Apparently not enough.
1. CoH wasn't making enough profit to offset the losses from their other games which is where they make most of their money.
2. There's the rumor that Cryptic/PW refused to renew the license on the game engine or set the renewal price more expensive than what it was worth to pay.
The games shutting down on the 5 year anniversary of NCSoft acquiring the license to use Cryptic's game engine.
3. By shutting down CoH and laying off 80 odd PS employees NCSoft hopes to juggle their numbers to make the losses from their big games less worrisome.
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But that doesn't make a lick of sense, not even a tiny shred. When you can't pay your bills, you don't quit your second job. CoH was a compartmentalized money-making machine. It wasn't costing them any money or resources to keep it going, and it was in fact padding their revenue stream. However high or low that profit margin was, it was still profit, and now that profit is gone.| 1. CoH wasn't making enough profit to offset the losses from their other games which is where they make most of their money. |
Something else is the culprit.
Doom.
Yep.
This is really doom.
That's what hurts the most about this. The game itself was doing fine. Paragon Studios was doing a great job, had ideas lined up and in the works to keep development going.
But it's dropped like a rock in the name of cutting costs.
Something else may well be the culprit like Angry_Citizen said. I know I've certainly seen underhanded actions taken by NCSoft before, and it's too tempting to think I'm smelling a rat.
But even if it just does turn out to be nothing more than an attempt by NCSoft to cut costs and divert more resources in supporting their currently favored titles, it still pisses me off.
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They have operating costs, they just don't say how much that is but CoX's revenue was still in decline and even F2P for a year didn't reverse that. And corporate likes to look at revenue/financial trajectories.|
Originally Posted by Angry_Citizen
It wasn't costing them any money or resources to keep it going, and it was in fact padding their revenue stream.
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Tabula Rasa didn't make money from the start but NCSoft kept it going for a year till they shut it down 3 months after they announced it (from the shutdown notice)
Not sure about that 5 year license rumor though... never seen any mention of a time frame for the licensing deal but possible i suppose.
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Sadly, accounting often does not make sense. The mathematical anomalies surrounding Hollywood in particular have doubtlessly warped the very fabric of space and time, which would at least explain why they keep making the same movies over and over.| But that doesn't make a lick of sense, not even a tiny shred. |
It's entirely possible that some numerical sleight-of-hand allowed NCSoft to do better on paper by killing PS, even if it was profitable.
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I'm honestly tearing up over this. I love CoH and its been part of my life for the better part of a decade. Please don't go...
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Yes, but look at the money they no longer have to spend on Paragon or either of Paragon's projects. Money that no longer has to be budgeted and can be re-allocated elsewhere, like say bailing out their flailing non-Lineage Asian grindfests.|
Originally Posted by Angry_Citizen
But that doesn't make a lick of sense, not even a tiny shred. When you can't pay your bills, you don't quit your second job. CoH was a compartmentalized money-making machine. It wasn't costing them any money or resources to keep it going, and it was in fact padding their revenue stream. However high or low that profit margin was, it was still profit, and now that profit is gone.
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I'm just hoping Carbine isn't next. And that Arenanet has an escape plan.
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Paragon Studios has fallen victim to the same fate as Destination Games, NetDevil, and E & G Studios. All bets are off.
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Originally Posted by SpyralPegacyon
I'm just hoping Carbine isn't next. And that Arenanet has an escape plan.
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It doesn't have to make sense when you are playing with the books. They'll right this off for the maximum amount possible as well as claim to save however many millions they now aren't going to be spending on that other project Paragon Studios was supposed to be working on developing.
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Originally Posted by Angry_Citizen
But that doesn't make a lick of sense, not even a tiny shred. When you can't pay your bills, you don't quit your second job. CoH was a compartmentalized money-making machine. It wasn't costing them any money or resources to keep it going, and it was in fact padding their revenue stream. However high or low that profit margin was, it was still profit, and now that profit is gone.
Something else is the culprit. |
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This was actually my thinking as well A_C
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Originally Posted by Angry_Citizen
But that doesn't make a lick of sense, not even a tiny shred. When you can't pay your bills, you don't quit your second job. CoH was a compartmentalized money-making machine. It wasn't costing them any money or resources to keep it going, and it was in fact padding their revenue stream. However high or low that profit margin was, it was still profit, and now that profit is gone.
Something else is the culprit. |
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I think if it was #2 NCSoft wouldn't have hesitated to mention it as an excuse for shutting things down. But who knows why anyone does anything really. ::sigh::
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
1. CoH wasn't making enough profit to offset the losses from their other games which is where they make most of their money.
2. There's the rumor that Cryptic/PW refused to renew the license on the game engine or set the renewal price more expensive than what it was worth to pay. The games shutting down on the 5 year anniversary of NCSoft acquiring the license to use Cryptic's game engine. 3. By shutting down CoH and laying off 80 odd PS employees NCSoft hopes to juggle their numbers to make the losses from their big games less worrisome. |
But it's MY sadistic mechanical monster and I'm here to make sure it knows it. - Girl Genius
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I doubt we'll ever know the truth.
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Originally Posted by TerraDraconis
I think if it was #2 NCSoft wouldn't have hesitated to mention it as an excuse for shutting things down. But who knows why anyone does anything really. ::sigh::
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If you are only interested in this year's corporate report then it makes perfect sense. Somewhere in the late 70's early 80's MBA programs took a wrong turn and emphasized short term appearance of health to long term strategies for health. With the goal of maximizing the books for this years corporate report. Anyway there is a long rant in there about how this has lead to bad business practices being common place since the early 90's. And computers and quick communication only exacerbated the problem.|
Originally Posted by Angry_Citizen
But that doesn't make a lick of sense, not even a tiny shred. When you can't pay your bills, you don't quit your second job. CoH was a compartmentalized money-making machine. It wasn't costing them any money or resources to keep it going, and it was in fact padding their revenue stream. However high or low that profit margin was, it was still profit, and now that profit is gone.
Something else is the culprit. |
Anyway as a result of this the accounting and management types focus on the near term profit/benefit to the long term. Worse their investors do the same thing so you get games like NCSoft is playing trading a game that might bring them minor but solid bookable profit for a short term boost to their books.
But it's MY sadistic mechanical monster and I'm here to make sure it knows it. - Girl Genius
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This is the internet, the truth always comes out eventually.
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
I doubt we'll ever know the truth.
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Again, if the franchise was profitable at all (and I find it hard to believe it wasn't, considering the free-to-play model gave them revenue from both subscriptions and points and quite a few people still played), then it was only a positive. Paragon Studios worked on CoH and CoH only. If the cost of development was eclipsed even by one dollar by the revenue stream, then CoH was profitable and there is no excuse to shut it down. They wouldn't be saving any money that couldn't be saved through simple downsizing.|
Originally Posted by SpyralPegacyon
Yes, but look at the money they no longer have to spend on Paragon or either of Paragon's projects. Money that no longer has to be budgeted and can be re-allocated elsewhere, like say bailing out their flailing non-Lineage Asian grindfests.
I'm just hoping Carbine isn't next. And that Arenanet has an escape plan. |
That's the main reason why the "NCSoft killed CoH because of GW2" argument smells so fishy to me. If CoH wasn't making any money, then they should've downsized the development team to a skeleton crew. No one here would've liked it, but most of us would've still shelled out more and more money to keep playing. Even going on maintenance would've given them quite a tidy profit.
Something's fishy, and it's the theories being presented. We need more information, because the speculation just isn't passing the rationality test.
Doom.
Yep.
This is really doom.
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Oh I agree, the license certainly could be part of it. I just think that if Perfect World was playing with the license fee then NCSoft would be delighted to use it as an excuse. |
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
I doubt we'll ever know the truth.
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It could simply be that there is an annual every 5 year license fee or something or that they had a contract for 5 years of licensing and after that they pay the yearly fee for the next year. And they simply don't want to pay the fee. In that case they would certainly keep quiet if the fee hasn't gone up but they don't want to pay it.
Given that the closure date is 5 years to day from the original buy out I don't rule out the license being tied into this somehow.
But it's MY sadistic mechanical monster and I'm here to make sure it knows it. - Girl Genius
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But how would it boost their books? I don't have an MBA (and god willing I never will, the bourgeois pucks), but I'm pretty sure if one's revenue stream declines, that's bad for the books. If CoH was profitable, and it doubtlessly was, then this is a net loss for them both short term and long term.
| Anyway as a result of this the accounting and management types focus on the near term profit/benefit to the long term. Worse their investors do the same thing so you get games like NCSoft is playing trading a game that might bring them minor but solid bookable profit for a short term boost to their books. |
Doom.
Yep.
This is really doom.
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This also doesn't pass the sniff test. CoH was bought on Nov 6th. The game goes till Nov 30th. That means there's a 24 day period in which NCSoft is supposedly using the Cryptic engine without permission. If it were the engine license, it would be shut down on or before the 6th.
| Given that the closure date is 5 years to day |
Doom.
Yep.
This is really doom.
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It is accounting tricks. When you do something like close a game you get to write off value of the property based on some period of time. It been years since I had accounting so I no longer remember the specifics. |
Originally Posted by Angry_Citizen
But how would it boost their books? I don't have an MBA (and god willing I never will, the bourgeois pucks), but I'm pretty sure if one's revenue stream declines, that's bad for the books. If CoH was profitable, and it doubtlessly was, then this is a net loss for them both short term and long term.
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Intellectual properties such as a game get even more interesting because there is some wiggle room on what is it worth. And don't forget that Paragon studio's had at least 1 possibly more games in development. Those become instantly worth money even unfinished.
But it's MY sadistic mechanical monster and I'm here to make sure it knows it. - Girl Genius
List of Invention Guides
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This has a certain level of plausibility. Especially if NCsoft has also decided that Western-focused games are generally not a good investment and will be focusing more on their locally-oriented games as their core business. Cutting down CoH shows their commitment to the renewed focus on their core business of games aimed at the Korean/Asian markets. It doesn't matter if CoH is modestly profitable since it's not one of their core games and is by its nature a distraction from NCsoft's new vision/focus.
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
2. There's the rumor that Cryptic/PW refused to renew the license on the game engine or set the renewal price more expensive than what it was worth to pay.
The games shutting down on the 5 year anniversary of NCSoft acquiring the license to use Cryptic's game engine. |
Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...
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Okay 5 years to the month. Feel better now? |
Originally Posted by Angry_Citizen
This also doesn't pass the sniff test. CoH was bought on Nov 6th. The game goes till Nov 30th. That means there's a 24 day period in which NCSoft is supposedly using the Cryptic engine without permission. If it were the engine license, it would be shut down on or before the 6th.
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Who knows whats going on. If I were a conspiracy theorist I could even speculate there might be money being given to NCSoft by PW/Cryptic to shut down CoH.
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Originally Posted by TerraDraconis
Oh I agree, the license certainly could be part of it. I just think that if Perfect World was playing with the license fee then NCSoft would be delighted to use it as an excuse.
It could simply be that there is an annual every 5 year license fee or something or that they had a contract for 5 years of licensing and after that they pay the yearly fee for the next year. And they simply don't want to pay the fee. In that case they would certainly keep quiet if the fee hasn't gone up but they don't want to pay it. Given that the closure date is 5 years to day from the original buy out I don't rule out the license being tied into this somehow. |
Wat.
I don't get it. CoH is profitable, right? The online store is making lots of money, paying for all the new art, writing, and powersets. No issue 24?!
Paragon Studios has tons of talented developers and artists.
I mean, you guys JUST got power pool customization ready. We haven't even finished the incarnate power tree yet. We haven't even SEEN the Batallion.
Please, please explain what's going on, because I don't get it.
I'm hurt, shocked, and angry. And it's not even my job that's been cut. What the hell, NCSoft? What the hell?