AvelWorldCreator

Yes. And I think I saw another source. I didn't mark it but I might be able to find it again. I'm trying to remember the circumstances. Given the level of rumor around here I'm trying to cite what I can that's reliable. I have no interest following the soap opera that is NCSoft, but it seems to delight others.

This is from commentary on a web site related to employer comparison. It's postings from alleged NCSoft West employees. Since they are posting anonymously - well, I think you see why I take it with a grain of salt. Unless there are real names behind it I call it a rumor.

I can probably hunt around for it again. It's NOT on the Titan boards though.

The biggest complaint, and a valid one, is there is no way to substantiate that it is an actual asking price from NCSoft.

That NCSoft has a history of deceit is well established, and in an open court of law. I would suspect that is a contributing factor in their alleged decisions to pull out of Western markets if that is indeed the case. Again this is mostly rumor but it has more substantial sources than what has been bandied about around here.

Agreed. Unfortunately right now some accountability is difficult to come by and there is simply too much rumor.

A painful, but accurate assessment of the situation. I could even qualify myself as "others from Plan Z". And deal brokering now is probably not likely.

For business and personal reasons I'm continuing to support the project but I do have my worries.

Thanks for the constructive criticism.

It's a person with a connection to Paragon Studios. He didn't give the exact number - only described it in relation to the 80Mil one. Unless he grants me permission I can't discuss it in an open forum.

Actually I have some insider info that suggest that number isn't quite accurate and is too high, but the real one is still in the insane range.

Actually that's the term that was taught to me by my software firm many years ago. The idea is funding is derived from previous revenue streams and not future ones. It's also anything that contributes to the creation of, or sustaining of, revenue streams but does not actually generate revenue itself. Taxes would be a prime example. So is management salaries, marketing costs, maintenance, etc. It also includes R&D. Which is why my company was quick to impress on me the nature of the concept since my work was ALL NRE. I know businesses capitalize on it. It's a useful concept. Given that the people who taught me had decades of experience in business and in multiple industries, I was inclined to trust their instruction. I also note that this former employer no longer had any of these people on their boards when they went belly up. I suspect they cashed out as soon as the holdings went public and moved on. I have since worked with MBAs, all of whom were millionaires, who confirmed my previous instruction and taught me more. And since my field was not finance I have relied mostly on on-the-job training. I've done additional research and study when it was demanded, but I've not gone out of my way to acquire formal training in the subject.

No disrespect. You are one of those "one or two" people I referred to elsewhere. Your last paragraph is consistent with that assessment. And I'm also familiar with the "Non-recurring" expense concept too. Our disagreement is mostly with regards to slight overlaps in nomenclature. I'm not a company financial officer except with my own, small business. I can do long term income and expense analysis then make projections that can satisfy financiers (and have done so), but that's the extent of my financial acumen. Well, also I put together a P&L and other financial reporting documents, but those are pretty standardized and routine. My appraisals are typically based on what I think I would want to pay for something and not a general market analysis. But when it comes to actual negotiations with me as a customer, that is what matters at the end.

Hmm. I'm doing myself a disservice. When I actually enter negotiations I've been told that I'm quite skilled. I'm knowledgeable about mathematical proofs concerning the process and the application. I just lack the skill for bringing initial contact into that stage unless it is something I'm already passionate about. If I don't care about something enough to promote it, it doesn't happen. I am unable to establish a false front. Anyways, most of my business knowledge is mathematical rather than social. Give me a set of simultaneous, non-linear, differential equations and I'm much happier. I prefer the abstract over the concrete. I'm a company officer out of necessity and skill but it's never my first choice.

I didn't misconstrue standards of business communication. At the very worst I used some terms loosely, I DO follow those standards except in unusual cases. I had some difficulty identifying proper and establishing proper channels in this case and I used a slightly novel technique to overcome this difficulty. I also used it to gather other information as well. Based on the standards I had set when I did it I found it successful. The reason I was so loose at the outset was because I set the story forth for entertainment purposes. Not for instruction or justification. Unfortunately I did not establish my intent sufficiently well and I've been paying for it since. It didn't help matters that the original story had other inaccuracies - the result of hazy memory, a lack of concern about detail, and typing it up when I was falling asleep at the keyboard.

Thank you for your respectful and professional tone. It's recognized and appreciated.

That's a good question. And if it wasn't nearly 4AM here with me becoming very tired and cranky I'd try to find out. Right now I find myself actually feeding the trolls Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber.

What is more amusing is that your lack of command over basic word meaning and sentence structure in the American English language has led you to the overdrawn conclusion that you were actually called any names at all. If I do start calling you names there won't be any confusion about it.

Nope. I described specifically what I did and was able to provide specific documentation support the events claimed. I have a "paper trail". Your statement of "completely fabricated material" is not supportable against prevailing evidence.
I avoided attacking him personally even though he continued to chase my postings and doing that very thing. My normal pattern is to try to answer even apparent troll with courteous responses. But I have my limits. My last reply was certainly more ad hominem, but I was careful to identify it as speculative and a matter of subject personal opinion and not as established fact, but the existence of that opinion and its specific nature is objectively true. I'll leave the rest of your sophomoric claims alone. They are not worth the attention of any intelligent conversation.

You gave a chart without citing sources. I used the simple expedient at the time of using one petition's numbers. Not a perfect source, but it still represented an strong player base with an active interest. How many of those were VIP vs F2P would have been difficult to evaluate. After that was the simple math of 15*number + maybe 1/4 of that actually using the store significantly each month. I used a figure of 10 for that monthly store number. Multiply by 12. That produces an annual gross income of 5.25 million a year. When I gave my estimate I definitely stated that it was a "rough" estimate. That means based on limited information. I notice you omitted store revenues.

500k was my valuation of the IP NOW. Any company that tried to buy it at this time is going to have to hire new staff or hope the re-hire the previous one. Deal with the negative publicity this fiasco has caused and a myriad of legal issues. The game engine may have licensing issues and might require a complete rewrite. That's NRE - Non-Recoverable cost of Engineering. That's right, that cost is never recovered. The question would there be enough Return On Investment (ROI) to justify purchasing the IP in its current state at a higher price. 500k was generous.

Given that you keep slanting the story as the support ticket was the actual means used to attempt such I'm sure that's exactly the conclusion they would have reached. A lie of omission is still a lie. I also take it you are NOT one of those alleged CEOs. I suspect that you are more of an amusing pet that brings some funny stories to them to laugh at and not one of them would even consider the possibility of you running any of those supposed billion dollar business. You might own a few shares of common stock, but I doubt it goes much deeper than that.

My use of the word "criticisms" was being kind.

That's the reporter I mentioned earlier in the thread.

She got it direct. I just "read between the lines".

Oh. And for those of you who wonder why I read so much into what seems so little? Try arguing committing millions of dollars of your company's credit to something that has the slightest hint of being shaky. And on top of that I'd have to show to any potential VC people that there was no cause for alarm. I was authorized to make inquiries ONLY. I do my job, and I do it well. There's only one or two people in this thread who have the necessary qualifications to fully criticize my methodology and not one of them has attacked my competence.

You summarized it well though. I got some (actually expected) lawyer speak and in interesting omission. When I first posted the story on this thread I did so from some hazy memory. If I don't dwell on something I don't recall it well later. When I decided to actually quote what was said it jarred the rest of my memory. I've been up against some weaker forms of stonewalling before and I recognized the pattern. Again, acquisitions is not my forte', but corporate communications and politics is well within my grasp. In fact I suspected they already had a buyer at that moment.

For the record here is the exact language of that ticket. It was actually a reply to a response to an existing ticket (I had forgotten that point).
Notice that last question?

The reply:
The first sentence is boilerplate. The second and third were expected. The fourth sentence was also boilerplate. Notice what question was not answered? Contact referrals is part of help desk activity. Even a "Go to the NCSoft website and..." would have sufficed. Not even that. And, yes, prior to that question I HAD gone to the NCSoft web page. Why? Because it was the logical first step.

Now go to their site and look at their news links... Yeah. The one that has the latest news a 2007 announcement about... City of Heroes!
That site has not been updated significantly since 2009. I wasn't about to trust the contact information that may have been over four years out of date.
(http://global.ncsoft.com/global/aboutus/overview.aspx)
The Korean language version is more up to date (latest news dated as November 12th, 2012 but my ability to translate is quite limited.
Option two then was to ... contact support Why? Because one of the things they do is resolve questions of that very nature. And I also figured in the other factors I mentioned earlier.

But not even a "I don't know who you can contact?" (which would have been a logical response).

Nope. That's more likely to get you arrested. Meet some interesting people of a different sort then.

I was always told never to "Feed the trolls" and I probably shouldn't reply to this, but the response was anything but boilerplate. And later evidence from other sources established this as the case.

No, the only thing GMs can do is give you further contact information.
The help desk has an internal contact list and may be more familiar with which of a set of public lists is better for your needs. It was an experiment mostly on my part. It wasn't a planned one.

I remember that stuff. The Commodore computers (20, 64) had two 8k banks at the upper memory address range. The first bank was a form of BASIC (I used it tons of times for floating point work). The second bank was the Kernal OS. It was great for some of the IO, but I often found myself writing my own routines. A trick I used was to use the address of this one opcode for some two-byte instructions. The opcode itself rarely had much use other than testing some bit values. After that I went to Data Race and worked with a Z80 with a set of parallel 6502s for the DSP. I also worked with the 8088.

Actually that was the official stance. That was just the minimum desired assets. Having a functional game that was already generating revenue was definitely worth having.

And I'm aware of the EU issue. They are much better at privacy matters than they are here in the U.S.

I estimated at the time the IP was earning at minimum a rate of 5 mill a year. No less than 10 mil and no more than 15. My original estimate seems to have been pretty close as I found out later. Now, with the loss of Paragon Studios, its senior staff, and player accounts (among other things)... The IP is now probably worth at most 500k. NCSoft doesn't even own the engine. That still belongs to Cryptic Studios. We weren't after the IP. We were after the studio and player accounts. Those were the real assets.