I hate to say this...but, I think it's really over for our beloved game.
By
Ad Astra,
Posted on: 2012-09-21 16:20 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Not that I've found in any of the NCSoft investors reports, they only break revenue down by major titles (at least CoH was still considered a major title) and in 2011 it was in the $10-11 million dollar range when you convert from KrW to US $.|
Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
And we have no way to find out what kind of profit it was making, do we, FX?
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The game's best year for revenue was $33-34 million in 2005, likely due to CoV and the fact CoH was still "new". 2006 and 2007 the game had around $25-27 million in revenue. 2004, which only had 3 quarters of revenue since that was when the game came out (he said stating the obvious) had $27-28 million. 2008 was around $22-23 million and game revenues started to tank in 2009.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
PPCG, trust me on this: you aren't capable of blowing my mind.
FX, that's what I figured. Thanks for the verification.
Be well, people of CoH.
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Your problem not mine.
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Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
PPCG, trust me on this: you aren't capable of blowing my mind.
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If the information posted on the Titan forums from our fellow player and well respected author is to be held as true, then this guy communicated that the game was making 800k a month in clear profit. Clear profit = after all expenses. That comes out to 9.6 mil a year which is close to the 10 mil posted earlier.
Either way, this game was not failing, please do not place blame on the developers for the game being closed down. They were doing an AMAZING job with the game. The studio was in the black and as far as everyone was concered when they came to work on Black Friday, they were moving forward with i24 and had plans for what they wanted to intruduce to the game for at least the next couple of issues.
They had a staff of 80 roughly half of which was working on another game related product. That's not done when a studio is failing. Calling the devs failures is for one poor taste, two is misinformed, three just plain trollish when you add one and two together.
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Not blowing my mind either.|
Originally Posted by PPCGunner
Here's a mind blower for you,
A. NCsoft shut down a profitable game because they needed a reason to twirl their mustaches this quarter and making gamers cry seemed to fill the bill. B. NCsoft shut down a game that wasn't profitable or very marginally profitable because they needed to concentrate on things that made them money. |
I am a little nonplussed, that people keep insisting the game was healthy.
Perhaps because it was?
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"Healthy" is subjective. Most agree, however, that the facts show that the game has been in steady decline for years.
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Originally Posted by Another_Fan
Not blowing my mind either.
I am a little nonplussed, that people keep insisting the game was healthy. |
Be well, people of CoH.
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I think you may be a little fuzzy on the definition of "discourage".
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Originally Posted by Johnny_Johnny
I do not share this news to discourage further attempts at saving CoH, however to demonstrate that the efforts might be in vain at this point.
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Avatar: "Cheeky Jack O Lantern" by dimarie
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Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
"Healthy" is subjective. Most agree, however, that the facts show that the game has been in steady decline for years.
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Originally Posted by Tannim222
Perhaps because it was?
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I don't dispute the game has been in decline for years. That's true.
That doesn't necessarily mean that the game was failing.
What is true is the game was turning clear profit as I've posted upthread.
A profitable game with a full-time studio of staff with active work on an old game, and staff with active work on a new game is not a failing studio.
In my own opinion, a profitable studio with a profitable game is one that is still healthy.
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Which quarter did they say CoX made 800k/mo profit?|
Originally Posted by Tannim222
If the information posted on the Titan forums from our fellow player and well respected author is to be held as true, then this guy communicated that the game was making 800k a month in clear profit. Clear profit = after all expenses. That comes out to 9.6 mil a year which is close to the 10 mil posted earlier.
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If it was from the last few years, that seems very unlikely unless it's very cheap to run this game. Last quarter's revenue was about $2.5mil which makes that about $833k per month of revenue.
Perhaps someone has mistaken revenue with profit, seems to happen a lot here.
If you can post the link where this was said so i can check it out.
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I can't say one way or another, what I find amazing is the people on both sides who think they can. |
Originally Posted by Tannim222
I don't dispute the game has been in decline for years. That's true.
That doesn't necessarily mean that the game was failing. What is true is the game was turning clear profit as I've posted upthread. A profitable game with a full-time studio of staff with active work on an old game, and staff with active work on a new game is not a failing studio. In my own opinion, a profitable studio with a profitable game is one that is still healthy. |
Heres the numbers I know.
Q2 revenue = 2.5 mil
monthly revenue = 833k/mo = 55 thousand subs less whatever was paragon market purchases.
Profitable ? Maybe, I'd have have to see what ongoing costs were.
I like that I specifically say "profit, not revenue", and I get shouted down.... because I used the numbers as given by the head of Paragon Studios.
Yeah, I guess that guy would have no way of knowing how much profit his little team is generating, huh? Silly me for believing him.
The way the post read was that the game currently was making 800k a month in clear profit. I may be wrong.
Another way to look at it is, if the game was a clear failure and Paragon Studios was operating in the red because their profit was burned out by expenses, then why and with what would they go to the table with NCSoft to attempt negotiating a deal for this game?
*edit*
My previous post regarding source is incorrect, *I think in a way at any rate*, that is our author-player had someone fact check on Paragon Studios and that's where the 800k figure came from. At either rate, she trusted her source well enough to tell others about it.
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That's not exclusive to this game though. A certain juggernaut that's been touting 11 million players for years is now down around 9 million. Another recently released "heavy hitter" that was claiming 1.5+ million players in the spring has now needed to merge servers and is going F2P in a couple months. Now, both of those games have or are about to see a big spike due to a new expansion and F2P respectively, but within a year you'll likely see yet another gradual decrease in players.|
Originally Posted by Bill Z Bubba
"Healthy" is subjective. Most agree, however, that the facts show that the game has been in steady decline for years.
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I think it's just all part of the Circle of MMO Life.
Freedom
Blueside: Knight'Hawk, lvl 50, Scrapper
Yellowside: Dark'Falcon (Loyalist), lvl 20, Blaster
That Stinging Sensation #482183
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Link to the post then.
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Originally Posted by Tannim222
If the information posted on the Titan forums from our fellow player and well respected author is to be held as true, then this guy communicated that the game was making 800k a month in clear profit. Clear profit = after all expenses. That comes out to 9.6 mil a year which is close to the 10 mil posted earlier.
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Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
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In context, given the position implied by the post in question, I believe there is no reasonable debate that the definition number one is the one intended. |
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
BTW one of the things I won't miss is the way people can read a word and completely ignore what was meant by it's use.
Which one of the 5 do you think the OP meant ? 4 seems spot on to me, 5 is another, 2 and 3 are also pretty good. |
I find your pedantic desire to even debate such a wildly obvius conclusion a refreshing reminder of why I had you on ignore for a very long time.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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Originally Posted by UberGuy
In context, given the position implied by the post in question, I believe there is no reasonable debate that the definition number one is the one intended.
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Try none of the above. By failure, I meant cessation, death, destruction, downfall. You are also wrong, the people who were responsible for it's initial success left with Cryptic.
Now you and fan can go back to insulting each other, while I remember why I didn't bother with the forums.
As I've said earlier I've remembered who provided what information.
This is the relevant post about profit.
This is about the poster's trust in her source.
This is a brief description of who is negotiating with NCSoft and advice on our efforts in contacting NCSoft.
This is one of the last updates on the talks that I've recalled reading. There may be newer info. BTW, she mentioned Brian, who as I've previously linked, she is referring to is this guy
Either way, someone, or some group of people at Paragon Studios has been / currently is, in talks with NCSoft trying to save the game. Those people know how well or poorly the game was doing. If it's worth all the trouble of negotiating to purchase it then it stands to reason it was turning a profit.
What often confuses people is if it was profitable, why would a company can a product? There are a myriad of theories, most point to Nexon's investment with NCSoft. Make of that what you will.
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And there were those of that original team that stayed behind and continued to work on the game. If by the game being shut down despite turning a profit is failure, then you're right. But those same people continued to work on the game and have it turn a profit, to me that isn't failure. The failue in this istance falls to NCSoft for shutting down a profitable product.
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Originally Posted by PPCGunner
Try none of the above. By failure, I meant cessation, death, destruction, downfall. You are also wrong, the people who were responsible for it's initial success left with Cryptic.
Now you and fan can go back to insulting each other, while I remember why I didn't bother with the forums. |
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Spiffy, so you're using the word in a way not recognized as a dictionary definition?|
Originally Posted by PPCGunner
Try none of the above. By failure, I meant cessation, death, destruction, downfall.
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| You are also wrong, the people who were responsible for it's initial success left with Cryptic. |
Uh, no, only some of them did.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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Your source has no clue what she is talking about. The $10m annual revenue figure is from quarterly statements filed with the SEC. They are about as authoritative as it gets unless you are able to personally audit NCSoft's books.|
Originally Posted by Tannim222
As I've said earlier I've remembered who provided what information.
This is the relevant post about profit. This is about the poster's trust in her source. This is a brief description of who is negotiating with NCSoft and advice on our efforts in contacting NCSoft. This is one of the last updates on the talks that I've recalled reading. There may be newer info. BTW, she mentioned Brian, who as I've previously linked, she is referring to is this guy Either way, someone, or some group of people at Paragon Studios has been / currently is, in talks with NCSoft trying to save the game. Those people know how well or poorly the game was doing. If it's worth all the trouble of negotiating to purchase it then it stands to reason it was turning a profit. What often confuses people is if it was profitable, why would a company can a product? There are a myriad of theories, most point to Nexon's investment with NCSoft. Make of that what you will. |
That's $800k/month revenue, not profit. Clearly, she heard one thing and remembered another.
An 80-person tech company in Silicon Valley is not cheap to run. I don't know what their salary structure is like, but an educated guess (I have been working in tech companies in SV about that size for the past 15 years) would be that running Paragon was costing between $6-$8m annually.
And that's just the cost for dev. There's also support costs and server costs. Way back in the infancy of MMO's, Raph Koster said that costs for dev, support and infrastructure were roughly equal. Now things have changed a lot since then, servers and bandwidth are a lot cheaper. Support has stayed about the same.
It's certainly well within the possibilities that overall, the business of Paragon Studios and CoH was losing money.
How is it possible for some people to say that the game was doing well? It's actually very easy to do if you just pick the right numbers. For one thing, not everyone at Paragon was working on CoH. If you assume (number picked at random) half the people were, then you could say that CoH was making $10m in revenue at a cost of $3-4m. That looks very nice from that perspective.
On the other hand, you could say that Paragon was pulling in $10m in revenue against costs of $10-12m ($6-8m Paragon studios, $2.5m support, $1.5m infrastructure).
Unfortunately, it's likely that NCSoft was looking at the total costs, and it didn't look that great. When you add in the fact that Paragon was apparently on their third 'seekrit project,' and NCSoft still wasn't enthused about it...
tl;dr - My read on the situation is that this closure has at least as much to do with NCSoft pulling out of the 'seekrit project 3.0' as it does about CoH. I think from NCSoft's point of view, CoH was a side-business that helped defray the costs of operating Paragon as a development studio for new games, and when they decided to stop that development, it made no sense to continue the side-business.
Let's say a company is making a $1 million profit on a $2 million dollar annual investment that is winding down after a long run. Let's say they find new opportunity to make a $5 million profit on a $2 million investment.
It's clearly in their best interests to dump the lower ROI (return on investment) business for the more profitable business, as long as the shutdown doesn't make the switch unprofitable.
Since we can't know what other investments NCsoft is considering, it's impossible for us to judge from the outside whether canceling CoH makes business sense. We do know that they made a major push to make CoH Freedom free-to-play, and added a whole lot of new content. And the subscriber numbers apparently stayed flat or continued a slow decline.
Not unprofitable, but not a great return. CEO performance is judged by Return on Investment (ROI). If a subsidiary does not meet the expected ROI, then it's on the chopping block.
As much I love the game, I think the answer is just that simple: NCsoft ran the numbers and CoH didn't make the cut.
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She isn't "my source" in so much as I've quoted what she publically stated on the Titan forums. That person is a respected author and fellow player, who has offered to put her name and reputation on the line in working with NCSoft to help save this game. That's no small matter. |
Originally Posted by Brillig
Your source has no clue what she is talking about. The $10m annual revenue figure is from quarterly statements filed with the SEC. They are about as authoritative as it gets unless you are able to personally audit NCSoft's books.
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I highly doubt she "misremembered" the words, nor posted her information errorneously. Possible, sure we all make mistakes. But as much as talks about this have come up, she's had ample opportunity to correct her statement and thus far hasn't, but in fact has stood by it. I'll take her word over yours in any case. She's the one who's had personal corresponence with War Witch, and Brian Clayton. You haven't. This again puts myself in favor of taking her word over yours.
In fact, she spoke with Melissa on Black Friday and was told that "they" as in PS, were doing well. Paragon Studios would know if they weren't turning a profit. Brian Clayton who has been in negotiations with NCSoft over the Cityof IP would know. If they game was an indeed a money pit, why bother trying to salvage it? He would have to turn to investors and show them their books and where they stood, because he has to obtain investor funding to get and keep this game going. No decent investor would pony up cash on something that won't return that investment with even marginal gain.
He'd have to find one huge sucker, our outright lie, get a grip of cash, get the IP, let it fail and run off with the difference. I seriously doubt that's what is happening.
A. NCsoft shut down a profitable game because they needed a reason to twirl their mustaches this quarter and making gamers cry seemed to fill the bill.
B. NCsoft shut down a game that wasn't profitable or very marginally profitable because they needed to concentrate on things that made them money.