NCSoft denied attempts at offers

The funny thing is that Garriott's departure had impacts on CoH/V's closure, but not in the way I've seen anyone mention.

The Garriotts - Richard and Robert - were toast as far as NCsoft were concerned after Tabula Rasa. Robert got backwards promoted to a position in the company that did nothing (and then apparently disappeared, given how little there appears to be about him since) which strikes me as the Korean way of dealing with him. He's too senior to just fire, so put him somewhere out of the way.

In the meanwhile, the ArenaNet guys were put in charge of then-new NCsoft West - Chris Chung, Jeff Strain and Patrick Wyatt (plus Microsoft's David Reid). The successful developers of Guild Wars were going to lead NCsoft West into a bright new future!

... right up to the point that at least Chung (as NCsoft West CEO) completely mishandled Richard's dismissal. It would have been fine for Richard to leave, but to shove him out the door and in such a way that led to a massive legal problem?

So NCsoft sent Jaeho Lee to replace Chung as CEO. And over time Strain, Wyatt, Reid have also gone. NCsoft West (or NCInteractive, which I believe they are called in the Earnings Reports) moved completely under NCsoft Korea's control.

Which is why the whole, "NCsoft forged the letter, so is a bad company!" strikes me as wrong. Firstly, they didn't forge it at all, but the result of what NCsoft West did was put Garriott in a place where he suffered financially due to contractual clauses regarding stock options. He successfully made the case that he didn't leave voluntarily, but was forced out, meaning he shouldn't have been forced to sell his stock.

The whole forgery angle is an emotive stab and ignores that the people who were likely involved in Richard's dismissal were all sidelined in part due to that event. It certainly wasn't business as usual for NCsoft.

Secondly, the way Richard was fired led to the point where NCsoft West lacked senior management that were independent of NCsoft Korea. It's possible that a stronger NCsoft West management would have decided CoH/V should remain open (although not guaranteed) or at least get Paragon Studios' next title out the door.

A stronger NCsoft West management would have certainly pushed for more game development within its region, which currently appears limited to Guild Wars 2, Wildstar (both of which had long development times that put them before NCsoft Korea took fuller control) and localisations of NCsoft Korean titles.

Instead, the fallout from Richard Garriott's exit led to NCsoft Korea in control of NCsoft West, which has led to a business decision to close the tiny-part-of-NCsoft-business-and-declining CoH/V title and use those resources elsewhere.

Folks, how many times are we going to derail a thread with the Richard Garriott letter? Every time someone tries to discuss the *current* state of affairs, the conversation goes south because one of two people (and always one of the same two people I'll admit) comes into the thread and kicks it sideways... And this is the FIFTH thread since the shutdown announcement to argue over Richard Garriott's forged letter...

There's no good to come of constantly debating its existence - and its not helping matters where the future of City of Heroes is concerned. The forum trolls love it when you get sidetracked like this because it means you're not staying on topic...

Understanding and truth is one thing.

Detailed, spirited defense of NCSoft is another.
I suspect my ignore list would have found a new member in the future... but now there is no future...

This is just speculation on my part, but I honestly think that the reason City Of Heroes is being shuttered is to provide more server room for Guild Wars 2 and Blade And Soul. Remember, it was Paragon Studios that was closed, not NC Soft West. It makes complete sense because they're willing to take a chance on something (Blade And Soul) that's done moderately well in their home country and feel they can make more of a profit by dumping that insipid anime trash onto us.

If you want to get servers on the cheap, why not dump an old game that's slowly brought in less and less revenue over the years to take a chance on a new one? I'm pretty sure this is why they were so adamant about closing City Of Heroes, they're taking a risk on two new games and crossing their fingers. Everything else, every other reason to close the game makes no sense to me. The realignment of company focus can be interpreted as Korean created games. Not to mention I'm sure they'll get some sort of return on their taxes.

Anyone else see what I'm seeing?

Edit: As far as selling City Of Heroes, I honestly believe that a developer could keep this game afloat for a few more years. How bad would it look if City Of Heroes kept going on for another five years when NC Soft said it was no longer profitable? Those a-holes at NC Soft don't want to further tarnish their image. Selling off Paragon Studios or City Of Heroes could potentially cause them a bit of grief with investors in the future.

Oh I do have problem with NCsoft and Paragon Studios...

Namely how their involvement with this years EU CoX playermeet, almost ended up in it being a catastrophy and being cancelled.

Kallandra and I started planning this years player meet between us in November of 2011. A few months later, we did the post up on the forums.

Zwillinger then got interested and suggested that Paragon Studios might be able to send over a developer or 2. We agreed to this plan, and started looking at larger venues, as the one that we had used for the previous 2 years was struggling to cope with the number of players that we already had, and if a developer showed up, it would have been overflowing.

So whilst we were looking at other venues, we got in touch with the marketing bods down in Brighton to see what they can offer to help out (maybe the hire of a larger venue, PC supplying if need be... generally just a feel out). We discover that the person who had *very* nicely helped us out for the previous 2 events, had since moved over to Carbine Studios.

Fair enough we thought, the person who replaced him could at least be brought up to speed, and might be able to suggest other things.

We waited.

We waited some more.

In April/May time, whilst we have been looking around at larger venues, we were told by the venue that we had used *last* year that they were moving to larger premises so they would be unable to host us this year...

We send more emails, asking what is happening. In june/july of 2012, we are starting to get worried. We have no venue booked, we have no idea what Ncsoft/Paragon Studios are planning to do, and we start to think about cancelling the event. We tell Zwillinger/Bod down in Brighton about this, and we receive an email a couple of week later, telling us not to do an announcement concerning the cancelling of the event.

Ok, maybe we might be able to salvage this. If they are telling us this, they have something in the works. A week or so later (mid july), we receive another email from Zwill saying that PS will not be able to send anyone over.

Great! At least we now know where we stand... time to look at another venue. We know we cannot use our regular haunt, because they were changing premises... hmm, this is getting shakey now... we *might* actually have to cancel.

Bugger.

Anyways, we receive an email at the end of *July* from the bod down in Brighton, that he was enquiring with the old venue about hosting us. *blinks* Now, this wouldn't normally be surprising but we had already mentioned in a previous email to them, that they were moving locations.

We wait for more info.

We wait a bit more.

In the end, we get in touch with the venue and ask "what the hell is happening? Has Ncsoft gotten in contact with you about the event". We receive the reply of "yes, we have told them how much it was, but we are waiting ot hear back from NCsoft as to what they want".

Hmm, interesting, this was something that we were not notified about.

Anyways, we try to find out the situation from NCsoft... no answer. In the end, we managed to use the old venue (thank god for them having problems getting the contracts signed so they could start moving).

To be fair, Ncsoft *did* send over a lot of posters, tshirts, pin badges, stickers, and Logitech dontated a few prizes as well, but we were only notified about this 1 week before the playermeet.

But, for christs sake, we (the organisers) were kept so out of the loop our stress levels were raising impressively. The delays in getting replies from Zwill or NCsoft were embaressing, especially as we were getting players asking us "What is happening, is the event still on?"

So yeah, I do have an axe to grind. It is that they (both parties) are *CRAP* at communication skills, especially when they initially say that they want to help out, and then don't tell you what the hell is happening.

And leave you waiting.

/derail

And making Gangrel wait proves NCsoft didn't forge Garriott's resignation... how?

:P

(Nothin' but love, Gangrel!)

With regards to downplaying downix's article because he's a player on the titan network forums, he's consistantly posted over there that he's a journalist first, and this time it happens he was approved to write an article about this game.

Yes, he does have some bias (obviously), but to insinuate he's outright lying, making things up is just as incorrect. He's stated that the contacts he's had chose to be anonymous, they were not studios but actual investment firms, with real offers to make. He chose to honor his contacts so they'd continue to trust him and be useful in future articles - he does write articles on subjects not pertaining to this.

Could he be making everything up? Cetainly, but the details he's gone though in describing journalism, the finance industry, and politics places weight on the side that he's telling the truth. Perhaps he was being a bit liberal with a few choice pieces. Like the RG forgery thing. No it wasn't a forgery in the classic "someone penned his name for him", but what did go down showed NCSoft to be in the wrong and at the very least used his name in an incorrect manner. I remember reading the old PDF where RG himself said it was a forgery - this being probably a liberal use of the word himself, but the description "stuck" and it's how many people recall the incident. So trying to fault downix for using it in the same manner is rather nitpicky in the least.

Tannim, just wondering but is the file that you are referring to?

That's not it. If I'm not mistaken, the one I recall was post-trial, possibly a consolidation of info(?), which included one or more statements by RG, not just his representation.

Either way, it doesn't matter. NCSoft - or management within the company, was proven to be wrong in that case. It's over and done with. One way or the other, the company tried to pull one over on RG and he went to court and won his settlement. Hence, the issue is settled. Arguing over wether or not it was a forgery or misrepesentation doesn't matter as the result is still the same, people within NCSoft did something wrong in the eyes of a court of law. That is what's important about that story.

How it pertains to what's going on with CoH is important because when the company says one thing, and some info begins to surface that something else was going on, you have to look at the company's past and if anything about how the company calls anyone to question them in the current situation, that doubt should give reason to pause and consider if they are being honest with players or not.

To summarize, NCSoft hasn't been quite honest with players in the past, has been proven to at the very least, skew the facts in order to prevent a pay out to a (former) employee.

Now NCSoft says they've exhausted all options in selling the game, and we've had several instances pop up stating other wise.

1. Formerly Paragon Studios was making an attempt to save the game

2. A small studio tried to contact NCSoft and was ignored completely.

3. Possibly another small studio tried as well (if I'm not mistaken).

4. Two seperate investment firms attempted to place offers to which neither received a responce.

This doesn't sound like NCSoft exhausted all options at all. It sounds more like they ignored most options. I may be wrong but I'm guessing formerly Paragon made some headway with NCSoft's NA branch, but when things went to their mothership in Korea, the offer was sat on until a proper meeting on it was finally scheduled where it was summarily canned.

How about the fact that Paragon Studios posted job openings on 8/21. If you don't have the funds to pay for a position, how do you create one?

I've said this before, but using one bit of data then with nothing else to go on but guessing does not make your statement any more factual.

If anything, taking into consideration that Parason Studios wanted to purchase the IP and game from NCSoft, they had another project in the works (some say 2 but I only know of 1), they had a healthy (not maitenance) staff developing CoH with several issues planned out ahead of i24 with general plans into next year, the studio was still hiring, all gives indication that the studio was opering on some type of profit.

I'm finding it hard to sift through the information with all the various axes being ground, conjectures being passed off as fact, anonymous sources, a writer moonlighting as a source, tantalizing tweets, currency exchanges, a Santa Claus imposter reading Korean financials, hints of secret (and, surprise!, anonymous PMs), rumours of skulduggery involving another studio, stories of white knights, the occasional flattering photo of a player, and ... oh my.

My inferior brain is left spinning.

So journalism means never having an opinion?

Sounds pretty untenable to me.

And they could just as easily not include the cost of the studio in at all when the word "profit" is tossed about, just the expenses related to running the game, hosting, bandwidth, website, forums, support. In that case it's possible that the game had millions in profits.

Also Guild Wars hadn't been under performing CoH. As I've pointed out a number of times GW has total revenues over it's life of $15 million more than CoH in a year's less time. Now where Cryptic and Paragon Studios used that money to release a steady stream of "free" content updates, since 2007 ArenaNet put most of that money toward the development of GW2.

Here's the chart of cummulative revenue over time of CoH (blue) and GW (red)

Note that GW hit $150 million in cumulative revenues in only 3 years, we took nearly 6 years (only $95 million in the first 3 years). When we went past $150 million, they went past $175 million. In big business, return on investment is more important that current revenues. ArenaNet proved that their game can earn income at twice our rate. And while we had monthly subscriptions they had only box sales. And while their monthly revenues dropped sharply after Q1 2008, it didn't go to zero, the game was still selling in it's legacy state. And since they didn't have a monthly subscription, they didn't care about churn. They made their money on the cover charge and not the drinks (okay poor analogy). Sure the last few quarters of revenue were quite low but that's true with any 7 year old game. How much money does Blizzard make on the Warcraft 3 or Diablo 2 Battle Chest?

Now our devs had to come out with a continuous stream of content, that's how a subscription and FTP MMO work because without new content folks move on and stop giving you money. ArenaNet took the traditional game approach of box sales with a later box expansions, like the Diablo series, and took those earnings to develop the next game. The last I heard ArenaNet had 2 million GW2 sales, I'm sure that'll compensate NCSoft for any extra monies invested above GW's revenues to finish the game.

And yes NCSoft could still be playing favorites. They bought ArenaNet way back in 2002 before they even had a game. Paragon was started as the left overs of Cryptic, NCSoft simply didn't like the lack of attention this game was getting and since they owned half of it they were simply looking out for themselves. It was already proven that this game didn't fly in Asia but the look of the GW2 as well as it's PvP aspect could do well there. There's nothing wrong in focusing on your region's customers first, they are the ones you understand best.