Why? The Answer is in NCsoft's August 8th Earnings Report
By
Adelie,
Posted on: 2012-09-01 05:17 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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That's only 'cos the micro part of their store is all £4.99 or more, which is hardly micro... :/
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Originally Posted by That_Ninja
GW1 has no subscriptions and very few microtransactions, but with the very successful release of GW2, it will ensure that people will want to play the first one and even buy the expansions.
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On a different note I think more should be said about the speed in which everything happened. That - admittedly as a non-exec type - strikes me as portentous. Whether or not that has anything to do with licensing of the engine or IP or is more about preventing people from making a fuss (as I have seen suggested elsewhere) it strikes me as a very fast shut down.
I haven't looked at the actual time-line, but 3 months is what 12 weeks(?) but as the announcement was on a US holiday w/e, which would hinder the press getting hold of the story and realistically probably kills the first week, making it 11 weeks.
Assuming any meetings can be arranged between people wanting to take over IP (should they exist (Hypothetically. I know about Titan Network's work.)) and NCSoft or a potential (hypothetical) management buyout of PS. That would kill at least another two weeks.
Then even if NCSoft say yeah here you go IP and code base for CoH 1 billion KW (or whatever), that leaves very little time for anyone to get any resources together to achieve any sort of cash. Crowd Sourcing may well work but it's not at all realistic to expect the sort of cash needed to be found in what 9 weeks?
And lets be honest here even if TN get the cash and restart the servers they're going to lose a large number of players who don't know any of this and just want a game to play. (Because I bet there are people still playing who have no clue as to what is going on.) They'll also lose people who think that as an unproven games producer they aren't trust worthy.
So even if the players do pull a rabbit from their metaphorical hat the game is pretty much doomed.
At least in such a short space of time.
Now if NCSoft had announced that they were looking for a buyer a year ago, and that failure to find one would lead to the game shutting down...
So I think the speed is also a significant point to note, especially if you discount sudden changes in licensing.
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I'm not so sure that much can be read into the speed of it. Yes, it was sudden, but looking at NCsoft's history it seems like they're just following standard shutdown procedure and timelines.|
Originally Posted by Lost Ninja
Now if NCSoft had announced that they were looking for a buyer a year ago, and that failure to find one would lead to the game shutting down...
So I think the speed is also a significant point to note, especially if you discount sudden changes in licensing. |
I was looking at a site the other day that had a long list of closed down MMOs - most of which were far east focused titles I've never heard of, and it struck me that this happens more often than most of us think. Most of the announced shutdowns I've seen, even of western titles, are accompanied by mostly a sense of resignation to the inevitable, so the big difference here is in the response of the CoH community to the news - I have never seen such a concerted effort to try to do something to try to avert the end. I very much doubt NCSoft expected that either.
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And lets be honest here even if TN get the cash and restart the servers they're going to lose a large number of players who don't know any of this and just want a game to play. (Because I bet there are people still playing who have no clue as to what is going on.) They'll also lose people who think that as an unproven games producer they aren't trust worthy. So even if the players do pull a rabbit from their metaphorical hat the game is pretty much doomed. |
I happened upon this comic:
Teams are the number one killer of soloists.
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Dungeon Runner had only a month 'til dark, at least that's what I heard. It's interesting though because there's some parallels with what's happening with CoH (bear that I'm using Wikipedia, lol):|
Originally Posted by Lost Ninja
On a different note I think more should be said about the speed in which everything happened. That - admittedly as a non-exec type - strikes me as portentous. Whether or not that has anything to do with licensing of the engine or IP or is more about preventing people from making a fuss (as I have seen suggested elsewhere) it strikes me as a very fast shut down.
I haven't looked at the actual time-line, but 3 months is what 12 weeks(?) but as the announcement was on a US holiday w/e, which would hinder the press getting hold of the story and realistically probably kills the first week, making it 11 weeks. Assuming any meetings can be arranged between people wanting to take over IP (should they exist (Hypothetically. I know about Titan Network's work.)) and NCSoft or a potential (hypothetical) management buyout of PS. That would kill at least another two weeks. Then even if NCSoft say yeah here you go IP and code base for CoH 1 billion KW (or whatever), that leaves very little time for anyone to get any resources together to achieve any sort of cash. Crowd Sourcing may well work but it's not at all realistic to expect the sort of cash needed to be found in what 9 weeks? And lets be honest here even if TN get the cash and restart the servers they're going to lose a large number of players who don't know any of this and just want a game to play. (Because I bet there are people still playing who have no clue as to what is going on.) They'll also lose people who think that as an unproven games producer they aren't trust worthy. So even if the players do pull a rabbit from their metaphorical hat the game is pretty much doomed. At least in such a short space of time. Now if NCSoft had announced that they were looking for a buyer a year ago, and that failure to find one would lead to the game shutting down... So I think the speed is also a significant point to note, especially if you discount sudden changes in licensing. |
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NCsoft said it would be refocusing its efforts on big-budget, top-tier MMOGs. The announcement was accompanied by news that NCsoft had laid off a number of developers working on its casual MMOG Dungeon Runners, as well as canceled plans to bring the game to other platforms, believed to be Sony's PlayStation 3. Dungeon Runners had dropped, as producer and lead programmer Stephen Nichols confirmed that the game will be taken offline on December 31. Dungeon Runners, which operates under both a free-to-play, microtransaction-supported and subscription-based business model, launched to good reviews for the PC in July 2008. "Dungeon Runners just isn't cutting the mustard," Nichols said on an announcement on the Dungeon Runners forum. "If she were a ship, she'd be taking on water. Yeah, she's been taking on water for a long time now. Are my cryptic references too hard to decipher? The game just isn't profitable. And, the first rule of business is to be profitable!" Nichols went on to note that, while the team has a number of ideas to generate revenue, they would be expensive and risky to implement. He also noted that said plans would be greatly hampered given that two of the five developers on the game had recently departed from the team. Nichols noted that those with paid memberships to Dungeon Runners will receive digital copies of City of Heroes Architect Edition and Guild Wars Prophecies. The producer also stated that anyone who "needs refunds for multiple-month membership purchases will be taken care of." The online service for Dungeon Runners ended on January 1, 2010. The website was shut down shortly thereafter on January 3, 2010. Many players had commented on the official forums that they thought the biggest mistake was the re-organization of the servers that occurred when the game went to a retail box version. Several of the servers were merged or made available to retail box purchasers only, and good game communities were broken up as a result. |
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Looking at NCSoft's financial report, City of Heroes revenue in Q2 2012 was 2.855 million won, up from 2.787 million won for the same quarter the previous year. Income from Guild Wars , on the other hand, was on a continuous decline, as was Aion and both Lineage I and II. Yes, City of Heros was a very small part of their income, but its revenue was climbing, not declining.
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Originally Posted by SpaceNut
A lot of people are going "they shut down a successful game!" etc etc, but money speaks the truth. This news has been all over my facebook, and it's amazing now many people are commenting "I don't play anymore, but this still hurts".
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"But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses."
-- Bruce Leverett, Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers
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Most of CoX's revenue comes from NA. Convert the won into dollars and it will show it's lower this year.|
Originally Posted by srmalloy
Looking at NCSoft's financial report, City of Heroes revenue in Q2 2012 was 2.855 million won, up from 2.787 million won for the same quarter the previous year.
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I posted all of it in this thread a couple months ago before the latest numbers was published.
Just add this to the end of that:
Code:
KrW (mn) USD (approx) Jun-2012 2,855 2,469,437
Switching to the confusing "free to play" model is what killed the game. That and taking focus off of what initially made the game great, encouraging lower level team play. They turned everybody into tankmages and put way too much emphasis on the incarnate stuff. My interest waned more than once due to this. Now the game is going down and I am partly to blame, as I let my subscription lapse, which was easy to do with the "free to play" system.
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Ironically, F2P lead to a jump in profit for a while. It fizzled back down, but it was something at least.
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Originally Posted by Adelie
Switching to the confusing "free to play" model is what killed the game. That and taking focus off of what initially made the game great, encouraging lower level team play. They turned everybody into tankmages and put way too much emphasis on the incarnate stuff. My interest waned more than once due to this. Now the game is going down and I am partly to blame, as I let my subscription lapse, which was easy to do with the "free to play" system.
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There is a site called "Glass Door" that allows current and former employees to review a company. The NCsoft (North America) reviews are interesting reading. I do not know if Glass Door does any verification or anything but it's interesting anyway.
A very common thread appears to be random and incompetent management with a few comments regarding sudden, strange decisions from HQ in Korea.
This does put what happened to Paragon Studios, a sudden unexpected closure, in some perspective.
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/NCs...ews-E23242.htm
@Skolia
So many toons, so little time.
http://cit.cohtitan.com/profile/17258
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No they didn't. Stephen Nichols the lead programmer and producer announced back in September 2009 that they game would close January 1, 2010. At the time he made the announcement their dev team was down to 3 employees. The staff having been laid off over the previous year and a half. The players knew things were bad long before the announcement.|
Originally Posted by Treees
Dungeon Runner had only a month 'til dark, at least that's what I heard. It's interesting though because there's some parallels with what's happening with CoH (bear that I'm using Wikipedia, lol):
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http://www.warcry.com/news/view/9476...-Shutting-Down
And no there aren't any parallels between the two other than both games were cancelled by NCSoft.
NCSoft gave Dungeon Runners VIP's a 30 day game time serial code and digital copies of City of Heroes Architect Edition and Guild Wars Prophecies.
They gave refunds to the VIP's with multiple month subscriptions.
And they didn't fire the remaining devs on the spot but allowed them to go out with a bang.
"Wait, there's even more good news! While we may be going out, we're going out in style, with a few changes to the game for the coming "End Time". Mythic loot will drop much more frequently. We're significantly reducing the cost of expensive King's Coin vendors. We're also quintupling the rate of XP gain to help you finish the game before year's end! Finally, we're adding a huge nuke to Townston that will blow up on New Year's and take the game down with it. There's more, but what fun is there in spilling all the beans?"
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Gee, what new game will you perch on like a vulture plopping out your bits of "wisdom", now that this one is gone?|
Originally Posted by Pebblebrook
Most of CoX's revenue comes from NA. Convert the won into dollars and it will show it's lower this year.
I posted all of it in this thread a couple months ago before the latest numbers was published. Just add this to the end of that: Code:
KrW (mn) USD (approx) Jun-2012 2,855 2,469,437 |
Such a lucky community, whoever they are!
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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Originally Posted by Skolia
There is a site called "Glass Door" that allows current and former employees to review a company. The NCsoft (North America) reviews are interesting reading. I do not know if Glass Door does any verification or anything but it's interesting anyway.
A very common thread appears to be random and incompetent management with a few comments regarding sudden, strange decisions from HQ in Korea. This does put what happened to Paragon Studios, a sudden unexpected closure, in some perspective. http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/NCs...ews-E23242.htm |
Funny how disgruntled employees all say the same things about employers they don't like. I've said the exact same things about every job I hated.
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He could go to SWTOR, and as a bonus there he'd actually be right. |
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
Gee, what new game will you perch on like a vulture plopping out your bits of "wisdom", now that this one is gone?
Such a lucky community, whoever they are! |
Just teasing.
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To the point NCSoft's apparent attitude when shutting down an IP is that we're not going to run it but nor is anyone else. One thing I read off site in the last few days is that the speed in which they do it is to prevent easy responses to their shut downs. Three months is really not much time at all, to take in what is happening, get a group together and formulate a response to actually do something about it. And or find resources to implement those solutions.|
Originally Posted by NightshadeLegree
I'm not so sure that much can be read into the speed of it. Yes, it was sudden, but looking at NCsoft's history it seems like they're just following standard shutdown procedure and timelines.
I was looking at a site the other day that had a long list of closed down MMOs - most of which were far east focused titles I've never heard of, and it struck me that this happens more often than most of us think. Most of the announced shutdowns I've seen, even of western titles, are accompanied by mostly a sense of resignation to the inevitable, so the big difference here is in the response of the CoH community to the news - I have never seen such a concerted effort to try to do something to try to avert the end. I very much doubt NCSoft expected that either. |
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| Again, I'm not so sure. If CoH did go dark and then come back it would be a huge story - an absolute triumph for MMO players, and I think that would stir up a lot of renewed interest and curiosity among both former players and even new players. |
And if the servers are offline for any length of time they'll lose players who just want a SH genre game as there are others to go for. I think most of the people in this thread (and probably forum) are pissed mostly because they don't want to lose their history in the game (characters, badges... etc), but many people just want to play a game.
So yeah if NCSoft bring the servers back up, even in a reduced capacity huge news perhaps even increased number of players. If TN do then much less so.
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I suspect that the jump in profit was people reactivating to check out the new idea, ie Advertising. The fizzle was when most then left again because the free parts of freedom were so cheap as to be pointless.|
Originally Posted by Treees
Ironically, F2P lead to a jump in profit for a while. It fizzled back down, but it was something at least.
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They'd have been better off doing a starter edition similar to D3 or WoW(?) in which you get the basics for nothing but then have to upgrade and pay to play.
And some advertising.
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Though in fairness we haven't yet had any more announcements than the game is going down. I think Zwillinger(?) has said that there will be announcements regarding VIP and Premium players. Plus I suspect deals for refunds and other IP giveaways/deals (GW2 &/ Aion I'd guess). Because the shutdown is following (so far) the overall outlines of their other shutdowns and while their business sense may or may not be lacking they will try and make as good a situation from this as they can. (Other than taking their heads out of the sand and cancelling this shutdown ofc.)
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
No they didn't. Stephen Nichols the lead programmer and producer announced back in September 2009 that they game would close January 1, 2010. At the time he made the announcement their dev team was down to 3 employees. The staff having been laid off over the previous year and a half. The players knew things were bad long before the announcement.
http://www.warcry.com/news/view/9476...-Shutting-Down And no there aren't any parallels between the two other than both games were cancelled by NCSoft. NCSoft gave Dungeon Runners VIP's a 30 day game time serial code and digital copies of City of Heroes Architect Edition and Guild Wars Prophecies. They gave refunds to the VIP's with multiple month subscriptions. And they didn't fire the remaining devs on the spot but allowed them to go out with a bang. "Wait, there's even more good news! While we may be going out, we're going out in style, with a few changes to the game for the coming "End Time". Mythic loot will drop much more frequently. We're significantly reducing the cost of expensive King's Coin vendors. We're also quintupling the rate of XP gain to help you finish the game before year's end! Finally, we're adding a huge nuke to Townston that will blow up on New Year's and take the game down with it. There's more, but what fun is there in spilling all the beans?" |
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In the case of Dungeon Runners all that stuff was decided before they made the announcement they were shutting down, and no one was surprised when the announcement was made. Employees were being let go steadily for over a year, and no new projects were being worked on. They knew well in advance how poorly the game was doing.|
Originally Posted by Lost Ninja
Though in fairness we haven't yet had any more announcements than the game is going down. I think Zwillinger(?) has said that there will be announcements regarding VIP and Premium players. Plus I suspect deals for refunds and other IP giveaways/deals (GW2 &/ Aion I'd guess). Because the shutdown is following (so far) the overall outlines of their other shutdowns and while their business sense may or may not be lacking they will try and make as good a situation from this as they can. (Other than taking their heads out of the sand and cancelling this shutdown ofc.)
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That isn't what happened to us. PS had other projects being developed, and new issues and content ready to be released. Everyone was blindsided and no preparations were made in advance other than surprising the people at Paragon and us with the termination orders.
So I'm sorry this shut down is nothing like what happened to Dungeon Runners.
I didn't play Auto Assault, Tabula Rossa, or Exsteel so I have no idea how their shutdowns went.
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Auto Assault was given 4 months notice for closure of the server. Am not sure how much warning the developers were given *ahead* of the announcment (to be honest, i wasnt really one of community there).|
Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
In the case of Dungeon Runners all that stuff was decided before they made the announcement they were shutting down, and no one was surprised when the announcement was made. Employees were being let go steadily for over a year, and no new projects were being worked on. They knew well in advance how poorly the game was doing.
That isn't what happened to us. PS had other projects being developed, and new issues and content ready to be released. Everyone was blindsided and no preparations were made in advance other than surprising the people at Paragon and us with the termination orders. So I'm sorry this shut down is nothing like what happened to Dungeon Runners. I didn't play Auto Assault, Tabula Rossa, or Exsteel so I have no idea how their shutdowns went. |
Tabula Rasa: There had been several staff/management changes in the run up to the announcement of the closure of the game (I think they went through 3 different producers in under a year).
They used scrum development techniques so they were *always* working on something, even if it wasnt coming out for that month, it was still being worked on to roll out in a couple of months time (the Armoured Mech Suits for example were about 4 months work)... the 1st person view was pretty fast. I know that other zones were in development and lining up for release when the announcement came through.
When the announcement came, they let everyone go, some came back as consultants i believe, because they would be working on the big final event for the game.
Some of them even came back unpaid to help release and run the "final event"... twice (once for EU once for US). There was a new zone to fight in. There were also some new mobs that hadnt made an appearance in the game before then (well, not as *active* NPC's.. some where depicted as statues previously
)Was some of the work already in progress, more than likely it was, and they repurposed it for the end game event. However, there was a lot of work that they did to get it repurposed, and they didn't have every one needed to do it as a consultant... some of the work was done unpaid.
Almost a week since Zwill's announcement and still no official word from NCSoft. The company that pulled the trigger doesn't even have the guts to face its customers, either that or they are showing just how much they care about their customers.
They know exactly how to contact us when they want to promote other games and they know how to contact us when they want money; but they don't have the decency to say "Hey we're shutting down Paragon Studios and CoX", instead the corporate cowards leave that job to the people they just axed.
I guess the NC in NCSoft stands for Notorious Cowards...
Who do I have to *&^% around here to get more Targeted AoE recipes added?
Arc Name: Tsoo In Love
Arc ID: 413575
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To be honest, all the emails that went out when TR was closed down also included in them what compensation you would be receiveing at the same time, when you will receive said compensation and what else is happening. This was about 2.5-3 weeks after the initial announcement.|
Originally Posted by EnigmaBlack
Almost a week since Zwill's announcement and still no official word from NCSoft. The company that pulled the trigger doesn't even have the guts to face its customers, either that or they are showing just how much they care about their customers.
They know exactly how to contact us when they want to promote other games and they know how to contact us when they want money; but they don't have the decency to say "Hey we're shutting down Paragon Studios and CoX", instead the corporate cowards leave that job to the people they just axed. I guess the NC in NCSoft stands for Notorious Cowards... |
To be honest, i would rather they take their time on this one, instead of rushing out one email, then another, and then a 3rd....
Side note: They did a release (that went out to press outlets) about the closure, and their reasons for it. You might not like *their* reasons for it, but those are the reasons that they have given.
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I hear you but the point is I'm not the press. I'm a paying customer and have been since closed Beta and I have not heard one word from NCSoft. Like I've been saying all along, they did not walk into work on 8/30 and decide to shut down PS. They knew this for quite some time. IMO they should have already worked out compensation etc or maybe expecting a corporation to have it's **** together is asking too much?|
Originally Posted by Gangrel_EU
To be honest, all the emails that went out when TR was closed down also included in them what compensation you would be receiveing at the same time, when you will receive said compensation and what else is happening. This was about 2.5-3 weeks after the initial announcement.
To be honest, i would rather they take their time on this one, instead of rushing out one email, then another, and then a 3rd.... Side note: They did a release (that went out to press outlets) about the closure, and their reasons for it. You might not like *their* reasons for it, but those are the reasons that they have given. |
I'd appreciate any links you have to these releases because all that I have seen have been articles that link back to Zwill's post. I have seen nothing official.
Who do I have to *&^% around here to get more Targeted AoE recipes added?
Arc Name: Tsoo In Love
Arc ID: 413575
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From my experience of the TR closures there was *some* discussion between the two sides (Destination Games and NCsoft) as to what should actually be in the compensation package. So if you are saying that the compensation package should ahve been already worked out between NCsoft and Paragon Studios... I would have gotten mad at Paragon Studios for keeping the news from us.|
Originally Posted by EnigmaBlack
The point is I'm not the press. I'm a paying customer and have been since closed Beta and I have not heard one word from NCSoft. Like I've been saying all along, they did not walk into work on 8/30 and decide to shut down PS. They knew this for quite some time. IMO they should have already worked out compensation etc or maybe expecting a corporation to have it's **** together is asking too much?
I'd appreciate any links you have to these releases because all that I have seen have been articles that link back to Zwill's post. I have seen nothing official. |
In terms of refunding the points, that is something else. Because if you subscribe you get a stipend of points for *free*, but you can choose to buy more... and there is no difference between "subscriber points" and "bought points" when it comes to spending them.
How should those be refunded?
In terms of the subscription, if you email the customer services (which some people did as soon as they heard about what was happening), they got the message from customer services that NCsoft would be contacting them *directly* concerning the billing/unused subscriptions.
I cannot comment on how that works exactly from experiance because for the whole time i was playing TR, i was running on free game time codes (slight perk of the job running a set of forums)
*edit* I would like to emphasize that NCsoft are only legally required to refund the unused subscription time and offer nothing else. The offering of other stuff is where the discussion between NCsoft and Paragon Studio's kick in.
Edit: You can see ArenaNet listed on Page 11 of the last quarterly slide show, slide 4-5 "Quarterly Sales by Subsidiaries (Parent)". Where they are new is slide 4-4 "Equity Method Gain/Loss (Parent)" on page 10 and seeing how Q2 offsets Q1 exactly, that may be a one time thing since they normally don't appear on that chart.
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