NCSoft Is Not Our Enemy, But I'm Really Questioning Their Business Sense
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2012-09-13 06:29 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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It looks like the legs, torso, breasts, and head from four different anime characters were stitched together without first being scale normalized, then was sprayed with latex, and then the latex turned into an inflatable doll.
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Originally Posted by Stunrunner
Hmmm. Head's kinda puny. I mean, sure, the boobs on an in-game toon are usually bigger than the head, but this looks like the head isn't just smaller but more like a short distance away, like maybe she has a giraffe neck swaying away from the camera.
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I'm pretty sure that's an industry production secret somewhere.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
It looks like the legs, torso, breasts, and head from four different anime characters were stitched together without first being scale normalized, then was sprayed with latex, and then the latex turned into an inflatable doll.
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Heh. I passed this along to my (12yo) son, and even HE said "oh great, so what - they can close that in a couple years?"
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Actually it did. If I was removing a product from service I would have had a new site ready the day they shut billing down. You don't want to attract new customers to a game you're shutting down. I assume they were waiting until the B&S announcement to change the website. Shutting us down wasn't a good enough reason. |
Originally Posted by NightshadeLegree
I notice that the main NCsoft website has been redone, listing B&S and Wildstar, along with Aion, Lineage 2, Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2. City of Heroes appears to have been entirely removed.
That didn't take them long, did it? |
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That female is laughably out of proportion and indeed, just looks stupid. Not to mention the typical Asian infantilisation of women is not exactly attractive to most Westerners. A ten-year-old's head on a body with DD-cup boobs....? Stupid. Sexy in Asia, stupid to Westerners.|
Originally Posted by Nalrok_AthZim
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Perhaps it is just annoyance that NCSoft didnt even regard me as important enough to email regarding this change, but I think i will pass. I would play GW2 waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay before I bothered with this tripe....
One thing that bugs me is, we have TWO GW games but CoX gets axed? Why not axe GW1 and keep CoX? Oh right, that would make SENSE.
Preview of Boobs and Shame... er, Blade and Soul... is also up at Ten Ton Hammer:
http://www.tentonhammer.com/blade-an...st-impressions
By all means support anime, the Asian MMO fantasy genre, etc... but if you feel so inclined please take the time to post response comments that point out NCSoft's 'bottom line' business practices.
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Yeah, but you gotta admit that's a pretty cool mask she's wearing.|
Originally Posted by Stunrunner
Hmmm. Head's kinda puny. I mean, sure, the boobs on an in-game toon are usually bigger than the head, but this looks like the head isn't just smaller but more like a short distance away, like maybe she has a giraffe neck swaying away from the camera.
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Oh, you mean she isn't wearing a mask that makes her face look a five year old's? Oh.
Yikes.
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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Nice build
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To me BS's overall character aesthetic is a sort of forced perspective approach to anatomy. Honestly i don't see it being as appealing to Western audiences barring the fighting-game-player-who-wants-to-play-one-as-an-MMO crowd. A crowd which i admittedly did not realize was large enough to make this BS a success, but i'm not a big publisher like NCsoft, so what do i know?
While CoH being killed to funnel the resources into a BS localization is entirely too logical i'm not going to waste time getting mad at the BS game. i will, however, continue supporting efforts to convince NCsoft to sell CoH to a company that actually will value it.
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... Darn it, now I'm picturing this as Statesman's demise.
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Originally Posted by Hendrake
City of Heroes died squashed between the hentai breasts of Blade and Soul[less]
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Congratulations on your new role as Director of Merchandising.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
It looks like the legs, torso, breasts, and head from four different anime characters were stitched together without first being scale normalized, then was sprayed with latex, and then the latex turned into an inflatable doll.
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And it's things like this that make me believe NCSoft shut down City of Heroes because it was an embarrassment to them -- they bring Korean-style grinders to the US market again and again, and they keep sliding off into oblivion as people realize what a horrible, endless grind the game is for little payoff... while City of Heroes, almost the complete antithesis of Korean-style grinders, keeps bumbling along -- no sweeping success, but still making steady money for the company. By killing City of Heroes, NCSoft can look at its stable of MMOs and convince itself that when it brings a Korean-style MMO to the Western market and it flops, it flops because the Western market doesn't want an MMO about the subject of the MMO, and turn a blind eye to the reality that the Western market doesn't want Korean-style grinders, regardless of subject. By existing, City of Heroes is walking proof that NCSoft doesn't have a clue what the Western MMORPG market wants. So it had to go.
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Originally Posted by SpyralPegacyon
Blade & Soul is indeed headed to America. Because if there's anything that says 'we know what we're doing', its shuttering a successful American studio in the midst of an MMO recession - and then bringing over a subscription-based Korean grinder.
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Amen!
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Originally Posted by srmalloy
And it's things like this that make me believe NCSoft shut down City of Heroes because it was an embarrassment to them -- they bring Korean-style grinders to the US market again and again, and they keep sliding off into oblivion as people realize what a horrible, endless grind the game is for little payoff... while City of Heroes, almost the complete antithesis of Korean-style grinders, keeps bumbling along -- no sweeping success, but still making steady money for the company. By killing City of Heroes, NCSoft can look at its stable of MMOs and convince itself that when it brings a Korean-style MMO to the Western market and it flops, it flops because the Western market doesn't want an MMO about the subject of the MMO, and turn a blind eye to the reality that the Western market doesn't want Korean-style grinders, regardless of subject. By existing, City of Heroes is walking proof that NCSoft doesn't have a clue what the Western MMORPG market wants. So it had to go.
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Because Arena.net decided in their wisdom to link stuff from GW1 over to Guild Wars 2. So to be honest, why kill off GW1 already when you can still unlock the stuff?|
Originally Posted by Bad_Influence
One thing that bugs me is, we have TWO GW games but CoX gets axed? Why not axe GW1 and keep CoX? Oh right, that would make SENSE.
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Does this meant that Guild Wars 1 will stay around for the life of GW2? I don't think it will... however, the fact that you *can* retroactively add stuff to GW2 from GW1, means that those players who havn't bought GW1 but have bought GW2, can still do it.
Think of it this way... can you imagine the Mass Effect series if Bioware decided to *stop* selling ME1 when ME2 was released... and ME2 when ME3 was released?
Pretty dumb move isnt it?
Same kind of thing, if you can get people hooked on one title from a series, chances are they will pick up the prequals or sequals if they enjoy them.
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While I'm personally incensed that NC Soft is cutting off CoH with so little notice, I can see it from their perspective too. CoH has been on the decline financially for a while, and the latest effort to revive it with a free to play model haven't been spectacularly successful. I think population are even lower now than last year, even though revenue might be up somewhat.|
Originally Posted by Codewalker
Because that worked so well for Aion, amirite?
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So NC Soft has decided to roll the bones and try something new. It probably won't work, but CoH was clearly sliding downhill, so there's not a lot of down side from NC Soft's view point.
Again, I'm really mad that NC Soft isn't cutting staff slowly and letting CoH wind down naturally. I would have played for quite a while. But there's not a lot we can do, and the financials look pretty obvious. It the manner of the shutdown that has me torqued off.
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Do we have data on that, though? The amount of people continuing to play, I mean. The IR chart I saw stopped recording active accounts years before that point. |
Originally Posted by gameboy1234
While I'm personally incensed that NC Soft is cutting off CoH with so little notice, I can see it from their perspective too. CoH has been on the decline financially for a while, and the latest effort to revive it with a free to play model haven't been spectacularly successful. I think population are even lower now than last year, even though revenue might be up somewhat.
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I mean, the servers still seemed pretty populated to me. My hometown is Guardian, and it still had a lot of people running around this year.
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This may end up mirroring what happens with comic book titles. CoH is a title like Birds of Prey or Secret Six or Blue Beetle from a few years ago. It settles at its sales level (say, 10k), sometimes perks up a bit but is generally stable or is just on a really slow decline. But it basically has its hardcore fans that will buy no matter what. Rather than stick with the book, the publisher decides to kill it to bring in something new (that fans may or may not even want). Some fail right out of the gate. Others sell great at first - say, 50k - but quickly decline. Maybe it's down to 25k after a year, 15k after two. And then *it* gets the axe.|
Originally Posted by gameboy1234
While I'm personally incensed that NC Soft is cutting off CoH with so little notice, I can see it from their perspective too. CoH has been on the decline financially for a while, and the latest effort to revive it with a free to play model haven't been spectacularly successful. I think population are even lower now than last year, even though revenue might be up somewhat.
So NC Soft has decided to roll the bones and try something new. It probably won't work, but CoH was clearly sliding downhill, so there's not a lot of down side from NC Soft's view point. Again, I'm really mad that NC Soft isn't cutting staff slowly and letting CoH wind down naturally. I would have played for quite a while. But there's not a lot we can do, and the financials look pretty obvious. It the manner of the shutdown that has me torqued off. |
From a sales standpoint it looks like it makes sense - you sold between 20k and 50k rather than 10k! Eventually it erodes the customer base though, as people realize there is no point getting invested in a title if it's not going to stick around.
In comics of course, that's a problem because the industry doesn't seem to be getting enough new fans to replace the old ones. I don't know if MMOs are at that point yet.
edit: I should say that this is the case for large publishers. Smaller ones I'm sure would be more than happy with a stable 10k-selling title.
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All we can extrapolate is the how many approximate people there were paying $15/month (as a subscriber). The last figure for active accounts that was on one of the financial reports was at 125K.|
Originally Posted by LittleDavid
Do we have data on that, though? The amount of people continuing to play, I mean. The IR chart I saw stopped recording active accounts years before that point.
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Since then though, revenues have declined, and currently we had the * equivalent* of 55-60K $15/month players.
That could mean that we had 55-60K subscribers spending nothing on Paragon points per month, or we could have 27-30K subscribers spending $15/month on points. Or any combination there of. We don't even know how many people were playing on "free" accounts.
It is very hard now to get an accurate figure as to how many people were *paying* for the game in any shape or form. Only Paragon Studio's and NCsoft know the answer.
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Guild Wars and Wildstar are Korean-style grinders? I get NCSoft priding their home products more, sure, but again it wasn't anything that malevolent.|
Originally Posted by srmalloy
And it's things like this that make me believe NCSoft shut down City of Heroes because it was an embarrassment to them -- they bring Korean-style grinders to the US market again and again, and they keep sliding off into oblivion as people realize what a horrible, endless grind the game is for little payoff... while City of Heroes, almost the complete antithesis of Korean-style grinders, keeps bumbling along -- no sweeping success, but still making steady money for the company.
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Originally Posted by LittleDavid
Do we have data on that, though? The amount of people continuing to play, I mean. The IR chart I saw stopped recording active accounts years before that point.
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+1
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Originally Posted by srmalloy
And it's things like this that make me believe NCSoft shut down City of Heroes because it was an embarrassment to them -- they bring Korean-style grinders to the US market again and again, and they keep sliding off into oblivion as people realize what a horrible, endless grind the game is for little payoff... while City of Heroes, almost the complete antithesis of Korean-style grinders, keeps bumbling along -- no sweeping success, but still making steady money for the company. By killing City of Heroes, NCSoft can look at its stable of MMOs and convince itself that when it brings a Korean-style MMO to the Western market and it flops, it flops because the Western market doesn't want an MMO about the subject of the MMO, and turn a blind eye to the reality that the Western market doesn't want Korean-style grinders, regardless of subject. By existing, City of Heroes is walking proof that NCSoft doesn't have a clue what the Western MMORPG market wants. So it had to go.
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It's true I don't have hard data on player numbers, or even soft data. Those MMORPG charts were pretty much guesswork too though. But the main point is revenue; the only real reason a company sells a product. And those who track those things have been pointing out that CoH has been on a slow decline for a while, basically since NC Soft bought it.|
Originally Posted by LittleDavid
Do we have data on that, though? The amount of people continuing to play, I mean. The IR chart I saw stopped recording active accounts years before that point.
I mean, the servers still seemed pretty populated to me. My hometown is Guardian, and it still had a lot of people running around this year. |
It sucks but we really shouldn't be surprised. A player base around 50k to 75k sounds right, Going Rogue box sales were about 50k iirc. And those aren't great numbers for a MMORPG.
I'm still aggrieved that CoH wasn't tailed slowly off, though.
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funny part is, to me, thats great, I want that. thus far eastern settings have been done my very low budget houses for cheap freemos and western games with decent budgets have stayed in a generally western pseudo-european setting, even the final fantasy mmos were largely european looking despite the presence of samurai and ninja as playable jobs (notable exceptions were guild wars factions and the upcoming mists of pandera). I want too korean, and too japanese, and too chinese, its what i kept nagging for here, but as the market goes, even pre-ticked off, wont even consider sending any cash to ncsoft unless they play ball with paragon-rian was a data point in a very small western demographic.
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Originally Posted by Miyabi
Nail on the head. I got to play B&S beta, and its combat is lodged somewhere between Tera and tab-targeting. It's sort of like a fighting game, in that you have dial-a-combo combat, otherwise it's exactly like every other imported MMO, just prettied up (I like his art style, but dat anatomy...)
I'd actually go as far to say it's TOO Korean. Like, if you could cut an MMO, B&S would bleed pure, concentrated Koreanese (Like mayo only...regional?) At least it has Eli...Lyns. They're very cute. |
A part of me wants to send the offices in Korea copies of Rosetta Stone so they can fully understand the scope of my rage when I call them on the phone to demand an explanation for this. They have the gall to disrespect their customers and then insult us by trying to convince us to play a far inferior game?
Okay, I whipped together a chart of the running four quarter revenues of both CoH and GW (because that's what on the spreadsheet). These are NOT quarterly numbers but the sum of the previous four quarters to show an "annual" revenue and smooths out any seasonal differences in quarters.
The blue line is CoH, the red GW. The bump in our revenues was caused by a very, very, very good Q4 2005. I guess the holiday season combined with both CoH and CoV being on the store shelves as well as the collectors editions. But four quarters later, BAM, you can imagine where the line would have gone if it wasn't for that extraordinary quarter. We then slowly decayed until it sped up in late 2009 only to be arrested by the box release of Going Rogue. When that quarter finally gets removed we end up actually rather stable for four quarters with a $10-11 million dollar "annual" revenues. Virtually no bump in revenues by going hybrid.
Guild Wars is a very different story. Their sole source of income are box sales. Besides the three expansions they also released a number of Game plus previous X expansions (when 2nd expansion comes out they sell a Game plus the first expansion, etc). Once they were done cranking out expansions, their revenue dropped down to level below us selling a lower priced combo box sets or digital downloads.
I can see some people going "but wait, their revenues crossed ours after Q4 2008". Yes, but by then GW has earned $30 million more lifetime than CoH, a nice nest egg to sit on while developing GW2. They were still up by $15 million lifetime at Q2 2012.
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Well, you also need to remember what was going on in the 2008-2009 time period (in addition to no new box expansions). Housing bubble and stock market crash ring any bells? Global recession? Worst job market since the Great Depression, in parts of America? It's actually astounding, and says a lot about CoX that it kept such steady numbers through that whole kerfuffle. There are businesses would have killed for that kind of loyalty even just a couple years ago.
And yes, the profits are much lower than they were. I'm simply trying to wrap my brain around the idea some simple re-structuring within PS couldn't have brought more profit without bringing the whole studio down. The sub numbers for CoX aren't bad at all. For an 8 year old game that isn't WoW, we have fanfreakintastic numbers. Even better numbers when you consider no advertising.
Hmmm. Head's kinda puny. I mean, sure, the boobs on an in-game toon are usually bigger than the head, but this looks like the head isn't just smaller but more like a short distance away, like maybe she has a giraffe neck swaying away from the camera.