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Funny, I am starting to think the same thing about some of the people on these boards.
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Originally Posted by Bad_Influence
God, that was annoying. As were the "why are you even doing this, you bunch of whiny children, the game is closing and you cant do anything, so why don't you sit down and STFU LOL" trolls.
If we don't do what we can, ain't ANYBODY going to be playing this game. You [general you] can start up an ITF any old time, heaven forfend people be using global channels to actually help the game and all. *disgust* |
Types of Swords
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Posted on Titan by Mercedes Lackey; the author who is graciously doing whatever she can to help #savecoh:
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http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.....html#msg47249|
First off, this post is NOT meant to discourage you guys. Just remember we have to deal in facts as well as hope. Larry did some fact-checking and money-tracing (he's the brains of our operation, I just do the heavy-word-lifting). This is what he found. "The essence of it all appears to be as simple as this: NCsoft is owned by Nexon Co. Ltd., and Nexon has a record of only being interested in what benefits Asian gamers, and last quarter, their push was heavy East and EU. Paragon Studios employed 80 people. Nexon employs 3,400. City made $800k clear profit a month. Nexon's quarterly was $242 million, and their latest 1 of 60 MMOs registered 3 million players in China last month. Nexon has been at a steady $1.1 to $1.2 billion dollar company for 3 years. As big as CoH has been to us, City wasn't even a blip seen from Tokyo and Seoul. Someone 5,000 miles away (who likely never played any game the corporation owns---and even their largest shareholder only has a 21 percent share) said "reduce North American assets," and this happened. And with a billion people in China as a market for Nexon's free-to-play/micropayment 2D MMOs versus a highly-technical American-based 3D MMO, they saw no reason to bother (or, really, even take notice)." This is actually something we can parlay. I mean, hello? $800k PROFIT PER MONTH with an 80 person staff? That sounds like a THRIVING small business to me! This is something worth investing in! If any of you actually write on small business blogs, this story would be worth starting over there--giant asian firm DUMPS profit-making business. This could get any potential investor with his salt salivating. |
That should help with some of those "how much money was COH making?" question.
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Originally Posted by Paladiamors
I love you, I Burnt the Toast!
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There are some strange numbers being bandied about as "fact" - when the truth is we really don't know.
But what we do know is that CoH was profitable but realistically, in decline over the long term. The trend seemed downwards.
However it could be made to be profitable and the reaction amongst much of the community is evidence that there's a lot of passion for this game.
You can bandy statistics about all you want but it's commonly accepted that for every community action that is taken there are plenty of supporters who agree with the action but don't act themselves. Sometimes it's naked apathy, sometimes it's too busy, a lack of perceived benefit, or perhaps even fear of ridicule or making a decision. I'm working from memory here but the general consensus is that for every person who signs a petition, there's roughly about 5 people who support the principle but don't. (From memory, studies vary and range from 3-10 - but that was in the days before there was an internet if you can imagine such a thing.) But ok let's say the ratio is roughly 1:4 once we've filtered out dupe signings etc.
So we've roughly 15000 sigs currently = 60000 potential subscribers. At $15 a month that's $900,000 a month. I'm guessing that would only support a smallish game, ie a skeleton dev team and only a few servers.
However, that's just the raw basic numbers. There are other considerations - if the fan base can make a comprehensive case to demonstrate that there is profit to be made from the game, then the shareholders must ask the board some very interesting questions.
Fighting for this game isn't for everyone. But this game and community has done a great deal for me over the years. Trying to keep it online and active is a worthy goal and personally I would much rather say "I tried my hardest and failed" than "Meh couldn't be arsed."
Thelonious Monk
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I wonder if ABC News' "Made In America" segment would be at all interested in the story.| This is actually something we can parlay. I mean, hello? $800k PROFIT PER MONTH with an 80 person staff? That sounds like a THRIVING small business to me! This is something worth investing in! If any of you actually write on small business blogs, this story would be worth starting over there--giant asian firm DUMPS profit-making business. This could get any potential investor with his salt salivating. |
edit: well, why not. Submitted a news item suggestion via http://abcnews.go.com/Site/page?id=3...Diane%20Sawyer
edit x2: and of course I missed some legalese at the bottom of the page and got an e-mail back telling me to send a physical letter. Grr.
Suggestions:
Super Packs Done Right
Influence Sink: IO Level Mod/Recrafting
Random Merit Rolls: Scale cost by Toon Level
Hey LeBlanc...
Looks can be deceiving.
@Rien
I am Lord Omi. Now and forever. They can take our City, but they can't take me.
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That's pretty darn close. We know based on the August 8th earnings report that CoH made about $2.5M dollars last quarter. That that number, divide by $15, and the divide by 3 (months), and you get a number that would be earned by about 56,000 VIP subscribers at the monthly rate. Of course, some of that revenue was made off of free/premium players making purchases, as well as VIPers paying for points above their stipend. And some players buy longer term subscriptions at a discounted price, etc....|
Originally Posted by Scarlet Shocker
So we've roughly 15000 sigs currently = 60000 potential subscribers. At $15 a month that's $900,000 a month. I'm guessing that would only support a smallish game, ie a skeleton dev team and only a few servers. |
Either way, we know that we certainly had something less than 56,000 subscribers last quarter. However, regarding profitability.....well, as you've said, lots of speculation there.
If we don't do what we can, ain't ANYBODY going to be playing this game. You [general you] can start up an ITF any old time, heaven forfend people be using global channels to actually help the game and all. *disgust*