Saving CoH: turn into Charity-Sponsorship MMO

If the reason to kill a product (ie the CoH franchise) is all about realigning corporate focus,
then perhaps NCSoft can look at its corporate mission vision again,
and keep the game alive for what it is and the community it stands for.

The idea:
Turn CoH from a "hybrid-business model" mmo game franchise...
... into the "world's first charity-sponsorship based" mmo game.
CoH is not just a game: it's a community.
And its been a community that has actually done things that extend beyond just a merely playing a game.
From individual players that hold impromptu costume contests (with reasons such as: "im just happy i recieved word as a
friend just opened his eyes and is recovering well in the hospital"), to community groups that organize in-game/rl events to
commemorate things (such as tributes on Memorial Day), to actually having an official charity donation organization like
Real World Hero, perhaps what we've been doing all these years is something we can explore and make it an actual integral
part of the game itself.

There is no such thing as a "charity-sponsorhip" model for an mmo game.
There will be, if we become the first. (Dunno if the name is appropriate or not)

The goal:
CoH/Paragon Studios becomes an umbrella sponsor to various charities.
Where the previous goal was the corporate plan to improve profitablity, by becoming charity-based, the new goal now switches
to generating awareness of and actual charity help to socio-civic endeavors.
The money you (previously spent) on the game, now becomes "donations" used not for profit but for maintaining the costs in
operation/development of the game so it can be able to handle the logistics of charity sponsorships and develop other ways
to help the generate more awareness for the charities/causes it sponsors.

Ways to go about/explore this:
1. If still with NCSoft:
In most parts of the world, governments require or give tax deduction/exemption incentives to corporations that do charity
work. All big corporations have a charity/social-services department.
If NCSoft chooses to reintegrate CoH/Paragon studios back, Paragon Studios can become NCSoft's offcial charity and social
services department (either global hq or maybe just the combined NA/EU division). Paragon Studios will be a self-maintaining
branch of the company, that subsists on itself through donations to cover operating/maintenance/development costs to provide
continued and better improved logistics into actually helping the charities NCSoft sponsors -- and all that done through
City of Heroes. What better way of applying their core values of Integrity, Passion, and Never-ending Change than by having
an actual "charity-based" mmo (a super hero game that does real world charities, that constantly develops as a community and
have actual growing game features and innovation) do actual charity drives for the company.
2. If not with NCSoft:
a. If NCSoft decides not to pursue this option, and doesn't want an actual sale reflected on their financial books (as they
have never sold any game they have developed/acquired), they can actually "donate" CoH to a charitable organization. This
organization may be an actual existing one (such as Real World Hero or Make a Wish, for example).. or maybe even other non-
profit social interest groups such as Titan Network (the guys behind Mids) or Real Life Superheroes.org for example.
b. Well, if it does get sold, maybe another company can get CoH and then use it as their charities and socio-civic division?
c. Perhaps a Co-Op Charity Interest group?
Maybe somehow if Paragon Studios can be reintegrated somehow and become independent, it can be the head/chair of an umbrella
group of similar interests, so that several organizations can be part of this charity-drive game. It can be linked to such
organizations that normally arent classified or feasable such as Real World Hero with World Wildlife Fund and Make a Wish.

How it works:
From "billing charges" for profit, changed to donations for charity.
Taking cue from the hybrid-business model, CoH will continue its free-to-play, premium and VIP program, as we've accustomed
to. There is no change to what we're currently accustomed to. The change is basically the "why".
The money you spend in the game goes to cover operating/maintenance/development costs to provide continued and better
improved logistics into actually helping the charities that CoH sponsors.
The game is still free -- part of the awareness campaign. The free-to-play players wil be exposed to the game itself and
eventually get to learn about the charities CoH sponsors.
The game gives thanks to those that have donated (ie premiums and account tiers). As a token of appreciation to donors, accumulated paragon point package
donation (ie the roughly accumulated $14.99 - 1200pps) will recieve a literal ingame token of appreciation to advance their
donation appreciation (account) tier. Each tier wil have ingame perks equivalent to the paragon reward tier system we're
used to.
Active subscriptions will enjoy the vip perks we're accustomed to. The subscriptions are there to maintain continued support
of the charity(ies)

The charities:
Charities can either be set when an account is made, and each account can change which charities they want to sponsor
anytime they make a donation or renew a subscription-donation. Alternatively, you can set to "let CoH choose which charity
my donation goes to".

Ingame:
- You can have permanent badges or gold titles that show which which charities you have helped in the past and which you
continue to support. You can opt to just be "anonymous" to not reveal which charities you support(ed).
- You can view how much in total City of Heroes was able to give these charities from a special ingame donations tracker.
- Special incentives: billboards and similar media ingame can feature the charties.
- Alternatively we can have companies that make substancial donations have their own ad space for "x" amount of time (ex: GE Cars: because incarnates arent the only
one that has hybrids. *and in smaller print: GE Inc. supports Greenpeace and the Clean Air act of the UN.)

So how do we save our game world (City of Heroes and Paragon Studios from being permanently shut down) and be able to
continue with saving our real world (in our own unique super-hero-style way)?
Well, someone once said: "There must be something about playing City of Heroes that makes this community so great!"



Anyway I hope this is all feasable, or actually made sense.
Sleep deprivation, stress and depression while writing on-the-fly is not a good "eureka" moment.


*Apolgies if I rambled on this TLDR post, since the idea just popped up and just had to write and post on the spot before I forget.
Also, I'm not a lawyer or a socio-civic worker so I may not have/know the proper terminologies for things nor proper
proceedures for turning over/"gifting"/converting corporate assests (such as the case with CoH and Paragon Studios Inc) as
"donations", so again apologies if I got all those technicalities messed up. Hopefully, if its feasable, some players who are
lawyers or socio-civic workers can help make sense of what i just said if its confusing, and can help further expand or make this more concrete/possible/clear/effective.*

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Bumped because although I don't know/understand all the potential legal/social pitfalls here, I want someone better qualified than myself to read this.

This also seems to tie in closely with this article here in terms of theme, if not details.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=297234

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Okay,

As cool as this sounds, the business guy in me says this wouldn't work.

Quite simply, the overhead of running the studio and all its assets is going to eat through the profits.

For office-work type service businesses, those without a lot of hard assets, it can make sense. For CoH, which has to be able to maintain servers on the economy (or in-house), continue development, control community outreach, etc. Basically it would likely not produce all that much in the way of donations. Even if they were SOMEHOW to restructure as charitable organization.

I don't know if they could restructure as an NFP either. Acquiring the CoH IP (or a license to use it) could be costly. And investors would be looking for dividends.

Still, if they were able to manage it, an NFP setup would PROBABLY be most beneficial for them. They'd simply bank any and all profits after bills and salaries are paid. This could, eventually, give them a sizable nest egg to fund future projects.

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The curmudgeon in me has been awakened to full ferocity of late, but I just can't find it within me to trash this. It's an interesting idea. In a good, sane world, it would work.

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Doom.

Yep.

This is really doom.