Posi Confirms: COH Largest and Most Active MMO Ever Shut Down
By
Adar_ICT,
Posted on: 2012-10-29 18:54 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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She has never said she knows everything about you. She simply said (in between the lines) that she is very well informed about the game's economical state at the time of cancelation, and anyone claiming the game was not profitable has no clue what they are talking about.|
Originally Posted by Evil_Legacy
Ok all of a sudden you know everything about me. Ok that is your opinion but I can clearly say that you are wrong because I know myself and I know what I know. Not sure where you get off all of a sudden telling me what I know and dont know, when you are not even me, and you dont even know me. You view it as you think that I dont have any knowledge on that subject but you cannot say in a definitive manner that you know. Do I go around telling you what you know and dont know? No I would appreciate if you dont do it to me like you been knowing me your entire life. You dont know me like that, ok?
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I really doubt her statements comes from either opinion or guesswork. Arcanaville has been historically well connected to the dev team.
+1
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Originally Posted by Talionis
These forums have become a really long funeral.
We are saying our goodbyes. Talking with one another. We are going through emotions. I just don't understand why we have so many people telling us to move on and not to hate NCSoft. We can choose to hate, dislike, not care about or still love NCSoft, any of that is ok. But this is a funeral, I'm not sure its appropriate to tell us to move on and I'm not sure why the people so intent to tell us to move on haven't just taken their own advise. Let those of us still grieving grieve. We aren't getting nor are we likely to get a good picture of why they shut down CoH. CoH was profitable enough to stay open at least with some changes and NCSoft has chosen to close it down permanently without giving an articulate-able reason backed up by any facts. NCSoft doesn't have to give us a reason, and I don't have to like NCSoft or recommend them to others. I'm also entitled to stand on my soapbox and tell people how bad a custodian they have been for our MMO. CoH was also the only strong Super Hero MMO in the market. We as customers do not have a quality substitute. Its similar to a cable company deciding your area doesn't make enough money to service and you as a customer loosing channels you can't get back. I believe this is actually regulated by the FCC's requiring coverage, so a law would not be out of order. Law evolve at a very very slow speed. IP law is in its infant stage, and it would be entirely appropriate for the government to step in and create laws to protect consumers. Because when you buy/lease an intangible good, you still are supposed to get exactly what you thought you paid for. In order for a contract to exist there must be a meeting of the minds and both minds must materially think the transaction means the same thing. NCSoft may very well have opened itself to lawsuits when it allowed its developers to put videos out that show cased new material if they knew the business was getting shut down. They advertised it as "forever" and that has meaning even if its puffery, it still has meaning and NCSoft is in a position where they control more information on the health of the game and their company. We as customers rely on them to keep the game running as long as is reasonable. NCSoft hasn't provided any proof that it was reasonable to shut down CoH. To the contrary, their own stock reports seem to show that enough money was coming in to keep Paragon Studios afloat. IP law is so in flux, that its possible NCSoft could lose a lawsuit from CoH customers. (I don't think its likely only possible). I do foresee either the industry doing something to allow servers to run in perpetuity or a new law being created to increase customer rights. Because MMO customers want assurance their game will last a year so they feel good about their investment of time and money to help create a good community and once they create a community those customers want to have a say in maintaining the community. In the long end, I'm hoping that better business model will be created where the MMO's can stay in existence in perpetuity. |
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I stopped really paying attention to many of the things people were doing with the SaveCOH movement quite a while back, as I saw most of them as either without merit, or just plain silly. My opinion on this whole situation is really rather irrelevent at this point, however, you have piqued a bit of curiosity on my part. I am not aware of what a kibun attack is. I gather from the context, and the other example you gave, that it somehow involves something in Korean culture by showing some shameful thing they have done, but I am curious as to what specifically this attack was. As you can tell, the threads around here on these topics tend to be quite unwieldy to say the least. |
Originally Posted by I Burnt The Toast
They organized a kibun attack against NCSoft CEO! That is not MATURE it is HATEFUL! That action alone absolutely disgusted me. A lot of people on Titan know I am Korean..but did ANY of them ask me my thoughts on using a Korean custom meant to SHAME people? Nope. instead they took ill advised advice from someone because they did some research on the internet and decided as a group that it was a GREAT idea all the while laughing at how much shame they would cause.... SO MATURE! If NCSoft was a German company I'm sure someone would have thought sending Stars of David to them for "murdering" the community would be a GREAT idea!
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As it isn't actually adding to the specific "argument/discussion" in this thread, I would be happy if you PMed the answer to me if you would prefer not to explain in the thread. Truly, I only want to know for my own understanding of a cultural thing that I find interesting.
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That's probably true. However if it's not in the companies nature to sell anything, so alien of an idea that they have no idea where to start to value the property or is hesitant to spend the money to determine the value, then the idea of selling is DOA. |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
The conclusions you're drawing are not entirely unreasonable given the specific data points you're looking at. However, let me ask a question. Do you believe the rumors that a set of insiders attempted to buy the game from NCsoft? Because whether one believes that or not has a dramatic impact on any analysis of the profitability of the game.
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This also ignores the whole Asian business dynamic of having either a long standing relationship with another business or recognition that the other business has a similar standing in the business world. A newly formed group looking to purchase one of your assets wouldn't be looked at seriously no matter how much money they were offering. How presumptuous and insulting that a group of now former employees with backers we (NCSoft) aren't familiar with think they can succeed when we had already decided that their game and studio can't.
And even if they were open to the idea of selling the IP, the next step of determining a "fair" value still may have put it beyond reach of any of interested buyers. While they may have already determined a value for writing the game and studio off, that isn't the same kind of analysis you would do to come up with a sale price. Then toss in the reports that Koreans in general are tough business negotiators and the fact the game's remaining life was on the clock, I just couldn't see it being pulled off in time.
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One of the things I've said for years in this context is that companies are not hive minds, and companies do not make decisions; people make decisions.|
Originally Posted by SpyralPegacyon
A company just months away from a minor (15%) stock sale that went for $680 million had to shut down a potentially profitable subsidiary with $8-10 million annual in operating costs. I can see where you're coming from and it makes some sense, but I look at the larger picture and I'm scratching my head.
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Here's a narrative that makes no sense at all: Apple has built probably the strongest retail chain in all of retail, with the highest revenue per square foot and some of the highest customer service reviews in the history of retail. So it reduces its budget on retail store operations, cuts staffing, curtails employee training, and even reduces the operational cleaning of the stores, which causes retail employee disruption and customer satisfaction to drop. This persists until its ridiculously obvious its causing problems, before Apple decides to go back to doing things they way they were being done before.
Here's a narrative that makes perfect sense: John Browett is hired by Apple to replace the wildly successful Ron Johnson who left the company to become the president of JC Penney. He wants to make his mark at the company and prove he can improve significantly upon his predecessor, so the first thing he does is change the fundamental formulas that were put in place by Johnson that determine staffing and operations at retail stores, with an eye to reducing the cost of operations and improving profitability. At first he's allowed to do this even though its obviously disruptive to a highly profitable division of Apple because Tim Cook himself is an operational efficiency fan, but when its clear Browett's strategies aren't bearing fruit and he's unwilling to compromise on them, Apple is forced to remove him and revert his changes.
The narrative for NCsoft doesn't make sense because NCsoft is not an individual actor. The narrative would probably make a lot more sense, at least from a motivational point of view, if the narrative was focused on the right set of people. However, that's a lot more difficult narrative to construct in this case.
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You're talking about the NCsoft side of the equation, but I'm more focused on the buyer side of the equation here. If a group of insiders attempted to buy the game, unless one of them has a rich uncle that doesn't know how to count, they needed investors. Those investors almost certainly got to see far more complete numbers on the operational costs and revenue of the company: they would demand it.|
Originally Posted by Father Xmas
That's probably true. However if it's not in the companies nature to sell anything, so alien of an idea that they have no idea where to start to value the property or is hesitant to spend the money to determine the value, then the idea of selling is DOA.
This also ignores the whole Asian business dynamic of having either a long standing relationship with another business or recognition that the other business has a similar standing in the business world. A newly formed group looking to purchase one of your assets wouldn't be looked at seriously no matter how much money they were offering. How presumptuous and insulting that a group of now former employees with backers we (NCSoft) aren't familiar with think they can succeed when we had already decided that their game and studio can't. And even if they were open to the idea of selling the IP, the next step of determining a "fair" value still may have put it beyond reach of any of interested buyers. While they may have already determined a value for writing the game and studio off, that isn't the same kind of analysis you would do to come up with a sale price. Then toss in the reports that Koreans in general are tough business negotiators and the fact the game's remaining life was on the clock, I just couldn't see it being pulled off in time. |
Of all the people with complete information about not just the revenue but also the costs and profitability of the game, none are talking, but at least one generated a signal: which ever set of them decided to attempt to back a buyout. They aren't talking either, but their action strongly implies that whatever numbers they saw, it told them that the game was still profitable, and so much so that even with the unavoidable attrition due to the sunset announcement in the first place it would still be profitable, and beyond that it was very likely to remain profitable long enough for them to get their money back.
There's simply no way a game that was barely profitable before the sunset announcement and dropping in revenue would be worth investing in. So from my perspective, everyone estimating profitability by looking at the published revenue and guessing at the operational costs of the game and concluding the game was not likely to be more than marginally profitable are betting against people who have seen the direct numbers on both sides of the ledger and were willing to bet millions of dollars going the other way.
I never bet against the people who have already seen all the cards.
Now, whether NCsoft ever intended to sell is a separate question. But no one goes to a company and asks if something might be for sale, hat in hand. If *any* attempt occurred at all, it was a serious attempt with serious money backing it right from the start. And that money would not be available to a marginally profitable game. In fact, its explicitly the (credible) talk of an insider buyout move that caused me to *reduce* my older estimates for the operational costs of the game from about $6-$8M down to $3-$5M. Because those are the only numbers that *allow* for a buyout of any kind, insider or otherwise.
As to your cultural observation, as an Asian myself and as someone that has been involved in that sort of thing, I would have to disagree in some respects that NCsoft's reluctance to sell is a cultural bias of the type you describe. As in most businesses, but with specific cultural twists, the issue comes down to relationships between people. As I've said since immediately after the announcement and just now above, corporate culture is one thing, but decisions are ultimately made by individuals. Whether such a deal had any chance at all is less a question of whether an Asian cultural bias would prevent it, and more a question of whether the specific actors involved believed it was in their best interests. There's a cultural aspect to that, but individuals are much more complex in their agendas than that.
To put it another way, I do not believe most Asian companies, or even most Korean companies, would have acted in the same way NCsoft did.
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Correct me if I'm wrong but this is based off the entire Paragon Studios 80-man state. |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
In fact, its explicitly the (credible) talk of an insider buyout move that caused me to *reduce* my older estimates for the operational costs of the game from about $6-$8M down to $3-$5M. Because those are the only numbers that *allow* for a buyout of any kind, insider or otherwise.
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Saving CoH would not have necessarily meant saving Secret Project or its team. It may sound a bit harsh but the game would have been possible to be saved and sustained with the core CoH team alone, something that I guess may mean (pure guesswork) between 50% and 70% the team size and operational costs.
While I have no direct knowledge of how profitable/unprofitable City of Heroes was, several individuals who are closer to the devs keep hinting that it was highly profitable. For CoX,what would be considered highly profitable? What if we find out after the game closes that they were making 4 million a year in profits? What if it turned out to be 6-8 million+ a year. What if it was making that on top of the cost of the second project? Where in those set of numbers do we step back dumbfounded as to why the studio was being closed down when it was making "that kind of profit"?
If the rumors are true that several members of Paragon Studios were trying to purchase the game, we can only assume it was making enough money to make it worth while for them to purchase it. Most businesses look for profitability within the first 2-3 years of operation, if not sooner. My "best guess" was that the IP was worth around $24 million before the closure announcement was made, although I could be horribly wrong. (This is based on reading different articles speculating about CoH, and other games that are out there, nothing all that scientific.) If I'm even somewhat close to the mark, the game was probably making $8 million+ a year in profit.
Personally I don't think it had anything to do with what the revenue/profits were. I believe in the end it will turn out to be politics. Maybe one set of management liked the game, one set didn't like it, or didn't like the other "guys". A few shifts in personnel and a minor shift in power balance, and poof, CoH get's shelved. (Maybe Matt Miller forgot to send a birthday present to the right guy in June.) Maybe they could never justify getting rid of CoH, but when they decided to drop the second project they threw the proverbial baby out with the bath water. Mind you this is all pure speculation on my part and we'll probably never know the exact truth.
In the end it's unfortunate that the game, as it stands, is closing down. It will be interesting to see what the future brings.
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Originally Posted by PapaSlade
Rangle's right....this is fun.
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Having worked for the Dixons group, granted before Browett came in, the way in which he he changed how the Apple stores worked it wasnt surprising. |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
One of the things I've said for years in this context is that companies are not hive minds, and companies do not make decisions; people make decisions.
Here's a narrative that makes no sense at all: Apple has built probably the strongest retail chain in all of retail, with the highest revenue per square foot and some of the highest customer service reviews in the history of retail. So it reduces its budget on retail store operations, cuts staffing, curtails employee training, and even reduces the operational cleaning of the stores, which causes retail employee disruption and customer satisfaction to drop. This persists until its ridiculously obvious its causing problems, before Apple decides to go back to doing things they way they were being done before. Here's a narrative that makes perfect sense: John Browett is hired by Apple to replace the wildly successful Ron Johnson who left the company to become the president of JC Penney. He wants to make his mark at the company and prove he can improve significantly upon his predecessor, so the first thing he does is change the fundamental formulas that were put in place by Johnson that determine staffing and operations at retail stores, with an eye to reducing the cost of operations and improving profitability. At first he's allowed to do this even though its obviously disruptive to a highly profitable division of Apple because Tim Cook himself is an operational efficiency fan, but when its clear Browett's strategies aren't bearing fruit and he's unwilling to compromise on them, Apple is forced to remove him and revert his changes. The narrative for NCsoft doesn't make sense because NCsoft is not an individual actor. The narrative would probably make a lot more sense, at least from a motivational point of view, if the narrative was focused on the right set of people. However, that's a lot more difficult narrative to construct in this case. |
Dixons/PC World/Currys/The Link (before it was bought by Telefonica) stores were well known for being understaffed (most on part time contracts) with the staff having a *huge* pressure for upselling high margin addons to what ever you buy.
*shrugs*
Kinda glad I no longer work for them (although as always, there are good stores and bad stores in each company... i seemed to land in a couple of good stores, where the management let me get on and do my thang...)
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There have been news from the start about attempts to a buyout when a redname reportedly outted about talks with NCSoft and investors.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Of all the people with complete information about not just the revenue but also the costs and profitability of the game, none are talking, but at least one generated a signal: which ever set of them decided to attempt to back a buyout. They aren't talking either, but their action strongly implies that whatever numbers they saw, it told them that the game was still profitable, and so much so that even with the unavoidable attrition due to the sunset announcement in the first place it would still be profitable, and beyond that it was very likely to remain profitable long enough for them to get their money back.
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But what still is not known is exactly what kind of money were offered. Without that, there would be questions behind the investors' thoughts on the game's profitability.
The only rumored amount someone mentioned was $3mil. If that were true then i suppose the investors seeing yearly revenues of at least $10mil would definitely think they would get their money back and be worth the investment...even if it meant slashing the staff and taking it to maintenance mode for a year then restaff after they get their money back.
But then $3mil is not really a reasonable offer.
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In fact, given what I've been told and a revised analysis of the game's profitability based on that information, I work backwards and conclude about 50% - 60% of Paragon Studios was probably working on City of Heroes, and 40% - 50% was working or at least allocated to working on (various incarnations of) Project 2.|
Originally Posted by Starsman
Correct me if I'm wrong but this is based off the entire Paragon Studios 80-man state.
Saving CoH would not have necessarily meant saving Secret Project or its team. It may sound a bit harsh but the game would have been possible to be saved and sustained with the core CoH team alone, something that I guess may mean (pure guesswork) between 50% and 70% the team size and operational costs. |
This is something I have no specific knowledge of, but if I were on the management team before interacting with NCsoft, my strategy to investors might be something like this: the game is profitable if we keep just the part that supports the game. We know you can get your money back if we do just that. Give me one month to pitch you an original development concept the R&D wing of the company can produce, and if you don't like it we'll pair down to the costs associated with just supporting CoH. If you do like it, invest in that concept separately from your investment in CoH.
That gives me the strongest position to convince investors to save the game, while also giving me a hail-mary shot to save the rest of the company that doesn't weaken my position to save the core game.
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This. Exactly.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
In fact, given what I've been told and a revised analysis of the game's profitability based on that information, I work backwards and conclude about 50% - 60% of Paragon Studios was probably working on City of Heroes, and 40% - 50% was working or at least allocated to working on (various incarnations of) Project 2.
This is something I have no specific knowledge of, but if I were on the management team before interacting with NCsoft, my strategy to investors might be something like this: the game is profitable if we keep just the part that supports the game. We know you can get your money back if we do just that. Give me one month to pitch you an original development concept the R&D wing of the company can produce, and if you don't like it we'll pair down to the costs associated with just supporting CoH. If you do like it, invest in that concept separately from your investment in CoH. That gives me the strongest position to convince investors to save the game, while also giving me a hail-mary shot to save the rest of the company that doesn't weaken my position to save the core game. |
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
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If I were an investor, I would go for this. If things go to pot, I would clearly see where they are going and more efficiently cut losses.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
That gives me the strongest position to convince investors to save the game, while also giving me a hail-mary shot to save the rest of the company that doesn't weaken my position to save the core game.
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I have not been told a specific number by anyone, but what I know leads me to believe that rumor is false, and significantly too low. While I don't know what was offered, I can say in my opinion a credible offer would have probably been between $8M and $15M, maybe $20M on the far outside, and that's based on a train of thought any bidder would be equally aware of.|
Originally Posted by Pebblebrook
There have been news from the start about attempts to a buyout when a redname reportedly outted about talks with NCSoft and investors.
But what still is not known is exactly what kind of money were offered. Without that, there would be questions behind the investors' thoughts on the game's profitability. The only rumored amount someone mentioned was $3mil. If that were true then i suppose the investors seeing yearly revenues of at least $10mil would definitely think they would get their money back and be worth the investment...even if it meant slashing the staff and taking it to maintenance mode for a year then restaff after they get their money back. But then $3mil is not really a reasonable offer. |
This may all be academic. Whatever different parties (and I believe there were more than one) might have been willing to offer, its possible it never formally got to that phase because of a complication I haven't seen leaked anywhere yet, and I'm not going to be the first.
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As tinfoil hat theories go, i have something similar but it has CoX's revenue history and future outlook as well as loss in confidence in Paragon's ability to develop a growing revenue stream, as a more central theme.|
Originally Posted by Rangle M. Down
Personally I don't think it had anything to do with what the revenue/profits were. I believe in the end it will turn out to be politics. Maybe one set of management liked the game, one set didn't like it, or didn't like the other "guys". A few shifts in personnel and a minor shift in power balance, and poof, CoH get's shelved. (Maybe Matt Miller forgot to send a birthday present to the right guy in June.) Maybe they could never justify getting rid of CoH, but when they decided to drop the second project they threw the proverbial baby out with the bath water. Mind you this is all pure speculation on my part and we'll probably never know the exact truth.
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If CoX's yearly revenues stayed at the same level and/or rose from the time of the Cryptic buyout ($25mil) instead of what it's looking to be in 2012 ($9-10mil), then i would believe that we wouldn't have this discussion and NCSoft would probably might have greenlit another project for Paragon even with GW2 and B&S planned launching in NA.
I also have a more outlandish variation of that tinfoil theory in which Paragon deciding to go forward with the other project without NCSoft's full backing so without additional staffing funds, they started poaching people off of CoX probably around the time Second Measure announced his job role change in February this year and NCSoft didn't appreciate that.
Yeah, that one's a bit more out there.
But in any case, tinfoil or not...i still believe they wouldn't shut it down if revenues were still high.
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Yeah, without more solid facts it's just a watercooler discussion. But that complicaton, is that different from the rumored disagreements about some legalese NCSoft wanted with the deal is it?
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
This may all be academic. Whatever different parties (and I believe there were more than one) might have been willing to offer, its possible it never formally got to that phase because of a complication I haven't seen leaked anywhere yet, and I'm not going to be the first.
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NCSoft management plugged their fingers into their ears, shut their eyes, and screamed "La-la-la-la!" over and over again?
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
its possible it never formally got to that phase because of a complication I haven't seen leaked anywhere yet, and I'm not going to be the first.
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I'm so surprised something like this wasn't done. I just looks like a total mishandling of a revenue producing asset. Either you keep it or you sell it. |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
In fact, given what I've been told and a revised analysis of the game's profitability based on that information, I work backwards and conclude about 50% - 60% of Paragon Studios was probably working on City of Heroes, and 40% - 50% was working or at least allocated to working on (various incarnations of) Project 2.
This is something I have no specific knowledge of, but if I were on the management team before interacting with NCsoft, my strategy to investors might be something like this: the game is profitable if we keep just the part that supports the game. We know you can get your money back if we do just that. Give me one month to pitch you an original development concept the R&D wing of the company can produce, and if you don't like it we'll pair down to the costs associated with just supporting CoH. If you do like it, invest in that concept separately from your investment in CoH. That gives me the strongest position to convince investors to save the game, while also giving me a hail-mary shot to save the rest of the company that doesn't weaken my position to save the core game. |
I also completely don't buy any of the cultural arguments. In the video game industry, the people I've met all seem very worldly and cosmopolitan. They are big boys playing in a market that is truly worldwide and they seem to know it. People can just make bad decisions, I don't think some cultural disposition or stereotype is a simple answer or even simply a big contributor to the answer.
They are closed mouthed because the reasons for closing the game are not simply that it wasn't making enough money. People that have seen the actual financials will not be able to talk about them and we should understand that, but no one has said CoH wasn't making money. So the situation continues to be fishy and negatively affect all the CoH customers.
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The part that makes me sad is that all the tin foil hat theories out there are false and absurd, but the truth (at least as I know it) is weirder and more absurd.
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Originally Posted by Pebblebrook
As tinfoil hat theories go, i have something similar but it has CoX's revenue history and future outlook as well as loss in confidence in Paragon's ability to develop a growing revenue stream, as a more central theme.
If CoX's yearly revenues stayed at the same level and/or rose from the time of the Cryptic buyout ($25mil) instead of what it's looking to be in 2012 ($9-10mil), then i would believe that we wouldn't have this discussion and NCSoft would probably might have greenlit another project for Paragon even with GW2 and B&S planned launching in NA. I also have a more outlandish variation of that tinfoil theory in which Paragon deciding to go forward with the other project without NCSoft's full backing so without additional staffing funds, they started poaching people off of CoX probably around the time Second Measure announced his job role change in February this year and NCSoft didn't appreciate that. Yeah, that one's a bit more out there. |
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Nice to see some straight thought provoking posts on the subject of what happened sans some of the emotional baggage of the past couple of months. Regardless of how one may feel personally with what came down, it sure seems to me that NCSoft acted in a manner totally consistent with what they have done in shutting down games in the past. It really wasn't a hard read to play the odds on what was going to happen once the announcement was made on that fateful Friday and come out with the right assessment. Frankly, I'm surprised at how many players bought into the idea that they, in particular, had the leverage to influence a different outcome when it came to NCSoft.
I also found it interesting that representatives from both "sides" of the sell the IP question basically said the exact same thing... namely that they tried just about everything they could think of for a different outcome and it was a no go. The irony of how one side was almost unmercifully vilified for the comment and another highly praised was not lost on me.
The truth is we will most likely never know for certain the profit/loss criteria, cultural, or other factors in sufficient detail to completely understand this decision.
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You know, I'm not trying to be deliberately coy, but I'm not sure. Those rumors are not strictly true (as far as I know). On the other hand, its possible someone heard something ambiguous and interpreted it that way, when it turned out that's not what was meant.|
Originally Posted by Pebblebrook
Yeah, without more solid facts it's just a watercooler discussion. But that complicaton, is that different from the rumored disagreements about some legalese NCSoft wanted with the deal is it?
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Because that's the mistake I originally made.
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Always here, there, and there again.
Quote:
If we are to go for farfetched tinfoil hat theories I'd go for the idea that some one with power at NCSoft always held a very strong grudge against Richard Carriot and everything that he brought to the table. City of Heroes came to be part of NCSoft thanks to him, who also served as executive producer of the initial game and executive manager of City of Villains.|
Originally Posted by Pebblebrook
As tinfoil hat theories go...
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My other "farfetch" theory is they wanted to get rid of anythign that is not marketable in Asia, just a thing about image. Maybe some one (or a group of some ones) with power believed even sustaining a non-viable game made the company somehow look bad.
Pebblebrook: That's possible, and would certainly explain a few things. Company politics can be a *****.
Rangle: Let me put it this way. If Paragon Studios had been an independent company, it would have been doing well for a small business, able to support itself as well as invest in creating future products to grow the business. That's even with the estimated costs being absorbed by NCSoft (server maintenance, shared bandwidth, billing, support, etc) factored in.
Maybe not with the full 80 developers -- they would have had to have a few less developers and a few more customer service types -- but it would be viable. I don't believe that PS was operating at a net loss w.r.t. NCSoft even with new development. It may not have been operating at a net profit, but breaking even while investing in future growth is a very good place to be in for a small business.
I would have invested in that, even if it meant scaling back for a while in order to pay for an IP buyout at a reasonable price (20 might be reasonable. 80 is not).
However, for a large company that is used to selling to millions of borderline-addicts going into Internet Cafes and making make mega bucks with the flavor of the month, that's small potatoes. I don't hate NCSoft for not wanting to run the game, but I do think they are full of it for not wanting anyone else to, whether it's company pride or whatever cultural euphemism you want to put on it.
This is what gets me about people saying that CoH is an eight-year-old game. It's not. If you were to able to play I24 and then I1, you would be playing two different games. Sure, the games would be the same thematically, but they would be vastly different in content and in technology. Just as Madden '13 would be from Madden '04.
The name's the same, some mechanics and overall feel are the same, but I really wonder about anyone that says i1 is the same as i23 though in a way I suppose it could be a modern version of the Ship of Theseus question but with upgrades in place of replacement.