NCsoft Brighton more trouble?

SteelRat · 02-13-2009 05:36 AM

And to think, we all thought the "Coming Storm" was something that was going to happen in game...

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PRAF68_EU · 02-13-2009 05:39 AM

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the truth of the matter is u wont see the full nature of i13's demise until the q1 fy 2009 is realease as i13 was only realeased on the 2nd of dec

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I didn't realise PvP'ers made up that substantial portion of the playerbase?

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Probably not but but if you lose a portion of players who lets face it ran most of the farms so they could get there latest pvp toon up. Plus the majority of pvp players had more than 1 account (1 I know had 5). So you may hanve a limited number of players leave but you could say between 2 times or 3 times that number of accounts. So if you say PvPers them selves are only 5% of the population, but infact could hold 10% of the accounts (just an example as no real way of knowing the exact number), But this is realy just the tip of the iceberg as PvPer's have friends who don't class them selves as PvPer's but team with members of that community. Who see friends leave then decide it's time to go and so on. If a clearly dedicated bunch as the PvPer's were decide to leave then the knock on effect isn't just felt with in that groupe.

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I would still be incredibly surprised if those that did unsubscribe totalled any significant numbers.

The fact that they implemented such sweeping changes to get more people to PvP tells us just how relatively small the dedicated PvP population is/was.

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The thing with the PvP changes, is its pretty clear that they wheren't Positron's idea, or Castle's idea.

NCSoft top managment looked at the figures for CoX, saw that PvP only nade up a small proportion of the player base, and , being entirely mired in the mentality of the Korean market, said "Oh look, CoX PvP must be broken. NorCal, you better fix that, as it is bound to increase subscribers by 30%". So Positron and Castle where forced to make changes in an attempt to fix the utterly unfixable. And if something is unfixable, then any changes will inevitably make it worse.

I really should do something about this signature.

DreamWeaver · 02-13-2009 05:48 AM

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All my post means is that yesterday there was a marketing, localisation and community structure in place here in Brighton. We all came to work expecting that structure to remain long term. As of yesterday lunchtime that all changed, and there is going to be an inevitable period of transition and adjustment.

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Thanks GR...
So the game is still OK in the EU (or they wouldn't be hiring more EU S&M* people?), and no planned server merges?

I only ask because in the absence of good info, chaos reigns, with light drifting showers of panic and scattered DOOM towards the evening.

*Sales & Marketing, who are almost as painful to deal with as the other kind, but not nearly as much fun to be around

Is it time for the dance of joy yet?

Dr_MechanoEU · 02-13-2009 06:20 AM

To be honest DW, I don't think even GR knows whether the EU side of things is going to remain or not, he probably knows about as much as the rest of us.

Of course they're keeping Sales and Marketting...who is going to advertise Aion to the EU if they were gotten rid of?

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Charnell · 02-13-2009 06:36 AM

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the truth of the matter is u wont see the full nature of i13's demise until the q1 fy 2009 is realease as i13 was only realeased on the 2nd of dec

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I didn't realise PvP'ers made up that substantial portion of the playerbase?

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Probably not but but if you lose a portion of players who lets face it ran most of the farms so they could get there latest pvp toon up. Plus the majority of pvp players had more than 1 account (1 I know had 5). So you may hanve a limited number of players leave but you could say between 2 times or 3 times that number of accounts. So if you say PvPers them selves are only 5% of the population, but infact could hold 10% of the accounts (just an example as no real way of knowing the exact number), But this is realy just the tip of the iceberg as PvPer's have friends who don't class them selves as PvPer's but team with members of that community. Who see friends leave then decide it's time to go and so on. If a clearly dedicated bunch as the PvPer's were decide to leave then the knock on effect isn't just felt with in that groupe.

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I would still be incredibly surprised if those that did unsubscribe totalled any significant numbers.

The fact that they implemented such sweeping changes to get more people to PvP tells us just how relatively small the dedicated PvP population is/was.

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The thing with the PvP changes, is its pretty clear that they wheren't Positron's idea, or Castle's idea.

NCSoft top managment looked at the figures for CoX, saw that PvP only nade up a small proportion of the player base, and , being entirely mired in the mentality of the Korean market, said "Oh look, CoX PvP must be broken. NorCal, you better fix that, as it is bound to increase subscribers by 30%". So Positron and Castle where forced to make changes in an attempt to fix the utterly unfixable. And if something is unfixable, then any changes will inevitably make it worse.

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I always suspected as much too. PvP is big time over that side of the world.

But again that is the perogative of NC and forced or not Posi and Castle would have done a lot better to listen to the experienced players feedback way back into closed beta. But instead they took a dismissive attitude towards those players as spelled out by lighthouses fateful post.
I disagree that it was unfixable more that it was basically impossible to achieve the stated goals. PvP by its nature tends toward the more involved players. To expect the current players to embrace an equally broken but dumbed down version was wildly unrealistic.

So I do agree with you PRAF. If they werent prepared or capable of doing the job correctly they really shouldnt have bothered. Or maybe actually employed somebody with experience in pvp to oversee the changes. Or listened to the players.

deathkitten_EU · 02-13-2009 06:41 AM

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Dr Mechano:
To be honest DW, I don't think even GR knows whether the EU side of things is going to remain or not, he probably knows about as much as the rest of us.

Of course they're keeping Sales and Marketting...who is going to advertise [strikethrough]Aion[/strikethrough] Lineage 1.5 "NOW WITH MORE BLOOM" to the EU if they were gotten rid of?

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fixed mis-spelling of the new game's title

though I forgot the other tagline "every character own anime stereotype you have very special!" (ncsoft suit: "fat americans love this will ha ha")

Dr_MechanoEU · 02-13-2009 06:49 AM

I can probably agree on that, it does seem that perhaps the order to fix PvP came down from on-high.

The matter of the fact is they tried to fix PvP to bring more people into it and, as predicted, it failed and failed miserably, they lost more people (I.E. a substantial amount of the PvP crowd) and nobody stepped up to fill their shoes simply because (and I don't think the guys at the top realise this, as said, mired in the mentalility of the Korean market) CoH/CoV just isn't PvP based subscribers, I don't think they understand that PvP just really isn't as popular in the west as they think it is, especially in CoH/CoV where it's even more minority based than every other MMO since it was a PvE game first and foremost.

So you lost 10% of your subscribers and the other 85% STILL want nothing to do with PvP while there's 5% that will dabble in PvP still (figures pulled from out of thin air) and that would make it a complete failure.

However as always the EU side of things was hit harder due to the smaller subscriber base, we lost, what, 20 hardcore PvPers from the English forums and who knows how many from the German/French forums (well obviously they do but I speak neither French nor German) as well as those ingame who don't read the forums. For a game that probably has...what...30K Accounts (not sure on official figures) in the EU, even a few thousand is a major hit to the figures.

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scapegoat_EU · 02-13-2009 07:16 AM

Like many businesses worldwide, NCSoft are reducing costs and overheads because banks are demanding it to keep overdrafts / secure loans. Many of us will suffer this for the next 3-6 months as expenditure will override quality and service. Things won't reverse for at least 12-18 months.

When the sales figures go down, they will blame it on the global credit crunch rather than customer dissatisfaction, squeeze the remaining profit from what they can then drastically reduce the product line (again with pressure from banks). This applies to most businesses in a recession, not just NCSoft.

FloatingFatMan · 02-13-2009 07:19 AM

Q4 numbers are out folks.

Looks like things [censored]'d in September, but improved very slightly by December...

Either way, 13,823 concurrent users for US/EU combined is rubbish.

Games sales are, however, up. From 5,416 in Q1 to 6,865 in Q4, increasing steadily throughout the year.

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PRAF68_EU · 02-13-2009 07:20 AM

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Posi and Castle would have done a lot better to listen to the experienced players feedback way back into closed beta

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The had no choice. It was a case of make changes or be sacked. There are no changes that could have been made to PvP that would have made it good/popular.

The ony "Win" situtation for PvP would have been to leave it alone, and they simply where not given that option.

I really should do something about this signature.

Dr_MechanoEU · 02-13-2009 07:26 AM

Yowza, 17k one month then 13k the next, normally doesn't an Issue release bring with it a massive increase in subscriber activity?

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FloatingFatMan · 02-13-2009 07:27 AM

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Yowza, 17k one month then 13k the next, normally doesn't an Issue release bring with it a massive increase in subscriber activity?

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That's quarter, not month. Still bad though. One would have expected the December 08 result to be significantly higher than Septembers with the i13 release, but it clearly isn't... Looks to me like the PvP changes and people leaving over that countered the increased number of people playing for the other new content.

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Robbie_Redhat · 02-13-2009 07:28 AM

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Either way, 13,823 concurrent users for US/EU combined is rubbish.

Games sales are, however, up. From 5,416 in Q1 to 6,865 in Q4, increasing steadily throughout the year.

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And the key monthly access figures are... missing. They've stopped publishing them.

That doesn't necessarily mean they're plummeting, but...

Dr_MechanoEU · 02-13-2009 07:28 AM

ahh I see... aye it is still pretty bad though.

Hmm when will we see the month by month report of last year?

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FloatingFatMan · 02-13-2009 07:33 AM

It's hard to say exactly what has happened without the month on month figures, but with December '08 including an issue release and only being just under 400 higher than the previous quarter, that's BAD.

Another thing to note is exactly how many staff the Brighton office lost in September. From 149 down to 84. I wonder exactly how many are left after Wednesday?

To be honest... With such numbers, if I were senior management at NC I'd be asking serious questions as to the continued viability of CoH... They almost certainly have a close eye on it.

@FloatingFatMan

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Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

PRAF68_EU · 02-13-2009 07:35 AM

A couple of other things to consider.

I think we are mostly agreed that the plug was pulled on TR rather prematurely. It might never have recovered it's development costs, but it should have been able to turn a small operating profit.

The only reason I can see for axing it so suddenly is if the company desperatly needed to liquify assets to pay creditors.

Also, thier have been no posts (on anything) by deveropers/community staff on the US forums since the news broke. My inference is they are uncertain about thier own jobs.

I really should do something about this signature.

FloatingFatMan · 02-13-2009 07:37 AM

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A couple of other things to consider.

I think we are mostly agreed that the plug was pulled on TR rather prematurely. It might never have recovered it's development costs, but it should have been able to turn a small operating profit.

The only reason I can see for axing it so suddenly is if the company desperatly needed to liquify assets to pay creditors.

Also, thier have been no posts (on anything) by deveropers/community staff on the US forums since the news broke. My inference is they are uncertain about thier own jobs.

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I agree completely. Killing TR just smacks of an urgent need for some cash, and silence from rednames in the US really DOES lend credence to something else afoot...

@FloatingFatMan

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dr_MechanoEU · 02-13-2009 07:46 AM

However that could be the standard pre-Issue news release silence, the Devs do tend to go very quiet prior to news being released about the latest upcoming Issue. Though the fact Issue 14 was slated for a feburary release (though I think it was just listed as Q1) and we've seen neither hide nor hair of the beast apart from the incharacter musings of Doctor Aeon seems worrying. If it is delayed till March, then that means they only have two months with which to deal (test and release) with Issue 15, slated to be released at the time of the 5th anniversery (May if I remember correctly).

That said the US community moderators have been on the very quiet side as well though they may just have nothing to say and been getting on with the tasks at hand.

Saying that, how long were the devs silent on the whole 'Reformed' badge sheenanigans, took them two weeks merely to prepare a statement and say it would be returned to normal in Issue 14...

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FloatingFatMan · 02-13-2009 07:47 AM

Y'know... I find it curious that there's no published key metric data there for Tabula Rasa... There's a sales breakdown, which doesn't look too bad until Q4 which was probably affected by the closure news, but no key metrics...

@FloatingFatMan

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

FloatingFatMan · 02-13-2009 07:50 AM

Y'know... I find it curious that there's no published key metric data there for Tabula Rasa... There's a sales breakdown, which doesn't look too bad until Q4 which was probably affected by the closure news, but no key metrics...

Still, nice to see that they've made a net increase on income of 4.7 billion Won from Q3 to Q4...

@FloatingFatMan

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Knightly · 02-13-2009 07:50 AM

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It's hard to say exactly what has happened without the month on month figures, but with December '08 including an issue release and only being just under 400 higher than the previous quarter, that's BAD.

Another thing to note is exactly how many staff the Brighton office lost in September. From 149 down to 84. I wonder exactly how many are left after Wednesday?

To be honest... With such numbers, if I were senior management at NC I'd be asking serious questions as to the continued viability of CoH... They almost certainly have a close eye on it.

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Interestingly i am seeing more returning players and new players in game nowadays.

On the other hand i don't think i14 will have a big impact on game or it will drive more new players to the game. I hope things will change with i15 and it is as big as they claim. After release of CO we will see less new players i guess.

I am not sure future is Doom or not, my only current goal is taking Flying Circus to the 50 then i can take my leave also. I always trusted NCsoft when it comes to Dev/Player relationship but now, after what happened and still not having an offical announcement really [censored] me off. It is not a last moment decision in my opinion and they choose to remain silent.

Robbie_Redhat · 02-13-2009 07:51 AM

For Europe as a whole, the key thing to look at is the Equity Method Gain/Loss Breakdown.

NC Europe, first quarter 2008, up 80 Kr Mn Won. Hurrah! But then, second quarter it's down 1,060, and then down 2,629 in the third quarter, and then in the fourth quarter it drops even more, down 3,496... 2008 overall, it's down 7,105. (7,105 million korean won is about 3.5 million pounds).

There's a similar trend in quarterly sales - 8,891 in 1Q, then 5,251, 4,955, 3,358 over the following quarters.

For comparison, NC Interactive were up 1,416 Kr Mn Won in the fourth quarter and up 3,623 in 2008.

So basically, sales, and the value of the parent's investment in NC Europe appears to be dropping alarmingly at an increasing rate. D'oh.

Diggis · 02-13-2009 07:52 AM

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Yowza, 17k one month then 13k the next, normally doesn't an Issue release bring with it a massive increase in subscriber activity?

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That's quarter, not month. Still bad though. One would have expected the December 08 result to be significantly higher than Septembers with the i13 release, but it clearly isn't... Looks to me like the PvP changes and people leaving over that countered the increased number of people playing for the other new content.

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Added to the people who have had to stop playing due to the recession. Some people seem to see saving the world as a luxury.

Dr_MechanoEU · 02-13-2009 07:57 AM

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It is not a last moment decision in my opinion and they choose to remain silent.

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It's been three days now and we've heard nothing on this front, the forums are currently unmoderated, I'm curious if even the GMs are actually ingame at the moment (I may send a ticket saying so long and thanks for the help to them when next ingame but I wouldn't want to take up their time when they could be dealing with real ingame issues someone is having).

Any news, anything, something, would be nice.

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SinergyX_EU · 02-13-2009 08:16 AM

[ QUOTE ]
For Europe as a whole, the key thing to look at is the Equity Method Gain/Loss Breakdown.

NC Europe, first quarter 2008, up 80 Kr Mn Won. Hurrah! But then, second quarter it's down 1,060, and then down 2,629 in the third quarter, and then in the fourth quarter it drops even more, down 3,496... 2008 overall, it's down 7,105. (7,105 million korean won is about 3.5 million pounds).

There's a similar trend in quarterly sales - 8,891 in 1Q, then 5,251, 4,955, 3,358 over the following quarters.

For comparison, NC Interactive were up 1,416 Kr Mn Won in the fourth quarter and up 3,623 in 2008.

So basically, sales, and the value of the parent's investment in NC Europe appears to be dropping alarmingly at an increasing rate. D'oh.

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Tonight i go sit down and listen to Q4 numbers, but based on the whole story of Q3, i think its the best for us and NC just to leave the Europe region.

Gamecon is in battle with gamecom, although recently the final verdict was made and Gamecon is canceled, so no big winner there. The advertisement in Europe is very hard, due language, local laws, currency, distribution etc.

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