I asked for help in L2 Forums

[LydiaFrost]

Hello fellow Heroes and Villains

I remembered some People from Lineage2 have much understanding of Korea and NCSoft, so I asked there for help.

Here ist the link to Elmars Post, where he answered me.

http://boards.rochand.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=946#p14915

Lydia Frost Ninja/Storm MM

[P51mus]

Seems like at least one person there is under the mistaken impression that City of Heroes wasn't profitable.

City of Heroes was profitable enough to cover itself and the development of another unknown game with money left over.

[Atlantea]

Respectfully - I think he's wrong. They will try and prop up Blade and Soul just like they propped up Aion. Even though it will fail. They'll still try and have preference for that over any western title. It's the whole "Kibun" or face-saving thing all over again. That provincial attitude that tells them that any western property is expendable assets if it props up one of their home-market games.

What astounds me is the INCREDIBLE drain on resources that is Arenanet and Guild Wars 2!

If they don't make back ALL of that loss plus an equal amount of revenue in sales in THIS quarter where it was launched (because most of the money made will be in the initial launch.) Then I foresee Guild Wars 2 NEXT on the chopping block! And they'll do it precisely in order to prop up Blade and Soul!

[ukaserex]

Well...

I know that if I'm a game publisher, and I have to choose (not saying they were forced to choose, I'm saying IF I had to choose) between a game where I am surviving and a game in some other country, first I'm going to look at the ROI for both games, if a fair comparison can be made.  (return of investment)

If not, I'll just look at the profit, if any. But, all things being the same, I'm going to pick the game where I live. So, in one respect, I can understand them letting us Westerners fall by the wayside.

However, if they do come out with a CoH2 -- I have a hunch that at least half of the playerbase from CoH1 will not subscribe. Personally, I don't see them making the investment. If they did, it was the height of folly not mention it, and give us a ballpark release date, and let the game continue without updates or support of any kind, except maybe a server restart/maintenance every month or so.

[DrakeGrimm]

Well...

I know that if I'm a game publisher, and I have to choose (not saying they were forced to choose, I'm saying IF I had to choose) between a game where I am surviving and a game in some other country, first I'm going to look at the ROI for both games, if a fair comparison can be made.  (return of investment)

If not, I'll just look at the profit, if any. But, all things being the same, I'm going to pick the game where I live. So, in one respect, I can understand them letting us Westerners fall by the wayside.

However, if they do come out with a CoH2 -- I have a hunch that at least half of the playerbase from CoH1 will not subscribe. Personally, I don't see them making the investment. If they did, it was the height of folly not mention it, and give us a ballpark release date, and let the game continue without updates or support of any kind, except maybe a server restart/maintenance every month or so.

Yeah, at this point they've not only poisoned the well, but they've scorched and salted the earth around it, and staked our dead as a warning to the rest of us.

[Turjan]

To be fair to the fellow, even though we know CoH was profitable, there's still a lot of fuzziness and confusion over the exact figures, and I suspect "CoH was running at a loss" is still the majority view outside of these forums and the blogs/media outlets that have run CoH stories stating the game was profitable. So it's understandable he believes that.

The rest of his post is most interesting, and also features that intriguing nugget about NCsoft's CEO being : "personally interested in martial arts and thinks that everybody would share his passion". This I did not know, but it certainly fits with the obsessive mindset we've seen concerning Blade and Soul. When that game ultimately bombs heavily in the west, I can only speculate on how hard TJKim will take it. Perhaps that will be the death knell for NCsoft's involvement in the west, and he'll hand over that part of ops to his new chums at Nexon.

This Elmar fellows comment about "Having several years of experience trying to sell Chinese martial arts literature to European publishing houses" and his assertion that "there is simply no market for an uncompromisingly Asian game like Blade & Soul" again agrees with what we've been saying on these forums - there's a lot of cultural issues underlying the whole NCWest situation, and Blade and Soul may be a last ditch attempt to 'Koreanise' a market TJKim doesn't seem to understand.

[Victoria Victrix]

However, if they do come out with a CoH2 --

They won't. 

Two years ago, Paragon Studios was working on CoH2 (now think about that....we could have HAD it by now) and NCSoft axed it in the pre-production stage...it was just at planning and art, no coding.  So all they would have to work with would be some pre-production art, lore, and initial story arcs.  In order to produce a CoH2 you are looking at at least two full years of development from that handful of material, without the dev team that made CoH1 as good as it is.

[Rotten Luck]

Add in the tight lip service, the way they shut down Paragon studios, the refusal to sell or even talk to anyone offering to buy (Assuming Paragon had a foot in the door to throw an offer.)

Like I said if they were honest and gave us a better reason then they gave, treated us with respect.   I believe the anger would be less.

Then you have the topping... If at some point they do make a CoH2 it wouldn't be from our Dev Team.  Not only did the game earn a following the Dev team has earn our loyalty.  NCsoft wouldn't hire them back because that be admitting a mistake.

[Lily Barclay]

They can't give us a better reason. In all likelihood CoH was closed specifically for the writeoff. They overvalue the IP, write that amount off, and then on paper look like they are better off financially than they actually are. This is why they close so many games. It's also why they don't sell their IPs. No one will pay the ridiculous amount they write the loss off as, and if they turned around and sold it for less after the write off, they would be liable for tax fraud. Or at least that's the opinion in our house.

[Victoria Victrix]

They can't give us a better reason. In all likelihood CoH was closed specifically for the writeoff. They overvalue the IP, write that amount off, and then on paper look like they are better off financially than they actually are. This is why they close so many games. It's also why they don't sell their IPs. No one will pay the ridiculous amount they write the loss off as, and if they turned around and sold it for less after the write off, they would be liable for tax fraud. Or at least that's the opinion in our house.

Until we start costing them money for a huge campaign to restore their public image.  Ammon gave us a really good ballpark for a "repair campaign"--it could take them as much as 100 million dollars.  When they realize that, they could decide we are too expensive to ignore.

[Lily Barclay]

Until we start costing them money for a huge campaign to restore their public image.  Ammon gave us a really good ballpark for a "repair campaign"--it could take them as much as 100 million dollars.  When they realize that, they could decide we are too expensive to ignore.

Yes exactly. We have to cost them more in bad PR than the false value of the IP. Before they write it off.

[Victoria Victrix]

I don't know how taxes in Korea work, so I don't know if they could take a tax write-off.  What Ammon suggested, though, makes me think that by overvaluing the IPs they are sitting on, they are inflating their assets on their balance sheet.  If they value every one of the IPs of the games they closed down, on paper they are worth 600 million dollars more, which makes them look good to the stockholders.  Very shady, and it would not surprise me to discover that is exactly what is going on, and just might be covering a sinking ship.

[JaguarX]

I'm wondering. Do anyone have the hard exact figures of what either paragn studios or this game have been bringing in during the 2012 year?

That way it can basically nullify the wonderment of whether or not COX was currently profitable or not or how much or profitable or not.

And or do anyone really actually know that have the hard facts about this?

It's seem like numbers and whether or not COX was profitable changes depending on who you ask like whether or not do ghost exists or not.

[Victoria Victrix]

I'm wondering. Do anyone have the hard exact figures of what either paragn studios or this game have been bringing in during the 2012 year?

This question has been asked several times in several other threads.

[P51mus]

I don't know how taxes in Korea work, so I don't know if they could take a tax write-off.  What Ammon suggested, though, makes me think that by overvaluing the IPs they are sitting on, they are inflating their assets on their balance sheet.  If they value every one of the IPs of the games they closed down, on paper they are worth 600 million dollars more, which makes them look good to the stockholders.  Very shady, and it would not surprise me to discover that is exactly what is going on, and just might be covering a sinking ship.

According to Codewalker who has gone over Ncsoft's audit report for 2011 NCsoft values ALL of their IP at a bit over $2million.  Which means CoH's IP is probably worth a good bit under that, assuming they're not telling their auditors something different than their stockholders or something.  I don't know much about corporations.

[Victoria Victrix]

According to Codewalker who has gone over Ncsoft's audit report for 2011 NCsoft values ALL of their IP at a bit over $2million.  Which means CoH's IP is probably worth a good bit under that, assuming they're not telling their auditors something different than their stockholders or something.  I don't know much about corporations.

So one wonders why they would refuse an offer from Valve of $3million just for CoH?

[Rotten Luck]

*snuff sniff*  I smell something... check out what was posted from the NCsoft facebook page.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151152466134477&notif_t=video_reply

Either they BSing again, so I figure we are starting to hurt.

[Kheprera]

I can't view it on my phone 

Summary?

[Rotten Luck]

[Rotten Luck]

Don't worry Kheprera it's not the Video it's the post NCsoft made.  They Post is now here as well been posted by someone else.

[Atlantea]

This reply of theirs filled me with a seething rage.

I have to laugh bitterly... How STUPID do they think we are? They pulled this before on October 2nd! And it's even MORE transparent and phony now! To say they LOVED THE GAME??

They have just made it certain that we will be MORE "negative and hurtful" to them and their products due to their smarmy condescension!

We have them on the ropes and they want us to stop!

MORE! MORE! MORE!

TO THE PAIN!

To once again borrow the words of my friend Vhaillor:

TRANSLATION OF NCSOFT BULLSHIT SPEAK:

"We feel really bad for setting that puppy on fire. We want you to know that we loved the puppy too. But once we doused in in gasoline and lit it on fire, we just couldn't put it out."

"We even tried waving a fan at it to put the flames out and everything, but sadly all options are exhausted. Now let's please stop trying to put the puppy out, and instead hug and share happy memories of the puppy while it burns to death."

And also please stop mentioning to everyone how we set puppies on fire."

Oh NCSoft, I'm trying hard to see things from your perspective, but try as I might I just can't get my head lodged that far up my ass.

[Turjan]

Not bad...
for a video that was posted almost an entire month ago....

I believe it's an indicator of what their official press release called "aggressively tailoring the title for Western players". Presumably they think adding a rock track to a game video, taking out all the gratuitous boob shots and replacing them with clips of that bizarre anthro-kiddy race waving big swords, then sticking faux movie credits up at the end makes the product 'western'.

Yes. Well. I think this is my answer to that -

It's not the Video it's the ....

엔씨소프트 Dear NCSOFT Facebook Fan...

4 hours ago our foe had blinked a second time.  There is now blood in the water and Mako and his buddies are circling.

Indeed - and it's interesting to see how closely that vacuous comment of theirs follows the previous corporate line we've seen from them. The same bizarre message from NCsoft On High that says "We love CoH...that's why we're killing CoH". The weirdest thing to me is that they bothered replying at all. Perhaps they think that if they repeat the lie often enough, even they will start to believe it?

[Knightslayer]

Lastly, for the users who enjoy other games of NCSOFT, we would greatly appreciate it if you can hold back the negative and hurtful comments.
Thank you very much.

"So we can basically pull it again the next time we feel like it".
I will admit it saddens me a bit that it had to come to this, since I -do- enjoy some of their other games, and I have always understood it when they closed previous games. (Lineage 1 and Auto Assault were no brainers, they WERE losing money, I'm fairly sure Exteel and Dungeon Runners fell into that category too - which just leaves TB as a question mark to me, but I can only base it on what I've heard from others since I never played it past beta).
Here's to hoping they'll show reason at some point...

[Kheprera]

Don't worry Kheprera it's not the Video it's the post NCsoft made.  They Post is now here as well been posted by someone else.

Ahh, thanks!

Yeah.  NCSoft has lost my family as customers.  Their pleading falls on deaf ears.

I learned a long time ago that once a relationship is broken, there's no going back.  It might be nice and rosy at first, but no one changes in the end.  They'll do this again and I, for one, won't be throwing my money into a burning firepit.

If they make a CoH2 without Our Most Awesome Dev Team, then they can go suck an egg.

I'd rather play WoW. (Note: Does not  play WoW and is not in the least interested.)

[eabrace]

NCsoft has a video promo for Boobs and Skanks (posted September 28) to showcase what looks like an event that started October 1.

There's a whole wall of comments following the video - most of which are "no, I'm not going to play this game after how you've handled CoH."

And then there's this response from NCsoft:

Dear NCSOFT Facebook Fan,

We feel immense gratitude towards your love and enthusiasm of 'City of Heroes'. It has been quite the privilege and we would like to thank you all. 'City of Heroes' is the world's first and best Super Heroes MMORPG. It has received unconditional love for more than 8 years and it is like a family member of this company.

However, to provide a better game and service in the future, we have made the tough decision to discontinue the game. It was very hard on all of us here at NCSOFT.

NCSOFT will strive for a better game and superior service and anticipates the day that we will meet again. We are confident that we will not look back towards today's choice with regret.

Lastly, for the users who enjoy other games of NCSOFT, we would greatly appreciate it if you can hold back the negative and hurtful comments.

Thank you very much.

[TimtheEnchanter]

Oh, how about that. They now have a standardized response to CoH-related activity, and possibly anything anti-NCsoft/B&S.

http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,5966.0.html