So What is Plan Z?

Nope. That's more likely to get you arrested. Meet some interesting people of a different sort then.

lol. yeah that too.

Originally Posted by mauk2 Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words. "Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L!

I'm curious how everyone arrived at the conclusion that the entire basis for the idea that NCsoft is ignoring all offers and inquiries regarding the sale of CoH, all came from one ignored helpdesk ticket. That's just as ridiculous as the 80 mil rumor if it's origins are indeed what has been said about it here.

Not sure. Might have to ask the ones that came to that conclusion.

Originally Posted by mauk2 Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words. "Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L!

Feh, meant to say 'anyone', not 'everyone'. Either way, Anyway, I was posting it as a question, hoping someone who is thinking it chimes in.

Ah, Pot, I see you've met Kettle!

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

Just for reference, were you referring to me or JayboH there? (Or both, is an option too, I guess.)

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

Read the thread?

It's quite clear that he filed a ticket, got a boiler-plate response and concluded that

I never said this was the basis of the whole idea that communication was closed off, merely that someone reached that conclusion.

There's ridiculousness here, but it's someone else's to own.

AC/DC would be impressed.

That doesn't explain it.

If it's still beyond your comprehension, I can't help you.

It only explains that one person used a poor medium of communication to try and get an answer.

It does nothing to explain why people are now assuming this one failure to get a response is the only reason anyone has been saying that NCsoft has been ignoring offers.

For the record here is the exact language of that ticket. It was actually a reply to a response to an existing ticket (I had forgotten that point).
Notice that last question?

The reply:
The first sentence is boilerplate. The second and third were expected. The fourth sentence was also boilerplate. Notice what question was not answered? Contact referrals is part of help desk activity. Even a "Go to the NCSoft website and..." would have sufficed. Not even that. And, yes, prior to that question I HAD gone to the NCSoft web page. Why? Because it was the logical first step.

Now go to their site and look at their news links... Yeah. The one that has the latest news a 2007 announcement about... City of Heroes!
That site has not been updated significantly since 2009. I wasn't about to trust the contact information that may have been over four years out of date.
(http://global.ncsoft.com/global/aboutus/overview.aspx)
The Korean language version is more up to date (latest news dated as November 12th, 2012 but my ability to translate is quite limited.
Option two then was to ... contact support Why? Because one of the things they do is resolve questions of that very nature. And I also figured in the other factors I mentioned earlier.

But not even a "I don't know who you can contact?" (which would have been a logical response).

I'm calling it: this thread has been won.

Originally Posted by Nethergoat it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!

Originally Posted by PapaSlade Rangle's right....this is fun.

There's also the other non-credible offer....

You summarized it well though. I got some (actually expected) lawyer speak and in interesting omission. When I first posted the story on this thread I did so from some hazy memory. If I don't dwell on something I don't recall it well later. When I decided to actually quote what was said it jarred the rest of my memory. I've been up against some weaker forms of stonewalling before and I recognized the pattern. Again, acquisitions is not my forte', but corporate communications and politics is well within my grasp. In fact I suspected they already had a buyer at that moment.

The greatest likelihood is we will never truly know what was offered for the game by anyone one faction (credible or not), how much NcSoft wanted for the game, or how profitable/unprofitable the game really was. NDAs have a way of keeping information like that under wraps from any first hand sources.

What we will get is more information leaked from "Anonymous sources" which will always lead to skepticism. Anything beyond that is pure speculation based on what little we do know. Depending on what accounting tricks NcSoft may, or may not have used, even the numbers we do "know" may not reflect the total truth.

For the Plan Z folks, I wish them the best of luck. It's certainly an endeavor I wouldn't take on, but more power to them. I have no idea if they'll succeed or not, but they've got a very steep hill to climb to find that success. If they fail, I can only hope they learn from it. Should they succeed, good for them. People do amazing things all the time when they put their will and beliefs behind it. (By belief, I do mean beyond religious connotations. )

Originally Posted by PapaSlade Rangle's right....this is fun.

Yes, that is a bit unusual.

It also reminds me of the response one reporter got from NCsoft West, saying something like, "We are declining to comment because the questions are about City of Heroes."

It's like orders were given across the board for absolutely everyone to remain silent about the game.

That's the reporter I mentioned earlier in the thread.

She got it direct. I just "read between the lines".

Oh. And for those of you who wonder why I read so much into what seems so little? Try arguing committing millions of dollars of your company's credit to something that has the slightest hint of being shaky. And on top of that I'd have to show to any potential VC people that there was no cause for alarm. I was authorized to make inquiries ONLY. I do my job, and I do it well. There's only one or two people in this thread who have the necessary qualifications to fully criticize my methodology and not one of them has attacked my competence.

Hey now, if it's one thing Americans are entitled to, it's criticizing. Qualifications be damned! It's why we fought for our independence, or something.

The absolute max active subs CoH had before closure was 50k. That figure implies no one bought anything from the shop.

It's much more likely that the real number was around 30k-40k subs.

That's just the math to understand how poorly the game was doing lets look at two charts.



and




The MMO data chart is a little misleading because it is capturing subscriptions in a market that has embraced other forms of payment and it captures just the games MMO data charts, in a market that has seen endless proliferation in the time period.

You look at the two charts and it's no trouble to understand why NCsoft closed CoH. While the MMO market was exploding CoH failed to thrive.

No advertising = no sales.

There was advertising. I remember walking into bestbuy or maybe gamestop and seeing architect edition nicely featured. I remember seeing going rogue adds on web sites.

If you want a pithy soundbite, Failure to execute = lack of corporate support.

I have no idea what kind of crazy logic may prevail in the gaming industry but in most companies you don't get to use corporate funds without justifying the expenditure. Fail to deliver what you promise and you get the heave ho.

Paragon studios had several big initiatives not only did they fall flat they failed to actually follow through once they were inflicted on the playerbase. Is it any wonder that NCsoft looked at the company looked at the company and decided to shut it down ?

I'll admit that at first I was astounded at their decision not to sell, but after thinking about it, I realized that any sale would involve transferring information about customer spending habits and behavior in the MMO environment. I can't place a proper value on that information.