This... actually makes some sense.
But then, why wasn't there some sort of "writing on the wall"?
I mean, somebody had to know the license was coming up for renewal.
.
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Don�t say things. What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary. - R.W. Emerson |
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Well, if we want to kick off a conspiracy theory debate... it could be added that the removal of Statesman and Sister Psyche from the game itself could be chalked up to trying to appeal to a legal settlement over intellectual rights.
It's starting to make sense.
I think it was shut down by the first door sitter ever.
He was the guy who blind invited a full team of 8 and told us, "Go Hunt, Kill Skulls"
He caused it all.
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"Melt 'em like butters!"
That does... make sense.
Jerk hackers.
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I am not to happy bout this I have tried other MMos and was not to thrilled about them, Wish there was something we as a community can do about this.
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Just make shake a fist and sign a petition or two, I suppose. For what good it'll do. We're not millionaires on the market for an MMO to buy... But it's better than nothing, I guess.|
Originally Posted by LSK
I am not to happy bout this I have tried other MMos and was not to thrilled about them, Wish there was something we as a community can do about this.
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http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...eroes-villains
Always better to try and do it legally, before illegally, right?
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While I can buy that, why shutter the entire studio? Why even green-light another project (presumably not using the Cryptic engine) from Paragon?
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Originally Posted by Sylph_Knight
I did some digging and I think I found out why the game is being shut down. This is all based on prior public knowledge and some conjecture, so I apologize if this is inaccurate.
Cryptic Studios kept the original rights and engine when they separated from NCSoft and sold a 5-year licence to the company. Those 5 years are now up, and since that time Cryptic Studios has developed Champions Online, been bought out by Atari, which was itself bought out by Perfect World. Seeing how Perfect World is another Korean Developer with a Super Hero MMO of its own, it clearly doesn't want competition. Therefore, they will not sell the renewal licence to NCSoft or have made the licence fees too high for profitability. Now that this is out of the way, I want to thank everyone I have ever had the pleasure of playing with in City of Heroes. I grew up with the game and matured greatly because of your support. You defined much of who I am today. I hope you all find happiness down the road and never stop believing in your Justice. |
Positron: "There are no bugs [in City of Heroes], just varying degrees of features."
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Ya i just saw it on another forum and signed it already. Thanks though was going to do the same and post the link.
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Originally Posted by Revanos
Just make shake a fist and sign a petition or two, I suppose. For what good it'll do. We're not millionaires on the market for an MMO to buy... But it's better than nothing, I guess.
http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...eroes-villains Always better to try and do it legally, before illegally, right? |
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Because that other project isn't already profitable, and ncsoft's short of money.|
Originally Posted by Goliath Bird Eater
While I can buy that, why shutter the entire studio? Why even green-light another project (presumably not using the Cryptic engine) from Paragon?
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Presumably they'd keep running it if they could keep running CoH, since it was profitable.
This theory makes a lot of sense.
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Nice work - I think this is sounding more plausible by the minute.|
Originally Posted by Sylph_Knight
I did some digging and I think I found out why the game is being shut down. This is all based on prior public knowledge and some conjecture, so I apologize if this is inaccurate.
Cryptic Studios kept the original rights and engine when they separated from NCSoft and sold a 5-year licence to the company. Those 5 years are now up, and since that time Cryptic Studios has developed Champions Online, been bought out by Atari, which was itself bought out by Perfect World. Seeing how Perfect World is another Korean Developer with a Super Hero MMO of its own, it clearly doesn't want competition. Therefore, they will not sell the renewal licence to NCSoft or have made the licence fees too high for profitability. Now that this is out of the way, I want to thank everyone I have ever had the pleasure of playing with in City of Heroes. I grew up with the game and matured greatly because of your support. You defined much of who I am today. I hope you all find happiness down the road and never stop believing in your Justice. |
I'd also like to point out that since Cryptic only licensed the engine rather than selling it to NCSoft, those inclined can blame this whole situation on Jack!
(I keed)
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I don't believe this is accurate. As far as I know, NCSoft wholely owns the CoH IP. There was a license agreement for the engine in place, ie. Cryptic still owns the engine and licensed it to NCSoft/Paragon...but I wasn't aware of any 5 year term on that.|
Originally Posted by Sylph_Knight
I did some digging and I think I found out why the game is being shut down. This is all based on prior public knowledge and some conjecture, so I apologize if this is inaccurate.
Cryptic Studios kept the original rights and engine when they separated from NCSoft and sold a 5-year licence to the company. Those 5 years are now up, and since that time Cryptic Studios has developed Champions Online, been bought out by Atari, which was itself bought out by Perfect World. Seeing how Perfect World is another Korean Developer with a Super Hero MMO of its own, it clearly doesn't want competition. Therefore, they will not sell the renewal licence to NCSoft or have made the licence fees too high for profitability. Now that this is out of the way, I want to thank everyone I have ever had the pleasure of playing with in City of Heroes. I grew up with the game and matured greatly because of your support. You defined much of who I am today. I hope you all find happiness down the road and never stop believing in your Justice. |
I may be misinformed, but I only work here...I'll ask Jack about it next time I see him.
Formerly "Back Alley Brawler"
Thanks, Tic; this is one rumor I'd really like to have confirmed or refuted as quickly as possible for my own reasons.
Positron: "There are no bugs [in City of Heroes], just varying degrees of features."
IF the license on the Cryptic engine was only for 5 years, with no clearly spelled out renewal option in the contract... then someone screwed up monumentally in the contract negotiations.
Also, if that were the case, you would think NCSoft would have seen it coming, and things wouldn't have been as abrupt.
Plus, wasn't Paragon working on another game for NCSoft?
Seems more likely that NCSoft took a financial hit, and as part of their grand restructuring plan to make the bankers happy, they had to show how they were streamlining and refocusing on their core business elements.
I could be wrong, though. Maybe there was a major goof-up.
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I caught this rumor on another board, and yeah, I really REALLY want some sourced confirmation of the status of the IP.
If NCSoft doesn't own the IP, there's practically nothing we can do by petitioning NCSoft, they don't have the legal authority to extend something they don't have the rights to.
And if it's true that PerfectWorld is strangling CoX out of the MMO market ... Champions can suck my ******* **** dry it'll never get a dime of money or minute of time from me.
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Wouldn't be the first time, I suppose. Also, there's no reason it couldn't be BOTH.
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Originally Posted by Shagster
IF the license on the Cryptic engine was only for 5 years, with no clearly spelled out renewal option in the contract... then someone screwed up monumentally in the contract negotiations.
... I could be wrong, though. Maybe there was a major goof-up. |
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If this is the cause of why NCSoft pulled the plug on Paragon Studios I think someone in the NCSoft management hierarchy was only going with the option that they were going to get the game engine license renewed again. Some how they didn't bother to factor in the possibility that Perfect World studios would either tell them no, they wouldn't renew the license or set the agreement to amount that NCSoft would not pay.
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Originally Posted by Impish Kat
This... actually makes some sense.
But then, why wasn't there some sort of "writing on the wall"? I mean, somebody had to know the license was coming up for renewal. . |
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Twitter: @Alpha_Ryvius
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Even if there was a license term limit, I cannot imagine anyone being dumb enough to sign such a license without a perpetual right to renew: it would allow someone else to one day just pull the plug on you at any time. And the cost to renew would be ammortized according to generally accepted accounting principles, which means the cost to operate in 2013 would be no different than in 2012 even if such a license renewal was required.|
Originally Posted by Tic-Toc
I don't believe this is accurate. As far as I know, NCSoft wholely owns the CoH IP. There was a license agreement for the engine in place, ie. Cryptic still owns the engine and licensed it to NCSoft/Paragon...but I wasn't aware of any 5 year term on that.
I may be misinformed, but I only work here...I'll ask Jack about it next time I see him. |
Unless NCSoft keeps all its cash in a coffee can and pays its license fees in quarters, that seems unlikely to be a material reason for a shutdown to me. But stranger things have happened.
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My God.....he was right! Now it really will be "gone to the Americas"........ :-(
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Originally Posted by SmokeSignal
Jerk hackers.
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Such "perpetual right to renew" can "easily" be worked around by demanding more money than you know your licensee will ever be able to afford, though. We saw that recently happen to Direct TV with Viacom. The 5 year thing may be too big for what I have seen (personally, outside government contracts all government contracts I seen have a 5 year window) but the negotiation may just have gone too expensive this one time around.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Even if there was a license term limit, I cannot imagine anyone being dumb enough to sign such a license without a perpetual right to renew: it would allow someone else to one day just pull the plug on you at any time. And the cost to renew would be ammortized according to generally accepted accounting principles, which means the cost to operate in 2013 would be no different than in 2012 even if such a license renewal was required.
Unless NCSoft keeps all its cash in a coffee can and pays its license fees in quarters, that seems unlikely to be a material reason for a shutdown to me. But stranger things have happened. |
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In that case, the amount would be negotiable in the contract because both sides do not know what the value of the content will be in five years. But in this case, I personally would not have signed the contract without a right to renew at a specified cost. The value of the original game engine cannot rise, separate from inflation.
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Originally Posted by Starsman
Such "perpetual right to renew" can "easily" be worked around by demanding more money than you know your licensee will ever be able to afford, though. We saw that recently happen to Direct TV with Viacom. The 5 year thing may be too big for what I have seen (personally, outside government contracts all government contracts I seen have a 5 year window) but the negotiation may just have gone too expensive this one time around.
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I seen worse things slip into contracts, but mainly indirect cost increases (we recently got @#$%! by RIM and forced to upgrade phones out of pocket effectively nearly tripling the year phone maintenance budget.)|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
In that case, the amount would be negotiable in the contract because both sides do not know what the value of the content will be in five years. But in this case, I personally would not have signed the contract without a right to renew at a specified cost. The value of the original game engine cannot rise, separate from inflation.
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Not sure where things can sneak through here, but without access to the contract itself, it's hard to entirely dismiss this theory, especially since it's the only thing so far that seems to make any sense at all (unless the game suddenly took a horrible dive since last quarter's reports.)
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My friends and I were contemplating this at dinner tonight. We theorized that perhaps NCSoft is having unexpected cash flow problems just when the CoH license was due for renewal. So the corporate suits decided to shut down Paragon ASAP and channel the money into another project (say, GW2).|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
In that case, the amount would be negotiable in the contract because both sides do not know what the value of the content will be in five years. But in this case, I personally would not have signed the contract without a right to renew at a specified cost. The value of the original game engine cannot rise, separate from inflation.
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It's entirely speculative, but of the theories we've got it seems like the best fit.
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Again...I am working at Cryptic as we speak, and I have not heard the slightest peep about this. To be honest, little is said about CoH these days other than to marvel over some new piece of tech and comment 'Didn't we have this in the CoH engine like 8 years ago?'
It would be very unfair to go on some sort of anti-Cryptic or anti-Champions Online campaign based on unsubstantiated rumors. NCSoft chose to end this game we all love, shutter Paragon Studios, and release their dedicated team of talented people into the wild. I have no idea why, but as far as I know it has nothing to do with Cryptic/Perfect World.
Formerly "Back Alley Brawler"
I did some digging and I think I found out why the game is being shut down. This is all based on prior public knowledge and some conjecture, so I apologize if this is inaccurate.
Cryptic Studios kept the original rights and engine when they separated from NCSoft and sold a 5-year licence to the company. Those 5 years are now up, and since that time Cryptic Studios has developed Champions Online, been bought out by Atari, which was itself bought out by Perfect World. Seeing how Perfect World is another Korean Developer with a Super Hero MMO of its own, it clearly doesn't want competition. Therefore, they will not sell the renewal licence to NCSoft or have made the licence fees too high for profitability.
Now that this is out of the way, I want to thank everyone I have ever had the pleasure of playing with in City of Heroes. I grew up with the game and matured greatly because of your support. You defined much of who I am today. I hope you all find happiness down the road and never stop believing in your Justice.
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