Greetings CoHers! I just want to get across a fairly critical point to address a disturbing trend I've seen developing these past few days.
The trend: A number of posts here and elsewhere by our community have started to become, as the news media would say, "racially charged". There seems to be some small percentage of our community, whether they are working with our movement or not, that blame the shutdown wholly or partially on the "fact" that the NCSoft executives that made it are South Koreans that don't care about American employees or consumers. This post is directed mainly towards the people who hold to that belief, but also to everyone else. After all, it's best to be properly armed when you go to calm everyone down with your flame retardant gloves of moderation +5.
The point:
First and foremost, there is no such thing as race. A number of the posts I'm referring to use the term, but the generally uneducated nature of those posts means it's somewhat expected. The problem is that most of the people that step in to correct theses posts also use the term "race". It's important to understand that the term "race" refers to an old and outdated concept that was formed by Europeans at the height of imperialism and served as a convenient "proof" of their right, and often duty, to colonize. It's a ridiculous notion that modern science has conclusively refuted. There is very little genetic variation between different populations of humans, and in any case genes appear to play no significant role in our actions as individuals. Because of the meanings of the term "race" it's best to avoid its use altogether. A much useful concept is that of cultural groups.
You might ask how that makes a difference. Well, let me explain it in a very clear way. The cultural context in which the decision was made to shut down City of Heroes was that of a corporate boardroom. That culture is the one that most heavily influenced that choice. Can you guess where that culture originated? It wasn't South Korea. It was late 19th and early 20th century America. In the same situation that NCSoft was in, any major corporation would have made the same decision - regardless of global location. The fact is that corporate culture is very much the same worldwide. I've seen complaints that NCSoft and other Asian/Korean companies don't handle customer service very well etc. But the fact is nobody does. City of Heroes, most would agree, had one of the most responsive and generally good customer support services I've encountered in the industry. Those were NCSoft employees operating under NCSoft guidelines and procedures. The only other game company I've experienced having this level of support is Blizzard. And it's tough to compete with them on any metric for a variety of reasons. Most notably the more or less bottomless well of money they have access to.
"But..but Ampithere you're one of the ones saying things about the Asian vs. American market!" Yes, that's true. South Korean and Japanese consumer culture is highly similar to, and heavily influenced by, American consumer culture. Economy there, as here, is driven by supply and demand. The difference is they demand different things. NCSoft choosing to back a game like Blade and Soul over CoH makes perfect sense. Any other company would have made the same decision if their major presence was in the same market as NCSoft. Superheroes don't sell there. Just look at City of Hero - it didn't make it. It's no different from having different markets within America. For example, Starbucks is all over the place in the city. It's pretty rare in the country. Why? Because there's more demand for Starbucks in the city.
tl;dr This decision is entirely motivated by economic and business logic. The fact that NCSoft is in Korea only matters in the sense that their market has different demands than the American market. Nobody should be making this into a cultural issue.
Rant over, resume saving CoH. *Raises torch*