NCSoft denied attempts at offers
By
Agent White,
Posted on: 2012-10-15 17:25 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Quote:
Hi, don't take this as a response to your points. I just like collecting notable links.|
Originally Posted by SpyralPegacyon
There's enough smoke to believe that the 'darker and grittier' CoH 2 was killed because NCSoft needed the cash to cover up cost overruns for Blade & Soul and Guild Wars 2. I've also heard Zwill confirm that the secret project's cancellation took CoH with it.
... Given what I'm hearing from Samuari-ko and Arcana, I'm finding that less believable than what BaBs said over a month ago: NCSoft is scared of someone taking the IP and succeeding with it. |
Could you provide links to those you mentioned above...i'm afraid i've been slacking off and may have missed those.
Would be appreciative.
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Oh I agree something doesn't add up. I have my own pet theory that somehow they gain a short term positive benefit from shutting down a game and or studio. But I have no idea what and my attempts at a coherent reason get shot down by people who say that it doesn't work that way. Maybe yes maybe no. But I'm convinced that NCSoft learned from their first shutting down of a game some trick that makes them a short term profit. And they keep going back to that well. |
Originally Posted by TonyV
SOMETHING doesn't add up here. I might never be able to prove it, and you might not believe it, but I personally believe that something fishy is going on inside the halls of NCsoft that we're not privy to, an ulterior motive at work. Something has changed the past few years, something I can't put my finger on, but something that I think isn't in the company's best interest. Unlike how I felt when the game launched, it's pretty obvious to me that gaming communities aren't exactly a priority at NCsoft now. That's not to say that sometimes they don't luck out with studios that provide awesome community relations folks like ours did and that sometimes we even get good GM support like we did. But in the big picture, I feel like NCsoft just doesn't know how to treat its customers well, and I for one won't be supporting their games in the future. Right now, it seems that those "long term goals" they referred to are to churn out a new shiny every couple of years or so, let it run for a little while, then burn it down and move on to something else. As a gamer, I have to say no thank you.
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Anyway yes there is something fishy about it but what? I don't know and I suspect you would have to be an NCsoft Korea insider to know.
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CoH/V would very likely be a profitable title. Some other older MMOs have profit ratios in the realm of 50%+. But if Paragon Studios was looked at as a cost centre for CoH/V plus whatever other project they were working on, it is very possible that Paragon Studios wasn't profitable enough and (with CoH/V's declining revenues) was looking to go into the red in the future.|
Originally Posted by TonyV
I see this a lot, and I have to point out that around half of that 80+ staff were working on an entirely new game. That means that the 80+ staff were not all operational expenses related directly to City of Heroes. As such, it most certainly can be possible that the game was making a multi-million dollar profit and that a lot of that profit was being reinvested into the company in the form of development of future products.
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I've seen the Guild Wars comparison made a number of times, but the difference was that Guild Wars 2 was announced years ago and NCsoft made it a priority, plus GW2 has a shot at being sold successfully into the Korean market. Paragon Studios didn't have a publicly announced next title and the one they were developing would still be 12m+ away (and likely further). The easiest titles to kill are the invisible ones.
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You keep showing that chart, and on the surface, it looks very compelling. So... I made my own!|
Originally Posted by Father Xmas
Here's the chart of cummulative revenue over time of CoH (blue) and GW (red)
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This is the same data, except that instead of a cumulative since the beginning of recorded time, I've cut it to just the past five years. The reason why is because I don't dispute that Guild Wars had a pretty big initial launch. However, my contention has always been that City of Heroes has a much more stable income. So with no further ado, a cumulative revenue comparison between City of Heroes and Guild Wars for the past five years:
Final verdict:
91.865 billion KRW for City of Heroes
78.432 billion KRW for Guild Wars
In the past five years, City of Heroes has brought in approximately 17.1% more revenue than Guild Wars, or around $12 million at today's current exchange rate (which has remained more-or-less steady over the past five years within normal fluctuations).
Now I know you'll probably bring up that maintaining the staff of City of Heroes is probably more expensive, and to some degree you might be right. But again, you're neglecting that a lot of the staff of Paragon Studios has not been dedicated to City of Heroes for quite a while, and of the ones who were, they didn't really need them to keep the game running. If NCsoft wanted to make City of Heroes more profitable in the short term (with risk to the long-term profitability), they could have done so, and they had a LOT more leeway in which to make cuts than they do with Guild Wars.
As for why City of Heroes didn't take off like Guild Wars did, you have to consider the City of Heroes was released in April 2004. That was back when MMORPGs were still in the process of gaining ground. You had games like Everquest, Ultima Online, and a few other minor players, but the genre only really gained massive popularity after Blizzard threw a kazillion dollars into marketing campaigns for World of Warcraft, which wasn't released until November 2004. Guild Wars came along in April 2005, back when MMORPGs were considered EXTREMELY hot thanks to the awesome success of WoW. I honestly believe that it benefited greatly from the fortuitous timing of its release, but that after a couple of years, the fantasy genre had considerably dried up, thus its greatly reduced year-over-year earnings. City of Heroes, being in a bit of a niche genre, didn't suffer as badly, thus why in 2Q 2008 it overtook Guild Wars in revenue, and has consistently outperformed it--both in monthly revenue and in cumulative revenue--ever since.
I still stand by my claim that City of Heroes has been significantly outperforming Guild Wars. Further, I still stand by my claim that City of Heroes has been and still was very profitable to NCsoft, and that the profits were being funneled into other projects. In short, we did more to fund Guild Wars 2's development than Guild Wars did. And you know, I don't even mind so much--that's how game publishers work. But then to turn around and kick us to the curb, yeah. THAT has me riled up.
We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.
(If you love this game as much as I do, please read that post.)
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Hmm, i think there might be something off a bit. |
Originally Posted by TonyV
You keep showing that chart, and on the surface, it looks very compelling. So... I made my own!
This is the same data, except that instead of a cumulative since the beginning of recorded time, I've cut it to just the past five years. The reason why is because I don't dispute that Guild Wars had a pretty big initial launch. However, my contention has always been that City of Heroes has a much more stable income. Final verdict: 91.865 billion KRW for City of Heroes 78.432 billion KRW for Guild Wars |
When you say the past 5 years, i take it you mean the last 20 quarters (3Q07 - 2Q12) is that right? I got these totals for that period.
Code:
CoX GW Exchange rate (avg quarterly ask price)
2007-3Q 5,721 13,012 929.76053
2007-4Q 5,401 9,240 922.05946
2008-1Q 5,416 9,481 957.24200
2008-2Q 5,743 5,096 1020.13255
2008-3Q 6,193 3,719 1066.12848
2008-4Q 6,865 4,931 1365.35609
2009-1Q 6,837 4,300 1415.61656
2009-2Q 6,673 5,179 1288.31418
2009-3Q 5,471 4,084 1243.32370
2009-4Q 3,928 3,564 1172.12370
2010-1Q 3,348 2,382 1149.27733
2010-2Q 3,491 5,120 1167.69275
2010-3Q 5,709 2,321 1187.31793
2010-4Q 3,239 2,723 1135.05837
2011-1Q 3,055 2,306 1121.61478
2011-2Q 2,787 2,253 1085.42165
2011-3Q 2,812 1,872 1082.51283
2011-4Q 3,435 1,474 1147.87098
2012-1Q 2,890 1,709 1132.83473
2012-2Q 2,855 1,277 1156.13407
5 year Totals
KrW(mn): 91,869 86,043
USD: 81,362,837 79,968,087
There's also some things to consider.
The very likely reason for GW started to earn less per year than CoX starting in 2008 is because back in march 2007, they not only announced their next (and apparently last) expansion to release at the end of 2007 but also that development on GW2 has already begun.
So from 2008 on, there hasn't been much in lieu of content except for the occassional cash shop mtx items for the next 5 years. But Arenanet has demonstrated they can create products that generate more significant revenue boosts multiple times than what Paragon could muster. (See expansion comparisons from my previous post.)
And even being in what can be considered maintenance mode, GW's yearly revenue has still managed to perform relatively close to CoX differing only by about 279k/yr.
EDIT:
It's understandable and quite expected that GW's revenue seem more erratic on a quarterly basis, but that's obviously because of the lack of subscriptions as a more predictable revenue source.
They're completely different products with wildly different business models to try and use revenue "stability" as a means to determine long-term viability.
* I put stability in quotes since it's a tad misleading otherwise...instead of stable, i would probably describe it as predictably declining.
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Unsub's blog|
Originally Posted by Pebblebrook
Hi, don't take this as a response to your points. I just like collecting notable links.
Could you provide links to those you mentioned above...i'm afraid i've been slacking off and may have missed those. Would be appreciative. |
I'm pretty sure this was the podcast with Zwill
Samurai-ko and Arcana's posts are upthread.
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Did the original GW even have a cash shop? I don't think so, I think that's new to GW2 so the only income was from PC gaming bargain hunters buying bundle box sets.
I also get the same numbers as Pebblebrook (not surprising since I'm using the same reported numbers from NCSoft's quarterly reports) TonyV. The most noticeable difference between our numbers and yours is the very first quarter where GW earned more than twice than CoH Q3 2007. Funny that you started with Q3 2007 since that was when the last GW expansion came out. Now if you started with Q3 2008, sure CoH would beat out GW but that's cherry picking the interval just to prove the point you are trying to make.
My chart of the last 5 years. CoH (blue) - GW (red)
So it's basically break even except ArenaNet now has a brand new game for sale and we got five years of expanded content and a mysterious second MMO under development that wasn't at the point that they could even hint what it was about to create buzz.
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GW1's cash shop was added in 2006 according to this wiki.
And in the NCSoft reports (or was it the conference calls...hmm, not sure now) mentions item sales for GW.
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You're right, I had the starting number off. Here's the updated chart, and the data source, which came from the IR documents posted by NCsoft. I redid it in Google Docs so that I could share it publicly; feel free to double-check the numbers:|
Originally Posted by Father Xmas
The most noticeable difference between our numbers and yours is the very first quarter where GW earned more than twice than CoH Q3 2007. Funny that you started with Q3 2007 since that was when the last GW expansion came out.
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Still, a pretty healthy 6.77%--almost US$5.27 million--more than Guild Wars, and again, more importantly, the slope of our line is pretty steady, whereas the slope of Guild Wars's line is tapering off. (And though my starting number was off, the shape of the line is identical; it's just vertically shifted a little higher than in the original picture.)
I picked 3Q 2007 not because of any historical landmark or anything in particular going on within the respective games; truth is, I don't keep up with what's going on in Guild Wars. It was picked merely because anything older than five years is pretty irrelevant in trying to establish any kind of trend. Some would argue that a more recent time span might be even more representative; I picked what I felt was a reasonable compromise.
And yes, I still stand by my earlier statements. It's pretty clear what the trends are and what they were, and everything I said is still applicable. NCsoft seems to prefer games that launch with a bang, run a few years, and then peter out over games that are steady income earners over a long course of time. Sorry communities, it's time to move on to the next big bang. That kind of philosophy just isn't conducive to gamers like me, who prefer games that we think will be around for a while, games that we feel are worth pouring a lot of time, effort, and money into. That's why I doubt there will never be, for example, another Paragon Wiki-type site or Titan Network-type project for an NCsoft game, and I think that's a shame.
We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.
(If you love this game as much as I do, please read that post.)
Since both ArenaNet and Paragon are/were American studios both Pebblebrook and I converted each quarter from Korean Won to US dollars using the exchange rate during that period. As you can see in Pebblebrook's list of exchange rates, it varied quite a bit during those 5 years so you can't simply sum the KrW amounts and apply the current exchange rate to the difference.
The difference in dollars is a lot closer since during those first three quarters when GW was outpacing CoH by a lot, the exchange rate favored the US Dollar which allowed GW to extend their initial lead in dollars. Later when CoH had higher revenues the exchange rate favored the Korean Won which generated less dollars for the same difference in KrW. Because of that the gap in dollars narrows to a mere 1.8% in favor of CoH.
And I still disagree with you. You can't compare the two games since their income models are so different. We paid for the game and then monthly, they just paid for the game and had an item store for more slots, renames, full outfits, body tweaks, instant feature unlocks, etc. Of course before Freedom we could also buy extra slots, renames and the packs that gave us additional outfits, minor powers and emotes but they definitely had more types of items than we had until Freedom. But with there model their income from game sales would follow the same drop off as any other non subscription PC game.
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Dang, I even searched there and didn't find it. |
Originally Posted by Pebblebrook
GW1's cash shop was added in 2006 according to this wiki.
And in the NCSoft reports (or was it the conference calls...hmm, not sure now) mentions item sales for GW. |
I assumed it was like what's in GW2 or Freedom with proxy currency you buy first.
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Hmmm ...|
Originally Posted by TonyV
Still, a pretty healthy 6.77%--almost US$5.27 million--more than Guild Wars, and again, more importantly, the slope of our line is pretty steady, whereas the slope of Guild Wars's line is tapering off. (And though my starting number was off, the shape of the line is identical; it's just vertically shifted a little higher than in the original picture.)
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GW's slope was probably tailing off because GW2 was about to release -- people don't buy the old product with a new shiny around the corner.
But, in all this talk about financials, I think we're ignoring the actual value of the two different studios, and here there IS a big difference. ArenaNet owns its engines -- IIRC, the Wikipedia entry for GW says that NCSoft has used the GW engine in other products. And, presumably, the GW2 engine will be recycled elsewhere, also.
Cryptic still owns the engine PS was using.
And, one last thing, once the numbers are in for GW2, I'm pretty sure Arena Net's YTD (or even just the quarter that contains the revenue from release) will beat PS's last 5.
Tony -- I love what you've done over the years with Titan and your work, more recently, to save the game. But, seriously, I think you're barking up the wrong tree here. Different studios. Different assets. Different models.
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Thank you, i'll add that link for UnSub.|
Originally Posted by SpyralPegacyon
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But that second link of part 2 of that podcast, i actually already have. I had the impression when you said Zwillinger confirmed CoX's cancellation was part of the secret project's rejection. I tried listening to the whole thing again, both parts and the only time i heard him mention the secret project was when he described its target audience...nothing about the cancellation.
Maybe it's from a different link then?
Side request to UnSub: In that linked blog, you said you copy/pasted dev comments but i don't see a link for the original source.
Do you still have that link? Would like it even if it's a dead one, can always try using internet archive.
Thanks in advance.
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Unfortunately, this feels very legit to me. Throw in NCSoft's fairly obvious anti-Western bias, and their utter lack of concern, lack of planning and preparation (as least in terms of Paragon and CoX players) and lack of interest in selling the CoX IP off suddenly makes more sense. They deliberately don't want CoX to live on.|
Originally Posted by TonyV
SOMETHING doesn't add up here. I might never be able to prove it, and you might not believe it, but I personally believe that something fishy is going on inside the halls of NCsoft that we're not privy to, an ulterior motive at work. Something has changed the past few years, something I can't put my finger on, but something that I think isn't in the company's best interest. Unlike how I felt when the game launched, it's pretty obvious to me that gaming communities aren't exactly a priority at NCsoft now. That's not to say that sometimes they don't luck out with studios that provide awesome community relations folks like ours did and that sometimes we even get good GM support like we did. But in the big picture, I feel like NCsoft just doesn't know how to treat its customers well, and I for one won't be supporting their games in the future. Right now, it seems that those "long term goals" they referred to are to churn out a new shiny every couple of years or so, let it run for a little while, then burn it down and move on to something else. As a gamer, I have to say no thank you.
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Originally Posted by Father Xmas
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.
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Originally Posted by TerraDraconis
Oh I agree something doesn't add up. I have my own pet theory that somehow they gain a short term positive benefit from shutting down a game and or studio. But I have no idea what and my attempts at a coherent reason get shot down by people who say that it doesn't work that way. Maybe yes maybe no. But I'm convinced that NCSoft learned from their first shutting down of a game some trick that makes them a short term profit. And they keep going back to that well.
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I don't think there's any argument at this point that NCSoft deliberately wants CoX to go away. But we're still left with the big question, WHY? It obviously isn't related to concerns about profitability, because it was profitable still regardless of what numbers we look at. It might have something to do with needing cash quickly and CoX was just the most convenient resource to cannibalize, but that would be a loss of steady future revenue for a one-time shot of cash--not the best policy for a company wanting to stay in business.
Sadly, and I hope I'm wrong, I think it comes to a motive that isn't economic at all. I think they're just tired of dealing with a game whose staff, support and players are predominantly North American, South American and European. What evidence do I have to base this on? None, it's purely conjecture. But it answers some of the questions that we can't otherwise answer logically.
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A good journalist doesn't need to be opinionless, but they should distinguish at all times the difference between fact and opinion with no grey area between the two.|
Originally Posted by BellaStrega
So journalism means never having an opinion?
Sounds pretty untenable to me. |
Hypothetically speaking, of course. I'm not certain I'm describing something that actually currently exists.
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The exchange rate is almost completely irrelevant, unless you're trying to do something like extrapolate the number of subscribers over time. But for point-in-time comparisons, it wouldn't really matter if the exchange rate varied wildly--it would affect both Paragon Studios and ArenaNet the same way.|
Originally Posted by Father Xmas
Since both ArenaNet and Paragon are/were American studios both Pebblebrook and I converted each quarter from Korean Won to US dollars using the exchange rate during that period. As you can see in Pebblebrook's list of exchange rates, it varied quite a bit during those 5 years so you can't simply sum the KrW amounts and apply the current exchange rate to the difference.
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Exchange rates are also double-edged swords. If the USD is strong against the KRW, then administrative expenses are higher--paying the salaries of employees--because it takes more KRW to equal each USD you're on the hook for paying. However, sales and subscription income is also higher, since each USD paid to NCsoft is worth more KRW. And, of course, vice versa. Without knowing the breakdown of those expenses--and that is closely guarded financial information that companies do not like people knowing--it's impossible to say how much or how little the effect of currency exchange had on revenue or expenses.
The truth of the matter is that given NCsoft's medium size, they probably don't do much actual currency exchange. Subscription and sales money in USD is probably kept in USD to pay expenses incurred in the United States, while subscription and sales money in KRW is probably kept in Korea to pay salaries and administrative expenses there. If they were Microsoft or Apple or someone like that, then I'd imagine that they'd have a treasury department dedicated to managing monetary transfers at ideal exchange rates, but as it is, I strongly suspect that they just take the numbers given to them, convert them to KRW at the end of the fiscal quarter, and plop them in the IR reports. If you're looking to extrapolate some absolute number (for example, number of subscribers), then this would be applicable. But to compare two games on a quarter-by-quarter basis, it comes out in the wash.
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Originally Posted by Father Xmas
And I still disagree with you. You can't compare the two games since their income models are so different.
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Looking at the graph, you can tell that City of Heroes's business model provides for better long-term stable income, whereas Guild Wars's business model tends to support the kind of churn-and-burn title that is reflected in its curve jumping up initially and then plateauing.
If I were a business wonk at NCsoft, first of all, I would have told them NOT to kill City of Heroes, because that's the kind of game we'd want--the kind that generates money over the long run. But apparently, someone in the company has decided that they'd rather ditch long-term profits and go for the quick money instead--games that do really well initially, and they they can kill them off before the revenue plateaus and move on to something else.
We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.
(If you love this game as much as I do, please read that post.)
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Financial Analysts would love CoH as the kind of stable option you mix into a portfolio with other risky options, assuming it was covering costs and then some (which one might assume if they also had people developing another game...i.e. covering a cost sink).
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Originally Posted by TonyV
If I were a business wonk at NCsoft, first of all, I would have told them NOT to kill City of Heroes, because that's the kind of game we'd want--the kind that generates money over the long run. But apparently, someone in the company has decided that they'd rather ditch long-term profits and go for the quick money instead--games that do really well initially, and they they can kill them off before the revenue plateaus and move on to something else.
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@Texarkana
@Thexder
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yeah. so this closingshould be not a single bit of a surprise, given that track record.
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Originally Posted by LadyGrimrose
Basically, we move forward by educating people about NcSoft's track record. Facts are facts:
1) Tabula Rasa's closure was so horrid it went to court and Garriot was awarded $28 million. 2) The staff on Dungeon Runners had plans to save the game, but were ignored. 3) Paragon Studios and City of Heroes were given zero time to prep. 4) Five MMOs down the drain, City of Heroes will be number six. Their track record is horrid. The fudge the truth. If you're thinking of buying a NcSoft game (with a monthly fee, one they don't even support properly overseas) be ready hear these words when they decide to pull the plug, "I told you so." |
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Originally Posted by mauk2
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The purpose of converting CoX's revenue to USD is to get a better representation of those numbers. You can convert it to norwegian krone if you like and analyze the numbers that way, but it would be misleading.
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Originally Posted by TonyV
The exchange rate is almost completely irrelevant, unless you're trying to do something like extrapolate the number of subscribers over time. But for point-in-time comparisons, it wouldn't really matter if the exchange rate varied wildly--it would affect both Paragon Studios and ArenaNet the same way.
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Yes when comparing same quarters but not when you start talking about difference in earnings over time, then the exchange rate matters.|
Originally Posted by TonyV
The exchange rate is almost completely irrelevant, unless you're trying to do something like extrapolate the number of subscribers over time. But for point-in-time comparisons, it wouldn't really matter if the exchange rate varied wildly--it would affect both Paragon Studios and ArenaNet the same way.
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Theoretical example: in one quarter GW earned 1000 million KrW more than CoH, in a different quarter CoH earned 1000 million KrW more than GW. If you simply subtract the two you get zero. However lets say the exchange rate in the first quarter was 900 KrW to $1 and in the second it's 1200 KrW to $1. If you first convert to dollars and then add the two results together then the value isn't zero but $0.278 million is GW's favor. The dollar grew weaker as the gap between the two revenue streams narrowed and reverse over time making the time when GW out earning CoH in KrW into more dollars than later when the reverse was true. That's why you get over 6% difference and I get under 2%.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
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Originally Posted by TonyV
SOMETHING doesn't add up here. I might never be able to prove it, and you might not believe it, but I personally believe that something fishy is going on inside the halls of NCsoft that we're not privy to, an ulterior motive at work. Something has changed the past few years, something I can't put my finger on, but something that I think isn't in the company's best interest. Unlike how I felt when the game launched, it's pretty obvious to me that gaming communities aren't exactly a priority at NCsoft now. That's not to say that sometimes they don't luck out with studios that provide awesome community relations folks like ours did and that sometimes we even get good GM support like we did. But in the big picture, I feel like NCsoft just doesn't know how to treat its customers well, and I for one won't be supporting their games in the future. Right now, it seems that those "long term goals" they referred to are to churn out a new shiny every couple of years or so, let it run for a little while, then burn it down and move on to something else. As a gamer, I have to say no thank you.
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I've been kind of out of the loop due to r.l., so I've not been able to read the forums as much as possible, but when they announced the shutdown of CoH/CoV, I immediately thought something was fishy. I'm thinking one of NCSoft's majority share holders, Nexon, had a really big say in what to do with CoH/CoV.
This article is a couple weeks old and not directly associated with CoH/CoV, but it gave a small hint at what they're trying to do...at least it did for me.
Nexon ISN'T the majority shareholder of NCSoft. They are the largest single entity owning stock (a bit under 15%) but they aren't the majority.
And Nexon as well as NCSoft denied there were even talks with Valve, it was purely a rumor spread by a Korean newspaper.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
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I'm not sure how to take shadowstone's post.
But i would like to believe shadow already knew it's a debunked rumor since the very first line of that article linked above in his/her post said this:
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| Another acquisition rumor has been nuked by Valve. |
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Yup, I knew it was a debunked rumor, but I just pointed it out because it's quite possible that share holders had a big say in this.|
Originally Posted by Pebblebrook
I'm not sure how to take shadowstone's post.
But i would like to believe shadow already knew it's a debunked rumor since the very first line of that article linked above in his/her post said this: |
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| Nexon ISN'T the majority shareholder of NCSoft. They are the largest single entity owning stock (a bit under 15%) but they aren't the majority. |
But, they are 'a' majority holder outside of NCSoft's controlling shares and are heavily into F2P & cash shops and make a fair amount of money at doing so. The cash shops in Aion and GW2 are influenced by Nexon..yes, I know NCSoft had a cash shop before Nexon came along...and with rumors (that's all I'm going to call them at this point) of Blade & Soul and Wildstar being F2P with cash shop in NA, it makes one wonder if they are going away from subscription based models, or hybrid's like CoH/CoV. The recently annouced jewel/ point cards for GW2, while done at the appropriate time before the Holidays, points in that direction, also.
Any way, that is basically what 'I' got out of that article and with my experience playing GW2(<--won a free copy) and having played Aion.
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The theory I've been going with is that, when NCSoft posted that big quarterly loss, someone with klout contacted management and said "This is unacceptable, you will take decisive action immediately or we'll see about getting management who will". And yes, if you own 15% of the stock and are the largest shareholder, you wield a lot of power and a threat like that is going to be taken seriously.|
Originally Posted by _Shadowstone_
I've been kind of out of the loop due to r.l., so I've not been able to read the forums as much as possible, but when they announced the shutdown of CoH/CoV, I immediately thought something was fishy. I'm thinking NCSoft's majority share holder, Nexon, had a really big say in what to do with CoH/CoV.
This article is a couple weeks old and not directly associated with CoH/CoV, but it gave a small hint at what they're trying to do...at least it did for me. |
If it's a given that NCSoft had to close a studio, Paragon was the obvious choice, as much as I hate to admit it. They were the small dog in terms of income, and there wasn't any sign of significant growth in the future (unlike ArenaNet, say, who was about to bring in piles of cash - plus you'd look really stupid canning a company about to launch a game that early reviews are positive about).
That doesn't explain the refusal to sell, and there it may just be NCSoft reverting to standard behavior, we don't sell our IP.
Which actually would be a positive (not as positive as them seriously negotiating to sell, but more positive than "we hate CoH, those lousy superheroes are too western" or "mua ha ha, we have cashed the check from (you pick the competitor) to kill them"). Because just like Nexon would have the clout to say "close a studio", they also have the clout to say "sell the game".
Yes, all that is speculation, I have absolutely zero inside knowledge to back it up. But it explains the sudden shutdown without forewarning. Which wasn't true for any of their prior closures - all four games had serious problems and only "we hope we can fix it if you give us more time and money" to get around them. I've heard that some of those seeking to buy are pitching Nexon to help make it happen, and that's smart.
My arcs are constantly shifting, just search for GadgetDon for the latest.
The world beware! I've started a blog
GadgetMania Under Attack: The Digg Lockout
NCSoft will claim some form of significant tax benefit for closing PS.