One thought to remember: The gaming press has been (mistakenly) pushing the mantra for a while now that full-fledged gaming and MMO's are dead, and i-device casual gaming is the future. Of course, these are the same press who say the desktop PC is dead and it's all going to be tablets and phones from now on. But it also doesn't help that the guy responsible for keeping Windows gaming healthy, Steve Ballmer of Microsoft, believes the mantra and wants Windows 8 to kill gaming by turning W8 into a tablet experience.
But, what if in Korea (and China) where the desktop PC is alive and well, and MMO's are top of the market, the companies there are starting to believe the American press? It would be only natural for them to say, let's pull out now and stay in Korea where the market is healthy before those i-Devices and casual games ruin us in North America.
So this may be NCSoft short of cash, or it could be they're reacting to what the industry press is mistakenly telling them is the future. Or both.
As an aside: It may become a self-fulfilling prophesy someday. More MMO's are being made by companies based outside the U.S., and more casual games are being made *in* the U.S. It's possible the markets may separate, making it harder for Americans to get access to MMO's, and be stuck with only casual games.
This doesn't really affect our plan, it's just speculation of why NCSoft may have decided to kill CoH. It also increases (slightly) the possibility they'll be willing to be rid of it if they can sell or license it, if their primary motivation is indeed to get out of the U.S. market before, they believe, MMO's become irrelevant here.