Atlantea

Still not interested. Don't care how good it is. Don't care if Arenanet are the nicest folks this side of our Dev team.

NCSoft does NOT get my money!

Ever.

If Arenanet breaks away from NCSoft and goes it on their own, I'll gladly support them. Until then? No. Not budging. Can't trust NCSoft.

Here's an interesting find!

http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/NCs...ews-E23242.htm


I just now discovered this website googling for info on NCSoft.

The Glass Door post anonymous reviews by employees about the companies they work for. Just for comparison's sake I checked for Apple.com. Not surprisingly Apple gets glowing reviews from employees and a high rating.

I also checked on Blizzard, SOE, and Bioware. Results about what I expected.

I'm not necessarily surprised at seeing negative reviews of NCSoft. It's the degree of negativity and the vitriol compared to other gaming companies reviewed on this site that's incredible.

The comparative reviews about the other gaming corporations I saw and the reviews by NCSoft's OWN EMPLOYEES are very telling:

Blizzard: 3.4 Star Rating 84% Approve of CEO Mike Morhaime
Bioware: 3.5 Star Rating 86% Approve of CEO Ray Muzyka
SOE: 2.5 Star Rating 21% Approve of CEO John Smedley
NCSoft: 2.3 Star Rating 18% Approve of CEO Kim Tack Jin

Reviews by employees of NCSoft:

--------------------
“If only they didn't believe that pigs could fly..”

Current Employee in Austin, TX – Reviewed last week – New

Pros – Almost free lunches. Some of the community.

Cons – Immediate ''fire you now'' reaction. An itchy finger to redlight certain games that are not making the cut and currently that involves all Western influenced MMOs. I can tell you that even with knowledge of the business, finances, NDA disclosures, and how HQ runs it's still difficult to maintain an open connection with both my side and employees and theirs. Trying to get through to someone in Korea is like tapping a pencil on a manhole in New York during rush hour. You won't catch anyone's attention, and that's just the way it always has been. Honestly, being fluent in Korean doesn't much either as they detest foreigners with knowledge of their ''native'' tongue. Ridiculing our Office more than aiming to help.

For anyone who is interested all I can say is don't be. Move on to a Western owned and Western run Company.

NDA: NCSoft is going to be insourcing more so than outsourcing. You can expect the full shutdown of all NCSoft Western-Run/European Run Offices with in the next two years.

Advice to Senior Management – After your meltdown please do not attempt to re-open to the United States. Stay in Korea. Thanks.

--------------------

“Working at NCsoft, was the closest I'll ever come to leaving the video game industry.”

Former Employee in Seattle, WA – Reviewed last week – New (< take note!)

Pros – If you're good at what you do, you'll be a rockstar, even if you work less than 40 hours a week.

Competitive salaries for minimal work

Cons – Leadership in Korea does not trust America or Europe to make their own decisions, and as a result, the decisions made reflect what Korea leadership wants to see, and not what needs to happen for the benefit of players, or the business.

There is no clear career path, because the company is restructured every other year.

Having a good boss at NCsoft is like winning the lottery. Unfortunately, even if you win, your awesome boss will wise up or get laid off during your employment.

The only culture that exists, is what employees make for themselves; however, with so much turnover, office culture changes frequently, and is often more of an "inner-circle" kind of experience.

Benefits are not great. They are bare bones, and change a lot.

When I was working there, I had to pay hundreds of dollars per month for my own parking spot

Truly creative people are not treated well at NCsoft.
Advice to Senior Management – To leadership in Korea:

Get your hands out of the darn cookie jar and EMPOWER your employees. You've guaranteed the failure North America and Europe operations because of your bureaucratic, and unnecessary approach to a global business. What works in Korea, doesn't mean it will in other territories. Look at Riot Games for god sake. They empower their Korean HQ to make their own decisions, and they are frequently different than the ones made in America. While they flourish in multiple territories, you're only truly successful in Korea, and even there, you haven't lived up to your potential in years.

--------------------

“Extremely poor management. The worst I have ever had in fact.”

Former Employee in Austin, TX – Reviewed 5 weeks ago

Pros – Other than it being a video game company. None really

Cons – Management! The US operations is always afraid of what HQ wants, so they make rash hiring decisions, especially bringing deadbeat directors that have been let go from other electronic studios.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop trying to constantly change or micromanage. If you want to do it the HQ way then bring over HQ management. Bringing in washout from other electronic studios makes it much worse.

--------------------

“So if you have no choice or don't want to improve your skill”

Former Employee in Seattle, WA – Reviewed Jul 17, 2012

Pros – As a developer, the team is pretty solid.

The benefit is Okay, at least better than Amazon's health insurance.

You can spend 2 hours a day at work... they don't care

Cons – the management mess up.
you can't learn anything here, not good fot career path.
Korean never trust ppl here.
no one knows whats going on.
some "lead" like to play small game, to waste ppl's time
ppl escaped a lot in past few months, lots of...

Advice to Senior Management – let ppl know whats going on...
better management
too many management roles

--------------------

“Getting better day by day”

Current Employee in Seattle, WA – Reviewed Dec 14, 2011

Pros – First of all, there area number of different teams in Seattle. There is a game studio that works on localizing Korean games into American, there is marketing, creative services, interactive services and hr. Your satisfaction with the company is going to depend entirely on what team you are in. The company is based out of South Korea, and that can be extremely strange to understand if you haven't been familiar with their hierarchical nature or thought processes. It was hard for me to comprehend, honestly. But, if you stick it out and learn the ropes, you can do well here. The company has a new CEO who made some large scale changes when she came in. This inlcuded layoffs and a freeze on new hires. This was in Sept. Since then, it has been in the process of strengthening, and I can only speak for my team, but I have a great boss who is transparent about what is going on, fair, flexible and has high standards. It is making me better at what I do, and that is important as a means of growth and my advancement as someone trying to hone my craft. I like my team and respect them all for what they are doing. I have the best manager I have ever had at this company. I can not speak for all departments, but, she is very very good. The people I deal with above me are all fair and trying their best. Any rumors of the company or office tanking really make no sense. Check out NCsoft on the Korean stock market. Only growth since 2008. There are two western games Guild Wars 2 and Wildstar which are coming out in the next 2 years. You bet they are going to need an American studio to support these products. GW2 is going to blow many MMORPGS out of the water. Yes, it is really, really good. And i say that as a gamer, not an employee

Cons – Korea can be crazy and make illogical request at the last minute. They do not comprehend that the American market is much different than theirs, and when they try to force their solutions on us, it can frustrate our gamers. BUT, they are learning. The Seattle office has some articulate people trying to strengthen relationships with them, and they seem to be responding well. Honestly, the hardest things related to the job are related to the Korean/American cultural divide. But, I have a strong team and I like the people I work with. Sometimes it is weird in that we just wait for Korea to toss things over the wall, and we have little conversation with them.

Advice to Senior Management – There is so much miscommunicaiton with Korea that at times this feels like an episode of Keystone Cops. We have to sort this out, or people are going to be continually frustrated. You had better start converting many of your long term contractors to FTE, or they are going to be picked off by headhunters. This should be a huge concern to you. On a positive note, keep shedding ineffectual people and focusing on company-wide skill set increases, and we will be as robust as a reputable agency in town.

--------------------

“If you have a choice, don't choose NCsoft”

Current Employee in Seattle, WA – Reviewed Nov 22, 2011

Pros – There are some really bright and fun people working at NCsoft and the Seattle location is right in the middle of downtown.

Cons – Unfortunately all the bright and fun people from NCsoft either left, were let go, or have the resumes out and are looking. As for the fun location, rumor has it that's going away soon too.

While it might still be a good place to work if you are in one of the studios, the Seattle and Austin offices are in complete turmoil. Don't bother trying to talk to HR, they are more of a mess than most of the other departments and most anyone there who had experience has already jumped ship. There is a huge disconnect between the Korean office, Seattle leadership, and most of the employees and mixed messages are the norm. If you have other opportunities, I wouldn't even answer NCsoft's call.

Advice to Senior Management – If you only listen to the people who tell you what you want to hear you shouldn't be shocked with the general lack of performance and ever increasing turnover.

--------------------

“A bad thing that's getting worse”

Former Employee in Austin, TX – Reviewed Oct 15, 2011

Pros – Casual atmosphere. Remodel of the Austin, TX offices.

Cons – Many of the major groups in NCsoft West (Operations, Billing Software, Web Development) are experiencing downsizing while those jobs are being returned to Seoul. After 3 or 4 changes of senior management in 5 years, it seems as though the folks in Seoul HQ are done with almost everything to do with North America/European offices. I'm not sure I would even consider the folks that are not losing their jobs "lucky" in any aspect.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop think that you are fooling people by holding back information. Everyone knew the layoffs were coming. Everyone knew about the leadership transitions. Have more all-hands meetings like the old days, including P&L.

---------------------

“Stay Away”

Former Employee in Seattle, WA – Reviewed Oct 14, 2011

Pros – Some good people work there.

Cons – Circling the drain pretty quickly. Danger.

--------------------

“Organized chaos, consistently shifting leadership”

Current Employee in Seattle, WA – Reviewed Sep 05, 2011

Pros – View of city. Not many people out to get one another, friendly culture. I have heard bonuses happen but yet to receive.

Cons – Lack of direction, constantly changing direction. Erratic and uninformed decision making. Huge accountability in some groups while none in others. Dissent between geographic locations resultos in feeling that nobody is really succeeding. Everyone is pretty much waiting for Guild Wars to ship and then they are out.

Advice to Senior Management – Listen to your people, let them drive the business and manage up. You are there to keep it funded. If you are ineffective, leave.

--------------------

“Terrible environment, unorganized, lack of leadership and absolutely no support”

Former Employee in Seattle, WA – Reviewed Mar 09, 2011

Pros – The only reason was the location of the office, downtown Seattle.

Cons – There is not enough words to explain how terrible this place is. There were people who would last one day, on average employees would leave every 3 months, just enough time to realize how messed-up the company was. No leadership, complete chaos caused by the HQ and the lack of professionalism in the Seattle office. I could not wish this company to my enemy. The joke at the end of every week was how many emails we would get from HR informing us that people were leaving (though usually, HR would send an email per exec. request 3-4 weeks after the employees had left). The exec. team tries to hide everything. Employees are treated like idiots. No support, no recognition, no raise.

Advice to Senior Management – Shut down this mess and at least do yourself a favor...or go through a total revamp.

--------------------

“This company has peaked, and is on its way down.”

Former Software Engineer in Austin, TX – Reviewed Sep 07, 2008

Pros – It's a great start in the game industry, and if they happen to make a game you love, it could be worth it to work there.

Cons – Company direction changes with the wind, and directives from above are rarely followed by the support (budget, manpower, etc.) to actually follow them.

Advice to Senior Management – Analyze the way the MMO marketplace is today, not the way it was ten years ago. Trying to do the same things you did ten years ago to be successful - that stopped working a few years ago - is not the path to success.

--------------------

“Almost like a real job!”

Former Employee in Austin, TX – Reviewed Aug 13, 2008

Pros – If you're mediocre and are looking for a place to just dog it, maybe punch the clock? This is the place for you. Also, if you speak Korean you can write your own check.

It is a good place to be in QA or CS, though. Those departments are pretty solid.

25 cent sodas and snacks.

Cons – Hmm, let's see. Stability is poor, absolutely no coordination between Korean management and US management, weak strategic vision, poor portfolio, weak creative development, terrible marketing, etc.

Advice to Senior Management – Hire talented people and get out of their way. It would be easier to execute on your vision if people knew what it was, and it didn't change every other month.

--------------------

“Good people and teams, confusing corporate direction”

Current Employee in Austin, TX – Reviewed Jul 21, 2008

Pros – Development teams are given a fair amount of autonomy to create the game they want to make.

The company was willing to take risks on some technologies and ideas.

They are the leading MMO developer in the world with many titles under their belt, they have the experience to create some fairly polished MMOs and to support them.
Cons – Senior management and corporate direction comes down without any feedback from the development teams whose fates are being decided.

Coordination amongst various development teams and knowledge sharing is not practiced, reinventing the wheel happens alot.

The lack of follow through on some project ideas and letting projects die creates frustrated employees.

Advice to Senior Management – More transparency in the decisions that are being made and the direction the company is going in, from highest level to lowest level.

--------------------

“Wonderful worker bees, confused upper management.”

Current Employee in Austin, TX – Reviewed Jul 21, 2008

Pros – Lots of wonderful peers to work with and great opportunities to learn and work with interesting technologies.

Cons – Upper management seems unsure of what they want to do and repeatedly change direction. Each occurrence kills morale and reduces confidence in the company as a whole.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop chasing the trends, focus on the future.

--------------------

“Used to be a good place to work, now not so much”

Current Employee in Austin, TX – Reviewed Jul 21, 2008

Pros – Working in Austin, competitive salaries, often good opportunities for career advancement, company generally tends to do the right thing for its employees (layoffs postponed as long as possible so that people can find positions elsewhere)

Cons – Rapid changes in direction from management, lack of focus, many burnouts especially in high-ranking positions, currently great deal of uncertainty due to high profile failure (Tabula Rasa). The Austin location especially is having serious morale issues.

Advice to Senior Management – Find a focus and stick to it, the whiplash is getting old. Politics between divisions is also getting more than a little old.

--------------------

“Heavily managed from the top in Korea, not great at paying their employees”

Former Employee – Reviewed last week – New

Pros – Stable, good game pedigree. There is a care about the quality of the product.

Cons – Korea runs the show mercilessly, and there are many layers of bureaucracy to go through to do anything. It adds to the pipeline when your studio has to use the central QA, and the central customer service even if they have those services in house. It's redundant and costly, both financially and time-wise. Decision-making sometimes seems arbitrary.

--------------------


And it just goes on and on and on.

So what do you think? I'd say this confirms everything I've ever suspected about NCSoft since this whole debacle began -

They couldn't find their own A__ with a flashlight, a roadmap and a native guide.


Pathetic.

Just in case you wish to post the text directly into an email, here's a version re-formatted for basic e-mail purposes. (URLs have been removed from text links and posted on their own within the body of the article. Bullet points have been changed to dash marks for ease of comprehension and universal formatting.).



INDEPENDENT MARKET REVIEW: NCSoft and Paragon Studios Shutdown

Posted by Mecha at September 16th, 2012

INDEPENDENT MARKET REVIEW

NCSoft and Paragon Studios Shutdown


September 15, 2012

www.mecha-eng.com


Disclaimer

The following is a cursory, independent, white paper review, based on publicly available information, on the potential ramifications of the NCSoft execution of the closure of Paragon Studios. The review is intended for public distribution to all interested parties. The report is highly speculative, and cannot attribute all factors. As such, it should not be used to make significant decisions on its own.



Summary

NCSoft continues to be a major player in the gaming market, especially in the Eastern Markets, showing the equivalent of $146,000,000 in Q2 sales alone.

The Western market is a minor one for NCSoft (less than 6%). Its handling of the shutdown of the City of Heroes (COH) franchise, operated by Paragon Studios, has given the impression of poor judgment in dealing with that market. Its actions have resulted in a series of events creating negative press that has had a disproportionately large effect on NCSoft interests, which could have been mitigated or avoided.

These actions have likely weakened NCSoft’s standing in the Western market, for the short term, and will likely hamper its ability to introduce and maintain titles in this secondary market in the short to mid term. Further, NCSoft has taken no public action to mitigate the situation, while consumer reaction has taken a strong foothold in industry related and general news media, effectively unchecked.

All of these factors combine to give the impression of either a lack of direction in the Western market, or a lack of commitment to the same, indicating proactive measures by competing firms could be especially well timed.



COH Overview

City of Heroes launched in 2004 and has remained a dominant product in the Superhero themed MMORG realm throughout its life cycle. Most notably, it has maintained a substantial foothold in the US market, while major competitors, such as World of Warcraft, were introduced. Recent, Superhero competitors have not been well received in comparison.

The City of Heroes franchise was purchased in November 2007 by NCSoft from Cryptic Studios. In June 2011, the game was switched to a hybrid free to play model.

Without significant investment in advertisement outside of the immediate player population, City of Heroes maintained stable revenue of approximately $2,500,000 quarterly for the last 8 quarters, appearing to have reached a stable level.

http://mecha-eng.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/coh.png




Extensive community outreach

Staff at Paragon studios have engaged in a strong outreach program to the consumer playerbase, and have been highly successful in building subscriber loyalty. Further, the control of the individual player over their own COH experience, evidenced in character customization tools, player run base designs and player created content, has created a sentiment of ‘partnership’ between the playerbase and development studio.

Playerbase outreach efforts have also grown from inside the game, involving several charity related programs, started by players who began communicating inside the COH game.



Consumer Reaction

The reaction to the closure announcement has been overwhelmingly negative in the Western Market. Within two weeks, petitions against the closure had reached over 18,000 signatures (http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...ity-of-heroes#). Articles and commentary widely expressed sympathy to COH players and Paragon Studio staff are found in number across much of the gaming industry websites and blogs. The event has garnered mainstream media attention at CNN (http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-840174). While the playerbase continues to raise awareness and to date, no official response from NCSoft has been made to acknowledge or address the consumer reaction.

In particular, three major factors seem to be fueling public reaction to the closure:

-- The immediate closure of Paragon Studios and resultant immediate lay off of all staff has struck a resonance with the predominantly American market. Aside from feeling a sense of partnership with Paragon staff, the playerbase also empathizes with the struggling economic times in general.

-- The continuing work on new expansions (i24) and release of new powersets and in game content led to confidence in the health of the game. Many players came back or subscribed to VIP status as a result of these efforts, and felt particularly mislead by the abrupt and unpredicted closure announcement

-- City of Heroes has developed a very strong social network, and people seem to react to the loss of that community as much if not more than the game itself. COH is a game which is accessible to a wide range of ages, disabilities and ethnicities, due to its ease of operation, low violence content, and gradual learning curve. COH almost certainly benefited from a nostalgic factor, which is also being seen in other games.



Mischaracterization of Western Market

Numerous factors seem to indicate that NCSoft is out of sync with the player demographic in the US in general, as well as the local population of City of Heroes.

Despite a steady influx of younger gamers which remain as foundation population set to the gaming industry, many adults have continued to play, creating a large population themselves. These tend to be more loyal subscribers, with larger disposable incomes and posses a range of professional skills they bring to bear in internal game organization (guilds, events, etc).

City of Heroes in particular, capitalizes on the West’s love of the Comic Book Superhero, which is a major industry unto itself, considering the Marvel (Disney) and DC franchises. This is a genre that many can trace back to early childhood, and the hero concept is deeply embedded in the American consciousness.

Finally, there is an expectation for a Return on Investment when it comes to loyalty from many gamers in the United States. Players, who have established long term commitments with the game, expect a certain reciprocation of loyalty from the parent company. Once example is SOE’s Everquest, which still offer servers with content updates for dedicated players despite its 13+ year age.



Consumer Confidence

Confidence in NCSoft has almost certainly slipped in the Western market as a result of the City of Heroes closure. The company is considered ‘out of touch’ with its market. A percentage of players are reluctant to commit or try new NCSoft products without the security of a reciprocation of loyalty. For example, Sales of Guild War 2 have been negatively impacted by players who do not want to ‘invest’ time into an NCSoft product in light of the City of Heroes closure, feeling the game could be removed without notice or warning. The degree of this effect remains to be studied in depth.



Leadership

Little if any showing of a proactive effort to mitigate the negative publicity being generated has been shown on NCSoft’s part publically. While it is nearly certain attention to this is being given internally, the lack of outward leadership gives the impression that NCSoft either does not care to, or does not know how to address the issue. This lack of attention to an event resulting in a falling consumer confidence, however niche of a market it comes from, is baffling from an investors perspective.

The subsequent announcement of the release of Sword and Soul also gives a very confusing message, to both players and investors. By ending a stable product catering to a target demographic and introducing a new product not aligned to that market in its place, NCSoft leadership could be interpreted as showing a marked lack of innovation and even competency. Instead of recognizing the value of an existing product, NCSoft leadership seems determined to push existing formulas, regardless of the market demographic.



Legal Liability

While NCSoft is covered largely by EULA statements, there are potential avenues for cases for fraud being brought against NCSoft in the case of long term advance subscription purchases. By allowing for Paragon Studios to continue work on expansion content, heavily advertising that content, and releasing new content, it is reasonable to assume many paying customers were doing so with the expectation of being able to play said content. If it could be shown NCSoft intended to do this in advance intentionally allowing Paragon to continue with the expectation of offering time on new releases (example: Guild Wars 2) as compensation, ‘bait and switch’ related fraud charges might be successfully applied in US and UK courts.



Conclusion

For reasons that are unclear, NCSoft seemed to undertake an approach for the ending of the City of Heroes franchise without a solid approach to sunsetting the product. Instead, it seems to have decided to simply ‘pull the plug’, without much preparation for consumer reaction. Consumer loyalty, in what most other scenarios would be considered a tremendous asset, has been turned into a liability though actions which continue to paint NCSoft in a negative light.

The overall behavior by NCSoft appears to be reactionary, potentially indicating either an internally localized lack of experience or a wider lack of direction when it comes to ongoing interaction in the Western market.

Internal efforts to address the situation may be occurring, but at this stage it appears the fire is being left to burn, in what can best be described as a clumsy ‘scorched earth’ move. At this point, NCSoft may be looking for a win-win exit strategy to this situation, or may simply be willing to write off the entire Western market place, both scenarios being potentially leverageable.

The overall situation created by the NCSoft decision is complex, involving international factors, a complex market place and multiple stakeholder factors. The situation is time sensitive, in that public reaction efforts continue to gain media traction, while any potential salvage efforts from NCSoft could be less effective as former Paragon Studios staff disperse into the workforce. Additional, expedited research on the topic is recommended prior to any outside investor actions.


--------------------
Hope this helps.

I wonder if posting this directly into an email to one of the addresses that TonyV provided would get their attention?

So awesome it deserves mention here. From the Praetorian Invasion:

On a Praet team...

Apparently TonyV now agrees it's time for more direct action:

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=297365

Copied and re-posted your post to my supergroup's forums. No matter what else happens, they can't stop the signal now.

EDIT: It's 2 am right now. And I'm not going to be composing any emails now. I recommend waiting until the daylight hours and making sure of a clear head before people start composing their emails.

-- There's already a "The Misty Wood" in Croatoa. Re-naming it "Misty's Woods" to honor Mercedes Lackey's efforts on our behalf would be a trivial matter.

-- I think the idea of replacing statuary and such is a little over the top. But again - placing a new set of History markers? Easy. Also - consider - the History Badge that you get for completing reading the history plaques could itself be "Atlas Park 33".

From one WST Statesman's Task Force run....

Koi: Wow, I'm hardcapped.
*Black Scorpion one-shots Koi a split second later*
Koi: ....okay, I asked for that.

"We will, We will, Stalk you.
Buddy, you're in Warburg, don't know why.
Say you want rockets, that ain't gonna fly.
You're built for PvE. Flagged PvP.
Gotta know my AS is gonna make you scream!
We will, We will, Stalk you."

--@Cybernetic Hobo (Playing Bleakstar)

Seen as part of an Empathy Defender's Bio: