Rumor: Reason for the shutdown.

Haha, I see you play STO too (or else just posted the same thing as a user on their forums). I played for a while as I'm a big Star Trek nerd but never really got into it. But yeah, it's kind of weird running into people on the forum here that I haven't seen in like 6 years. For a person who never got too involved in the forum or community, it really drives it home that I was still a part of it. Anyways, all the best.

I suspect that it's probably NC that killed Paragon.

We know that they can be completely brutal - they have shown that plenty of times in the past. They did it with the EU, they did it with Tabula Rasa, they did it with Exteel.

They have form in this. So it's rather a false flag to blame PW. It would be a very high risk strategy for them to say no - they'd be cutting of some solid revenue, and would get a reputation in the industry as a skank, and there's no guarantee that any CoH players would go to CO if the news got out. In fact it could hurt their existing player base quite badly as there's a lot of cross fertilization.

But whoever wants City of Heroes dead did a very good job of killing it

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

I have come up with an amended theory, and the opening of this thread does indeed play a role.

(Pulled from my Facebook page)

Ok, so some new information has been gathered by the community:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-0...st-holder.html
http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/08...6m-loss-in-q2/

It might be safe to say that this was completely NCSoft's fault after all. The decision, however, was not a smart one - they simply shut down a profitable American studio to keep funding for their hemorrhagic Korean projects.

The Game Engine is still owned by Cryptic as well, so it is likely that the Paragon Studios shutdown was premeditated by NCSoft (without Paragon's knowledge) to coincide with the Engine licence renewal. That said, all the previously mentioned factors likely played a role.

Truly the EA of the East.


Given my bowel churning hatred and eternal disgust with EA (and Bioware...) that is in no way meant as a compliment...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Champions Online was and is beyond awful, and if I was going to play another superhero game I would switch to DCUO.

It's most likely that the fact is NCSoft has been losing money from their Korean games like Aion (all of them except for Lineage, which is their cash cow even though nobody outside Korea plays it) and with the much-vaunted Guild Wars 2 finally launching they decided to also kill off CoX to try to make their accounting books look good.

It's not true. Cryptic was not at fault AT ALL.

Ultimately NCsoft was caught between a rock and a hard place... the answer lies in NCsoft's August 8th earnings report. See this thread for a fuller explanation: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=296081

PWE wouldn't have put anything of substance at risk by playing nice about licensing renewal for a niche game offered by a competitor. Building a reputation as a bad partner has the potential to hurt them far more, in the long run, by reducing their chances of finding partners willing to work with them for projects of greater importance to PWE. The terms of such partnerships could end up being more unfavorably drawn for PWE, if they can even find partners, if they have a bad reputation for how they work with others.

If the IP issue wasn't a key strumbling block and COH was generating both profits and positive cash flows, all of which were probably true, then suddenly shutting it down wasn't very smart -- and that's not even considering the reputation problems they'll create for themselves, for the future. How much trust will anybody here have for NC Soft games, in the future, when they do things like this?

There are a lot of possibilities. But, the most likely scenario is that NC Soft made an error in judgment by closing down COH and Paragon Studios.

It just doesn't make sense that Paragon Studios would blithely be releasing new powersets and putting Issue 24 on test if they knew there was a renewable contract up at any minute that had such a ridiculous chance of being cancelled or turned down.

I don't buy it.

I think NCSoft's poor earnings report this past early August had much more to do with it. They needed more cash flow (or less bills) to satisfy shareholders, fast. That, and the fact that they're Asian and CoH is an American game would have had more to do with shutting CoH down instead of Aion or Lineage 2 here.

Aion and Lineage are wildly popular throughout Korea and Asia. They're going to keep getting developed anyway, regardless of how poorly they do in the USA and Europe by comparison, so why would they shut them down here really? I doubt the costs of translating Korea's versions of Aion and Lineage 2 are anywhere near what the costs are for supporting a full 80-person development team here in the USA for CoH.

In contrast, CoH bombed in Asia. The culture clash is evident-- they just don't "get" superheroes like we Americans do-- so development costs can't be justified as much. The USA and Europe are just remote pin-dots on the map for them compared to the millions of Asians in their home turf.

Two words: BOVINE EXCREMENT

If this was the case then there would be no need for secrecy from the entire staff, no justification for no notice terminations of the staff, no need for the slap in the face no notice of the end for the playerbase. There would have been a prepared notice posted by the Community Rep, the staff would have been given enough notice to pack up and say goodbye.

Again, I say bovine excrement. I doubt your rumor and find it more likely this is just something to try to sidestep the massive NCHate coming their way.

I've actually seen in another thread a better theory. Basically that Nexon which owns NCSoft told them to do something about their problems. Fast decisive action such as cutting a game and studio that is making you money but whose loss won't particularly hurt you counts as such action.

Note the speed that NCSoft moved at. So it looks like their answer to their owner when told to do something is to take a harmless to them show action of cutting Paragon and COH. Just look at the suddenness and speed of the shutdown. This does not have the look of being planned but instead of an action taken in haste.