Dear NCsoft Executives... YOU'RE FIRED!

Errrm, I am trying to find out where you are getting the "Billions of dollars though". Billions of Won, yes, but that does not equal billions of Dollars though.

Yes, their *net profit* decreased, (which is what the article was referring to in the image there), but it increased in 2007, down in 2008, increased by almost 400% in 2009, dropped by about $10million in 2010, dropped by a further $50mill in 2011 (and yet it is *Still* earning about $115mill profit for the financial year). But it *never* hit negative for *any* single quarter that I have listed so far

So far for Q1 2012, it was a large drop, as in *really* large, yet Q2 of 2012 was at not of large drop as expected.

So, where did the *billions of dollars* come from? Or are just thinking that because profits *drop* for any reason whatsoever, that is always the head honcho to blame?

No, but if you are calling me "negative" for trying to get things correct, to prevent facts from being blown out of proportion (sorry, I cannot try to change opinions no matter how much I try), then yes, I am on their payroll....

I wish.

I currently earn £55/week as a full time carer. Hell, I could go out and "actively look for work" and get paid more, but instead I have decided to stay at home and actually *save* my government money. I don't have much of a social life, if any. And neither does my partner (who I care for).

Hell, if we *really* want everything to be blown out of proportion then why don't you just go and say that NCsoft drinks the blood of babies, and kicks a puppy everytime someone cries.

That would make about as much sense as you sometimes.

But it's down after a major release of its number one product GW 2. And not just down a little bit. It's approaching its lowest in the last year.

You all can point out what happened great in the past. But it's today that matters to shareholders. They're losing money. Nexon (it's major shareholder) cannot be happy with these losses since they bought in back in early June. You think they care about last year? 3 yrs ago? 5 yrs ago?

Well, yeah, but that's too simple. Is it dropping because of overinflated WoW-level expectations for Blade & Soul and Guild Wars 2 and thus likely to hit a baseline at some point, or this is a complete lack of confidence leading to an EA-level freefall?

Blood Widow Ricki * Tide Shifter * T-34 * Opposite Reaction * Shaolin Midnight * ChernobylCheerleader

Entropy Legion * Hyperion Force * Hero Heights

Actually, the GW2 release is too recent to be reflected in last quarter's results. We'll have to wait for the next set of earnings to see the impact.

Anyway, the last bunch of MMO releases have been followed by drops in their parent companies' stock prices. There's a reason why "buy the rumor; sell the news" is a Wall Street aphorism.

And also Blade and Soul was released on the *very final day* of Q2 for their financial reports, so more than likely they just rolled that over.

I'm curious about that, too. But I'm talking about the daily stock prices. They've dropped from 268k when Nexon purchased to 235k. 12% loss in sale price.

Where's the silver lining in that when they just released their supposedly big money maker? And after they announced the wonderful expansion of BS? And the closure of the money pit Paragon?

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

Strangely enough, that is about a similar percentage drop for Apple since the launch of the iPhone5... wonder what caused it to drop so fast...

Oh honey, we don't use tin foil anymore! We wear flower pots now... (it's more green, lol)

Technically I think it would be libel since it's written down. Slander generally applies to speech (or similar physical actions).

Probably it's bugs.

And if you bought a bunch of its stock 2 months ago for $687 million and have since lost 12% (~$70 million) you'd probably be upset.

This is what I was thinking last night as I read more into this whole scenario.

Consider that early June, Nexon purchases 15% of NCSoft stock putting it as the #1 stockholder.

Then look at NCSoft stock for July when it drops to its lowest in years.

Then the end of Aug and Paragon is closed.

Consider that Nexon is making its money as a Microtransaction king of online games. And CoH's store is controlled by a 3rd party company (not NCSoft) from what I've read.

So Nexon, looking at a large drop in stock value that it just bought, decides as the major stockholder that something needs to be done to stop the bleeding and right the ship. They look at NCSoft's products: CoH with its low profitability and 3rd party cash shop appears on their radar. A call is made. Paragon is closed.

It would match with what we know about NCSoft. They had purchased CoH from Cryptic and turned it around into the #1 superhero MMO in the world. They had been supportive of CoH for many years. They were investing in Paragon to continue CoH development and a mystery project.

Then they close it? Without a reason?

What if they didn't? What if Nexon told them to?

That's fine. So two things to keep in mind:

1) Read the hyperlinks I posted before asking me to name my source (it's there, you just didn't read it).
2) If you have a better approach for taking action, then please by all means share it.

It's no good having naysayers **** all over the facts just because they don't like the interpretation. Either put up your own hyperlinks full of facts, shut up because you don't have any or get out of the way and let others do what they can to save the game.

We need to work together and make a new plan of action. And we can't do that if folks insist on debating the interpretation without actually reading the source material provided (and the Korean Times article especially gives some great background about Mr. Kim's financial conflicts of interest).

I'm really not making this up. The hyperlinked sources in post #7 speak for themselves.

Maybe the reason was they were tired of waiting for Paragon to develop a second game?

It would've helped if they didn't cancel the last project.

Blood Widow Ricki * Tide Shifter * T-34 * Opposite Reaction * Shaolin Midnight * ChernobylCheerleader

Entropy Legion * Hyperion Force * Hero Heights

That's quite possible. Not sure how long it's been in the works though. Seems odd they'd just shoot it dead and close a successful game to boot.

All I see is a 180 policy shift on their part. A smoking gun lies at Nexon's feet not NCSoft if you ask me.

More likely they couldn't afford to carry the long term expense of an unpublished game AND CoH - especially if they knew they were in the red months before the IR report went public (as Brillig has argued before in another thread).

That said, there were other problems in the company's operations that put NCsoft in the red. Dropping Paragon Studios would've been the quickest way to plug the hole and draw attention away from other bad business decisions. Again, the source links in post #7 and elsewhere discuss how NCsoft lost millions prior to shutting down CoH in 2012.

7 titles cancelled in 5 years is going to take its toll...

And yet, you find that all of the controversies totally valid?

As i said, I would give you one of them (the Richard Garriot one), but the other 2 are *not* valid claims to hate upon NCsoft. Hell, if anything, the patent case one is interesting in its own right, because City of Heroes was actually *cited* in the court documents as infringing on patents.

I *DID* read link 5, infact I used that as a basis for the everything. I couldn't find anything that referred to "Billions of dollars" *at all*. In fact, dollars gets mentioned in just 2 paragraphs. One the cost of development for TR (apparently $100million), and then in the following paragraph where it goes into the hiring of the Garriot brothers ($17 million in cash, roughly $50million for 1.5million in share options).

So, once again, please *clarify* where is states that they lost "Billions of dollars".

I will accept "millions", even "a couple hundred million in developing a turkey and bringing in the Garriots" (although they were also responsible for getting NCsoft into the US market in the 1st place)

But once again, there is *no* mention of "Billions of dollars".

Again, that doesn't make sense.

We know some of the top Devs on CoH were drafted into this new game reasonably recently. Therefore it's not an unreasonably wild guess to suggest it was finally CoH2

We'd seen Freedom show signs of turning the game around and it was becoming more popular - and probably a lot more profitable. Certainly from my own experience I remained subscribed and usually bought £10 worth of points every month. Previously I'd paid for my sub and gotten a booster pack when they came out (except the dance/sport emote rip-off) so clearly my own spend went up and I'd notice Defiant, which is always a relatively low pop server spring to life with Freedom.

This all points to NCSoft being very happy with the overall state of the game and signing off on CoH2 as a modern successor. For all we love CoH it does look dated compared to more modern games and probably had a limited shelf-life if we're ultimately honestly pragmatic about it.

NCSoft made the call to invest in a new game from Paragon and then soon(ish) after kills one of it's improving games and the potential new world beater? CoH2 could put both other Superhero games in the shade quite easily and become a standout game.

Still doesn't make sense.

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

That fits with the "refocusing" blurb on the original announcement. Buy a chunk of NCSoft and get them to turn their resources to mobile and social P2P games and axe anything that doesn't fit with that.

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

They developed 6 multi-million dollar turkeys, killed the 7th multi-million dollar turkey while it was still profitable AND spent at least half a million on litigation versus Richard Garriott and ultimately lost because they forged documentation... If we count the eight unknown turkey that Paragon Studios was working on alongside City of Heroes...

Well, it's about a billion lost on dead end development projects, lawsuits and City of Heroes which was still turning a profit. And it all happened in 5 years under Mr. Kim's watch while he and his wife, Dr. Yoon pocketed millions on the side. Again, that is a statement made in the Korean Times article I linked (towards the bottom).

As Mercedes Lackey pointed out elsewhere, NCsoft lost all credibility the minute they forged documentation. It's not worth trying to pretend they are operating a legitimate and successful business now.

Either way, Nexxon is their biggest shareholder , so when we mention our distate for NCSoft's decision to close Paragon, we need to start saying 'NCSoft/Nexxon'.

There you go again.

You add six "multi-millions" together and somehow magically get a billion? (We won't mention your retreat from billions to billion.) Then you pile on the assumption that CoH was profitable. You keep pointing at a five year old news article while failing to understand the distinction between won and dollars. The 'scandalous' amount that Dr. Yoon was being paid for being on the board? 100 million Won? That's $100,000. Not millions, and quite frankly, picayune compared to what Directors in the US make.

NCSoft may have lost credibility. You and Mercedes Lackey aren't doing so well either. I especially like the part where she compares NCSoft to murderers.

It's. A. Game.