So, awareness and criticism of City of Heroes' closure is spreading. The profile on it has been raised such that there's now a scathing article in the Korea Times Money section. Not the gaming section mind you, the MONEY section.
Notable quotes:
"The Korean company announced in August that it plans to permanently shutdown servicing the 8-year-old game and terminated its Paragon Studios development team, despite the title continuing to bring in steady revenue."
"According to local industry analysts, the game has been bringing in 3 billion won ($2.76 million) every quarter. “It is hard to comprehend what NCsoft means when they said they closed it for strategic reasons,” one analyst said."
"NCsoft CEO Kim Taek-jin recently stated that he was planning a global acquisition in his bid to expand the company overseas. However, at first-glance the closure of CoH doesn’t seem in line with his plans."
"NCsoft’s image in Internet communities in the West is very negative. Some magazines writers have asked for boycotts, including Starburst Magazine which has 250,000 subscribers (the same as the firm’s Blade & Soul’s peak number). Other protests have spawned online."
"Meanwhile, NCsoft’s stock price continues to remain around 160,000 won, having more than halved from earlier in the year."
i have been playing online games since 1993. i started with door games in the bbs era, moving on to MUDs soon after but was reluctant to join the MMO trend. as a mud owner, programmer and administrator i looked at it as force feeding people eyecandy at the expense of creativity. City of Heroes changed that for me, it was the first MMO i ever played. i started in may 2005, not long after beta ended, and had two actively subscribed accounts until the day it shut its doors.
i was obsessed with this game. i dreamed it, i breathed it, i lived it. i had 32 maxed (at level cap of 50) characters across 8 servers and more than 70 others well on the way to it. just one of my more than 100 characters had more than 3000 hours logged. i ran at one point the second largest clan on the server that i played and when that eventually fell apart built a second clan that rose to the ranks of the top 20. i had purchased every extra and add-on and extra content pack they ever offered, most of them for both of my accounts. i am one of the people they had to refund money to after the news was announced that they would be closing, because i was still trying to throw money at them.
the game being shut down in the manner that it was was a betrayal of staggering magnitude. there were no hints at internal strife, to the contrary staff members were joyously hinting at the next free content addition that was "SOON!" to be released. that content addition would have expanded on a broader end game setup that was also left unfinished. i mention this because it shows me that there is nothing else this could have been but a political move, the studio itself was happily and efficiently chugging along full steam ahead. my bet is that the asian version release of "city of hero" (look it up) was a dismal failure and that that was ncsoft's only real concern. with that said, i would also like to point out that very little if any actual marketing was ever done for this game, it could have been far Far FAR more successful but many didn't know it existed.
the shutdown of this game that i so adored is a knife in the back to me. i will never play another ncsoft game for any reason, regardless of how good they make it.
Strategic reason... lol I bet they were expecting CoH players to jump over to GW2, I know lots of people in my CoH outfit that doesn't like the GW/fantasy genre.
Boggles the mind to why they would shut down something that's raking in almost $3m per quarter?
3 million per quarter on an eight year old game AFTER adding free to play option to it. Why in the hell would they have shut that down? I did not play, I did not like the game, but this is really weird. I also feel completely horrible for the fans. I was an avid AC2 player and was sad when it got shut down, still can't believe it's been back nearly a week now. I really hope that maybe CoX finds its way back to life.
Gotta wonder if the person in charge over there isn't trying to get fired. Shut down a game making about 12 million per year, stock prices halved over the course of the year. "Strategy" isn't the word I'd use....more like pure idiocy.
I mean looking at from the outside, even if its bringing in 3m per quarter, that is only 5m or so profit per year. This is much the same argument that was made when Comcast bought out Syfy and decided to shut down Eureka. Whether its still profitable or not, it may not be profitable enough to be worth the while.
It's worth the while of saying "we're not going to invest any more resources into this, but as long as it's making a decent profit every year we'll let it run itself.
Long played games with a stable community and steady income don't really get shut down too often. This game showed no signs of losing playerbase at any significant rate, and looked to be continuing to make money for many years to come. I guarantee you that if you go to any rational company and offer them "would you like to make an addition 5 million per year with no effort and no risk" they'd all say yes.
Especially if half the studio was working on another project that was fully funded by the income of this game, there's a potential boost in revenue.
Closing this game was a mistake, both for PR and the bottom line.
Strategic reason... lol I bet they were expecting CoH players to jump over to GW2, I know lots of people in my CoH outfit that doesn't like the GW/fantasy genre.
Boggles the mind to why they would shut down something that's raking in almost $3m per quarter?
3 million per quarter on an eight year old game AFTER adding free to play option to it. Why in the hell would they have shut that down? I did not play, I did not like the game, but this is really weird. I also feel completely horrible for the fans. I was an avid AC2 player and was sad when it got shut down, still can't believe it's been back nearly a week now. I really hope that maybe CoX finds its way back to life.
Gotta wonder if the person in charge over there isn't trying to get fired. Shut down a game making about 12 million per year, stock prices halved over the course of the year. "Strategy" isn't the word I'd use....more like pure idiocy.
I mean looking at from the outside, even if its bringing in 3m per quarter, that is only 5m or so profit per year. This is much the same argument that was made when Comcast bought out Syfy and decided to shut down Eureka. Whether its still profitable or not, it may not be profitable enough to be worth the while.
I didn't watch the video, but this argument would make more sense if NCsoft were starting from scratch and had to decide their best return on investment with limited funds between different projects. Eureka is a poor example because there were direct costs to producing additional episodes, unlike CoH which could have effectively run on maintenance mode and collected money.
I watched the gamebreak.tv video and I must say that I got an education. Thing is - this goes both ways.
NCsoft saw this 8 year old game doing little more than getting older and not gaining the profits they wanted. They wanted to move on to other things even if it was still making money. NC is a company that wants to deal in products and services that bring in hundreds of millions of dollars not just a few million per year. That's right: 10-12 million a year is nothing in their eyes. Based on what I've heard they really don't care much for their Western market compared to their home market so in their eyes scrapping CoH was nothing to cry over.
The flipside is just as valid though. 10-12 million in income is still 10-12 million more than zero income. NCsoft could have told Paragon Studios to finish production of everything planned, cease any future content updates and then begin shuffling or laying off staff to eventually put CoH on "maintenance only status" to which time it would be closed when profits reached a reasonably low ammount - say 2 million a year. ~ Although game closures are understandable NCsoft executed it in one of the worst possible ways.
The only way to get noticed these days is to speak with your wallets. If there's a game or company you like, support them. If you don't like them then kick em to the curb and put your money elsewhere. Companies must learn that they must wisen-up and operate propperly or face bankruptcy because they fail to see their mistakes.
I'm moving on to other things, just nothing that NCsoft currently has to offer. Should NCsoft restart City of Heroes or make a sequel I will definately look into them. Those are what I'd put my money in and that's what it all comes down to in the end. Pay for what you want and ignore what you don't.
My heart goes out to all the former City of Heroes players. It was a great run and it was a privilege to play with all you wonderful people.
well what NCSOFT had done is the worst of the worst. Breaking every rule in the book. Break every International law .
Killing every big corperation in Korea to Buy NC soft stocks. only fools buy NCSOFT STOCKS!
NCOSFT job was to Kill City of Heroes. simply put NCosft never beleave in the Super Heroes act of doing what is right.
NC soft dose not care about customers in the USA. only deal with the Asian Market only. NCSOFT is nothing more then being Rude to customers. and it shows. htting there own partners in there own kind. this is a prime example.
a Korean compnay called Nexon had buy like 14% of NCSOFT'S level A stocks. Nexon spent about $687,000,000.00 ($687 Million US Dallars) that is one stock cost in 6/8/2012 is $268,000.00 for one level A stock. then on the end of Augest 2012 NC soft anounced that killing City of Heros to is the best thing to suppport the Asian market and Korean market as well. all right lets see this I got the answer for the better or for the worst. For the + Side of it Nothing. lets look at the fun stuff the "-" side on the date of 6/08/2012 that level A stock costed $268,000.00 US Dollars per share then on 11/09/2012 the stocks droped!Down Down down by the millions of Dollars it droped! to $178,500.00 US Dollars. I do not know what the Korean money is. I simply translated it for USA Dollars.
NCSOFT is taken them selfs to go out of buiensss and willing to take there No.1 levle A stock shair Holder compnay Nexon to close shop along with them. you thin the CEO of Nexon is happy about those NCSOFT SOCKS dropping like this. I know the CEO is extream Angry about it. I simply sell those socks back to NCSOFT. count the losses and move on.
$268,000.00 to $178,500.00 this is millions of Dollars had been flushed down the toilet I am trying to see if this droped any more since then.
what is the NEXT NCOSFT MMORPG game is going to die next?
I am thinking Guildwars. its going to be with in the 3 to 6 months from now.
So basically you fiscal wizards in this thread believe that they threw away 2 million ish a quarter for no good reason, you have NO clue what their expenses are. The real answer is it wasn't enough money or it would still be running.
see if we can hire back Pragon Studios and get all the members and players to help buy City of heroes from NCSOFT?
we own it. we play it.
2nd idea
push Cryptic Studios to take back COh and run it
3rd idea mod COH Freedom w/ issue 24 to work with out the internet. get cityofhereos.exe to work wtth out the ncsoft launcher
all those names after a off line log in. see all the name of servers. example Freedom and Liberty for a few examples
and have unlimited toons saved. the hard drive is the largest collection of data storage now that 3T drives our out out
whats that 3 billion gigs?
I am so fracken sick of ncosft. icon 1.7 is not helping. I cannot do my missions.
off line gamming notes
unlimtied level ups able to get enhancements to keep up with that.
able to fight giant monsters solo
buy new updated iusses on dvd rom (24,25,26 so on)
Go to PVP zones and do PVP killings not on online PVP toons rather then Elete Bosses
Custom make enhacements. simple way of using a slide bar to program how much of what. 100,000,000% increase damage 1000,000,000,000% increase of accresasry and so on and so forth
get a full game and mod it. faster then restarting from scratch.
Comments
i have been playing online games since 1993. i started with door games in the bbs era, moving on to MUDs soon after but was reluctant to join the MMO trend. as a mud owner, programmer and administrator i looked at it as force feeding people eyecandy at the expense of creativity. City of Heroes changed that for me, it was the first MMO i ever played. i started in may 2005, not long after beta ended, and had two actively subscribed accounts until the day it shut its doors.
i was obsessed with this game. i dreamed it, i breathed it, i lived it. i had 32 maxed (at level cap of 50) characters across 8 servers and more than 70 others well on the way to it. just one of my more than 100 characters had more than 3000 hours logged. i ran at one point the second largest clan on the server that i played and when that eventually fell apart built a second clan that rose to the ranks of the top 20. i had purchased every extra and add-on and extra content pack they ever offered, most of them for both of my accounts. i am one of the people they had to refund money to after the news was announced that they would be closing, because i was still trying to throw money at them.
the game being shut down in the manner that it was was a betrayal of staggering magnitude. there were no hints at internal strife, to the contrary staff members were joyously hinting at the next free content addition that was "SOON!" to be released. that content addition would have expanded on a broader end game setup that was also left unfinished. i mention this because it shows me that there is nothing else this could have been but a political move, the studio itself was happily and efficiently chugging along full steam ahead. my bet is that the asian version release of "city of hero" (look it up) was a dismal failure and that that was ncsoft's only real concern. with that said, i would also like to point out that very little if any actual marketing was ever done for this game, it could have been far Far FAR more successful but many didn't know it existed.
the shutdown of this game that i so adored is a knife in the back to me. i will never play another ncsoft game for any reason, regardless of how good they make it.
It's worth the while of saying "we're not going to invest any more resources into this, but as long as it's making a decent profit every year we'll let it run itself.
Long played games with a stable community and steady income don't really get shut down too often. This game showed no signs of losing playerbase at any significant rate, and looked to be continuing to make money for many years to come. I guarantee you that if you go to any rational company and offer them "would you like to make an addition 5 million per year with no effort and no risk" they'd all say yes.
Especially if half the studio was working on another project that was fully funded by the income of this game, there's a potential boost in revenue.
Closing this game was a mistake, both for PR and the bottom line.
I didn't watch the video, but this argument would make more sense if NCsoft were starting from scratch and had to decide their best return on investment with limited funds between different projects. Eureka is a poor example because there were direct costs to producing additional episodes, unlike CoH which could have effectively run on maintenance mode and collected money.
I watched the gamebreak.tv video and I must say that I got an education. Thing is - this goes both ways.
NCsoft saw this 8 year old game doing little more than getting older and not gaining the profits they wanted. They wanted to move on to other things even if it was still making money. NC is a company that wants to deal in products and services that bring in hundreds of millions of dollars not just a few million per year. That's right: 10-12 million a year is nothing in their eyes. Based on what I've heard they really don't care much for their Western market compared to their home market so in their eyes scrapping CoH was nothing to cry over.
The flipside is just as valid though. 10-12 million in income is still 10-12 million more than zero income. NCsoft could have told Paragon Studios to finish production of everything planned, cease any future content updates and then begin shuffling or laying off staff to eventually put CoH on "maintenance only status" to which time it would be closed when profits reached a reasonably low ammount - say 2 million a year. ~ Although game closures are understandable NCsoft executed it in one of the worst possible ways.
The only way to get noticed these days is to speak with your wallets. If there's a game or company you like, support them. If you don't like them then kick em to the curb and put your money elsewhere. Companies must learn that they must wisen-up and operate propperly or face bankruptcy because they fail to see their mistakes.
I'm moving on to other things, just nothing that NCsoft currently has to offer. Should NCsoft restart City of Heroes or make a sequel I will definately look into them. Those are what I'd put my money in and that's what it all comes down to in the end. Pay for what you want and ignore what you don't.
Yes, I've read a poem. Try not to faint.
well what NCSOFT had done is the worst of the worst. Breaking every rule in the book. Break every International law .
Killing every big corperation in Korea to Buy NC soft stocks. only fools buy NCSOFT STOCKS!
NCOSFT job was to Kill City of Heroes. simply put NCosft never beleave in the Super Heroes act of doing what is right.
NC soft dose not care about customers in the USA. only deal with the Asian Market only. NCSOFT is nothing more then being Rude to customers. and it shows. htting there own partners in there own kind. this is a prime example.
a Korean compnay called Nexon had buy like 14% of NCSOFT'S level A stocks. Nexon spent about $687,000,000.00 ($687 Million US Dallars) that is one stock cost in 6/8/2012 is $268,000.00 for one level A stock. then on the end of Augest 2012 NC soft anounced that killing City of Heros to is the best thing to suppport the Asian market and Korean market as well. all right lets see this I got the answer for the better or for the worst. For the + Side of it Nothing. lets look at the fun stuff the "-" side on the date of 6/08/2012 that level A stock costed $268,000.00 US Dollars per share then on 11/09/2012 the stocks droped!Down Down down by the millions of Dollars it droped! to $178,500.00 US Dollars. I do not know what the Korean money is. I simply translated it for USA Dollars.
NCSOFT is taken them selfs to go out of buiensss and willing to take there No.1 levle A stock shair Holder compnay Nexon to close shop along with them. you thin the CEO of Nexon is happy about those NCSOFT SOCKS dropping like this. I know the CEO is extream Angry about it. I simply sell those socks back to NCSOFT. count the losses and move on.
$268,000.00 to $178,500.00 this is millions of Dollars had been flushed down the toilet I am trying to see if this droped any more since then.
what is the NEXT NCOSFT MMORPG game is going to die next?
I am thinking Guildwars. its going to be with in the 3 to 6 months from now.
Right on! You got my support
I got a few ideas.
see if we can hire back Pragon Studios and get all the members and players to help buy City of heroes from NCSOFT?
we own it. we play it.
2nd idea
push Cryptic Studios to take back COh and run it
3rd idea mod COH Freedom w/ issue 24 to work with out the internet. get cityofhereos.exe to work wtth out the ncsoft launcher
all those names after a off line log in. see all the name of servers. example Freedom and Liberty for a few examples
and have unlimited toons saved. the hard drive is the largest collection of data storage now that 3T drives our out out
whats that 3 billion gigs?
I am so fracken sick of ncosft. icon 1.7 is not helping. I cannot do my missions.
off line gamming notes
unlimtied level ups able to get enhancements to keep up with that.
able to fight giant monsters solo
buy new updated iusses on dvd rom (24,25,26 so on)
Go to PVP zones and do PVP killings not on online PVP toons rather then Elete Bosses
Custom make enhacements. simple way of using a slide bar to program how much of what. 100,000,000% increase damage 1000,000,000,000% increase of accresasry and so on and so forth
get a full game and mod it. faster then restarting from scratch.
Did I say I am suck of NCSOFT?