; she says she won't buy any more "Star Wars" merchandise for herself or for her two sons and called Sony's recent moves a "greedy grab for cash."

A Jedi craves not such things.

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