What kind of an article are you going to go with, now that you essentially have nothing to go on from NCSoft but this?
Well, the article I pitched and that got greenlighted was a 'NC Soft's response to concerns from the community' piece. Now I guess the story is that NC Soft either can not, or will not go on the record about the options they explored and how they 'exhausted them'. It'd be REALLY helpful if some of the investors who approached NC Soft are available to comment me and tell me what offers they put on the table, and the response they had from NC Soft (if it's commercially sensitive, I can assure anonymity, although obviously if you're willing to put your name out there, it looks like I'm not making it up.)
If I can PROVE that they've lied to their customers and the press, that would be so good that I'd probably have an orgasm. Just sayin'.
If I can't get that information, I can go with the information I have from the Facebook groups and these forums about investors who did go forward and didn't get a response, concerns raised by Save COH about the statement issued by NC Soft, that we put those concerns to NC Soft and they refused to comment, leading very realistic fears that they're up to their old tricks of not being exactly honest with their customers.
Which is..great for us, but not really great for the magazine I was originally aimed at. The editor has been understanding, thankfully, but this sort of piece isn't really for them.
Once I've got what information I can get, and if I factor in the way they handled the Tabla Rasa closure, it might prick up a few '..is NC Soft at it again..?' news-senses in the gaming pressing, mebbe. I'll do is put together a press release which I'll post here and once everyone's fact-checked it and pointed out the obvious stuff I should've added in.
Once it's been thoroughly vetted, I can ping it off to the gaming press (I've kept the email addresses of all the writers I've spotted writing stuff on the closure of City of Heroes) and there's a website here called It's Public Now (or something like that), which allows people to publish news and press releases. I know the site is trawled by the mainstream media here, so maybe they'll pick up on it, too.
I really have no idea which US outlets might be interested in it (sorry, your leaning to the left, leaning to the right thing sounds like a dance to me. I was totally lost :-p), but once the press release is sorted and if Tony doesn't freak out when he sees it, you guys can send it to whoever you think it might be interesting to, and obviously it can be tweaked to appeal to any number of places.
For example, the fact that so many websites/magazines just read the NC Soft release and went 'oh. Ok' and published it without digging could be turned into an interesting piece on decreasing standards of journalism or something, the fact that they ignored a New York times best selling author might make a nice angle for various writing/fiction websites and outlets, the fact that they won't issue a response about job losses might be useful to more mainstream news. There's probably some politics in there somewhere, I dunno :-p.
Hell, the fact that a company has a PR firm that they're paying gazillions, and a corporate communications response director who is probably paid more a week than I earn in a year and it took them..14 days to respond to a query with the weirdest comment ever could probably be a nice angle for someone, but I'm not sure who.
This weekend is pretty busy - we're in a strong position for some follow-up press releases - the Extralife Gameathon is something we should be issuing a release about once we know how much has been raised, and hopefully that'll tide us over nicely until we can get this..whatever it is knocked into some sort of shape.
Also, I have the email address of NC Soft's Corporate Communications Director, if it'd help anyone. TonyV?
Unfortunately, today is a bit on the heavy side, but I'm hoping to get something down properly tomorrow/Saturday, which I'll post up for your help in smashing into shape, if that's cool with you guys?