NCSoft's Official Response to Us

Catering just to the power gamer, though, is why a LOT of NcSoft titles don't work here. Aion and Lineage are exactly like this. They cater to JUST that dynamic. If you don't have an MMO the caters to everyone it will fold up on itself. Like it or not, Guild Wars 2 hit the right stride and catered toward everyone. If someone else could establish a game of supers, like that, with solid PvE and PvP (where you can solo to the top, if you want) then it will do well. Without the casual aspect, though, you will not gather an audience. There is a reason the once proud Everquest fell rapidly from grace when WoW "and" CoH came out. It was a game based on grinding everything out.

I am very disappointed in NCSoft's handling of the closure of CoX.

In CoX they have a unique niche game for the MMO community. CoX is the best Super Hero MMO in the market. I have argued that DCUO is more action that MMO and CO is less developed, smaller, and in general less interesting than CoX. As customers we really do not have a viable substitute game to go to.

NCSoft has a right to shut the game down, but we have a right to be terribly disappointed and protest in all the legal avenues we have. Having the right to do something does not make it the right thing to do. The right thing to do is an ethical determination.

Other MMO providers have kept far smaller customer bases happy by keeping their MMO worlds alive and open in at least a maintenance mode. DDO seems like an excellent example, but since CoX is the only MMO I personally play I'm sure other people have more examples.

MMO's thrive on the trust that the online world will continue to be there for a substantial time in the future. NCSoft is breaching this trusted compact by closing down a game that every customer had all reason to believe was healthy. Breaching trust makes a company a poor choice to do future business with.

We as customers didn't pick NCSoft as a custodian for CoX. NCSoft purchased CoX after almost all of us started playing and were well invested in the game. We had no control over NCSoft as a choice for custodian.

Customers with a "Video Game Mentality" maybe more okay emotionally with the thought of CoX closing. But MMO's create online worlds. Customers with a "MMO Mentality" expect these worlds to last for a very long time and have a high expectation for a company to actually do everything in their power to keep that online world around as long as practical. NCSoft clearly has not done everything in its power to keep the CoX world around.

Additionally, no one seems to dispute that CoX is still profitable. If CoX isn't profitable it would seem that costs associated with other projects have been lumped into the maintenance of CoX. Even if this is not the case, no measures were done to reduce the costs of CoX to make it more profitable. Most games don't have whole new issues scrapped just days before release. As games become less profitable, generally additional content comes at a slower pace, but in CoX's we have seen an increase in new content in the last two years not a reduction. Customer have no clue why CoX now seems like a bad investment for NCSoft because we haven't had any transparency, but it also seems that even NCSoft won't say CoX is unprofitable.

If NCSoft isn't going to keep CoX open, then they have an ethical obligation to find a replacement custodian. Yes, they have the right to just close it, but again it doesn't make it the right thing to do. As for the attempt to sell CoX, I find it laughable to say they were unable to sell it. Generally when you want to sell something at auction, you find a buyer for the product. You may not be happy with the sales price, but you get the most you can get for the product. Either the price was too high or the stipulations were too large for NCSoft to find a buyer. But that means NCSoft didn't really try to find a buyer. Heck I'll offer right now to buy it for $1,000 and that is more than zero. I know I can find a company in the business that will buy it from me for a lot more than a hundred dollars, I'll make a huge profit. I might even try to set it up as a community owned project where dollars taken in on subscriptions would be used to maintain servers and if enough people stayed I could hire developers with the funds to do updates.

NCSoft isn't telling us the whole story. Most likely they have screwed up on other games and closing down CoX gives them a tax benefit larger than they can get someone to buy the franchise. Its sad that a profitable game is getting closed because it makes tax sense. But this is the only rational explanation I can find.

To sum it up, we are getting a raw deal. NCSoft is closing the only decent Super Hero MMO in the market and we as customers have no where else to go and are losing the investments (in time, emotion, and money) we have made in City of Heroes. NCSoft has clearly not tried to make the game profitable with cost reductions. NCSoft also has not really searched for a buyer for the game either because they have asked too much or put too many strings on the purchase. We as customers have a right to protest, to whine, and to be unhappy with the quality of service we are receiving from NCSoft.

Superhero movies that make a lot of money are based on A-list characters that cross multiple generations; Superman, Batman, X-Men, Spiderman, Ironman. Ones based on non A-list or newer characters or independent comics don't do nearly as well; Hellboy, Judge Dredd, Blade, Mystery Men, Punisher, Spawn, The Crow, Kick-***, Elekra.

There are exceptions to both lists of course. Also the most popular movies are also a series of sequels. Hook the public with the great first one and you got them for at least two more.

Sure, Arcana and Talionis,
This is what I've always believed in doing: Certainly stay well-rounded, but absolutely focus on - and continue to improve - your strengths.

Now, I don't think any of the current scenario has to due with true failures of CoH (nothing is perfect, but this game could have continued to run and earn a profit for some time to come). It's the failure of NCSoft to recognize the great thing we had here and its value. That failure just simply costs us what we loved.

Also, using World Of Warcraft as a measuring stick is the same foolishness that has doomed many companies ever since Blizzard's big success. It was a perfect storm of so many converging circumstances (including the merit of the product, so no insults implied... insults about WoW are entirely transparent and easy for me to make, so I'll not ever hide them, haha).
Chasing the numbers attached to WoW's heyday has continuously killed companies, games and communities within the mmmorpg universe and for players to do the same is a bit looney (which means - fully expected! So, carry on!).

Any product (at any time, under any theme) may be an enormous winner. That really doesn't change the realities of a genre being niche. And that fact can still play a negative (and positive) role if other factors don't provide the best of circumstances.

This game's popularity sure could have been bigger. Then again, it could have been smaller.

Whether or not the niche aspect of this game is due to the genre or other factors is mostly irrelevant. The game (and us fans of it) were certainly a niche group. And we are a niche group that NCSoft no longer cares about.

The real kicker for this game's population lies within the first few years of launch.
I came her after that period and this game was truly marvelous. However, large enough amounts of customers may not come to three-to-seven-year old games. That was always the problem with trying to bring in new people now. We know it's a great game. And new people can discover that... but how many new customers, ready to spend money and get invested in a new ongoing game, choose the one that came out 8 years ago?
It's just a natural handicap.
When a game is good enough to become the greatest it has ever been at the 8 year mark, people want to hold that as a negative attribute.
Alas, this is humanity.
Show me a sane human and I will show you an ape that believes the hype.