Well, if anyone is interested, this is the draft of the would-be letter. It's a wall of text that would make whoever built the End of the World in the first Grandia game proud, fair warning.
An open letter to those with the ability to relaunch City of Heroes/Villains, and the understanding to do it well:
Almost five years have passed since I was dumbstruck by the announcement of the "sunset" of the City of Heroes/Villains. I had been playing - more than playing, living - in that world for around a year and a half by that time, and suddenly seeing this doom approach the home I had grown attached to beyond any other electronic setting was horrifying. In a grief-driven anger, I removed all traces of the game from my machine. An action I regret, because my screenshot collection was among the collateral lost. I have since spent the last half decade throwing myself into other game after other game in a futile attempt to distract myself from my loss, but nothing has filled the void left behind, and after only a short time, I find myself remembering the character I lost. Yes, character singular; I was never one for having a multitude of alternates to play as, though over the course of years, I have come up with several more ideas to play with.
Throughout this time of attempting to distract myself, I have kept up with the news articles and forum posts related to the state of the game, the discussions to buy, lease, or license the intellectual property and server data, and potential replacement homes as discussed by the thousands of others displaced by the loss of their home. Here's the thing: none of the potential replacements have managed to successfully fill the shoes of City of Heroes/Villains, for me at least. Various reasons exist for each of the titles, but none of them grasp the core of the magic that made City of Heroes/Villains such a wonderful and unique world.
My research has led me to the stance that NCSoft, as a company, was unjustified in closing down the game, and any reasons they gave in the immediate aftermath as to "why" were fabricated. If your overall goal was to market newer titles to replace City of Heroes/Villains, why were none of these new games designed to appeal to the consumers of a superhero-themed product? Though at this point, your initial intentions are no longer relevant.
What you actually did was poison yourself. In addition to previous such closures, you, as a company, have shown a lack of understanding of your customers. When every attempt to convince you to reconsider met with silence, perhaps you thought that you were maintaining dignity and honor. If so, it was only the dignity of a captain going down with their ship, because to your Western consumers, the way you handled the closure branded you as unthinking and uncaring. They felt, and continue to feel, betrayed, swindled; after all, many of them were happily subscribed and spending even more money for costume parts, powersets, and other things in the in-game store. I was one of those, and could be again. But in doing what you did, you also showed your customers that there was no point in purchasing your other products, because at some point, all of their investment would be similarly disregarded as "not profitable enough". And you lost future customers as well, when word of your treatment of previous customers reached the ears of those considering your products.
The customers that played City of Heroes/Villains were angry, and many were bitter enough from their feelings of betrayal to boycott all NCSoft products - even more potential earnings lost from your other properties. Many remain bitter to this day. That is five years worth of potential earnings missed out on. Not helping was the recent reveal of a prominent character, Statesman, into Master x Master. That game, being a crossover of characters from multiple properties, could be a launching point of more income from players seeing these characters and becoming interested in the original title... but where are they to go to sate their interest in Statesman?
On the topic of superheroes, this decade has seen a revival of interest in superheroes, if the earnings of the recent Marvel and D.C. movies and television shows have anything to say on it. You had, in your stable, a means to let people go from seeing heroes and villains in theatre to actually becoming them, not in a childish way, nor as a backdrop to existing comic book characters, but feeling as powerful entities in their own right. And all the marketing was already done for you by the movies. All you had to do was introduce advertising for City of Heroes/Villains in the theatre or during the shows' runtime, and you would have had sales.
My understanding is that in your domestic market, it is a common practice to shut down older games in favor of something newer, because gamers at your home tend not to be as attached to the games. Holding that attitude professionally would be fine if you chose to remain a domestic company, but you have repeatedly attempted to do business in the West, while also demonstrating a lack of understanding of the different desires of Western gamers. Gamers in this part of the world are more likely to form attachments to the characters they have created within virtual worlds, and to the investment of energy, money, interest, and time they have put into those games and characters. If you are serious about conducting business internationally, you have to be able to adapt to the market you are moving into; you cannot expect foreign customers to have the same interests as domestic ones, or to react the same way. Your stoic silence in the face of the attempts to save City of Heroes/Villains from closure appears to be a refusal to admit fault, in order to save face.
In the eyes of the Western market, your shame is even greater because of your attempts to maintain face. To regain your respect, you would be better advised to offer restitution, in the form of restarting the City of Heroes/Villains servers. You would not need to issue a formal apology. Even in a maintenance mode that could not be upgraded, this would go a long way to regaining the respect lost by this fiasco. At this point in time, the option to retain old account data no longer matters, not in the face of grief that remains strong five years later. In relaunching the game, whether in maintenance mode or in something that could continue to be improved, not only would you win back hundreds, if not thousands, of those players wounded by the sunset, I, personally, know of a large number of people who only know of the game due to the praise I lavish on it, and would also sign up, to see exactly what I told them about. Every grieving fan likely also knows people who would join, as well. Restoring their virtual home would earn you a massive amount of goodwill.
The date rapidly approaches what would have been the thirteenth anniversary of a game that was in service longer than World of Warcraft, and with a more dedicated fanbase. Yes, many people who played City of Heroes/Villains before its closure were older, and may not be able to return, but there were many who were children who now would be able and willing to afford a subscription. It is not too late to capitalize on the superhero trend, appeal to players of MxM who want to know where the Statesman character comes from, and win back the community of a game that did not need to be closed. You have legacy servers for Guild Wars and the original Lineage, at the very least you could do the same for the heroes and villains of Paragon City. Consider the financial and public relations benefits to be had. The loyal fanbase is waiting for the opportunity to say, "The long night is over, and a new dawn rises over Paragon City."