This is the stupidest thing these people have said in a long line of stupid.
Its like NC Soft wants their stock to keep tanking.
Personally, I'm quietly begging the universe this story gets picked up by other outlets as well.
"The Heroes and Villains have taken to the skies of City of Heroes for the last time, but the game and community will remain in our memories. "
Part of me wants to believe this... and part of me doesn't trust "anonymous sources" any farther than I can throw them. I just... no. It comes across too much as exactly what they're claiming they don't want to do - 'vilify NCsoft.' And I'm jaded enough as it is to take ANY news article these days without a serious grain of salt.
Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite
The last bullet point from the source confuses me. It says Paragon wanted to get away from NCsoft as they were becoming more difficult to deal with yet this last point says NCsoft 'really tried' to work with Paragon. Any thoughts on what happened there?
Part of me wants to believe this... and part of me doesn't trust "anonymous sources" any farther than I can throw them. I just... no. It comes across too much as exactly what they're claiming they don't want to do - 'vilify NCsoft.' And I'm jaded enough as it is to take ANY news article these days without a serious grain of salt.
Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite
There's one side, there's the other, and somewhere in the middle is the truth. Can't remember who said that but its pretty a good guideline.The Vorlons? ;)
From the article, a quote from NCSoft:
What a load of bull.... so they saying they did find interested parties to acquire the game, but none they considered "suitable" enough to make the fans good, so... NCSoft found it was more humane to euthanize the game than let it live in the hands of some one they thought was not worthy????? W... T... F????
I agree that it becomes increasingly clear that NCSoft and Paragon were a bad match. merely looking at NCSoft's other product offerings- particularly those in the Asian market- indicates that there were substantial conflicts in philosophy, but this doesn't lead to your conclusion that "peasants dared to negotiate with the Lord." These kinds of buyouts and business arrangements are rarely hostile and even when they don't work out are more a sign of a healthy workforce.
I think there were certainly other ways CoH offended the sensibilities of those in charge, but preparing for a studio buyout wouldn't necessarily be one of them.
Sounds like a clear case of he said/she said, which is what I've believed all along. You really have to ask yourself, who do you believe? A Paragon insider, or NCsoft? I know that most people here will instantly go to the knee-jerk reaction of, "the Paragon Insider, of course!" But to be completely fair, you have to acknowledge that both have an agenda: the Paragon insider has recently lost their job thanks to NCsoft, and NCsoft is currently in the midst of trying to staunch a negative publicity campaign against them, striking at the heart of the matter.
The reason I bring that up is because I don't want anyone to think that I'm overly naive or gullible, willing to believe anything that anyone tells me. I'm well aware of the various politics at play here, and I've spent MANY long nights thinking VERY hard about the possibility that I'm being duped.
And in the end, based on the best information I have, I've decided that I believe the people I know at Paragon Studios over NCsoft. I've met them personally, they don't have as much at stake by simply staying silent (and indeed, some of them have put their reputations and quite possibly financial well-being at stake by coming forward, even as an anonymous source), I've heard very similar accounts from multiple people, they've historically proven to be honest and reliable, and not to put too fine a point on it, their version of events makes more sense to me than a publisher completely shutting down a studio like it did instead of making cuts and layoffs that could have restored it to profitability.
Perhaps I may be reading to much into it, but NCsoft representative's reply does have a damage control vibe to it. I mean it's whopping two paragraphs! Not even the game closure prompted them to articulate anything more than a couple of smoothed over sentences. And now they are effectively argue their point.
The reason I'm more willing to buy the anonymous source's story is because the 'response' to the story in itself contains 2 lies. One, if the game was unprofitable as long as it was, then sun setting the game would have been a lot more gradual and they wouldn't be ramping up production on new Issues like every 2 months, and it also contains the ridiculous lie that nobody 'suitable' tried to buy the game.
At NO point did they try to save money on the game. They didn't cut it down to a skeleton crew or slow down on publishing Issues. That sort of thing a sane person would do to slow down the bleeding of the game, for the supposed several years it was unprofitable?
They're ridiculous.
Agreed.
Look at shutdowns that have gone in the past. Many of the companies have found it profitable and acceptable to pare down resources but leave the servers running until populations are much MUCH smaller than ours were. This is a community-centric approach that lets the community continue to experience the game as long as the company isn't losing money. Updates may be slower/fewer, but the servers stay on. Many MMOs last a very long time in that.
What causes a more abrupt shutdown of an MMO?
* Licensing issues. Look at SWG. The Lucasarts license expired. Lucasarts kept the license renewed until the new star wars mmo flagship was about to launch, but then terminated it. Even then, SWG's population was measurably smaller by all metrics and I'd heard jokes that internally SOE's SWG dev team had been pared down so much it was sometimes jokingly said the next step would be "the intern under the stairs."
For CoH, the IP wouldn't be an issue, but there may have been other licensing expenses. NCSoft's account management systems and the CoH marketplace were both middleware components that would likely be licensed rather than purchased. It could be that the way the fees were determined, they were costlier when applied to the CoH business model (for example). if poorly negotiated, there could be all sorts of agreements that have unforseen costs.
* Performance issues. This is what NCSoft used to justify TabulaRasa & AutoAssault, for example. Both were killed quickly after launch. On the back-end, both contained significant performace/stability issues that required much more resources to keep them afloat.... even if they cut all new content development to the bone, they just would require too many resources and/or too much development time chasing bugs to make things work. True or not, that explains an abrupt shutdown.
For CoH, this is anything BUT likely. From everything we know, CoH was lean, stable, and streamlined rather well in this regard.
* Platform issues. I've experienced this personally- Worked on maintaining a product that we *had to* retire. It relied on 3rd party components that only worked on an older server OS and the security risks of that older server OS meant we HAD TO upgrade. Retiring the product was less operationally painful than trying to get it running on the new OS with custom-made parts.
For CoH, I rate this is "unlikely"-- its possible-- this was the original dev team's first foray into mmo's so they may have unwittingly "painted themselves into a few corners" when it came to platform, portability, and upgradability, but I've neither seen nor heard any hint of such issues on CoH.
*Ego Although I listed Tabula Rasa under performance, I believe that its shutdown was more driven by ego. NCsoft loves a blockbuster. They were HUGE in Asia and hoped to have proportional success in the US market. They hired a legend, gave him a blank check for his "blank slate" and expected great things that never arrived. It was an embarrassment.
What would MORE embarrassing and damaging to ego would be a near-pullout of the US/Euro market. At the time, with so little working for them, CoH was a small-but-stable anchor that gave them a face-saving example of success in the western market. It didn't fit with their current lineup. It didn't fit with their internal philosophy. It didn't reflect what they wanted to do or be, but it could be pointed to as a financial success, given the money they invested into it and the return they got. Once GWII came out- something closer to their styles and philosophies, but still uniquely catered to western likings- they had something they could point to as one of their own... more or less... then, they could finally cut away that redheaded stepchild CoH. I consider this "more likely than the other reasons given.
* Finally, there's Resources One thing that bugged me when rumors of buyers being snubbed was the "why?" Well, any sale would likely have included the provision that NCSoft continue operations of CoH until hosting and account management could be transferred to a compatible system, and that meant keeping those resources locked up on CoH servers.
What if they had already planned a use for those resources?
City of Heroes runs on virtual servers, but those servers have very real resources allocated to them. Launching a new title in a new market requires a HUGE investment in new server resources... or you repurpose ones you already have. Killing a less-profitable product that doesn't fit your design philosophies with one you hope will rake in the money (NCSoft is constantly shooting for blockbusters) so you can use their resources seems logical to the businessman that doesn't think much of its customer base.
NCSoft was preparing for a Blade & Soul launch in the US not long after the server resources would be freed from the CoH shutdown. That would offset some of the cost of the B&S launch. Having a profitable launch is both about reducing costs AND decent sales. Given that NCSoft's track record in bringing their asian titles to the US, making this launch as cost-effective as possible may have been very critical to the egos (see above) of well-placed people.... people that couldn't allow those CoH resources to remain locked away. This is purely conjecture, but mostly due to my own experience, I find it to be plausible conjecture.
I may be straying into a bit of hyperbole above. But y'know, I just can't bring myself to quite give a s___ about it. If cmgangrel hadn't burned all his bridges behind him, he'd have some credibility. As it is, I'm gonna call him out.
It seems quite likely that NCSoft may well have taken Paragon's attempts to buy itself out as an insult, really.
It had been mentioned to me by those who were probably in a position to know that someone at Paragon, or Paragon itself, did something to seriously irritate/offend/annoy NCSoft, and it may well have been the attempt to buy-out.
This is a fantastic post. I suggest you re-post it in the comments section of the above story. If you don't have an account there and don't want to bother, may I have permission to re-post it for you?
I am increasingly coming to that opinion as well. If not that then something. NCsoft has played this so close to the vest, I don't think the devs know or I believe they'd have said something. The former employee inside source may or may not have all facts right--I can't know that but perhaps someone like TonyV or V.V. etc can ascertain how likely is it the anonymous source is factually correct. Myself, I just can see closing a studio even out of spite as profitable as source claims. But I'm also coming to believe that NCsoft's reasons for closure go beyond "realignment" and maximizing profits, to actively wanting to kill the game and keep it gone, though whether that's simply to maliciously punish some people (along with the entire community) or because there's some factor of competitive rivalry, I don't know. The idea that NCSoft couldn't find a buyer they'd trust with the game and community is ludicrous! Especially since the studio wanted to buy itself!! Geez, how stupid does NCsoft think people are? I feel angry about this. >:(
I'm not finding the post I saw wherein someone suggest V.V. aka Mercedes Lackey see whether the journalist from the Korean Times would be willing and interested into looking into this further. If nothing else, more press coverage especially in Korea questioning the decision to close from a purely business aspect as opposed to a decision fueled by vindictiveness might help our cause. If the latter, what a lame-ass reason for closure. If NCsoft really did cut off their nose to spite their face, wow!
I do think it'd be helpful.
I hold no anger towards NCSoft, and that makes me unbelievably dangerous to them.
I am, after all, a Scot with some minor Viking ancestry. My people are the reason why Romans built several walls across the British Islands. ^_^
That said, most businesses that do as NCSoft has done tend not to survive for very long afterwards. I hope that they can shape up and prevent their own imminent demise, as I do not to be partly responsible for hundreds of people losing their jobs, but if it does happen, it will have been through their own actions.
As far as I understand North American business practices, we value honesty and equitable dealings in our exchanges, something which clearly does not exist in this situation.
Whoa, some serious modding just happened here.
It went from 4 pages --> to 3 pages, and responses I just read are gone.
That was trippy.
Uttering the phrase, "It's just business", needs to become illegal. So sick of it being used to excuse every heinous thing that corporations do.
In spite of The Avengers, repeated remakes of Spiderman and the Hulk. Thor, Green Lantern, Superman, Batman, Catwoman and more in the making - we think this whole Super Hero thing doesn't work - in Korea.
Korea wanted to shutdown an independant American studio and the studio said well if you won't work with us we will buy it out.
Korea said no after saying maybe.
Since CoH wasn't making WoW money putting up with uppity Americans wasn't worth the measely $12 million a year - if it was $120 million we would consider it.
Is it really necessary to make it all about nationalities of interested parties again?
"The studio was unprofitable before the shutdown."
I'm with you, Frog. This isn't about NCSoft being Korean that I'm aware of; it's about how this corporation handled things with Paragon Studios, the CoH community, and the waffling things they say whenever they do talk about why and the circumstances around their closing CoH.
It is not Xenophobia.
NCSoft has been a resounding failure everywhere they have tried to operate outside of South Korea.
Their style of operation and gaming choices reflect a complete unwillingness to change. Their latest "investments" in a slight merge with Nexon is more of the same. Note they didn't merge with Valve or any other western company. I am not racist nor waving the all American flag. I am saying they had an asset who they found hard to work with through either their fault or the studio's.
I see the reactions that NCSoft give and it is pure Corp speak for shut up and go away.
Now they are getting angry soon we win. The story isn't going away - it gets BIGGER.
And done.
There's one side, there's the other, and somewhere in the middle is the truth. Can't remember who said that but its pretty a good guideline.I recall writing something on the CoH forums "There are three sides to every story: His, hers and the real one."
I will assume this is true but considering NCSoft wouldn't sell off what was a short lived MMO with a shrinking population, Auto Assault, back to it's developer NetDevil, what did Brian expect? Going back to the $80 million sell figure, if true, I could see that be the price of all the player/customer data. NCSoft would be giving up to a new industry competitor a very important asset, their customers. And not just the active ones but everyone who ever played the game or tried the demo.
I agree. It is not Xenophobia on OUR part, but THEIRS that is the issue. We the players and community never even considered whether the nationality of NCSoft was an issue before the announcement of the shutdown. For days and weeks even after that it never came up. It finally came up when all attempts at communication were rebuffed and we were trying to figure out ANY reason for that or any of their other decisions.
It was part of the attempt to UNDERSTAND them that brought NCSoft's nationality into the equation. We couldn't figure them out. We were trying desperately to understand what mindset could produce these decisions, because just simple "corporate mindset" didn't seem to cover the bizarre (to our way of thinking) decisions. So we were FORCED to consider the culture and nationality to attempt to get a handle on the thought process. Thus the threads on "Kibun" and Korean culture and how they related to the particular corporate culture of NCSoft.
And most of us have not made a judgement call on the culture itself. We don't assume that their culture is better or worse than ours. But we feel we have to include it in the equation in order to make informed conjecture and decisions.
Assuming your culture and way of doing things is superior and another culture is inferior and refusing to adapt your business practices to the other culture a single iota would be more of a sign of Xenophobia than what we have been doing on these boards.
If you are wondering why the source needs to be anonymous, it has been indicated to me very strongly that even though most former Paragoners now have jobs, NCSoft can and will take some unspecified but exceedingly unpleasant action against them if they ever have confirmation on who is making the leaks. I believe the person telling me this, based on NCSoft's actions in the past.
That gaming community always was a bunch of clueless fools.
I'm almost guaranteed to get my mmorpg account banned if I continue to post in that thread. That gaming community always was a bunch of clueless fools.
Modhat on.OK. I'll cop to using the wrong word. I wasn't making it a race or nationality thing, more of a "them" and "us" thing. I'm sorry if someone took it another way. The point I was trying to make was that NCSoft got burned (in their eyes) by a specific market, so they've changed how they deal with that market. Other subsidiaries in that market would be wise to watch their backs. Or something to that effect.
(https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y38/eabrace/titan/th_moderator_hat.png)
Folks, I get that some of us feel it's necessary to point out cultural differences in corporate operations in on either side of the Pacific in order to better understand the minds in charge of decision making at NCsoft. However, do try to keep in mind statements generalizing a culture (even if it is corporate) can be interpreted as racist or xenophobic.
Do me a favor: before hitting submit, think long and hard about whether your point can be made without the words/phrases "in Korea", "Koreans", "Korean business models", etc. (Same goes for generalizations about Asian markets and gamers.) If your point can be made without those words, take them out of the post. If your point can't be made without those words, then please think long and hard about whether or not the point actually adds something valuable to the ongoing discussion before submitting. If it doesn't actually add value to the discussion, please just move along without posting the comment.
You know, here is another factor. Ask who stands to gain or lose by lying.
Modhat on.I think this is very difficult to do. In the UK, we have a lot of industrial investment from the far east, mainly Japanese and Korean since the 80s but more recently also Chinese.
(https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y38/eabrace/titan/th_moderator_hat.png)
Folks, I get that some of us feel it's necessary to point out cultural differences in corporate operations in on either side of the Pacific in order to better understand the minds in charge of decision making at NCsoft. However, do try to keep in mind statements generalizing a culture (even if it is corporate) can be interpreted as racist or xenophobic.
Do me a favor: before hitting submit, think long and hard about whether your point can be made without the words/phrases "in Korea", "Koreans", "Korean business models", etc. (Same goes for generalizations about Asian markets and gamers.) If your point can be made without those words, take them out of the post. If your point can't be made without those words, then please think long and hard about whether or not the point actually adds something valuable to the ongoing discussion before submitting. If it doesn't actually add value to the discussion, please just move along without posting the comment.
So NCSoft is now openly lying about the games profitability.
So... what WAS the reason they shut it down. They had to have one.
Maybe it was personal. Maybe some NCSoft executive's wife left him for a guy she met in CoH, and the executive took childish retribution on the game.
LOL, after typing that I realized it's the only explanation so far that makes sense! I'll stop now before I end up starting rumors ;D
What customers? There's an extremely negligible percentage of former COH people who have gone on to play GW2. And almost every one of those was pre-ordered before Black Friday.MMOs are essentially a service. Now there are plenty of MMOs out there and they are fighting over the same set of customers, since the customer only has a fix amount of money and time to devote to playing MMOs.
Look around, do you see very many people who were players and fans of City of Heroes who are willing to trust their money to NCSoft again? I sure don't.
What is it they hope to gain by sitting on data that's useless to them? I say again - all those accounts? GONE. Useless. They've gone to other non-NCsoft games ANYWAY.
But then again, if they are truly intending to completely abandon the Western Market as a whole anyway, I suppose that bad press wouldn't matter to them in the long run. They know they're not going to be doing business here within 2-5 years anyway.
MMOs are essentially a service. Now there are plenty of MMOs out there and they are fighting over the same set of customers, since the customer only has a fix amount of money and time to devote to playing MMOs....and if they were being that rational why would they need to rotate among lying, obfuscating and stonewalling?
Now if a customer in one of your games becomes bored and want to try something else, the company would want them to play another of their games and not a competitor because of a chance of losing them for the long term.
So why would you empower a new company, a competitor, with your precious list of customer without compensation? What if this new competitor starts producing additional MMOs that they can now market to your now shared customer list?
There were far more players who have joined and quit CoH over the last 8 years than those who were left at the end. It wasn't a "small" list. Some number of those players also play(ed) NCSoft's other titles as well, and may still be. Would you be willing to give a competitor a direct line to them? How much would you price that information?
.
10. Clayton does not tell managers or employers right away. Instead, he urgently pleads with NCSoft to give him more time to negotiate. They give him 90 days - on the contingency that he can no longer save the studio. They will give the game 90 days, and he will have that time to prove himself to them.
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...and if they were being that rational why would they need to rotate among lying, obfuscating and stonewalling?They've never before have come out to say why so how are they changing their story? If the suggestion, based on this first time reply from NCSoft, is that it was Paragon that they were dissatisfied with and that CoH was just the proverbial baby in Paragon's bath water, you could say that NCSoft has been politely holding their tongue until now.
They've never before have come out to say why so how are they changing their story? If the suggestion, based on this first time reply from NCSoft, is that it was Paragon that they were dissatisfied with and that CoH was just the proverbial baby in Paragon's bath water, you could say that NCSoft has been politely holding their tongue until now.Now we need to keep pressing the issue , get them to talk about something they clearly are avoiding.
MMOs are essentially a service. Now there are plenty of MMOs out there and they are fighting over the same set of customers, since the customer only has a fix amount of money and time to devote to playing MMOs.
Now if a customer in one of your games becomes bored and want to try something else, the company would want them to play another of their games and not a competitor because of a chance of losing them for the long term.
So why would you empower a new company, a competitor, with your precious list of customer without compensation? What if this new competitor starts producing additional MMOs that they can now market to your now shared customer list?
There were far more players who have joined and quit CoH over the last 8 years than those who were left at the end. It wasn't a "small" list. Some number of those players also play(ed) NCSoft's other titles as well, and may still be. Would you be willing to give a competitor a direct line to them? How much would you price that information?
They've never before have come out to say why so how are they changing their story? If the suggestion, based on this first time reply from NCSoft, is that it was Paragon that they were dissatisfied with and that CoH was just the proverbial baby in Paragon's bath water, you could say that NCSoft has been politely holding their tongue until now.
They've never before have come out to say why so how are they changing their story? If the suggestion, based on this first time reply from NCSoft, is that it was Paragon that they were dissatisfied with and that CoH was just the proverbial baby in Paragon's bath water, you could say that NCSoft has been politely holding their tongue until now.They have indeed changed the story from "change of focus" to "not meeting expectations". I'm sorry to personalize this but what I hear from you is a simple insistence to not accept that they've said what they've said and not said what they've not said.
I would love to see an open statement by some one. I doubt the NDA prevents them from speaking about the game's profitability pre-cancelation, and for the game to not be profitable at cancelation time, based on the quarterly reports, it would have been unprofitable for nearly 2 years.
This is precisely one of my reasons for believing the anonymous source over NCsoft. Here are my basic thoughts on the matter:
1) If the game was either not profitable or headed towards the territory of unprofitability, why would Paragon Studios management have tried to acquire the game? This makes absolutely zero sense. If the game was not profitable, then they wouldn't have even taken the game for free, let alone actually offered to pay good money to get it.
NCSoft had good, logical, reasons for closing the curtains on CoH. However, they didn't have good, logical reasons for not selling it to someone else to make a quick buck that could support it. And, they especially didn't have good, logical reasons for the way they treated their customers in the last 90 days.
In their recent statement, NCsoft has stated that the studio was unprofitable, not the game.
This is why we're accusing them of obfuscating. The game was bringing in a tidy sum. What accounting voodoo are they using, if any? Several people have made reasonable estimates of what the annual costs should be for a studio of their size, and the numbers work.
At the end of the day, they don't have to tell us anything. The fact that they feel they need to means something. The question is, what?
Exec #1 "Okay guys, we need to come up with excuses as to why we shut down CoH."
Exec #2 "What, we can't just say that Paragon was filled with a bunch of no-account rebels who thought that they could defy our omniscience and run the game themselves?"
Exec #1 "No, we can't say that Exec #2, because our new research shows that people would think we were being totally stupid and mean."
Exec #2 "Stupid and mean? WHAT?? Oh god, I need a smoke."
Exec #3 "Why do we have to say anything at all? I thought the foolish masses would be totally blinded by the new shiny!"
Exec #1 "Well, a chunk of them weren't."
Exec #3 "Inconceivable! This is, by far, the shiniest new shiny we've ever built and polished! It has boobs and everything!"
Exec #4 "Well, we could just say that the studio wasn't profitable or something. 'Cuz, you know, money!"
Exec #1 "Brilliant!"
Exec #3 "Genius!"
Exec #2 "I still need a smoke."
Perhaps I may be reading too much into it, but NCsoft representative's reply does have a damage control vibe to it. I mean it's whopping two paragraphs! Not even the game closure prompted them to articulate anything more than a couple of smoothed over sentences. And now they effectively argue their point.
Would love move on from the shut down and get to simply "There are thousands of players desperately wanting CoH back, why not sell?"
But I'm sure a question like that would be ignored, too hard to put a good spin on it.
There were far more players who have joined and quit CoH over the last 8 years than those who were left at the end. It wasn't a "small" list. Some number of those players also play(ed) NCSoft's other titles as well, and may still be. Would you be willing to give a competitor a direct line to them? How much would you price that information?
Plus there are legal aspects. If you are to sell an MMO game, you share not only the IP and the code, but also customer information, including real names and credit card numbers of your users. There are plenty of laws governing sharing personal information and every country has their own. With a popular title that is played by people all over the world, transference of all that data could be a major pain, as you need to treat every single account individually and apply the laws of its owner's respective country. Which in many (all?) countries in EU require user consent, for example, so said user needs to be contacted before the buyer can put their customer information into their database.
This really isn't that complicated. When my domain registrar got bought out, they set up a system by which we could either choose to transfer our data to the new owner, or quit. Everyone got an email, it took us to the site, we logged in, clicked a few buttons, and voila. The data got transferred. It would take very little time for NCsoft and a buyer to set up a system like this. You just log into your NC account, click on the details for CoH, and see an option to move your player info. Not an overnight job, but quick and cheap enough that to use it as a reason not to sell would be laughable.
ROFLMAO, Corvus! I'm howling at Exec #3's lines!!! 8)Thanks JR. I'm glad someone got a kick out of it :)
Firstly, retention rate. Yes the figure is month on month. Further, anything over 90% is HUGE in the industry, like, industry leading level. City of Heroes had that. The one and only thing it didn't have was *any* commitment to marketing at all from NCsoft.
Every business in the world has what is called an attrition rate. No matter how loyal your customers, people's situations change. They move, they marry, they even die. Basic business 101 says it this simply: "Any business that is not actively growing its customer base is losing it". Any and every business in the world must do enough marketing to attract new custom to counter attrition rates or it will die. NCsoft did no noticeable marketing of CoH at all except in some minimal cross-selling from its other titles that it did advertise and promote.
It is an unquestioned and unarguable fact that NCsoft completely failed to even try to grow the game's market, and allowed natural customer-base attrition to reduce market share unchallenged. Check those facts any way you like, you won't change them. NCsoft completely fail business 101 in this regard, and one surely has to suspect this was deliberate. You don't overlook something that basic to all business.
This is why people say that NCsoft did their deliberate damndest to kill CoH. It is that obvious, and the ONLY question about it is "Why?" not "Did they?".
Costs: Paragon Studios only significant costs were the business premises at US costs, and staff at US costs. These would probably seem high to a company mainly based in Korea. But they'd seem very low to a company based in Tokyo or Hong Kong, so you would expect most Asian companies to be quite happy with them.
80 staff was a ridiculously large number for CoH, and in fact many of those staff were primarily working on new projects such as the new game mentioned, never really contributing to the money-maker of CoX at all. So while costs for staff were indeed far higher than needed or expected for this game, a large amount of that was in pure R&D for the next generation product (new games). 20 staff would have been more than enough to maintain the game, and even halving the staff to 40 would have meant easy full continuation, plus plenty of new products in the cash-shop every week, as was happening.
Again, a fact which is unquestioned and unarguable is that NO attempt was made to reduce staff to reduce costs. In fact, our information is that a large number of those 80 were only taken on as GROWTH in the 12 months prior to the unexpected closure. These additional staff were taken on to develop the next generation products, and to help add goods to the cash-shop faster.
If a game is at all questionable in income, why would you hire more and more unneeded staff? The fact that they did so is easily confirmed. Not only did NCsoft NOT try at any time to reduce unnecessary extra costs, they actively allowed Paragon to grow its costs in ways that did not contribute to the existing profit, and were only working on R&D of future products.
Profits: City of Heroes made around 170million dollars US in its 9 years. Not bad for something bought for under 8 million, eh? Even in its final months it was certainly generating revenue of over $10million USD per annum, and this was growing with the further refinement and adoption of the new cash-shop (which doubled revenue after its adoption). It would have been more profitable if NCsoft were not having Paragon hire more staff to work on R&D that did not directly produce any revenue.
As a professional in online business, with over 18years experience, I can see no possible way that City of Heroes and Paragon Studios were not profitable to at least 3-4 million per year, (unless someone at NCsoft were charging 4 million a year in wages to audit or oversee Paragon).
(Comment: The below is the most interesting part:)
Since annonymity bothers some, then let's put it aside. My name is Ammon Johns, and I work as an Internet Marketing Consultant. I speak at International conferences, and my clients are predominently large national and multinationals, including banks, insurance companies, online stores, charities, and portals. I also work for small local and specialist businesses online. I've worked for many of the sites you probably know and use yourself. I don't specialise in the game development industry at all, but I work with every level of internet market. I am considered a world expert in marketing online.
The above are my own findings from digging through many sources, and from using my contacts and network. That's not to do the big "I am", that's simply to head off anyone asking if I know what I'm talking about. I will welcome discussion to challenge any of my own findings, just cite your sources and experience when you do so. Oh, and no anonymity, right? ;)
To keep this on-topic, here's a rather interesting post from the MMORG site in question.
I did a name search and instantly this site floated to the top:
http://www.ammonjohns.com/ (http://www.ammonjohns.com/)
Along with a host of other sites that mention him. Including his twitter feed and his entry in linked-in.
Maybe we should contact him?
(EDIT: Although maybe we should contact him and ask him if he in fact made this post himself and not an imposter, just to be on the safe side.)
(EDIT#2: Just thought I'd mention the reason why I'm posting this and re-posting his comment is - I'm just thinking that if this is for real, I wonder what expertise he might lend to our cause. If nothing else, a guy like that has to have some interesting connections. )
He's the fourth member of team wildcard. He's Ammon here.
(Homer Simpson) "D'OH!" (/Homer Simpson)
Never thought I'd do this to myself, but ---
I believe that qualifies as a relativistic weapon aimed at NCSoft, now, doesn't it?
Relativistic weapon? You mean like a bomb that curves space?
NCSoft will not squirm at all because of a comment that is buried beneath an article that is piling up with hundreds of comments.
Get in touch with the Korean Times reporter who took statements from Mercedes and the Korean business analyst, and have them do a nice thorough interview with Ammon, one of the world's most respected Internet marketers. Everything Ammon said in that comment--say it to the Korean Times.
Bam.
About time we give NCSoft another black eye, anyhow; I think they're starting to get a little too cocky over there. We need them to sell the game and IP; but that's never going to happen if they make an uncontested habit out of throwing Paragon Studios and City of Heroes under the bus for the "strategic" blunder they made.
NCSoft will not squirm at all because of a comment that is buried beneath an article that is piling up with hundreds of comments.
Get in touch with the Korean Times reporter who took statements from Mercedes and the Korean business analyst, and have them do a nice thorough interview with Ammon, one of the world's most respected Internet marketing specialists. Everything Ammon said in that comment--say it to the Korean Times.
Bam.
About time we give NCSoft another black eye, anyhow; I think they're starting to get a little too cocky over there. We need them to sell the game and IP; but that's never going to happen if they make an uncontested habit out of throwing Paragon Studios and City of Heroes under the bus for the "strategic" blunder they made.
That was my thought. If those statements become known, we have contact. Boom. :)
BIG boom. :)
These are our friends. And because of NDA agreements and career survival, their hands are simply tied. They can't defend themselves, they can't defend all their years of hard work, they can't do anything about the lies coming out of NCSoft. NCSoft is just smearing mud all over our friends faces, spitting on their hard work, their reputations, their dignity and honesty.
Another PR black eye is the only appropriate response. Anything less is tantamount to standing by and watching.
NCSoft will not squirm at all because of a comment that is buried beneath an article that is piling up with hundreds of comments.
Get in touch with the Korean Times reporter who took statements from Mercedes and the Korean business analyst, and have them do a nice thorough interview with Ammon, one of the world's most respected Internet marketing specialists. Everything Ammon said in that comment--say it to the Korean Times.
Bam.
About time we give NCSoft another black eye, anyhow; I think they're starting to get a little too cocky over there. We need them to sell the game and IP; but that's never going to happen if they make an uncontested habit out of throwing Paragon Studios and City of Heroes under the bus for the "strategic" blunder they made.
I can see how a company may perceive the customer list as a strategic asset, but what can said competitor do with it apart from sending marketing emails about their games? Not much. Customers are not cattle and it is up to them whether they'll choose to play those games. I would assume publishers are aware of this.
Plus there are legal aspects. If you are to sell an MMO game, you share not only the IP and the code, but also customer information, including real names and credit card numbers of your users. There are plenty of laws governing sharing personal information and every country has their own. With a popular title that is played by people all over the world, transference of all that data could be a major pain, as you need to treat every single account individually and apply the laws of its owner's respective country. Which in many (all?) countries in EU require user consent, for example, so said user needs to be contacted before the buyer can put their customer information into their database.
I suspect that is one of the reasons why it is such a rare occurence in the world of MMOs for individual games be sold to another company. Buyouts of entire studios or publishers are more likely as that makes it much simpler to handle this situation from the legal standpoint. This may be the main reason behind NCsoft's reluctance to sell, too. They wouldn't want to be dragged to court for accusation of negligence in handling user information.
In that case, sell the IP without the customer information; at least that's my vote. And I say this as a former tier 9 reward veteran many times over, who had every extra powerset ever made and most of the cash shop costumes besides. :P Goodbye, characters; goodbye extras.
Just give me my city back and I will take care of the rest once again!
In that case, sell the IP without the customer information; at least that's my vote. And I say this as a former tier 9 reward veteran many times over, who had every extra powerset ever made and most of the cash shop costumes besides. :P Goodbye, characters; goodbye extras.
Just give me my city back and I will take care of the rest once again!
Agreed 100%! Of course having my account, characters and perks back would be ideal, but I would start over in a heart best if it meant CoH would be back.
The fun of CoH is playing CoH. I chose not to use Sentinel, because I don't care if I have to reroll.
Same here. I dont care if I have to start over with my main and all my alts. I just want to go home!
Anything less is tantamount to standing by and watching.
What I find interesting is that article actually generated a formal response. I'm sure NCSoft and it's new western subsidiary would rather be done with Paragon and CoH for 2013 but I think we are seeing, at least from the western group, concern that our noise may dampen B&S's big NA rollout, which would look bad for the western group.
Blade and Soul:
Grab them today, before they disappear tomorrow!
We promise not to shut this one down unless it's failing.* For real this time.
*We reserve the right to alter our definition of "failing" at any time.
Damn, you guys are brutal! That's a compliment by the way. :D
But seriously - I think the slogans that focus a little more on the "MMOKiller" angle rather than the "boobies" angle might work better, particularly around launch.
Even I initially was thinking that as a gamer I wouldn't want to be known to my peers as playing that game if there's a particular stigma attached to it of being a perv. But then I stopped to think about it recently and realized that perspective really only works from the standpoint of someone with a more responsible attitude. An adult who might actually have something to lose in a case like that.
Negative publicity about the game being softcore porn may actually work in it's FAVOR in terms of sales. PARTICULARLY to it's target demographic - males around the age of 13 up to about 25. Nothing screams "Must HAVE" to a young adult male like the dual draws of, well, softcore porn and violence. Plus the idea of something being verboten or guaranteed to piss off the parents/older set. Let's face it - how many STUPID things did we all do JUST because someone told us NOT to at that age? (I certainly have some stories to tell. I spin them as comedy when I do, and laugh at my own stupidity, but I'm glad I'm not that person these days.)
I mean - look at Grand Theft Auto - did the supposed negative publicity about the violence and the "Coffee" bug/easter egg depress sales? Nope. Probably helped. And if an "M" rating made it a little harder to get, it also made that demographic more determined to get it.
Whereas, I think appealing to the "Evil Corporation is Evil" and the "Sword of Damocles" angles has more juice behind it. Point out that korean style grind-fests have never done well here. And that NCSoft even killed the western port of Lineage, even when it was doing well in Korea.
Therefore my favorites of the above slogans are so far:
Blade and Soul:
"Grab them today, before they disappear tomorrow!"
(because that one works BOTH angles superbly)
and
"We promise not to shut this one down unless it's failing.* For real this time."
*We reserve the right to alter our definition of "failing" at any time.
As Lily implied, who doesn't like "boobies?"
I see myself more of a leg person.Sez the frog... /rimshot ;)
I see myself more of a leg person.I can't choose, it's the entire figure for me. :p
He is also VERY famous in internet marketing circles. In fact, he is, literally, the first person to ever call himself an "internet marketing specialist."
I'd like to add my voice to the chorus who is warning that the softcore angle would hurt us. This isn't a new chorus. People were concerned about this over on the official forums.
I'd also like to remind ya'll that just a couple of months before the closure notice, yet another big mega thread appeared on the official forums, taking Paragon Studios to task for "indecently" basing many of their costume designs on comic book super heroes, which they described as near-pornographic and demeaning. The female costumes, that is. I don't recall any of the ladies asking for men to be given more clothes or looser-fitting clothes in the comics. ;)
The thing is, members of THESE forums were there, calling those outfits indecent and requesting that Paragon Studios stop basing costumes in City of Heroes on popular comic book themes. Yes, I know, it's like asking your local steakhouse to stop serving meat, but this is the Internet. The argument you're thinking the last paragraph is likely to ignite is proof alone that this doesn't need to be our angle in the pursuit to wrestle City of Heroes out of NCSoft's grip. Divided we fall, and all of that.
Like many others I'm front and center to defend the comic book traditions, and to defend City of Heroes for breathing digital life into them; but I also acknowledge that some of those traditions have dark spots. That makes me, and anyone on my side of the argument, look like a hypocrite if we make a big deal about Blade & Soul's big boobs. In reality, of course, it's a comparison of degrees within which B&S is a far worse offender. But common sense will tell you that's not a water-tight argument. As an aside, Saints Row: the Third, featuring sex toys as weapons, is the most-owned game out of everyone on my Steam friends list--most of which include active members of this community.
Our own community is divided on this. That will become IMMENSELY APPARENT if we go after Blade & Soul for its naughtiness. We also risk looking like prudes. And most importantly, as supporters of an open and free Internet, I know some of you have gone to bat alongside companies like Google and organizations like the EFF. When you did that, you weren't supporting just the things you liked and found tasteful.
B&S represents only a symptom. The real problem, NCSoft, casts a much larger shadow.
Yep. This is what I do for a living, too (you didn't think any of the damn music projects made any money, did you?)...and his is a very well known name indeed. Household name if you work in this field...
Damn, you guys are brutal! That's a compliment by the way. :D
But seriously - I think the slogans that focus a little more on the "MMOKiller" angle rather than the "boobies" angle might work better, particularly around launch.
Blade and Soul:
"Grab them today, before they disappear tomorrow!"
(because that one works BOTH angles superbly)
and
"We promise not to shut this one down unless it's failing.* For real this time."
*We reserve the right to alter our definition of "failing" at any time.
I concur - mocking the sexual appeal {or revulsion, depending on how you see the design} would make sense if NCsoft tried to conceal it, rather than, well, basing the entire advertising campaign around it. So yes, focusing on the #mmokiller aspect would probably be best.
Another possible tagline, cribbing a bit from others:
"Don't miss out on Blade and Soul, the latest chapter in the epic 'MMO Killer' saga. Available for a limited time only."
Is there an opportunity for us with the Blade & Soul launch? I propose dive bombing every article about the launch. I'm not calling for animosity, just impassioned pleas for CoH back on NCsoft's front door with the B&S launch.No save coh should be involved, because that's out of context -- but consumer awareness isn't. The general themes should be "why reward a publisher with a bad history of yanking games with your money?" and "Can you have that much confidence in the longevity of the game?"
I don't know if anyone else has pointed this out, but there is one thing that NCSOFT isn't lying about: "The studio was unprofitable before the shutdown."
Let me explain this bit of truth twisting rhetoric - They are quite correct, COH did not earn them any profit for 3 months before the shutdown. It's twisted logic, but the "shutdown" didn't happen when they announced it on August 31st, it happened when the servers were shut off November 30th. Not only were they not collecting subscription fees from us, they were refunding some of us, and had to pay out severance to the laid off Paragon Studio employees, while still pay rent for the building that housed them, etc.
That's hardly COH, or Paragon Studios' fault, and certainly isn't ours. NCSOFT is just desperately trying to disarm us with half truths and lies.
Late to the party here:
Wait, what?!!! Someone, somewhere FINALLY GOT A RESPONSE out of NCSoftheaded?!!! Its a miracle!! Too bad the response was more lies and obfuscation, but still. That's an epic feat.
For that matter, I wonder how much of that statement was dictated by NCsoft's own execs? He's a chief of communications, this is a ridiculously noobish mistake to make - what are the odds he was simply told, "we don't care, this is what you're going to say and that's final."I'd say odd are high based on what we know about how NCsoft management operates in general and some of the actions we've observed in the past.
Indeed. Hell, I'm half-tempted to send Davis a thank-you note - he came out charging straight into the field of bear traps, between contradicting NCsoft's own financial reports, and contradicting himself. Oh, sure, the "it was unprofitable before the shutdown" line can be twisted into truthiness, but this is a PR battle, not a legal one. I can only hope he actually comes out saying "it was technically not a falsehood", but that might be a bit much to hope for.
For that matter, I wonder how much of that statement was dictated by NCsoft's own execs? He's a chief of communications, this is a ridiculously noobish mistake to make - what are the odds he was simply told, "we don't care, this is what you're going to say and that's final."
Slightly off topic but I can't stop laughing over the absurdity of how it looks. I present the Xmas costumes in Blade & Soul (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VIMksq65TiA). Note the sashaying down hill may not be safe for work. Also the guy's expression at around 2:35 with the big fluffy feather like coat just screams "sure honey of course I love this".
Slightly off topic but I can't stop laughing over the absurdity of how it looks. I present the Xmas costumes in Blade & Soul (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VIMksq65TiA). Note the sashaying down hill may not be safe for work. Also the guy's expression at around 2:35 with the big fluffy feather like coat just screams "sure honey of course I love this".OK, so, like, I really really like the concept of the little mouse-raccoon kids, and think they look adorable. I also think the white-haired dude at the end looks kind of bad-ass. If the game just had the little mouse-raccoon kids, I would totally play it. I am a sucker for adorable. Too bad the other two chicks look like hookers and the big dude looks like bad drag.
Whatever criticisms people might have of our public disapproval of B&S, I can't think of any game outside of NCSoft's stable of games that utilizes that level of "jiggle physics."
But seriously - I think the slogans that focus a little more on the "MMOKiller" angle rather than the "boobies" angle might work better, particularly around launch.
I can also see more MMOs being developed in Asia, Eastern Europe and Russia due to developer costs, as a way around the costs.
Slightly off topic but I can't stop laughing over the absurdity of how it looks. I present the Xmas costumes in Blade & Soul (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VIMksq65TiA). Note the sashaying down hill may not be safe for work. Also the guy's expression at around 2:35 with the big fluffy feather like coat just screams "sure honey of course I love this".
No save coh should be involved, because that's out of context -- but consumer awareness isn't. The general themes should be "why reward a publisher with a bad history of yanking games with your money?" and "Can you have that much confidence in the longevity of the game?"
I agree. It is not Xenophobia on OUR part, but THEIRS that is the issue. We the players and community never even considered whether the nationality of NCSoft was an issue before the announcement of the shutdown. For days and weeks even after that it never came up. It finally came up when all attempts at communication were rebuffed and we were trying to figure out ANY reason for that or any of their other decisions.
Slightly off topic but I can't stop laughing over the absurdity of how it looks. I present the Xmas costumes in Blade & Soul (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VIMksq65TiA). Note the sashaying down hill may not be safe for work. Also the guy's expression at around 2:35 with the big fluffy feather like coat just screams "sure honey of course I love this".
The women and floppy boobs in that game is all incredibly disturbing.
Slightly off topic but I can't stop laughing over the absurdity of how it looks. I present the Xmas costumes in Blade & Soul (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VIMksq65TiA). Note the sashaying down hill may not be safe for work. Also the guy's expression at around 2:35 with the big fluffy feather like coat just screams "sure honey of course I love this".
Slightly off topic but I can't stop laughing over the absurdity of how it looks. I present the Xmas costumes in Blade & Soul (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VIMksq65TiA). Note the sashaying down hill may not be safe for work. Also the guy's expression at around 2:35 with the big fluffy feather like coat just screams "sure honey of course I love this".
What do you think is the significance of goose-stepping while wearing bunny-ears?
Slightly off topic but I can't stop laughing over the absurdity of how it looks. I present the Xmas costumes in Blade & Soul (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VIMksq65TiA). Note the sashaying down hill may not be safe for work. Also the guy's expression at around 2:35 with the big fluffy feather like coat just screams "sure honey of course I love this".
My. Goodness. That is.... awful.
Don't get me wrong, as a full blooded 'merican pig bastidge, I likes the jiggle physics to a certain extent, but... wow, that's just cartoony. And the proportions of everything... Ugly. Just... messed up. Like CO is.. hands, hips, head size... hurts to look at.
Why is that, anyway, that they can't get proportions of character bits semi-decently right? Seems like CoH and STO got it right, but B&S and CO can't get hands done right...
Anyway. Ridiculous. Reminds of '/r/iam14andthisisfunny' type programming. Immature, that's it.
Whew. Thank goodness. I thought I was being an anatomy snob because of the hands in CO. Looks like I'm not the only one that is disturbed by that. Really been trying to get use to it.
Whew. Thank goodness. I thought I was being an anatomy snob because of the hands in CO. Looks like I'm not the only one that is disturbed by that. Really been trying to get use to it.
Slightly off topic but I can't stop laughing over the absurdity of how it looks. I present the Xmas costumes in Blade & Soul (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VIMksq65TiA). Note the sashaying down hill may not be safe for work. Also the guy's expression at around 2:35 with the big fluffy feather like coat just screams "sure honey of course I love this".
I know nothing says Xmas to me like stripper stars on your bewbs and butt, and big chickenskin pimpcoats.
*wonders what Xmas is like in the VV homestead*
;D
*wonders what Xmas is like in the VV homestead*I'm sure it's nothing like my family Christmas.
Whew. Thank goodness. I thought I was being an anatomy snob because of the hands in CO. Looks like I'm not the only one that is disturbed by that. Really been trying to get use to it.
Whew. Thank goodness. I thought I was being an anatomy snob because of the hands in CO. Looks like I'm not the only one that is disturbed by that. Really been trying to get use to it.It's definitely not just you. CO's base figures are grotesquely misproportioned. I ended up saving off the default model after about an hour of tweaking to fix it. I then would load that as the basis for new character designs.
My. Goodness. That is.... awful.As noted, CoH's hands were problematic as well, especially if you made a slender male character, but overall CoH had fairly decent character anatomy and proportions. (Although legs were somewhat excessively long and the digitigrade versions had a host of proportion and animation issues, but then they would have required separate animations to make digitigrade legs look correct and that would have basically doubled the animation work, so it worked well enough as is...) ;)
Don't get me wrong, as a full blooded 'merican pig bastidge, I likes the jiggle physics to a certain extent, but... wow, that's just cartoony. And the proportions of everything... Ugly. Just... messed up. Like CO is.. hands, hips, head size... hurts to look at.
Why is that, anyway, that they can't get proportions of character bits semi-decently right? Seems like CoH and STO got it right, but B&S and CO can't get hands done right...
Anyway. Ridiculous. Reminds of '/r/iam14andthisisfunny' type programming. Immature, that's it.
I think there is a way to resize them in CO to fit better
Yes, close the window.
I know nothing says Xmas to me like stripper stars on your bewbs and butt, and big chickenskin pimpcoats.You forgot to include liquid latex in your description.
Because NCsoft wants to celebrate Easter with Nazi imagery.That style of marching (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goose_step) isn't just for Nazis.
Slightly off topic but I can't stop laughing over the absurdity of how it looks. I present the Xmas costumes in Blade & Soul (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VIMksq65TiA). Note the sashaying down hill may not be safe for work. Also the guy's expression at around 2:35 with the big fluffy feather like coat just screams "sure honey of course I love this".
However, the B&S character hips are undergoing cyclic rotation - imagine looking at one of her hips, top down (without the other extraneous bits in the way), and subtract her forward motion. You will notice that her hip is describing a smooth, constant-speed circle (well, probably an ellipse, but it's close).
I think the thing that bothers me about that video is the female walking animation. It took me a while to spot it, but when I did it jumped out at me, screaming: the hips move smoothly (and I don't think they're in time with the legs, but I'm not going to watch it again, just to check).
If you watch a catwalk model, or a real woman vamping it up, the hip "snaps" out on the step forward. When the walk is at a steady pace, it can look awesome. However, the B&S character hips are undergoing cyclic rotation - imagine looking at one of her hips, top down (without the other extraneous bits in the way), and subtract her forward motion. You will notice that her hip is describing a smooth, constant-speed circle (well, probably an ellipse, but it's close).
Women do not walk like that. I contend that they can't. The top-down hip movement should be like two people playing catch: hold, hold, THROW, hold, hold, THROW.
Every time I see the animations I think of the martian girl from Mars Attacks.
lmao.
Sup GG? How things been going?
I've been writing/voting for the various #SaveCoH ideas and working on building a new home for the community - just the usual stuff ;)
Re: Blade and Soul holiday costumes...that second woman...her head is about as big as one of her breasts.....eeeeeewwwwwwww (running away screaming).
On the topic of Blade and Soul... i just saw a video on female character customization and one thing popped on my mind, much more than the skimpy clothes:
The fact that they made sure boobies jiggle and wiggle but hair is stiff as plastic. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc_bW_aOL-0&feature=player_detailpage#t=117s)
On the topic of Blade and Soul... i just saw a video on female character customization and one thing popped on my mind, much more than the skimpy clothes:
The fact that they made sure boobies jiggle and wiggle but hair is stiff as plastic. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc_bW_aOL-0&feature=player_detailpage#t=117s)
But does she giggle constantly, even while being shot by Malta gunslingers?
On the topic of Blade and Soul... i just saw a video on female character customization and one thing popped on my mind, much more than the skimpy clothes:Actually that's just realistically functional.
The fact that they made sure boobies jiggle and wiggle but hair is stiff as plastic. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc_bW_aOL-0&feature=player_detailpage#t=117s)
Lots of hair product. Then again the video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmyDhiWpFFI) I remember seeing about character creation did have the hair move, at least the longer hair styles and pony tails.
It's called sarcasm guys.
Slightly off topic but I can't stop laughing over the absurdity of how it looks. I present the Xmas costumes in Blade & Soul (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VIMksq65TiA). Note the sashaying down hill may not be safe for work. Also the guy's expression at around 2:35 with the big fluffy feather like coat just screams "sure honey of course I love this".
So it's the "jiggle" that is the problem?
In the MMO world, I dont recall any with that much "jiggle", but then again I dont think I played or seen 30% of MMO games. Outside the MMO world as in games in a general sense, Dead or Alive series have jiggle, and Soul Caliber and the outrage at that type of animation seemed to be as old as those games and even prior with Tomb Raider and the size of Lara's chest and probably prior to that.
You know, I really don't mind a bit of fan service in games. And I'm usually the one who defends sexuality in games.
But the women, they just don't look like women. Seriously, when I watch that video, I can't help but think they looks like aliens that were meant to kinda sorta look like women, but that come more like... I dunno, like mannequins with grossly exaggerated features.
The difference between those games and Blade & Soul is that although those games exaggerated features, sometimes even skirting the edge of unrealism (in proportion; functionally in terms of what they were doing in their respective games, the characters were almost all completely unrealistic), at least the characters in them were still recognizably human.
Her name is Valeria Lukyanova and... well she is a strange one. (http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Valeria+Lukyanova&FORM=HDRSC2) I'm guessing the art team in B&S are fans. 8)
I've seen pictures of her before. To each their own, but I find the way she looks extremely creepy and physically unattractive.
I don't know if they were shooting for "she's got a sexy sweat thing going on" or "she's oiled up to high heaven," but it comes off more like "she's made of some kind of canned ham substance with that nasty slimy sheen on it."
Then again, games tend to be marketed towards raging hormone teenagers. I think the crowd of this game is an anomaly for the MMO world for usually stated average age. Although, still there was plenty of skimpy dressed out of proportion breast and body toons running around.
I would agree but a break down in demographics early in B&S life showed over 50% of the subscriptions were to those 30 and older. Gender breakdown was 69% male 31% female (all subscriptions not the ones over 30).
I see. So raging hormone middle aged people?Midlife crisis, engage!
The second girl in that video actually looked realistic to me... in the same way this girl in the photo bellow is NOT fake (no sarcasm, she is real and actually looks like the second girl in the video.)
Her name is Valeria Lukyanova and... well she is a strange one. (http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Valeria+Lukyanova&FORM=HDRSC2) I'm guessing the art team in B&S are fans. 8)
A lot of those photos are heavily photoshopped. She doesn't actually look like that. If you look at the eyes, they are all different sizes, and it isn't just makeup. The proportions of other parts of her face change, too. So yeah, technically that isn't "real"either.
I seen videos of the girl, she IS freaky. The eye thing is indeed a lot of makeup. She has at least one video in youtube defending herself not over photoshop claims, but about plastic surgery claims (I still think there is plastic surgery involved, though.)
Her name is Valeria Lukyanova and... well she is a strange one. (http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Valeria+Lukyanova&FORM=HDRSC2) I'm guessing the art team in B&S are fans. 8)
Personally, I think NCSoft would do well to cross market the game with Jergen's and Kleenex.
Back to an earlier point, I really think if COH/PS/Whatever wasn't profitable they would have "trimmed the fat" first rather than close down the whole studio. And, as far as what the fans are "accustomed" to... well, we are unaccustomed to not being able to play the game. Therefore, any host would be better than none, I would think.
Oh, and Hi... post #1.
Pfft, you linked with Bing, must use IE too. *shakes head...*
You know, I really don't mind a bit of fan service in games. And I'm usually the one who defends sexuality in games.Your reaction is in line with uncanny valley hypothesis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley)
But the women, they just don't look like women. Seriously, when I watch that video, I can't help but think they looks like aliens that were meant to kinda sorta look like women, but that come more like... I dunno, like mannequins with grossly exaggerated features. Kind of like how, have you ever seen those little ancient stone carvings of fertility goddesses? When you did, did you think, "Oh, those...things...are supposed to be the boobs I guess"? Did you think, "Wow, she's sexy!" I know I didn't, because when I look at them, they're so fakely out of proportion that I don't get aroused or anything, it's more like, "Ah, it's some abstract artistic representation meant to grossly exaggerate some particular features without striving for accurate representation."
It's the same when I look at that video. The clothes don't move right, it's like they're painted on. And not in a good way, like body paint, but like even stuff that is supposed to be a little loose is glued on. The hips don't move right. There are graphics clipping issues. The way the back stays arched frankly looks painful. Even the "jiggle physics" that supposedly they worked hard on doesn't really look normal; it's more like a couple of water bags are strapped onto the front of her chest, not actual human breasts, even exaggerated in size. The faces are all expressionless, neither happy nor sad nor determined nor angry nor, well, anything, which is a creepy. And the skin, oh god, the skin. I don't know if they were shooting for "she's got a sexy sweat thing going on" or "she's oiled up to high heaven," but it comes off more like "she's made of some kind of canned ham substance with that nasty slimy sheen on it."
Like I said, I don't mind a bit of fan service. (I'm looking at you, Swan.) I used to be an avid fan of The Man Show. (During Adam's and Jimmy's years; when they left, the show REALLY sucked.) But this game is disgusting. Not in a pornographic kind of way, but in just an artistically messed up kind of way. I'm sorry, but when I watch videos of it, I don't think, "Ooh! Strippers!" I've been to strip clubs, and that ain't a strip club.
I guess what I'm saying is that I agree that portraying the game as pornographic is probably the wrong angle. I don't know how to say this tactfully, but saying that would be an insult to pornography.
The difference between those games and Blade & Soul is that although those games exaggerated features, sometimes even skirting the edge of unrealism (in proportion; functionally in terms of what they were doing in their respective games, the characters were almost all completely unrealistic), at least the characters in them were still recognizably human.
Don't hate the GAME hate the Playa!!When you literally cannot make a lady in the dark-skinned and light-skinned races that doesn't look like a hooker, there is no way to blame the "playa" on it. It's the game's fault.
When you literally cannot make a lady in the dark-skinned and light-skinned races that doesn't look like a hooker, there is no way to blame the "playa" on it. It's the game's fault.
The game isn't even out yet how do you know what you can and can't literally do?The game IS out, it's out in Korea (hooker version) and China (in a toned-down version that doesn't look like it will make it over here, instead we'll get the Korean hooker version). There is tons of footage from the game.
The game IS out, it's out in Korea (hooker version) and China (in a toned-down version that doesn't look like it will make it over here, instead we'll get the Korean hooker version). There is tons of footage from the game.
The game IS out, it's out in Korea (hooker version) and China (in a toned-down version that doesn't look like it will make it over here, instead we'll get the Korean hooker version). There is tons of footage from the game.
The problem with the breast physics in that game is that it's just wrong. In the videos I've seen they move more like water balloons than actual anatomy.
The biggest issue I have with the female models in B&S is ironically the same one I have with the ones in Champions Online -- the posture. The default (and I have to assume 'only') standing pose for all but the little kid race is with the back curved more than is normally possible and the butt sticking way out. It just looks painful and unnatural.
That and what was mentioned earlier about the lazy modeling of the clothes -- things like large metal buckles warping and twisting as you move because of the way they're bound to the bones.
Which is too bad, because the background scenery I've seen looks absolutely gorgeous, but the character animations (both male and female) are... meh. Not good.
Why are you fixated on the size of the breasts? I never mentioned the size of the tits. I honestly don't care how big the tits are in the game. Hell, City could make them go bigger! The problem I have is, they are the only thing with movement physics on them - and the movement physics are WRONG (boobs don't move like that! I know - I own a pair!). And the ladies walk/run like exaggerated catwalk models. Also, their legs take up more than half their body height and you CANNOT fix that with the customization options. Also, their waist/chest doesn't have enough room to contain their innards, and their hips/butt are big enough to contain two to three hips/butts.
Watch models on catwalks. That posture is "standard" at a runway show and quite unrealistic IMO. But they all do it, shoulders back, chest out, back arched one foot in front of the other so the hips sway.
Mazz does have a point, without actually playing with the character creator ourselves and see if a more conservatively proportioned women is possible, all we have to go on are player and designer's creations.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtrfXssQFR8
There aren't sliders, you choose between a bunch of pregenerated ladies, with varying height/thickness/skin tone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtrfXssQFR8
You cannot overcome the designer's creations. There aren't sliders, you choose between a bunch of pregenerated ladies, with varying height/thickness/skin tone. Some of the ladies have the 'spam glisten' skin and some of them don't. All of them have inconceivable badonkadonk and legs that don't quit (at the expense of their chest/innards). All of them have water balloons (Codewalker :-X ) glued to their chest.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtrfXssQFR8
You cannot overcome the designer's creations. There aren't sliders, you choose between a bunch of pregenerated ladies, with varying height/thickness/skin tone. Some of the ladies have the 'spam glisten' skin and some of them don't. All of them have inconceivable badonkadonk and legs that don't quit (at the expense of their chest/innards). All of them have water balloons (Codewalker :-X ) glued to their chest.
Your reaction is in line with uncanny valley hypothesis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley)
The problem with the breast physics in that game is that it's just wrong. In the videos I've seen they move more like water balloons than actual anatomy.
As i have stated already we can agree to disagree thanks for your opinion and lets just get COH back so we can all be happy and get rid of the HATE!
Once again why do you care how the breast move??
Great for your wife if she is on the bigger side when it comes to breast but one would have to analyze her athleticism to determine why her breast moves the way they do.
Rosie O'Donnels and Beyonce's breast will not move the same way while jumping rope.
It's not that big of a deal IMO have you ever played Dead or Alive, or the Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball both have similiar "physics" to B&S and both were fun if you looked past the obvious sexualized female movement.
As i have stated already we can agree to disagree thanks for your opinion and lets just get COH back so we can all be happy and get rid of the HATE!
I think it goes a long way to show how unremarkable B&S is if that's all we can find worth talking about in it.
Very similar reason why I care about some one using their phone in the movie theather. Large breasts can be ignored, breasts that jump and bounce and move more than the players attacks... not so much.
Not to mention, playing this in a house where a kid may walk by and see what's woobling on screen... I don't think so.
But again, if YOU dont mind, great, you can enjoy the game. I hope you understand I don't have to forgive the game myself.
Human breasts are mostly fatty tissue, unless they are extremely small. No matter how athletic the woman, breasts wont become muscle bound unless they were naturally very lean on fat (or had a reduction surgery.) At such cases, they move even less.
They would move even more, although it would not be exactly something I'd like to ever see.
I would question the fun factor of the dead or alive series. It also oversexualizes everything, and it has a very shallow combat system (although I sort of enjoyed the, at the time origina, environment switch via destruction of walls.) I already noted, though, that at least Dead or Alive did not just make boobies wiggle. They added physics to everything. Hair, cloth, weapons, everything.
Oh, and also: they never hid their intentions in DoA, nor did they ever complain about the fact that every game in the series has been rated M.
If I can turn off the breast wiggling, and block all body oil shine (on all characters, not just mine,) MAYBE the game would have some redemption (well to be fair, the proportions of characters still make them look like aliens so nah still no visual appeal.)
There is no hate here. Only people expressing their opinion and a lot of jokes being shared. You do sound like you are hating the fact that others don't like the game's over sexualization, though.
I disagree. I'm famliar with the "Uncanny Valley" phenomenon, but that's not what's at play here. The point is that they've taken strides to make the characters not look human. The Uncanny Valley kicks in when games or other creators are trying to make their work looks as if they are human. I get exaggeration. City of Heroes took artistic license in exaggerating features. But Blade & Soul pushes past exaggeration into grotesque, and I honestly think that they'll pay the price in lousy sales and horrid retention as a result.That's the point - it's an approximation of a human that you find grotesque. It's worthless to argue about intent on the designers' part -- it vaguely resembles a human and you're naturally rejecting it because of the disproportionate nature and the way it moves.
What bothers me is that it's mostly the COH community who are bashing this game.
Also if a woman is athletic her breasts are firmer than one who isn't therefore they will move differently as you mentioned fat moves a certain way.
I think it goes a long way to show how unremarkable B&S is if that's all we can find worth talking about in it.
See - that's why I think B&S will fail. It WILL see initial sales. It'll look VERY good financially.
Saggy boobs kinda flop around where firmer ones don't, I really shouldn't have to explain this, you can google it if you're curious
People are discussing the breasts in Bits and Tits because more than anything, what strikes the eye is the incredibly unrealistic way they behave.
yeah. There seems to be alot of emphasis on the breasts. I'm not sure what is more creepy. The breasts in the game or the amount of focus that people that say they dont like them are giving them.
Oh and sagginess has nothing to do with athletics. It's mostly the result of years of wearing bad or no bras (and eventually age will catch up regardless.)
QFT
See - that's why I think B&S will fail. It WILL see initial sales. It'll look VERY good financially.
For about 3 months.
Then everyone in the game will reach the end and look around and go "That's it? All I'm left to do is walk around in my Frederick's of Hollywood catalog? Boooooring..."
And they'll drop it and move on to the next shiny.
If there is NO story after the initial levels and the ONLY thing you do between the middle levels and the top end is grind gear for endless PVP and THAT is your endgame? Nope.
That's what I've meant in the past when I mentioned how B&S will fail just like every other Eastern grinder. With some exceptions, that's just not our style of game here in the West. It's the main reason (though not the only one) why Aion failed. It's why RF Online Failed. Same deal.
It'll stay a niche product. It'll have a very rabid minor following. But in the end, it'll go the same way as the others.
It won't be the "jiggle-boobs" that kills it. But the very nature of the game itself. All the shiny in the world can't hide lack of content forever.
Some day it'll be remembered as "The Jiggle Boob MMO... what was it's name again?"
People are discussing the breasts in Bits and Tits because more than anything, what strikes the eye is the incredibly unrealistic way they behave. Not the gameplay. Not the visual game "world." Not what you'll do while you're shanks-mareing around in the game world. None of that.For me the image I can't get out of my mind is the hapless corporate puke who had to stand up in front of management and argue that there isn't enough anime softcore on the internet and therefore this is an untapped gold-mine.
Well that's all well and good but when push comes to shove, what would they do if the game gets an M rating and then would prefer a T? Yes you will end up with Diehard 4, watered down to achieve a wider possible audience.
Well we are prudish older Americans here, mostly. We have limited problems with violence in our media but a flash of side boob will launch 100,000 form letters to the FCC. ;)
Won't anyone just think of the children? :roll:
I'm not a moderator, but could we move the B&S discussion to another thread?
Yippie-ki-yay, gosh darnit!
No, you are not. Those hands in CO frighten me. I'm not sure who their artist is but...I will be charitable and say that I do not care for his style.
Don't look at me, I believe I tried to. I hadn't mentioned boob physics at all.
Darn it.
I am inclined to agree with the notion that NCSoft started looking - without telling the Paragon people - for reasons to close and never allow anybody to re-open the property of Paragon Studios after Paragon's leadership started trying to get together funds to buy themselves from NCSoft. It was very, very uppity of those peons to dare to try to resolve the problems between management and Paragon in such a selfish manner. It makes NCSoft look bad, and how dare they, after all NCSoft had done for them?
I am not villifying NCSoft here. I think this is a case of Paragon failing to realize Korean culture and kibun. NCSoft was offended by this open declaration of dissatisfaction and open show of disrespect. And, according to kibun, the Paragon people should have realized this and made ammends. But they kept making demands! They dared come up with a compromise in place of making CoH2, rather than simply accepting NCSoft's dictates as their social superior.
Paragon had to go. And nothing they worked on could be allowed to go to anybody else, because that would reward their disloyalty.
Sadly, it seems very possible given what we know, though I really hope I can be proven wrong. If NCSoft wants to be taken seriously in the international marketplace, then they can't expect their non-Korean studios to respect them without respect in return. Such a lack of respect or interest likely led to Paragon wanting to leave in the first place.I don't doubt it.
Is there any reliable citation or reliable documentation about that 80 million offer? Or just the rumor of it?
...and then leave to form a new company with it?
Yippee-ki-yay Mister Falcon
Like I previously stated. NetDevil tried to buy the Auto Assault IP back from NCsoft and it was shot down. AA by all accounts was a failed MMO that never achieved the critical mass needed to survive much past it's first year.
By the way, I don't deny that Auto Assault was unprofitable. I think that one of the game's designer's came right out and said it. But one thing that is lost when that tidbit is thrown out is that it was by NCsoft's own doing. Auto Assault was, believe it or not, considered pretty spiffy for its time in that I don't think there had ever been a vehicle-based MMO until then, and it used some interesting technology in realizing it.
The marketing that NCsoft provided for City of Heroes was absolutely lavish compared to what poor Auto Assault got. Do you remember seeing any ads for Auto Assault?
And yeah, City of Heroes at one point had serious layoffs to the point of the development team being ridiculously small--15 people. To be honest, I'm surprised that the game didn't die then. But for the unbelievable efforts of those 15 people, it probably would have.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but It's my understanding the 15 people point was during the last few months of Cryptic ownership. NCSoft had no control of Cryptic staffing or the staff allocation, and precisely the lack of resources was one of the strong reasons for NCSoft to believe there was a severe conflict of interests going on with the simultaneous development of another super hero MMO.
I don't think Cryptic would have ever canceled the game, but they would have likely kept it running on an even smaller team in the long run (had they ever have a choice to keep the title for themselves, I think NCSoft's proposition was "you[cryptic] sell it[coh] to us[ncsoft] or we jointly cancel it, you ain't buying it for yourself.")
When Cryptic's Marvel MMO fell through, Cryptic approached NCSoft about the idea of turning what they were working on into CoH2
WAIT... First... this is the first I hear about this bit... second: Didn't the Marvel MMO fell through AFTER NCSoft had split ways with Cryptics by aquiring the full of the game?
OK I digged a bit here and got these dates:
Nov 7, 2007: NCSoft Buys City of Heroes
Feb 11, 2008: Marvel Universe Online officially canceled
Mind you, these are announcement dates, with just 4 months in between... but I would imagine Marvel would be very fast on telling the world the deal was off. For the purchase to be due to MUO cancelation, the thing would have been officially off mid-October, 2007 at minimum (giving minimum of 2-3 weeks negotiations for all you said happened above)
No, this part I'm relatively certain of.
Microsoft was the publisher; Marvel was just the licensor to Microsoft.
Microsoft is the one that hired Cryptic and then scuttled the project. This was known well before Marvel's announcement.
Yes CoH current sales were small potatoes compared to their bread and butter but the notion that a group of employees, employees who to you are bereft of marketable ideas, want to buy your property and leave to form a company that competes with you with it is ludicrous, presumptuous and downright disloyal. Who in their right mind thought they would go for such a plan?It's just business?
From the article, a quote from NCSoft:
What a load of bull.... so they saying they did find interested parties to aquire the game, but none they considered "suitable" enough to make the fans good, so... NCSoft found it was more humane to euthanize the game than let it live in the hands of some one they thought was not worthy????? W... T... F????
And here is a notion of coming up with a price for the game. In it's last reported 4 quarters, CoH was 2.3% of NCsoft's game revenue. So let the price be 2.3% of the company's market cap. June 30th that would have been roughly $120 million dollars, $67 million at it's current market cap.Or we could do what they value it at in their books for taxes, which is $3 million.
What? Too high? Come on, it's a straight split. Okay lets just do book value. That comes out at roughly $18-20 million.
And here is a notion of coming up with a price for the game. In it's last reported 4 quarters, CoH was 2.3% of NCsoft's game revenue. So let the price be 2.3% of the company's market cap. June 30th that would have been roughly $120 million dollars, $67 million at it's current market cap.You've made a pretty good argument here that NCSoft's market cap is grossly inflated. Either that or CoH was overperforming relative to other NCSoft products and its share market value.
What? Too high? Come on, it's a straight split. Okay lets just do book value. That comes out at roughly $18-20 million.
My 2 cents: If Atari was smart, they make Cryptic develop a new zone in Champions called Atlas Park to show they recognize an enormous displaced core of gamers who want someplace to call their "new home". Not that we'd all go there, but it's obvious to me there's a definite market here that's NOT being filled. And no one's demonstrating they even want to try and fill it.
I don't think CoH can be lobbed in with NCSoft's other games, which I'm sure is what NC/Nexon were doing at the time. Because...
CoX had something none of their other games had or have - a solid core of players. That's not something you can sell or forecast, It's created by 1) being a kickbutt game and 2) being around a long time. If they shut down, say Aion or GW2, I don't think those players would organize or bring the game to Disney or produce their own successor.
/facepalm
Maybe in the US their main games didn't have a following but in Asia those games combined bring in more money last quarter than CoH did in the last 4 years.
Oh yeah, business. Makes perfect sense to do that.
Wouldn't that be "perfect non-sense"? :PIf you read these fora there's no shortage of people who will say "It's just business" no matter how absurd the situation.
Maybe in the US their main games didn't have a following but in Asia those games combined bring in more money last quarter than CoH did in the last 4 years.
It does occur to me that NCSoft could claim CoH was not making any money with a perfectly straight face. And they wouldn't be lying.
It not only did not make money from August 31 to Nov 30, it lost money as they were issuing refunds.
I don't think that's the point being made. The point is, if any of those games were arbitrarily shut down much like CoH was, they wouldn't get anywhere near the level of response they got from CoH.That was my point. Sure other NC games have a larger profit margin and playerbase, but as far as I'm concerned the profit margin is an invalid arguement. A grinder game takes less manpower to create and manage and will always bring in more cash because of lower expenses. CoH had higher overhead, as does WoW. Doesn't mean Blizzard should shut it down too in favor of games with less overhead. Games like CoH and WoW will outlive games like GW2 because they have staying power. Staying power is a power given something by a solid core of users who will not stray and forgive all shortcomings. And *rolls eyes* please don't point out all the bugs in CoH, the point is you still kept logging in 'forgiving' it's shortcomings, you 'solid core' gamer you.
That was my point. Sure other NC games have a larger profit margin and playerbase, but as far as I'm concerned the profit margin is an invalid arguement. A grinder game takes less manpower to create and manage and will always bring in more cash because of lower expenses. CoH had higher overhead, as does WoW. Doesn't mean Blizzard should shut it down too in favor of games with less overhead. Games like CoH and WoW will outlive games like GW2 because they have staying power. Staying power is a power given something by a solid core of users who will not stray and forgive all shortcomings. And *rolls eyes* please don't point out all the bugs in CoH, the point is you still kept logging in 'forgiving' it's shortcomings, you 'solid core' gamer you.
NC just didn't know what it had. Pehaps it did but just doesn't care. The fact remains there's an enormous (now) un-exploited market here. I was being hypothetical about an Atlas Park in Champions btw. I just would've thought by now that someone would've seen all the moolah to be made by this community and at least try to tap this market, even their attempts failed.
As for Atari running Champion's - I don't play it and that's what I get for using wikipedia! :o
That's a false comparison. Blizzard isn't going to shutdown WoW because a grinder is cheaper simply because it brings in $1 BILLION is sales every quarter. Now if it was making only $11 million in sales a YEAR like CoH then the question needs to be asked if the costs justify the profits or would that money be better spent somewhere else.
And there isn't a "enormous un-exploited market". CoH had a monopoly on this market for 5 years and when it's first direct competitor in the genre came out, sales plummeted. That implies that the market was already at saturation, there is no more growth there. Then big NA MMO company Sony comes out with DCUO. So now there are three games directly targeting the same small market of players for this genre.
Yes we have a great core community. But that's not enough to support a game in the eyes of big corporate players. Sadly lots of gamers look for shinny and CoH simply wasn't. Between older, lower rez textures marring an otherwise pretty landscape to our mitten hands and limits due to a (likely) 10 year old simple animation rig our game just isn't sexy enough to pull in new players and no amount of advertising will fix that. It would require a CoV/GR level of investment in rebuilding all of the animations, all of the textures, all of the costume pieces with little or no new actual content (as in missions). And $11 million in annual sales isn't going to allow the kind of investment needed to do all that.
Sorry.
As a non native speaker myself, I can say that from time to time I get to meet a native speaker whose english is so terrible that it cures me of all insecurities I may have had for a good while.
As for pikabko, he appears to be incoherent and that's different from not having knowledge about grammar. I also remember him mentioning something about Reagan administration, making references to Supreme Court and other subtle stuff that is not so obvious for an outsider without intimate knowledge of american culture.
That's a false comparison. Blizzard isn't going to shutdown WoW because a grinder is cheaper simply because it brings in $1 BILLION is sales every quarter. Now if it was making only $11 million in sales a YEAR like CoH then the question needs to be asked if the costs justify the profits or would that money be better spent somewhere else.
And there isn't a "enormous un-exploited market". CoH had a monopoly on this market for 5 years and when it's first direct competitor in the genre came out, sales plummeted. That implies that the market was already at saturation, there is no more growth there. Then big NA MMO company Sony comes out with DCUO. So now there are three games directly targeting the same small market of players for this genre.
Yes we have a great core community. But that's not enough to support a game in the eyes of big corporate players. Sadly lots of gamers look for shinny and CoH simply wasn't. Between older, lower rez textures marring an otherwise pretty landscape to our mitten hands and limits due to a (likely) 10 year old simple animation rig our game just isn't sexy enough to pull in new players and no amount of advertising will fix that. It would require a CoV/GR level of investment in rebuilding all of the animations, all of the textures, all of the costume pieces with little or no new actual content (as in missions). And $11 million in annual sales isn't going to allow the kind of investment needed to do all that.
Sorry.
Edit: Sorry that's $1 BILLION a year, not a quarter for Activision/Blizzard.
I disagree. It's all very logical but of course we all know how much logic has come into play in all this.I assume by Oracle you mean me? I'm no oracle.
If it were possible, I would like to ask the Oracle to show me the world where NCSoft didn't utterly fail to promote City of Heroes in every market that it had access to. I live in a French speaking province that is rampant with gamers. The existence of the Vigilance server should have been touted far and wide around these parts, particularly when all servers became available to everyone, but the bottom line that comes across is that the great majority of people simply didn't know about us. That's all on NCSoft and I believe there was still a tremendous amount of possible growth, they simply left all the advertising to us and the game still did just fine.
Imagine what CoH would have done with genuine support from it's publisher.
As for lack of advertising in Europe or Canada. I can't answer that because I'm in the US. But what kind of advertising did you want to see? They advertised in magazines and when they went the way of the dodo they did what most MMOs do which is to put out press releases and offering interviews to the various MMO websites. They had a presence in comic book shops and with box editions on store shelves. Did you want TV because you weren't going to get it, not even when the game was earning $25 million a year, 5 years ago. They even did a GameStop exclusive when GR came out.
If you want to blame NCsoft I'll blame them for not pushing time cards into the few stores that still carried PC games because when you don't have a current box set you need to show that your game is still around. Sure the "Game" Card was a nice touch but it got lost among all the proxy currency cards for all the F2P MMOs.
Did you want newspaper ads? Billboards? A presence at every comic con or gaming con in NA? You have to take into the cost of the advertising versus the number of new players that advertising brought in. If it costs more than than you get from new players then it's not worth spending the money to start with. That's why they looked to "free" advertising on MMO news sites.
I would love to hear what advertising options that they didn't persue that you think would have tapped new customers. Speaking of you, what did you do to promote the game? Word of mouth is a very effective means to promote a product. Did you cajole your RW or online friends who weren't playing to try it?
You wanna go ahead and ask for my credentials? Sure. I wasn't in the original beta but I'm an old timer by all accounts. I could say with a straight face that I've possibly logged more hours into City of Heroes than anyone else on these boards.
It was the same here in germany. I was on the Games Convention, this was the time when Going Rogue was in developmenet but absolutly nothing was there to see from it, not even a poster or a flyer, no banner on the big gaming web sites just nothing. This wasn't much, the marketing was just not there and I never understand it.
No, I was referring to the Oracle of Greek myth. You have a lot of information but you're certainly no Oracle.
You wanna go ahead and ask for my credentials? Sure. I wasn't in the original beta but I'm an old timer by all accounts. I could say with a straight face that I've possibly logged more hours into City of Heroes than anyone else on these boards. I've half forgotten more about the game than most people ever learned. I spread the word about City of Heroes to every individual I met that could possibly have an interest. I got all my friends to try it and always provided a great experience for new comers to the game. I provided accurate information to people who needed [Help] across every server but Zukunft(sorry, I can't speak german). I never stopped playing, never unsubbed or moved to another game for a couple months. I played and helped people level until the very last day.
Maybe I wasn't going to get my TV ad but that doesn't mean it would have been a terrible idea. CoH wasn't given the presence in the media that lesser games have been given. No amount of you babbling logical facts is going to convince me that NCSoft couldn't afford a couple of tv spots a year.
The thing about City of Heroes is that it was niche game that had tremendous potential to reach outside it's borders. It's the kind of game that your little sister with no interest in comic books could sit down and thoroughly enjoy. It's the game you could introduce your wife to and she'd get hooked on it. There was an accessibility to City that you just don't find in other games. Put right up against every other MMO that's out there right now, simply as a means of communication, CoH was a deeply elegant tool. Marketed right, more than any other MMO I've seen, City of Heroes could have been a social media platform every bit the equal of Facebook. I'm not a marketing specialist but there is no way in hell that NCSoft did their due diligence on this. There was plenty of room to do more and stay within the budget.
No, I don't think you're a know-it-all, your posts have yet to leave me with the impression that you know everything. =oP
Kidding aside, I thank you for all the information you provide and I believe your viewpoint is necessary to keep us grounded but I believe down to my bones that NCSoft could have done lots more to promote the game and it's not good enough to say they didn't know how. You're a giant multinational corporation, you don't know how to do something, you hire somebody that does. They couldn't even employ a public relations person that was smart enough to tell them "You want to do what to City of Heroes? What are you stupid?" I have no doubt that City of Heroes could have easily been a household name in the hands of a more competent publisher.
In front of the Hobbit 2D showing across the country are ads for WoW and GW2.
Imagine what would have happened if in front of showings of Iron Man 1 there had been ads for CoH.
"It's too bad you have to move back in with your folks but here Davy, have a game that will suck up all your free time when you should be sending out resumes or working three part time jobs while waiting for someone to hire you. I'm sure there are full time jobs for 18th century literature majors who were on the six year plan." :roll:
Let's see, Iron Man came out in May of 2008. CoH still had around 70% of it's peak subscriber base. Hmmmmm.
The question becomes how much? How much to put together and show a theater quality trailer in front of a major motion picture. With over a billion in annual sales it would be chump change for WoW but ArenaNet probably poured the majority of their ad budget for the year into that stunt rather than trying TV spots for the holiday season. Also do we know if the ads ran just the opening weekend or are they still being shown? I know they weren't in front of the midnight showing I went to, but that was just the vanilla 2D showing.
Also WoW: Mists of Pandaria and GW2 are both "new" titles, less than four months old while CoH/V would be celebrating it's 4th anniversary with Issue 12 just around the corner. This would be before ultra mode so the graphics wouldn't be as pretty compared to other games at the time and on a 60 ft screen it might have looked downright bad with our relatively low poly models and limited high resolution textures and stilted (rooted) game play. Of course WoW:MoP went with a rendered trailer and GW2 only showed a sequence of quick flashes of game play that for the most part didn't fill the screen, going to a mosaic of the logo. And it was only 30 seconds long.
Also it's the holiday gift giving season. The point was to highlight these two games as possible gifts. No such reason in May, other than college graduation, in a poor job market.
"It's too bad you have to move back in with your folks but here Davy, have a game that will suck up all your free time when you should be sending out resumes or working three part time jobs while waiting for someone to hire you. I'm sure there are full time jobs for 18th century literature majors who were on the six year plan." :roll:
Honestly, the best chance to get your money's worth is while the game is still new and during the gift giving season.
What they need to get through their heads is that respect isn't demanded, it's earned. And they've done nothing to earn it. I don't think that's even a Korea vs the West issue, that's them somehow failing at basic human nature.
But then, I might have missed the one website that actually did have a CoH ad on it. It's possible.
The problem is that, across Japanese, Chinese, and Korean culture, respect -- at least overtly -- is an inherent part of your duty to your superiors. You may hate your boss's guts six ways from Sunday, but you are obligated to act as if you respect him completely in all your interactions with him; the same obligation exists in the military, where you show respect to the rank even if -- and especially if -- you have no respect for the person holding the rank. And a corrolary to that is deference to your superiors, regardless of whether you think they're correct.
So NCSoft management could have been expecting to be shown the respect due them concomitant to their superior position relative to Paragon Studios, without understanding that respect and deference don't work the same way in Western culture, and knee-jerked over what they perceived as insubordination. Which doesn't excuse their actions; a company that wants to be international and assumes that every other country's employees are going to automatically operate by your culture's precepts deserves to lose.
Spider-man 2 came out in 2004.
Batman Begins came out in 2005
Superman Returns came out in 2006.
X-Men: Last Stand came out in 2006
Spider-man 3 came out in 2007.
Hancock came out in 2008.
The Dark Knight came out in 2008.
Iron Man came out in 2008.
The Incredible Hulk came out in 2008.
There were plenty of opportunities to have had short ads for the game before a movie.
I peruse the web quite a bit when I'm not playing or working, and I never saw an ad on any website for CoH.
But then, I might have missed the one website that actually did have a CoH ad on it. It's possible.
Edit: So what ads for existing, not new or coming soon, MMOs have you seen recently perusing the web?
You are missing the point. How much would it have cost? Would they be able to recoup that cost in added sales?It's not psychological, every single book on the subject will even tell you that advertising ends being the single most profitable department you can spend your money in. At least that's what I've been told.
How much of an advertising budget does a game making only $35 down to $20 million a year in it's first five years have? How much of that is spent at E3 or PAX in those years? Or SDCC? Does NCsoft do what most game companies do and blow their advertising budget only on new games and expansions?
You don't spend money on advertising unless you are fairly sure you will end generating more income than you spent. And if you don't believe you will, you don't spend the money. Is that such a difficult concept to understand?
I keep circling around to this point, is it simply a psychological need as players to see the game we enjoy advertised? Do we need some kind of validation or confirmation that we didn't choose wrong when everyone else we know is playing WoW?
An ad would tell the world at large that we exist but ads aren't for us. They've gotten us. Ads are to attract new blood and they need to be effective enough for the money to at least break even. It's folly to spend $100 to make $50.
Edit: So what ads for existing, not new or coming soon, MMOs have you seen recently perusing the web?
And the mention but don't embed the "Corporate Gandalf" video. Here it is (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JztbiHaaMUY).I loved that one when I saw it on TV. Only saw it a couple of times, though.
Time and time again this thing about NCsoft not being capable or willing to understand their Western subsidiaries pops up and is usually followed by an in-depth analysis of cultural differences between East and West. This analysis is often based on assumption being made that Easterners act like robots: unable to deviate from cultural programming the poster has only some vague idea about.It can happen and has happened many times in the UK and the reports of the legal cases that ensued were legion in the newspapers. Most of it took place in the 80s and 90s, the Asian firms have mostly wised up now, but a friend who works for a Japanese company in Switzerland says that there are still major cultuural issues with underqualified people being shipped out from Japan above the heads of better qualified Europeans who are expected to defer to them.
Look, cultural differences do exist and miscommunication is a real thing in multinational environments. Could what you describe really happen? Yes, in theory it is possible (but unlikely), however making such far reaching conclusions without having any real basis in evidence is guilty of doing the exact thing you accuse Eastern cultures of - that is of cultural ignorance.
You are missing the point. How much would it have cost? Would they be able to recoup that cost in added sales?
How much of an advertising budget does a game making only $35 down to $20 million a year in it's first five years have? How much of that is spent at E3 or PAX in those years? Or SDCC? Does NCsoft do what most game companies do and blow their advertising budget only on new games and expansions?
You don't spend money on advertising unless you are fairly sure you will end generating more income than you spent. And if you don't believe you will, you don't spend the money. Is that such a difficult concept to understand?
I keep circling around to this point, is it simply a psychological need as players to see the game we enjoy advertised? Do we need some kind of validation or confirmation that we didn't choose wrong when everyone else we know is playing WoW?
An ad would tell the world at large that we exist but ads aren't for us. They've gotten us. Ads are to attract new blood and they need to be effective enough for the money to at least break even. It's folly to spend $100 to make $50.
Edit: So what ads for existing, not new or coming soon, MMOs have you seen recently perusing the web?
Time and time again this thing about NCsoft not being capable or willing to understand their Western subsidiaries pops up and is usually followed by an in-depth analysis of cultural differences between East and West. This analysis is often based on assumption being made that Easterners act like robots: unable to deviate from cultural programming the poster has only some vague idea about.
Look, cultural differences do exist and miscommunication is a real thing in multinational environments. Could what you describe really happen? Yes, in theory it is possible (but unlikely), however making such far reaching conclusions without having any real basis in evidence is guilty of doing the exact thing you accuse Eastern cultures of - that is of cultural ignorance.
Time and time again this thing about NCsoft not being capable or willing to understand their Western subsidiaries pops up and is usually followed by an in-depth analysis of cultural differences between East and West. This analysis is often based on assumption being made that Easterners act like robots: unable to deviate from cultural programming the poster has only some vague idea about.It comes up "time and again" because we - as human beings - are trying to find explanations and reason for what, initially, appears to be wholly irrational action for a business to be taking. Their treatment of the Paragon Studios employees was abominable, and makes them come off as the worst stereotype of mustache-twirling and pointy-haired bosses. Unreasonable and power-mad with no particular rationale behind their actions other than the fact that a lazy writer for today's episode needed a bad decision machine to make life difficult for the protagonists.
Look, cultural differences do exist and miscommunication is a real thing in multinational environments. Could what you describe really happen? Yes, in theory it is possible (but unlikely), however making such far reaching conclusions without having any real basis in evidence is guilty of doing the exact thing you accuse Eastern cultures of - that is of cultural ignorance.
GR was the last advertising blitz I saw. I don't remember ever seeing anything after that, not even when Freedom was announced.
Time and time again this thing about NCsoft not being capable or willing to understand their Western subsidiaries pops up and is usually followed by an in-depth analysis of cultural differences between East and West. This analysis is often based on assumption being made that Easterners act like robots: unable to deviate from cultural programming the poster has only some vague idea about.
People that are in charge of the Western game ports don't understand the market; they expect that what worked in Korea will work here.
Top level executive management in Korea does not understand western markets no cultural differences in employment expectations.
Let those with an understanding of the western markets and employments lead those satellite divisions
Korean culture shoved down your throat. NCsoft wasn't ready to go multinational as they fully expect to graft their Korean culture onto their U.S. workforce.
Leadership in Korea does not trust America or Europe to make their own decisions, and as a result, the decisions made reflect what Korea leadership wants to see, and not what needs to happen for the benefit of players, or the business.
As for what ads I have seen on the web for existing MMOs? Just in the last 5 minutes, I've seen ads for SW:TOR. And this is only the second site I've been to so far.
Spider-man 2 came out in 2004.
Batman Begins came out in 2005
Superman Returns came out in 2006.
X-Men: Last Stand came out in 2006
Spider-man 3 came out in 2007.
Hancock came out in 2008.
The Dark Knight came out in 2008.
Iron Man came out in 2008.
The Incredible Hulk came out in 2008.
There were plenty of opportunities to have had short ads for the game before a movie.
I think that was after the "sorry charlie" PR from NCsoft about the campaign failing to change their minds.
I think if we did see COH commercials on TV or in the movies, it would make us as players feel better, but I don't really think it'd have as big an effect on the game itself. I think there's other forms of advertising that would be more cost effective.
There's a Guild Wars 2 ad before The Hobbit, if I remember right. I guess they figured there was a gain there.
Of course, GW2, like GW1 before it, is a "sell it to them once" game, much more comparable to games like Mass Effect or Halo than to subscription-based games.
Sure, there's the item shop, but that's just gravy. They want to recover advertising expenses in the first big wave of box purchases at release, before the sharp decline starts.
To be fair, the comic book industry itself has done a HORRENDOUS job at capitalizing on the success of these movies. I don't think any of these have been successfully turned into increased comic book sales, but then again, when was the last time you went to see a comic book movie and were handed a free comic book to get you hooked on the action?
Anyways, seems everyone has a hard time figuring out a way to tying in that movie success into parallel markets.
There's a Guild Wars 2 ad before The Hobbit, if I remember right. I guess they figured there was a gain there.
dueling SantasMan there were two santas ? How come I didn't have two lumps of coal all these years ?
Oddly most of them. A local comic book shop shows up during the midnight showing/opening weekend and hand out old back issues of whatever hero is on the screen. These are either reprints of classics or random side story. None of the big important "events". They had a bunch of little stickers with their address in the shape of a voice bubble that they attach to the front cover. This isn't a tiny theater but one of the 18 screen with one IMAX multiplexes run by Rave Cinemas.
That sounds more like the local comic shop doing what the comic publisher should have done themselves. Also: was this through the run or just opening night?
I actually would be shocked if you told me this hapened during the entire showing, in a small theather and with the same guy that hands out 3D glasses giving y ou the free comics (also: worth making them special one-shot editions that are exclusive to the theathers.)
Oddly most of them. A local comic book shop shows up during the midnight showing/opening weekend and hand out old back issues of whatever hero is on the screen. These are either reprints of classics or random side story. None of the big important "events". They had a bunch of little stickers with their address in the shape of a voice bubble that they attach to the front cover. This isn't a tiny theater but one of the 18 screen with one IMAX multiplexes run by Rave Cinemas.
dueling Santas
It really wasn't much (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6bHAIx2gBQ) of a commercial compared to others out there I hear. It wasn't shown in front of my midnight 2D showing.
I'm not saying that they are wrapped up so tightly in their cultural prejudices that this is why they acted that way; I'm saying that having that fixation makes their actions make more sense... from a certain point of view. However, the comments on the Glassdoor site (http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/NCsoft-Reviews-E23242.htm) from NCSoft employees does suggest that there is at least some cultural rigidity occurring:
dueling Santas
It really wasn't much (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6bHAIx2gBQ) of a commercial compared to others out there I hear. It wasn't shown in front of my midnight 2D showing.
Can Koreans behave with greater cultural awareness of foreign social mores? Absolutely. I am positive that most who are successful internationally do. NCSoft apparently has not, and this explanation for their behavior fits from hypothetical cause to expected effect. Therefore, we feel the hypothesis is supported by the evidence.
You feel there is evidence? And that feeling is what justifies usage of national stereotypes to fill the gaps in our knowledge about the reasons behind the closure? I honestly don't know what to say to that.
dueling Santas
It really wasn't much (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6bHAIx2gBQ) of a commercial compared to others out there I hear. It wasn't shown in front of my midnight 2D showing.
All I can say is, I've never said "all Korean companies act this way." I've always been saying, "We can better understand the behavior we are seeing from this particular company if we better understand these aspects of Korean culture."
It's actually rather disingenuous to compare what I'm saying to somebody claiming "all Americans are fat, loud, and stupid." Not only am I not saying all Koreans behave the same way, but I think most Americans would say, "no, we are not that way, and those of us who are don't revel in it."
I am not decrying things that are, to my knowledge, considered negative to Koreans about their own culture, any more than Americans consider rugged individualism and gumption (viewed by other cultures as brashness and disrespect) to be negative parts of our own culture. I am outlining that one can better understand NCSoft's actions if one has this knowledge of how propriety works in Korean culture. Just as, to a hypothetical Korean steeped in these aspects of Korean culture - who might be baffled that the Paragon Studios guys would be so utterly crass and disrespectful as to try to negotiate with their superiors, or that the Western gaming audience would dare question a highly-placed company executive's word and protest loudly - explaining American cultural mores about "rugged individualism" and "taking initiative" and being very individually proud of what we build for ourselves would go a long way towards helping him understand why Paragon Studios was not thinking they were being rude, nor expected the axe, and why the SaveCoH movement has acted as it has.
I didn't mean you specifically, my friend. :)
I was addressing you because you were the post imediately previous to mine that was relevent. I'm also addressing you because you, in all your posts, have always established a comprehension that its NOT what is meant. But in a public venue, what we say and what me mean have to be carefully synchronized.
My post is address to our community as a whole and I am begging my community, of which I am proud. Please. Please. Please. Think of how it sounds to outsiders.
The most common arguement made here is "WE RESEARCHED THIS." That is why I created the parallel that I made. We researched what the English speaking world thinks Kibun (sp) is. We researched Korean culture. We even maybe asked an actual Korean or two for input. But there were several other actual Koreans that said "Your understanding is wrong." And we responded by saying "WE RESEARCHED THIS!"
The point that I am trying to make globally is that everytime I read "Korean this" and "Korean that" on the forums, I now actively cringe because I see in it reflected the opinions and biases of other cultures against my own. They did the research, they think they understand, but...
So what I am suggesting is that instead of focusing on "This is an Asian company, therefore..." which is what I am seeing a lot. (Not necessarily from you Sergev, you're fairly constructive. :) ) We need to get away from it. Its a trap. Help me.
I didn't mean you specifically, my friend. :)
I was addressing you because you were the post imediately previous to mine that was relevent. I'm also addressing you because you, in all your posts, have always established a comprehension that its NOT what is meant. But in a public venue, what we say and what me mean have to be carefully synchronized.
My post is address to our community as a whole and I am begging my community, of which I am proud. Please. Please. Please. Think of how it sounds to outsiders.
The most common arguement made here is "WE RESEARCHED THIS." That is why I created the parallel that I made. We researched what the English speaking world thinks Kibun (sp) is. We researched Korean culture. We even maybe asked an actual Korean or two for input. But there were several other actual Koreans that said "Your understanding is wrong." And we responded by saying "WE RESEARCHED THIS!"
The point that I am trying to make globally is that everytime I read "Korean this" and "Korean that" on the forums, I now actively cringe because I see in it reflected the opinions and biases of other cultures against my own. They did the research, they think they understand, but...
So what I am suggesting is that instead of focusing on "This is an Asian company, therefore..." which is what I am seeing a lot. (Not necessarily from you Sergev, you're fairly constructive. :) ) We need to get away from it. Its a trap. Help me.
The most common arguement made here is "WE RESEARCHED THIS." That is why I created the parallel that I made. We researched what the English speaking world thinks Kibun (sp) is. We researched Korean culture. We even maybe asked an actual Korean or two for input. But there were several other actual Koreans that said "Your understanding is wrong." And we responded by saying "WE RESEARCHED THIS!"
So please if it isn't a cultural thing based on a Korean reaction to a studio seeking to buy its way out of an agreement - why did they close City of Heroes?
To me this does smell like a clash of cultures. The lowly drones dared to try and not only break free of NCSoft - they wanted to take the game with them? How dare they! In America if you could present a scenario where you get a win/win both people make out on the deal - this would be normal business. It appears this caused someone in NCSoft HQ to take offense and raze the place to the ground and salt the earth. If it wasn't a cultural difference between Korea and the US - how do YOU explain it? I have read enough of the Kibune effect to understand this could have been taken as extremely disrespectful - enough so as to warrant the Genghis Khan treament CoH recieved.
To me this does smell like a clash of cultures. The lowly drones dared to try and not only break free of NCSoft - they wanted to take the game with them? How dare they! In America if you could present a scenario where you get a win/win both people make out on the deal - this would be normal business. It appears this caused someone in NCSoft HQ to take offense and raze the place to the ground and salt the earth. If it wasn't a cultural difference between Korea and the US - how do YOU explain it? I have read enough of the Kibune effect to understand this could have been taken as extremely disrespectful - enough so as to warrant the Genghis Khan treament CoH recieved.
To me this does smell like a clash of cultures. The lowly drones dared to try and not only break free of NCSoft - they wanted to take the game with them? How dare they! In America if you could present a scenario where you get a win/win both people make out on the deal - this would be normal business. It appears this caused someone in NCSoft HQ to take offense and raze the place to the ground and salt the earth. If it wasn't a cultural difference between Korea and the US - how do YOU explain it? I have read enough of the Kibune effect to understand this could have been taken as extremely disrespectful - enough so as to warrant the Genghis Khan treament CoH recieved.
Don't hate NCSoft for where they come from, hate them for who they are; idiot douchebags of limited vision who wouldn't recognise a good game if it slapped them in the face and who have no attachment to or respect for loyal customers.
So please if it isn't a cultural thing based on a Korean reaction to a studio seeking to buy its way out of an agreement - why did they close City of Heroes?
If we were to remove the cultural differences from the situation, the only options we are left with, are aggressive stupidity, or aggressive malice. Of those two options, I'm really not sure which is worse.
We have facts and reliable source confirmed information. The only theory (underlined as that's really all we have as to why this has happened) that links all these together in a way that makes sense is the idea of conflicting culture as Segev has put forwards.I wouldn't call it a theory.
I wouldn't call it a theory.
The theory that the primary explanation rests with culture implies that the specific individuals that made the decisions were not particularly important: that the probability was high that anyone in that position within NCsoft would have been sufficiently influenced by cultural factors to make fundamentally similar decisions.
The converse theory is that the decisions made were unique to the individuals involved for specific personally unique and currently unknown reasons. And there is no evidence to the contrary. The fact that the cultural narrative *appears* to explain more is an illusion because there exists no evidence to support its implied narrative elements.
I have been asked to share another alternate theory consistent with the facts that contradicts the notion that specific cultural differences endemic to the populace of South Korea contributed in a material fashion to the City of Heroes shutdown.
The gravitational energy density of the universe has a value that can be estimated by general relativity and cosmological evolutionary physics. These calculations converge on values which are inconsistent with the observable material density of the cosmos but are consistent with projected matter densities based on galactic and supercluster structure. This value is approximately five times larger than the net observable matter density of the cosmos and suggests a widespread pervasive form of matter which is weakly interacting and radiatively decoupled but gravitationally interacting. This "dark matter" has by definition significant consequences on overall cosmological structure and large gravitationally bound systems.
Distributed in a manner which follows the linear angular momentum curve of our galaxy, this has the net effect of stabilizing the two spiral arms of the Milky Way which extend from its central bar and the stellar formation wavefront relative to the Sun's orbit. This reduces the probability of disruptive interactions on its planetary orbits and increases the period of Oort cloud perturbations which can create heightened terrestrial bombardment events. This stability has a marked effect on the window of opportunity for technological civilizations to arise capable of expending sizeable amounts of computational technology on entertainment avenues. This combined with the coincident advantageous nature of agrarian optimization generalized into industrial organization of economies around specialization giving rise to capital control of primary economies significantly increased the probability of a south asian entertainment company being in a position to terminate the north american development studio of a massively multiplayer game.
This being a necessary prerequisite for same leads to the conclusion that there is a significant cosmological connection between dark matter's gravitational coupling of galactic matter and Korean executives' proclivities towards downsizing.
I have been asked to share another alternate theory consistent with the facts that contradicts the notion that specific cultural differences endemic to the populace of South Korea contributed in a material fashion to the City of Heroes shutdown.
The gravitational energy density of the universe has a value that can be estimated by general relativity and cosmological evolutionary physics. These calculations converge on values which are inconsistent with the observable material density of the cosmos but are consistent with projected matter densities based on galactic and supercluster structure. This value is approximately five times larger than the net observable matter density of the cosmos and suggests a widespread pervasive form of matter which is weakly interacting and radiatively decoupled but gravitationally interacting. This "dark matter" has by definition significant consequences on overall cosmological structure and large gravitationally bound systems.
Distributed in a manner which follows the linear angular momentum curve of our galaxy, this has the net effect of stabilizing the two spiral arms of the Milky Way which extend from its central bar and the stellar formation wavefront relative to the Sun's orbit. This reduces the probability of disruptive interactions on its planetary orbits and increases the period of Oort cloud perturbations which can create heightened terrestrial bombardment events. This stability has a marked effect on the window of opportunity for technological civilizations to arise capable of expending sizeable amounts of computational technology on entertainment avenues. This combined with the coincident advantageous nature of agrarian optimization generalized into industrial organization of economies around specialization giving rise to capital control of primary economies significantly increased the probability of a south asian entertainment company being in a position to terminate the north american development studio of a massively multiplayer game.
This being a necessary prerequisite for same leads to the conclusion that there is a significant cosmological connection between dark matter's gravitational coupling of galactic matter and Korean executives' proclivities towards downsizing.
Now you're just being ridiculous.
I believe it is perfectly reasonable, even necessary, to consider cultural differences as a potential factor in international business relations, and it is entirely possible to do so without being offensive. To dismiss this differences as a factor altogether, especially to the point that they cannot even be discussed without accusations of "racism" is willful ignorance, for which I have no tolerance.That would be true if the people doing the discussing were sufficiently knowledgeable about both international business in general and the specifics of cultural influence on business culture in the specific.
It's a joke, son!!!I should have made it more American: less necessary punctuation, more unnecessary punctuation.
I believe it is perfectly reasonable, even necessary, to consider cultural differences as a potential factor in international business relations,
and it is entirely possible to do so without being offensive.
To dismiss this differences as a factor altogether, especially to the point that they cannot even be discussed without accusations of "racism" is willful ignorance, for which I have no tolerance.
I should have made it more American: less necessary punctuation, more unnecessary punctuation.
ah have been axed t'share t'other alternate theo'y cornsissent wif th' facks thet corntradicks th' noshun thet specific cultural differences indemic t'th' populace of South Ko'ea corntributed in a material fashion t'th' City of Heroes shetdown, as enny fool kin plainly see.
Th' gravitashunal inergy density of th' unyverse has a value thet kin be estimated by juneral relativity an' cosmological evolushunary physics. These calculashuns cornvahge on values which is inconsissent wif th' observable material density of th' cosmos but is consissent wif projecked matter densities based on galackic an' superclester struckure. This hyar value is approximately five times larger than th' net observable matter density of th' cosmos an' suggests a widespread pervasive fo'm of matter which is weakly interackin' an' radiatively decoupled but gravitashunally interackin'. This hyar "dark matter" has by definishun significant cornsequences on on overall cosmological struckure an' large gravitashunally boun' systems.
Distributed in a manner which follers th' linear angular momentum curve of our galaxy, this hyar has th' net effeck of stabilizin' th' two spiral arms of th' Milky Way which extend fum its central bar an' th' stellar fo'mashun wavefront relative t'th' Sun's o'bit. This hyar redooces th' probability of disruppive interackshuns on its planetary o'bits an' increases th' period of Oo't cloud perturbashuns which kin create heightened terrestrial bombardment events. This hyar stability has a marked effeck on th' window of oppo'tunity fo' technological civilizashuns t'arise capable of expendin' sizeable amounts of compeetayshunal technology on intertainment avenues. This hyar combined wif th' coincident advantageous nature of agrarian oppimizashun juneralized into indestrial o'ganizashun of economies aroun' specializashun givin' rise t'capital corntrol of primary economies significantly increased th' probability of a south asian intertainment compenny bein' in a posishun t'terminate th' no'th South Car'linan development studio of a massively multiplayer game.
This hyar bein' a necessary prerequisite fo' same leads t'th' conclushun thet thar is a significant cosmological cornneckshun between dark matter's gravitashunal couplin' of galackic matter an' Ko'ean executives' proclivities towards downsizin'.
"Could it be because they are Koreans" is not a cultural analysis. When the CEO of Hyundai starts burning down Kentucky Fried Chickens to make space for new car showrooms, I'll reconsider.
This is not an accurate analogy. Your average KFC, never mind one that has been standing for more than ten years, is so saturated, and therefore held together by, grease, the only safe way to take it down, for any reason, is to burn it.
This is not an accurate analogy. Your average KFC, never mind one that has been standing for more than ten years, is so saturated, and therefore held together by, grease, the only safe way to take it down, for any reason, is to burn it.Maybe NCsoft thought Paragon Studios was held together by an equal amount of crazy. They did let us tweet their soft drink machine, after all.
I will say my theory of cultural differences influencing the outcome we see now are every bit as possible as your utopian dreams of bunnies and ponies make everyone happy theories of NCSoft just saving us from being sold to a meanie company who just wanted to make money.As a matter of fact, that's a very accurate characterization.
I do believe everyone is suffering from CoX Detox.
They closed the game, we want it back. Keep your eyes on the prize and stop trying to point fingers as to why. That does not matter anymore, what does matter is that we find a way to get CoX back.
I believe it is perfectly reasonable, even necessary, to consider cultural differences as a potential factor in international business relations, and it is entirely possible to do so without being offensive. To dismiss this differences as a factor altogether, especially to the point that they cannot even be discussed without accusations of "racism" is willful ignorance, for which I have no tolerance.
The ridiculous amounts of hyperbole in the thread where you have someone who questions the motives of NCSoft and suddenly becomes evil is not the community I wish to be a member of. Good luck saving the game as the community appears to be already gone.
I think we can say NCSoft being Korean had some contribution to the decisionBeing Japanese almost certainly had some sort of contribution to my deciding to post this message. However, that's not a particularly useful thing to know or debate.
Being Japanese almost certainly had some sort of contribution to my deciding to post this message. ...
What if being Korean caused NCsoft executives to hold off making this decision until much later than American executives would have? With nothing but idle speculation to go on, you can't even say in what *direction* that influence was operating in. That's what makes that discussion basically fruitless.
Arcana, please do not quote me out of context.Actually, I see no context that was lost with my quote. While the part I dropped qualifies the prefix, it does not alter its meaning in any way. It specifies in what way the first part is true, whereas my response is to the prefix statement irrespective of in what way it might be true. The longer sentence doesn't have a different meaning, it simply has more information about that meaning. Which is not relevant to my response.
"I think we can say NCSoft being Korean had some contribution to the decision"
is not what I said.
"I think we can say NCSoft being Korean had some contribution to the decision in so much as one's own culture influences one's manner of thinking"
has a different meaning.
The sentence was longer than that for a reason.
Anyone who states that its reasonable to state that culture had some influence, no matter in what way that influence might be expressed, is making a statement that is both a truism, and valueless to the discussion, as it cannot even be deduced what direction that influence took, much less its magnitude, much less its distinguishing properties from all other cultural influences.
I think my bigger concern with possible cultural issues isn't the shutdown, but the lack of interest in selling.
The term "xenophobic" has been tossed around a lot but apparently this doesn't just involve non-Koreans. "Allegedly" many Korean businessfolk don't like doing business with people they don't already know, unless they're introduced to the outsider by someone that they do know. If this is accurate, it would mean that the only company that NCsoft would have bothered to talk to AT ALL is Paragon Studios.
But that was something I found while reading all the external links on the infamous Kibun thread, so who the heck knows how accurate that bit of info is. I brought it up at some point but it got completely ignored.
the fact remains that, culture, nationality and race aside, NCSoft is pulling back all control decisions to the home office.That presupposes it was ever the case that this was not true. The Garriott case itself suggests it was always true, that his leash was always extremely short, and that at no time did material corporate control ever exist outside of the executives within or with direct ties to the parent corporate executive staff.
It is an effort to find context.
The only reason cultural considerations are being examined is in an attempt to find some context, some manner of thinking, that could make the behaviors witnessed make sense.
To claim that it's somehow racist, or that it's attempting to say "all Koreans behave this way," is silly, and actively detrimental to any genuine attempt to understand other cultures. In finding something in underlying cultural assumptions that gives explanation for their behavior, it is not saying that Koreans are all robots who make stupid decisions. It is saying that we now have some additional context to understand that these decisions were not made by some sort of bad idea generator with no context.
It is an effort to find context.
If you were to say that somebody standing up to his boss and telling him off is rude and destructive to his own career, and wonder what could possibly lead a man to behave so insanely, and then you learned that Americans value straight-forwardness and consider business superiors not to be inherently social superiors, you are not painting all Americans as idiots who will insult "their betters" for no reason other than to be insulting. You are, instead, attempting to find how, to the man who behaved in that strange fashion, his behavior seemed reasonable.
It's not racist to say "Oh, Americans have these values baked into their culture. And that makes his behavior make at least a little more sense."
Being an American probably has a lot to do with me hating large corporations.
... most of them anyway.
"Allegedly" many Korean businessfolk don't like doing business with people they don't already know, unless they're introduced to the outsider by someone that they do know.
But that was something I found while reading all the external links on the infamous Kibun thread, so who the heck knows how accurate that bit of info is. I brought it up at some point but it got completely ignored.
As for "tearing this community apart," all who are on any "side" of that torn divide are potentially to blame. It is easy to point to "the other side" and say they're at fault, but that basically is saying, "Agree with me or YOU are the bad guy." Which is, itself, a relatively divisive position to take.
I'm sorry there are people being offended by this. However, while there might be some who are stooping to genuine racism and slurs, that is not what most are doing. If somebody wishes to take only the worst they can find and take offense at that, or to read something into a point that is not there and take offense at THAT, no ground is gained by catering to such professionally offended people; they will find something else at which to take offense, until those they choose to be offended by stop saying anything at all that they don't want to hear.
but we are not going to stop criticizing NCSoft just because it can be misconstrued and drive people off.
1) For the most part, anything that attempts to stamp umbrella behavioral characteristics to any given culture IS racist (or culturacist?) and will offend people. This is well warranted and not oversensitivity.
It isn't "about" nationality, but pretending that NCSoft is steeped solely in the cultural values of my own homeland would be just plain stupid.That's technically true, but the alternative should not be to pretend that reading a few articles on the internet provides any reasonable basis for making a cultural analysis.
That's technically true, but the alternative should not be to pretend that reading a few articles on the internet provides any reasonable basis for making a cultural analysis.
I'm sometimes annoyed when someone tries to debate a technical matter they very clearly have limited or no knowledge about, and no amount of google searching and wikipedia reading can compensate for that. I'm not personally easily offended myself, but I can easily imagine how superficial dissection of culture can be offensive to others.
If you want to learn about a culture, that's great. The more energy spent learning the better I say. However, its dangerous to immediately turn around and attempt to apply that knowledge to actual people. People do not like to be superficially analyzed in general. Its far too easy for superficial analysis to turn into caricaturization.
In any case, I have no idea how knowledge of Kibun helps in any way. As Rama Kandra would say, Kibun is a word, what matters is the concept the word represents. And while *some* Koreans are more introspective about it, Kibun is not something only Koreans have, its just something Koreans actually have a word for. We all have Kibun, just like we all experience Schadenfreude. Its not a feeling only Germans have. Its just a feeling Germans specifically have a term for.
What Koreans call "respecting others Kibun" we call "not being an asshat." And to the Koreans out there: no, there's no specific American cultural importance to comparing someone to misplaced headgear per se.
So we know City of Heroes was a profitable game and it appears that our analysts have been able to extrapolate that paragon studios as a whole, which was quite bloated beyond the needs of COH, was probably not profitable.Unless someone is trying to start a game development company, I'm not sure.
How can we best utilize this information?
So we know City of Heroes was a profitable game and it appears that our analysts have been able to extrapolate that paragon studios as a whole, which was quite bloated beyond the needs of COH, was probably not profitable.
How can we best utilize this information?
First of all, there's the theory that Paragon Studios was essentially the write-off studio, that costs associated with Guild Wars 2 (http://www.guildwars2.com/) and WildStar (http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/) were essentially being funneled down and earmarked on another studio's balance in addition to the second unannounced MMO that Paragon was working on. The fact that Davis makes it clear that Paragon Studios itself was the unprofitable part gives this theory new legs. I'm obviously fond of Carbine Studios (http://massively.joystiq.com/tag/Carbine-Studios/), but it's a studio that has released a grand total of zero games ever, and ArenaNet (http://massively.joystiq.com/tag/ArenaNet/) wasn't raking in money from the original Guild Wars (http://www.guildwars.com/) as the sequel's design time dragged on. Someone has to take the fall, right?
Has this article from Massively been mentioned here yet? The whole "Paragon as the accounting fall guy" angle... sounds like the way it went to me:
http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/01/16/a-mild-mannered-reporter-how-superheroes-died-and-why-its-good/ (http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/01/16/a-mild-mannered-reporter-how-superheroes-died-and-why-its-good/)
Still really underhanded crap, but... yeah. Most likely scenario, ya ask me.
According to Kheldarn on Twitter, occasionally a CoH server will ping as Up.There's no reason to believe that the IP addresses allocated to CoH aren't being repurposed for other systems. Routeable address space is a limited asset.
Ghost in the machine, or something going on we don't know about?
There's no reason to believe that the IP addresses allocated to CoH aren't being repurposed for other systems. Routeable address space is a limited asset.
What I'd like to know is: how does s/he know? Is s/he tracing the old CoH servers on Nagios?I used to ping the auth and game servers with PRTG. I stopped when the game shutdown, so I have no idea what's happening with those addresses now. But I'm sure there are people out there that still have software that monitors the uptime of the servers that simply never turned them off for their own reasons.
I used to ping the auth and game servers with PRTG. I stopped when the game shutdown, so I have no idea what's happening with those addresses now. But I'm sure there are people out there that still have software that monitors the uptime of the servers that simply never turned them off for their own reasons.Could one automate trying to log on the auth server ?
Could one automate trying to log on the auth server ?
I think it's more likely as others said, that NCsoft is reusing the IP addresses. It doesn't really make sense for them to spin the COH servers back up, even for testing.
Could one automate trying to log on the auth server ?You probably wouldn't even need to do that if you're just trying to see if the auth server came back: you could simply attempt to connect to the auth server on the correct port. Another system would either not respond or send back an ICMP port unreachable. A real auth server, even if the data was flushed from it, would respond with a triple handshake at least.
It can happen and has happened many times in the UK and the reports of the legal cases that ensued were legion in the newspapers. Most of it took place in the 80s and 90s, the Asian firms have mostly wised up now, but a friend who works for a Japanese company in Switzerland says that there are still major cultuural issues with underqualified people being shipped out from Japan above the heads of better qualified Europeans who are expected to defer to them.
Maybe they are showing the game to prospective buyers.Firing up the live server clusters - assuming they even still exist - would be the most difficult conceivable way to do that. Extremely unlikely.