Understanding why isn't important. What is important is simply understanding that this is the case. Call it a cultural difference, or what have you. Unwanted publicity has scared them off before, and we don't want to risk doing that again.
It's worth noting the the previous wave of publicity during the shutdown was also highly negative. While selling it now is far less likely to cause rancor than the original shutdown, there are of course people, loud people, out there who believe the shutdown was done just to piss them off out of some ebil corporate mandate to alienate customers and lose money for the chance to make them cry. They may start wailing and flailing again in NCsoft's general direction if this catches their attention. "HAY PANCAKING NCSOFT YOUR A PANCAKING BAUNCH OF PANCAKING PANCAKES WHO BETTER GIVE THE PANCAKING GAME TO ANYONE WHO WANTS IT OR ILL CALL YOU PANCAKING PANCAKES SOME MORE! PANCAKES!"
However, i don't think that's too likely to have any real effect, and i'm not too concerned that a few petty, spiteful twits who would gleefully destroy the village in order to save the
village--their own pride-- will be able to screw things up.
All the accounts i've read suggested the anger that closing the game caused caught NCsoft by surprise. i don't think this time around it's going to be an issue. Still, i do hope certain people refrain from being, well, themselves for the moment, or at least that they don't notice.
I liked the Adolescent Radioactive Black-belt Hamsters
i still have issue 1 of that somewhere. So many other classic comics lost over the years, but i still have that one.