Will Nexon buyout NC Soft now?
By
DarkOasis,
Posted on: 2012-09-04 15:16 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
You're lacking a motivation.
The financial reason (they were $6 million in the red last quarter, and killing CoH can help them make that up on their books, while long term GW2 will solve their money troubles) is far more logical. NCSoft could have killed CoH at virtually any time without impacting their bottom line much at all (it's tied with GW 1 as their smallest source).
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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Well GW2 isnt off to a good start.
I bought it on launch, installed it, and played it. Got to 12.
Next day my email isnt recognized. I have been waiting 3 days for a reply. Its tuesday now. Nothing. I've sent 4 support questions and still nothing. Last one I told them about giving my a full refund so I'll have to wait and see what they say to that.
GW2 is also not doing as hot as they planned. I feel like they will lose money and definitely fan base over this whole ordeal. Lots of issues going on that i've read.
So if you wanted to focus your future on games that are failing, by my guest.
Some people don't learn unless they fall.
Fight The Power
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I'm not seeing anything about this in the press. Most things I can find are related to them trying to slow down sales while they ramp up their server capacity to handle the massive demand (apparently they hit 400,000 concurrent users on before the actual launch.|
Originally Posted by Next_Spirit
GW2 is also not doing as hot as they planned. I feel like they will lose money and definitely fan base over this whole ordeal. Lots of issues going on that i've read.
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Of the people I know that are playing it, they're absolutely loving it, with no complaints at all.
As for not getting a reply... I'd figure a long holiday weekend just ending (I'm not sure if they had reduced staff for it... it'd seem fairly crazy in this situation), plus a major game having just launched, they're likely extremely swamped (every new game launches with many bugs or oddities, not to mention PEBKAC issues).
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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Either way this is literally bogus. Making us move to their new shiny games. I mean think about it, these games are fantasy lore only. That lone loses people. So did the super hero thing, I get that but thats bsides the point. Now with these MMOs they are basically the same thing, rehashed. Same basic principles. No customization for a fresh experience. Just a set order of things to happen, rinse, repeat. That, gets old over time. And which is why MMO's are on a decline. |
Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight
I'm not seeing anything about this in the press. Most things I can find are related to them trying to slow down sales while they ramp up their server capacity to handle the massive demand (apparently they hit 400,000 concurrent users on before the actual launch.
Of the people I know that are playing it, they're absolutely loving it, with no complaints at all. As for not getting a reply... I'd figure a long holiday weekend just ending (I'm not sure if they had reduced staff for it... it'd seem fairly crazy in this situation), plus a major game having just launched, they're likely extremely swamped (every new game launches with many bugs or oddities, not to mention PEBKAC issues). |
Maybe im just ranting but none of this makes sense. If they're trying to push people to their new games and expect to last years and years with continuous income, I feel they are doing this all wrong.
I see this eventually panning out to pulling out of the west. In the distant future.
Fight The Power
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GW2 has sold out. They stopped selling digital copies of the base game. You could still get it from retailers but Arena NEt/NCSoft had to stop selling the game. |
Originally Posted by Next_Spirit
Well GW2 isnt off to a good start.
I bought it on launch, installed it, and played it. Got to 12. Next day my email isnt recognized. I have been waiting 3 days for a reply. Its tuesday now. Nothing. I've sent 4 support questions and still nothing. Last one I told them about giving my a full refund so I'll have to wait and see what they say to that. GW2 is also not doing as hot as they planned. I feel like they will lose money and definitely fan base over this whole ordeal. Lots of issues going on that i've read. So if you wanted to focus your future on games that are failing, by my guest. Some people don't learn unless they fall. |
One of the reasons is it over performed estimates. That's why you are having issues with support not responding in a timely manner. I think they will be fine for a long while now.
It just looks boring to me though. Tor is too. I keep thinking stat sticks for all item drops. Enhancements were too, but made it hard, for me, to think of them that way.
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Originally Posted by Late2Party
GW2 has sold out. They stopped selling digital copies of the base game. You could still get it from retailers but Arena NEt/NCSoft had to stop selling the game.
One of the reasons is it over performed estimates. That's why you are having issues with support not responding in a timely manner. I think they will be fine for a long while now. It just looks boring to me though. Tor is too. I keep thinking stat sticks for all item drops. Enhancements were too, but made it hard, for me, to think of them that way. |
I played to 12 with a defender. It looks great, don't get me wrong. What the problem is, is its a copy. Rehashed with new cool visuals. And when you copy something and make it cliche, it gets old in the long rune. Basically, I dont see the game having life longevity at all. Once you do it all, thats it. The community wont be as close as they could be,either . Its basically a solo person's game. Which CoH did the MMO thing right, these new ones are not.
Its new and exciting, so yeah its going to be sold. I mean it looks beautiful.
And the pvp is done very well as it needs skill. It will eventually end up like Guild Wars 1 did after awhile. Just my opinion of course.
Fight The Power
I agree completely. There were a lot of Guild war players that have a lot of fond memories and will play at length. All those fantasy MMO's just seem like dumbed down versions of WOW vanilla to me. Boring!
1. You don't need an email to play the game. The login states my email isn't valid but I have no problems playing. Currently level 31 Ranger/Hunter.
2. Of course it's a copy. It's the SEQUEL to GW. Same world, same races, so naturally they kept everything similar for continuities sake, and even allowed the accomplishments from the first game to be credited towards things in the second game. That's how you successfully retain customers from the first game.
Copying something fails when you take a vibrant and fun IP and turn it into a bad clone of a completely different IP. See SWTOR aka the WoW clone.
3. No community will ever be as close as CoH's has been, unless it's members are made up of us.
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You made a wrong assumption: You assumed that getting us to play Guild Wars 2 had anything to do with it. It doesn't. While I'm sure they wouldn't mind if you went out and bought it (as many forumer already had), they're not really gone to notice if you didn't (the amount of CoH players is quite tiny, even compared to the crapfest that is Aion).|
Originally Posted by Next_Spirit
Either way this is literally bogus. Making us move to their new shiny games.
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CoH is profitable, but it was still tying up a fair amount of resources, and it wasn't a huge return of investment. Without knowing their exact reasoning I can't tell if it was just some sort of stupid political maneuver ('lets focus more on asia! translated into 'if it's not popular in asian, lets ditch it'), or if it was a the company (which included Paragon and CoH) could have been royally screwed if some action wasn't taken.
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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Nope. They made about $13 mill in Q1, so they're still profitable for the year. There's no need to make up for anything, even if you subscribe to the theory that killing off a profitable product line somehow makes money.
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Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight
The financial reason (they were $6 million in the red last quarter, and killing CoH can help them make that up on their books, while long term GW2 will solve their money troubles) is far more logical. NCSoft could have killed CoH at virtually any time without impacting their bottom line much at all (it's tied with GW 1 as their smallest source).
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No, not really. NC Soft is motivated to sell because the execs and shareholders will personally make a lot of money from the deal. Nexon wants to grow their business by acquiring the games in NC Soft's portfolio.
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Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight
You're lacking a motivation.
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The problem isn't they were about to go bankrupt.|
Originally Posted by that_darn_lurker
Nope. They made about $13 mill in Q1, so they're still profitable for the year. There's no need to make up for anything, even if you subscribe to the theory that killing off a profitable product line somehow makes money.
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Also, you can make money from killing off a profitable product line if it's replaced by one with a higher return on investment (or has better long term sustainability). You (whether 'you' is an individual or a corporation) always have a limited amount of money to allocate to things, so you're always make a choice not just of what to put it towards, but what not to put it towards.
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Originally Posted by that_darn_lurker
No, not really. NC Soft is motivated to sell because the execs and shareholders will personally make a lot of money from the deal. Nexon wants to grow their business by acquiring the games in NC Soft's portfolio.
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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Oh, and don't forget that Nexon tried to buy EA. Yeah, Nexon take over EA. If anything, they'd want to keep CoH around as America is a market they're not already dominate in.
Sorry, but it doesn't make any sense at all.
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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Your account was most likely hacked. I've played Guild Wars 1, come October, on and off for 6 years and I'm quite familiar with NC Soft support for the game, and I imagine GW2 is the same. Support for GW2 may take longer since many many people are probably reporting accounts being hacked and stolen, reporting bugs in the game, etc.|
Originally Posted by Next_Spirit
Well GW2 isnt off to a good start.
I bought it on launch, installed it, and played it. Got to 12. Next day my email isnt recognized. I have been waiting 3 days for a reply. Its tuesday now. Nothing. I've sent 4 support questions and still nothing. Last one I told them about giving my a full refund so I'll have to wait and see what they say to that. GW2 is also not doing as hot as they planned. I feel like they will lose money and definitely fan base over this whole ordeal. Lots of issues going on that i've read. So if you wanted to focus your future on games that are failing, by my guest. Some people don't learn unless they fall. |
#1)It always takes on average 3 days before you receive a response from a support ticket.
#2) Do not under any circumstances create more than a single support ticket for the same problem. If you have more information or would like to request an update on the situation you need to update the ticket you already created. ArenaNet has stated this many many times over the years. The reason is because it causes more work for the support staff having to find all your tickets and merge them when they are in the waiting line further down from your original ticket.
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Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight
I'm not seeing anything about this in the press. Most things I can find are related to them trying to slow down sales while they ramp up their server capacity to handle the massive demand (apparently they hit 400,000 concurrent users on before the actual launch.
<snip> |
Here is my post: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...83#post4375983
Here is a source (in my post there) saying that ArenaNet has "admitted" there have been "some" account hacks with GW2 already: http://www.videogamer.com/pc/guild_w...igilant_3.html
And here on the official GW2 Wiki site, although it says nothing about accounts being hacked it gives a good impression that there is in fact a big problem with account security.
Game status updates from August 29-Sept. 3 http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game...ates/Archive_1
And the most recent status update http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_status_updates (Sept. 5, same exact info as what's in the archive for August 29-Sept. 3) No info other than the same exact message over and over with each update: Ways to protect your account, getting in touch with support, etc.
Edit: Official announcement from ArenaNet about GW2 dated August 29, the day AFTER the game officially launches:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/c...day_august_29/
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Originally Posted by ArenaNetTeam
Account security - We're seeing an uptick in reports of account theft and attempted account theft. We believe hackers are using databases of email addresses and passwords stolen from other games and web sites, and pre-existing trojan horses, to search for matching Guild Wars 2 accounts which they attempt to compromise.
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Originally Posted by ArenaNetTeam
Botting - We'll start substantial banning of bots on Wednesday, August 29. Since we're currently seeing widespread casual, unsophisticated botting, we will start with 72-hour bans for first offenses. In the coming days, as we address the casual botting problem, we plan to switch to our normal policy of permanently banning anyone who runs a bot.
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I'm not trying to be rude here. Help me understand. I'm really not sure what you're arguing about now. First you claim killing COH will help clean up their books RIGHT NOW. Then you bring up this which is a perfectly valid point, but it doesn't follow from your first statement. They don't have a product line, right now, to replace COH using COHs money. You can't claim GW2 is that product line because everything was lined up and paid for before Paragon Studios was axed. Its out and generating revenue, right now, and is completely capable of supporting itself. The only way your line of reasoning might work is if they were going to invest that money into beefing up their other games' cash shops, and they could somehow pull this off and get an immediate and substantial return within a short time period.|
Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight
The problem isn't they were about to go bankrupt.
Also, you can make money from killing off a profitable product line if it's replaced by one with a higher return on investment (or has better long term sustainability). You (whether 'you' is an individual or a corporation) always have a limited amount of money to allocate to things, so you're always make a choice not just of what to put it towards, but what not to put it towards. |
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| But none of that is expedited by killing CoH. Besides, Nexon already has a presence in America, including America-only games, so you can't really claim their allergic to western-only demographics. |
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I understand we both like COH. We're both on the same side here. I'm just saying others don't perceive the same value that we do. It should be obvious. NC Soft just told us how much they value COH. It's zero. How can you hope to dominate a market with a property that has zero perceived value?
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Originally Posted by Kitsune Knight
Oh, and don't forget that Nexon tried to buy EA. Yeah, Nexon take over EA. If anything, they'd want to keep CoH around as America is a market they're not already dominate in.
Sorry, but it doesn't make any sense at all. |
Im sure I got hacked then.
I did get a message about trying to change my email. No clue how they hacked me.
But I sent 3 messages due to frustration with the subject. I'll just wait now. But I hope they can do something about it.
Regardless, this spells bad news for it possibly in the long run. I still want to try it out dangit.
Fight The Power
Putting a political spin on this...this is what Bain Capital did to its companies. NC Soft will probably get a tax write off for all this. And closing it down at the end of the year for the benefit of next years taxes. 
Playing on Freedom
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A what? There's no such thing. |
Originally Posted by Next_Spirit
I played to 12 with a defender.
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Originally Posted by Next_Spirit
It looks great, don't get me wrong. What the problem is, is its a copy. Rehashed with new cool visuals. And when you copy something and make it cliche, it gets old in the long rune. Basically, I dont see the game having life longevity at all. Once you do it all, thats it. The community wont be as close as they could be,either . Its basically a solo person's game. Which CoH did the MMO thing right, these new ones are not.
Its new and exciting, so yeah its going to be sold. I mean it looks beautiful. And the pvp is done very well as it needs skill. It will eventually end up like Guild Wars 1 did after awhile. Just my opinion of course. |
The community of a one-week old game will of course not be very close O.o However, lots of people/guilds have been following the game for a long time and have created some welcoming communities which will, one hopes, spread as the game ages. I know I've gotten to take part in some very fun RP with total strangers.
The game is very player-friendly, in a way other MMOs are not. You can't killsteal/tag other people's mobs. You don't hurt their xp by buffing or healing or helping them kill things. You can't steal other people's resource nodes. You can't steal other people's quest glowies. You can't steal other peoples' loot chests. EVERYONE in an area is welcome to participate in everything that's going on. That's FAR from a solo person's game - just because you're not grouped doesn't mean you're not part of the "group" around you. It's a very different mechanical system in that way.
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Originally Posted by monkeyslap
Here is a source (in my post there) saying that ArenaNet has "admitted" there have been "some" account hacks with GW2 already: http://www.videogamer.com/pc/guild_w...igilant_3.html
And here on the official GW2 Wiki site, although it says nothing about accounts being hacked it gives a good impression that there is in fact a big problem with account security. Game status updates from August 29-Sept. 3 http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game...ates/Archive_1 And the most recent status update http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_status_updates (Sept. 5, same exact info as what's in the archive for August 29-Sept. 3) No info other than the same exact message over and over with each update: Ways to protect your account, getting in touch with support, etc. Edit: Official announcement from ArenaNet about GW2 dated August 29, the day AFTER the game officially launches: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/c...day_august_29/ It may not be from the press. Even better. Straight from the source: ArenaNet themselves. |
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Originally Posted by monkeyslap
I remember something about them saying during the development of GW2 a couple years or so ago that GW2 was going to be nearly impossible to bot. So much for that.
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Originally Posted by Next_Spirit
Im sure I got hacked then.
I did get a message about trying to change my email. No clue how they hacked me. |
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Originally Posted by Feycat
A what? There's no such thing.
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A human defender.. yeah. I mean guardian.. totally meant guarding.
Played CoH for so long.
Fight The Power
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Heh! I wasn't sure if you meant Guardian, or Elementalist (since that's the closest "caster class" that might match up to CoH Defendering)|
Originally Posted by Next_Spirit
A human defender.. yeah. I mean guardian.. totally meant guarding.
Played CoH for so long. |
BTW, in regards to you being hacked, here's what Anet posted today in their daily update:
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Account Security Hackers have lists of email addresses and passwords stolen from other games and web sites, and collected through spyware, and are systematically testing Guild Wars 2 looking for matching accounts. To protect yourself, use a strong, unique password for Guild Wars 2 that you've never used anywhere else! Customer Support Our customer support team is prioritizing hacked accounts and other blocking login issues over other types of support requests. If you submit a support ticket for a hacked account, ensure it is properly prioritized by following these instructions. We have now completed prioritized requests submitted prior to Sunday, September 2. If you have an older ticket for a hacked account or blocking login issue that has not been completed, that means it's not correctly prioritized. Submit a new ticket using the above instructions, and in the title write, "Blocking Login - Ticket submitted <date> - Ticket number xxxxxx-xxxxxx" (fill in the date and ticket number of your existing ticket), and we will prioritize your existing ticket. Email Authentication Once you validate your account email address, we help protect you from attempted account hacking (even if the hacker guesses your password) by sending you an email every time you attempt to login from a new location, asking you to approve or deny the login attempt. Keep in mind, if you receive an email asking you to approve or deny a login attempt and you didn't make that login attempt, that means a hacker knows your password. Change your password immediately. Be sure not to flag an email authentication message as spam; if you do, your email provider may prevent future email authentication messages from reaching you. If email authentication is preventing you from logging in, contact our customer support team following these instructions and we'll disable it for your account. |
What Bain Capital and companies like them do is to take a public company private, do the necessary changes that would make a much healthier company without being quadrupled guessed by Wall Street analysts that results in the stock price of a public company being jerked about. When they are done they bring the company public again and make their money owning a chunk of stock in the revamped company which if they did their job right, goes up over time.
What NCSoft did was more akin to The Gap, Inc deciding to close their Piperlime chain because it didn't contribute in a significant way to their revenues unlike their Gap, Banana Republic or Old Navy chains.
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Tempus unum hominem manet
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Fixing their books is an accounting thing. They were in the red $6 million, so killing CoH can help make that look right. Don't be confused and interpret that as me saying "they're going to make money", because it won't, they're still going to lose money- slightly more in fact. But at the same time, it'll cause their expenses to go down, appeasing any angry stockholders that are upset about NCSoft losing a large amount of money (plus, apparently they'd taken out a $100 million loan, so they also have to keep the bank pleased).|
Originally Posted by that_darn_lurker
First you claim killing COH will help clean up their books RIGHT NOW. Then you bring up this which is a perfectly valid point, but it doesn't follow from your first statement. They don't have a product line, right now, to replace COH using COHs money.
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The other statement about a new product line wasn't intended to be directly connected or following, it was intended to be a response in part to the 'killing a profitable line can't make money' thing. The theory that seems the most likely to me is that this is to make their books look nicer as that's something they're in the need of.
As for the topic of botting- it's impossible to prevent it from happen in the first place... but it's much more plausible to detect it and be able to stop them from being done. And hacking? Yeah, if you in any way followed a link you got in an email to 'their site', that was definitely phishing. Also, if you're registered on any other forums/sites (especially related to the game) with the same login combination, there's a huge chance that's how they got it. I remember back when I played Aion, one of the major third party forums got 'hacked'... which means that the hacker probably ended up with a huge number of valid logins for the game.
While I've not exactly been impressed by NCSoft's security track record (the master account bug was absolutely horrible and should have never happened), it's not really been an issue of continual fail from anything I've seen. It's still far easier to trick most users into giving you their username/password combos (hell, if I was a hacker, I'd set up my own forum and advertise the hell out of it for the game... free access to all those logins!).
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Originally Posted by ShadowNate
;_; ?!?! What the heck is wrong with you, my god, I have never been so confused in my life!
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I play on Crystal Desert but I hope to relocate on a new server maybe with a CoH community. |
Originally Posted by Feycat
Heh! I wasn't sure if you meant Guardian, or Elementalist (since that's the closest "caster class" that might match up to CoH Defendering)
BTW, in regards to you being hacked, here's what Anet posted today in their daily update: So hopefully they can sort you out soon! Feel free to look me up if you're playing on Tarnished Coast! |
I just resent my ticket. I was kind of mad when I woke up to still NO reply but then I read your post. I hope they fix this or my money was wasted :/
Fight The Power
We know:
1) City of Heroes still made money
2) It is a flop in the Asian market
3) The PWE/Cryptic engine license rumor is false.
3) GW2 came out and is making money hand-over-fist. (I advanced a theory that this gives NC SOft the cover they need to shut down COH)
4) Nexon recently purchased ~%15 of NC Soft.
Upon further reflection, dumping COH and the subsequent "refocusing" looks like preparations for a buy out. Dumping COH makes sense because it cleans up their portfolio. Why have this pesky, albeit profitable, gad-fly game that only a few Americans play? And when the buyout goes through and NC Soft execs get their golden parachutes, they're not going to care about any ill will caused by killing COH. That will be some else's problem to deal with.
Besides, most people won't make this connection I've made so all the ill will generated towards NC Soft won't carry over to Nexon. People will give Nexon a pass.
And then Nexon will release a COH farmville game for facebook, developed in some software sweat shop in China.
Hvae a nice day.