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Graveyard => Save Paragon Retirees => Save Paragon City! => Topic started by: Blackgrue on September 20, 2012, 04:27:00 PM

Title: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blackgrue on September 20, 2012, 04:27:00 PM
On a whim I looked at NCSoft's stock price. It took a nosedive after the vigil. It's still below guild-wars 2's release prices.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blackgrue on September 20, 2012, 04:34:02 PM
In addition, Nexon (publisher of Maple Story) apperently owns about 15% of NCsoft, I suggest sending some of our well reasoned words to them as well, they bought said 15% in June.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on September 20, 2012, 04:36:57 PM
(Mr. Burns) Excellent! (/Mr. Burns)  8)


Is there any particular reason why there hasn't been a call for another of those Unity Protests?

Or to borrow a Captain Jack Sparrow line -

Are we simply waiting for "the opportune moment"?


Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on September 20, 2012, 05:03:02 PM
It'll probably rebound. Surely it spooked some of the more timid investors though. Still pretty funny though.

I guess riots will affect prices, regardless of which dimension of existence they occur in.   :D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: P51mus on September 20, 2012, 05:05:29 PM
(Mr. Burns) Excellent! (/Mr. Burns)  8)


Is there any particular reason why there hasn't been a call for another of those Unity Protests?

Or to borrow a Captain Jack Sparrow line -

Are we simply waiting for "the opportune moment"?

Positron TF events today and Saturday.

And then there's other options, like the e-mail.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Teege on September 20, 2012, 05:14:42 PM
If we don't have one planned we should. Crashing a server and hitting that many AP instances again I think would be huge.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: jacknomind on September 20, 2012, 05:37:57 PM
Troughs follow peaks.  As others have said, don't read too much into this.  I imagine it's more a combination of short-term investors selling off assets for a quick profit and the announcement of a temporary halt on GW2 sales (a good decision, but not one that will make investors very happy).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blackgrue on September 21, 2012, 10:30:55 AM
Stock still hasn't recovered, I still think the timing of it taking a nosedive after the unity rally is pretty damning personally, but meh. I'm too psychologically invested in CoH not to hold out hope.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Shadowe on September 21, 2012, 11:27:18 AM
I work in finance where stock market fluctuations matter in a big way, and I have to agree with Gangrel, really. There are so many factors that affect share prices, it's almost unreal. The trick is to know what a share price actually means, more than anything else, and in simple terms, it's the price to buy a share, but the other important direction to come at it from is that it is also the price at which shares are sold. It drops when people are selling them.

Why do people sell shares?

Lack of confidence in the company.
Prediction of upcoming market conditions because of government (any government) announcements.
To liquidate assets.

The last two have no bearing on our specific situation, but the first one is a biggie. A drop in share price can indicate that investors believe that the company is making poor decisions, so they're trying to get out while the going is good.

For a company like NCsoft to see a depression in share price right after the launch of a major new product is something of a surprise (when viewed in isolation), and the announced closure of CoH could certainly be one of the reasons, but it is just as likely that the Korean government made a tax or budget announcement, or that the Korean Won is a weak currency right now which will also depress the share value.

Would anyone mind seeing if there's a Korean equivalent to the FTSE 100 or the Dow Jones indices, then compare the NCsoft share price to that? That will tell a more accurate story.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Shadowe on September 21, 2012, 12:19:40 PM
Okay, on 31 Aug 2012, the KOSPI closed down at 1905.12, and on the same day NCsoft shares closed down at 252,500 KWon.

Yesterday, the KOSPI closed at 1990.33, and NCsoft ended at 256,000 KWon.

Which mean that over the same period of time, Korea as a whole has increased by 4.77%, and NCsoft has grown by 1.39%.

That really doesn't tell us very much in and of itself, but if we go back just one more day, we get closing prices on the KOSPI of 1906.38 and NCsoft at 254,500.

This tells us that the change from before the CoH closure announcement was Korea at 4.40% growth and NCsoft at 0.59%

Such a limited set of data really doesn't tell a huge story, however we know that on the day of the announcement NCsoft dropped, then bounced back by Sep 7th to a high they hadn't seen since June 25th, and has been bouncing around a steadily decreasing figure since then. NCsoft is higher now than they were through most of the month of August, but while Korea as a whole has bounced back nicely from a dip around the 5th of Sept (climbing ever since, with fluctuations), NCsoft hit a peak on the 7th and has been seeing a downward trend almost exactly the opposite of the KOSPI.

So, what does all of this mean?

Honestly, I don't know. However it is not an unreasonable premise to suggest that because even though GW2 sales have been healthy, NCsoft is still going down, while Korea as a whole is trending upwards, then the negative press being generated off the back of the CoH closure announcement is actually hurting their bottom line.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blackgrue on September 26, 2012, 11:18:19 PM
Update.

Stock continues its downward slip. It's still too early to mark it as a trend, but dammit I need something to believe in.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Chaos Ex Machina on September 27, 2012, 02:12:15 AM
Stock value is primarily determined through perception.  There is not a way to measure the impact of the efforts.

You should actually try to convince INVESTORS that the efforts have an effect and I think a decline after the gigantic launch can be a rather good argument.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: srmalloy on September 27, 2012, 02:51:06 AM
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on September 27, 2012, 03:23:12 AM
Somebody remind me tomorrow to look into Mr. Kim a bit more closely. I have no idea if I can make a contact with him, but I have at least one idea on how I might try. (Tenuous at best.)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Sin Stalker on September 27, 2012, 03:35:29 AM
Just to point out something *slightly* related here...

Apple stock has dropped quite a bit since the launch of the iPhone 5.

It is a good phone, it has some issues (same as the iPhone 4S. It sold a boat load (although apparently not as much as investors were thinking). Why is the apple stock price falling?

Side note: even "antennagate" for the iPhone4 didn't drop share prices by this large amounr....

Its no real improvement. Apple always does this too. They come out with a great product. You see a cheaper more widely used version (android) come out of it. Then Apple stops innovation and sticks within the newly created "box". Macs vs PCs. Then the laptop wars. Now its the smartphones. The one edge Apple had with the iphone was the relatively easy user interface but android has been getting and closer to this. Once Apple comes out with a new great concept or improvement, something that really sets the tone, their stocks will shoot back up. Until then, they will remain profitable but slowly shrinking sales back to what they were before. Kind of like their own mini-bubble that slowly let out air instead of popping lol.

The only way I see this really applying to NCsoft would be to get the word out more. Create dummy accounts and protest on other NCsoft gaming forums and servers. Create new characters and protest any new characters leaving the tutorial and being a "scab" or whatever the traitor term is. Not for a long time, but just enough for more gaming blogs and sites to take notice and put out stories about it.

We wouldn't just be refusing to part take in any NCsoft games but we would actually be protesting and boycotting the company. Any protesting in game(coh) is the same as gathering a bunch of friends and protesting in your backyard. To really get their attention, you have to go to their territory. You go to the lobby of the corporate headquarters or sit on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse, etc, etc. In this case since we are scattered across the globe, it would be there "living" games.

I'd be down if someone wants to organize a mass fake account creation and protesting on other NCsoft games. Wouldn't need to be around the clock now that I think of it... All we would need to do is find out when the each NCsoft game is at their peak play time. Then hit each game whenever that play time is. So for example, from 5 to 10 on friday for Aion, 7 to 11 on sunday for guild wars, etc, etc. None of their pay to play games but the ones that are free to download and try. The ones that have free trials, etc, etc.

IF we could get any attention, like NCsoft having to suspend their free trials for a short time or something, would be a great success in getting attention. And really that's what all this is about. We need attention like a kid with ADHD meaning attention bad or good... but within reason of course. Hm, maybe I should create a post and copy and paste this idea in it?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on September 27, 2012, 03:44:39 AM
Hmm.  Folks, anyone got an address for Nexxon?  Their big money-maker is Maple Story.  I could make the case CoH functioned rather like Maple Story for many of the players (the RPers specifically) with the rich ability to social-network within the game itself.  We might be able to do a back-door on NCSoft via Nexxon.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on September 27, 2012, 03:51:41 AM
Hmm.  Folks, anyone got an address for Nexxon?  Their big money-maker is Maple Story.  I could make the case CoH functioned rather like Maple Story for many of the players (the RPers specifically) with the rich ability to social-network within the game itself.  We might be able to do a back-door on NCSoft via Nexxon.
This is something that would be interesting, especially since the "in game advertisement" thread has gotten me thinking of ways that CoH could have an entire pure-social side opened up that would also make in-game advertising almost a DRAW for new players just interested in a more interactive online environment. With superheroes.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DrakeGrimm on September 27, 2012, 03:55:07 AM
This is something that would be interesting, especially since the "in game advertisement" thread has gotten me thinking of ways that CoH could have an entire pure-social side opened up that would also make in-game advertising almost a DRAW for new players just interested in a more interactive online environment. With superheroes.

Heck, half the time for me, CoH was a chat room with fancy visuals.

/me polishes "Roleplayer" badge with pride
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on September 27, 2012, 04:07:48 AM
This is something that would be interesting, especially since the "in game advertisement" thread has gotten me thinking of ways that CoH could have an entire pure-social side opened up that would also make in-game advertising almost a DRAW for new players just interested in a more interactive online environment. With superheroes.

This is exactly what "Maple Story", which is what Nexxon's big win, is.  It's a 2D MMORPG integrated with social networking.  Maybe we ought to be working on Nexxon.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lionors on September 27, 2012, 05:31:03 AM
Actually, I'm thrilled to see someone in the game industry take Kim's stance.  I've long said that I thought the competition for the 18-24 male gamer was overrated.  Maybe they were the biggest buyers at first, but a *lot* has changed since MMOs began developing.  The traditional gaming crowd isn't the traditional gaming crowd anymore.

Besides which, just because a particular target market has gotten older, doesn't mean members of that market have lost their interest in gaming.  It just means their gaming patterns have likely changed.  Just think:  if you began gaming as an 18 year old in Everquest in 1999, you'd be 31 now.  You're working.  You might have a family.  You've got outside responsibilities you didn't have at 18...so instead of playing for hours, as you did at 18, you might have to fit in a few hours here and there.  You might not have the time or patience to jump from game to game as you once did.  Therefore, you're more likely to stick with a game you know and enjoy.  Fortunately, you probably have a bit more disposable income, so you're willing to maintain a subscription, even if your demands on the service aren't great.  What's not to like about gamers who keep steady subscriptions and don't overload the system?  Casual gamers can be a veritable cash cow, appealed to properly.

CoX hit that market perfectly, but I never did think they actually realized just how many sub-markets they could appeal to, nor did they really try.

The gaming target market is shifting, and those who shift focus and aim for it will prosper...just as those who keep blindly targeting one small group will not.  If Kim can be reached, my guess is, that's the angle that will carry the most weight: potential future profit.   Sounds like he'd be a great target to approach, though.  Just my two cents.

~Elizabeth
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on September 27, 2012, 05:34:00 AM
It would be supremely ironic if Nexxon pressured NCSoft to release the IP to them, then re-launched it...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lionors on September 27, 2012, 05:37:28 AM
If they did so, so help me, I'd go out and buy every one of their products, whether I intended to play them or not.

But I would laugh like a fiend [edit: at NCSoft's expense] if they [Nexon] got the IP, then turned around and profited from it.

~Elizabeth (who needs to go to bed, since both her composing and editing skills have hit the skids as the brain cells have faded)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on September 27, 2012, 05:38:01 AM
Would that be good or bad? Maybe I've got this all wrong, but isn't Maple Story one of those MMO's where you play a bunch of metagames that are all cheap knockoffs of popular board games and/or oldschool video games a few thousand times to acquire points which you can then use to buy a new costume piece for your avatar? If so, I'd hate to see what they'd have in mind for CoX.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lionors on September 27, 2012, 05:42:00 AM
Edited to make what I was saying more clear.  Wasn't thinking of them changing CoX, just picking it up and running the game as is.

~Elizabeth
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: golemjoe on September 27, 2012, 05:52:21 AM
Having played a nexon game (Atlantica Online) for a couple of years alongside COH, I would cringe about the idea of nexon running COH.  It would be better than being shutdown but not by leaps and bounds.  Nexon support (at least for AO) is incredibly painful and has driven friends from the game.  Not something I'd like to see mirrored in COH. 

Not trying to be negative.. just wanted to share the experience.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on September 27, 2012, 09:42:39 AM
Well it would be marginally better than a shutdown (and give us more time to code our own game and the means to port our toons into it.)  What I had in mind is that Maple Story's success is due to melding gameplay, roleplay, storytelling and social networking.  Some, at least, of CoH's success--and I suspect what brings ALL of us to the table here--was due to melding gameplay, roleplay, storytelling and social networking.  CoH obviously did it in a much more palatable way.  If we could squeeze another two years out of CoH, I think Codewalker and the others might have a new ship to jump to.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: QuantumHero on September 27, 2012, 12:29:53 PM
Well it would be marginally better than a shutdown (and give us more time to code our own game and the means to port our toons into it.)  What I had in mind is that Maple Story's success is due to melding gameplay, roleplay, storytelling and social networking.  Some, at least, of CoH's success--and I suspect what brings ALL of us to the table here--was due to melding gameplay, roleplay, storytelling and social networking.  CoH obviously did it in a much more palatable way.  If we could squeeze another two years out of CoH, I think Codewalker and the others might have a new ship to jump to.

This is becoming *very* interesting.  Almost anything is marginally better then a shutdown.  We have no idea what role (if any) nexxon played in decisions to sign our death warrant but either way yet another opportunity for Nexxon and/or NcSoft to place everyone back in a win-win situation.

I am going to start researching Nexxon products...one never knows what will need to be fully supported...or boycotted, in the near future.  One never, never knows...but NCsoft is sinking so nicely...its almost TITANic.   
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Osborn on September 27, 2012, 12:33:51 PM
Well it would be marginally better than a shutdown (and give us more time to code our own game and the means to port our toons into it.)  What I had in mind is that Maple Story's success is due to melding gameplay, roleplay, storytelling and social networking.  Some, at least, of CoH's success--and I suspect what brings ALL of us to the table here--was due to melding gameplay, roleplay, storytelling and social networking.  CoH obviously did it in a much more palatable way.  If we could squeeze another two years out of CoH, I think Codewalker and the others might have a new ship to jump to.

 Talking about "squeezing a year out of CoH" so we have longer to backwards engineer the game and start a competing firm isn't necessarily a good way to ensure potential CoH investors the IP and the aging engine is a good long term investment. If they take the IP for say 20 million US Dollars you're looking at a 10-20 year span needed at current sales to recover that cost. Even if its 2 million for the IP it'll take almost 2 years before the game turns a profit.

So unless NCSoft charities the IP to somebody we're going to need to show we'll support this game for the long run, not just make our own. Even if they use the IP to make CoX-2 they're going to need to see our support for that too rather than "Thanks I got your code, see you suckers later!", as our message.

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: QuantumHero on September 27, 2012, 12:43:09 PM
Talking about "squeezing a year out of CoH" so we have longer to backwards engineer the game and start a competing firm isn't necessarily a good way to ensure potential CoH investors the IP and the aging engine is a good long term investment. If they take the IP for say 20 million US Dollars you're looking at a 10-20 year span needed at current sales to recover that cost. Even if its 2 million for the IP it'll take almost 2 years before the game turns a profit.

So unless NCSoft charities the IP to somebody we're going to need to show we'll support this game for the long run, not just make our own. Even if they use the IP to make CoX-2 they're going to need to see our support for that too rather than "Thanks I got your code, see you suckers later!", as our message.

Good point osborn,

By the same token, we need guarentees not to get utterly screwed ever again.   The smart company would save the IP an then partner with the community to deveop a COH2 that we would migrate to enmass.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DrakeGrimm on September 27, 2012, 02:39:39 PM
Good point osborn,

By the same token, we need guarentees not to get utterly screwed ever again.   The smart company would save the IP an then partner with the community to deveop a COH2 that we would migrate to enmass.

This. Dear sweet $Deity, THIS.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: downix on September 27, 2012, 02:43:23 PM
Talking about "squeezing a year out of CoH" so we have longer to backwards engineer the game and start a competing firm isn't necessarily a good way to ensure potential CoH investors the IP and the aging engine is a good long term investment. If they take the IP for say 20 million US Dollars you're looking at a 10-20 year span needed at current sales to recover that cost. Even if its 2 million for the IP it'll take almost 2 years before the game turns a profit.
Save CoH has revenues of ~$10 million a year. In the $800/month revenue thread we discussed what was needed to run CoH, and it came to under $2 million a year, which means it would take 5 quarters to turn a profit if it is $10 million, or 10 quarters if $20. Alternatively, forgoing immediate profits to instead use Paragon as a self-funding development studio would mean a much higher return at the 2 year mark, as a new title such as CoH2 comes out.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lucretia MacEvil on September 27, 2012, 04:11:57 PM
NCsoft is sinking so nicely...its almost TITANic.

So what IS their stock doing?  How can I check?  Where do I go to check? 
Thanks in advance for the info.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on September 27, 2012, 04:14:57 PM
Save CoH has revenues of ~$10 million a year. In the $800/month revenue thread we discussed what was needed to run CoH, and it came to under $2 million a year, which means it would take 5 quarters to turn a profit if it is $10 million, or 10 quarters if $20. Alternatively, forgoing immediate profits to instead use Paragon as a self-funding development studio would mean a much higher return at the 2 year mark, as a new title such as CoH2 comes out.
Given my own personal interest in this whole project, I do hope to see it become a self-sustaining development environment. I want to develop and test something for which an MMO is the ideal initial environment...

...which is why I am eager to get in contact with those who are involved in the ongoing process. I want to help them get their legs moving, and speak with them about opportunities after things are running smoothly once more. (Also, I'm really really enjoying brainstorming ideas in the in-game-ads thread, I admit. But that's unrelated to my initial interest in this.)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Flying Code Monkey on September 27, 2012, 06:03:10 PM
CoX hit that market perfectly, but I never did think they actually realized just how many sub-markets they could appeal to, nor did they really try.

I've never seen so many people be all "oh we are so ollld!" as in City.  I don't mean that in a bad way, though.  I've also never seen another game with so many couples and people who blend playing with their other responsibilities, and/or team with their kids.  I've been pretty convinced for a while that the strength of the City community reflects its success in attracting and retaining that audience.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DamianoV on September 27, 2012, 09:06:14 PM
Quote
So what IS their stock doing?  How can I check?  Where do I go to check?
Thanks in advance for the info.

Do a quick google search for NCSoft stock ticker... on Bloomberg Businessweek, the link is

http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?ticker=036570:KS

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: emu265 on September 27, 2012, 09:39:30 PM
I've never seen so many people be all "oh we are so ollld!" as in City.  I don't mean that in a bad way, though.  I've also never seen another game with so many couples and people who blend playing with their other responsibilities, and/or team with their kids.  I've been pretty convinced for a while that the strength of the City community reflects its success in attracting and retaining that audience.
Yeah.

I'm not going to start outlining theories as to why this is, but Cities is certainly unique.  It breaks the MMO stereotype not because of it's gameplay, but because of its community.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on September 27, 2012, 09:58:21 PM
It helps that many of us grew up with superheroes and wishing we could be them, and that the superhero is not something that is a one-generational thing. CoH was the first superhero MMO.

I don't know that it did anything, design-wise, that made it have a better community than CO or other competing superhero MMOs, but it has the community and feel it has.

I am, as an outsider who's just wandered in for his own interests, very impressed by what you guys have done here, and I sincerely hope to be able to help find ways to make it even better after we get CoH to continue working.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lucretia MacEvil on September 28, 2012, 08:08:32 PM
Do a quick google search for NCSoft stock ticker... on Bloomberg Businessweek, the link is

http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?ticker=036570:KS

Thank you.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Chaos Ex Machina on September 28, 2012, 08:21:59 PM
Personally I consider a potential goal of the intellectual property only a non-goal.  The IP has little relation to why the game is fun or why it attracted the audience it did.

If it was a choice of buy the game and rent the IP, versus IP, I say the game is a greater priority by far.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on September 28, 2012, 08:40:27 PM
Personally I consider a potential goal of the intellectual property only a non-goal.  The IP has little relation to why the game is fun or why it attracted the audience it did.

If it was a choice of buy the game and rent the IP, versus IP, I say the game is a greater priority by far.
The goal in "buying the IP" is generally to keep the game running more or less as-is. That is, same general mechanics and such. It will obviously change as it has over the years to date, but this is a "preferred" option because it's basically continuing the game onwards.

If they do a CoH2 (because it IS an 8-year-old game), the IP would be useful, and hopefully experience for whoever works on 2 would stem from having worked on 1.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Solaris on October 03, 2012, 01:52:23 AM
Posted for a friend.
They say hindsight is 20-20. Some comments /fears about Nexon expressed otherwise is June 2012. Indicative of a general feeling, might have helped to push NCSoft's stock to it's current state. http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/39016-nexon-today-acquired-3218091-shares-of-ncsoft/
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on October 03, 2012, 05:51:23 AM
Has anyone checked stock prices for other MMO companies? I wonder how PWE and SOE are doing (since they own Champions Online and DCUO respectively)

Compare them to NCsoft and see how they're doing?

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Turjan on October 05, 2012, 03:45:55 PM
It's also a point to remember that while Nexon own 15% of NCSoft, the two companies are not merged in any way, so it's logical to include Nexon's share link here too -
Nexon Co Ltd (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=3659.T)

(aside: On Oct 1st 2012, Nexon acquired all shares in gloops, Inc. (http://gloops.com/en/) a Japanese mobile game company - seems their eyes are firmly fixed on the casual/handheld side of the gaming industry for the future - interesting when you remember the 'reason' NCSoft West cited for the closure of CoH was this : "The continued support of the franchise no longer fits with our long-term goals for the company." Considering Nexon acquired 15% of NCSoft shares in June, and NCSoft had diligently supported CoH for 7 years prior to Nexon's involvement, one has to start wondering if this sudden about face was entirely an internal NCSoft decision...)

Oh, and why not also for the sake of completion -

Activision Blizzard Inc (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=ATVI.O)

and...

Electronic Arts inc (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=EA.A)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on October 05, 2012, 05:30:12 PM
They've been going up ever since the 2nd.  :roll:
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Turjan on October 05, 2012, 06:11:08 PM
They've been going up ever since the 2nd.  :roll:
True - but they're still over 9% down on what they were exactly a month ago.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: RedWolfeXR on October 05, 2012, 11:53:53 PM
As others have  said, stock prices are fickle.  If everyone expected 4M sales of GW2 months ago then the "value" of those sales is basically "priced in" to the current valuation.

If the product THEN sells 2M (which is STILL a lot of boxes and a lot of cash) instead the balance sheet may show a dip but the stock price could tumble dramatically.  (which it did)

Missing your EPS always does nasty things to stock.  Its all perception.  Tossing a few IP/titles and employees to the wolves may well be an attempt to moderate that opinion which is mostly in Korea.  Note that CoH seriously tanked in Korea, and it SOUNDS good to the average Korean investor that doesn't know the US market. 

Plus its not just what your stock its doing, its what related ones are doing.

I got laid off from one company because they did deep cuts after missing EPS due to sales being down.  (too deep IMO, and not just because it was deep enough to get me)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lucretia MacEvil on October 25, 2012, 04:37:03 PM
According to http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?ticker=036570:KS NCsoft stock hit a 52-week low yesterday (10/24), and as this chart shows http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/charts/charts.asp?ticker=036570:KS there's been a downward trend since 9/7. 

... did we do that?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on October 25, 2012, 04:39:20 PM
(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.fragglerockforever.com%2FCoX%2Fncstocks.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Celtic Fist on October 25, 2012, 04:45:12 PM
It would be nice to accredit the fall to NCsoft decision on CoH but lower then expected return on recently releases or other factors are probably a major factor. 

I am not familar with how to get news of CoH decision and community outrage/activity to be linked to the stock data on the various business stock reporting sites but it could offer that the company is not being well managed.

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Codewalker on October 25, 2012, 05:05:09 PM
Agreed, the stock market is such a volatile and finicky mistress that unless there's a very clear and major shift, any connection between stock price and coh-related events is tenuous at best.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on October 25, 2012, 05:07:56 PM
If the Unity Rally didn't factor into it though... I mean, look at the image I posted. The fates must have quite a sense of humor. The overall trend for that period took a turn on that weekend.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lucretia MacEvil on October 25, 2012, 07:45:20 PM
lower then expected return on recently releases or other factors are probably a major factor. 

Didn't we contribute to that, too, by letting others know how NCsoft does business?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Heat Guard on October 25, 2012, 10:39:08 PM
Didn't we contribute to that, too, by letting others know how NCsoft does business?
I can't speak for anyone else, but thinking that what we have done so far may have helped the nosedive helps deal with this situation a little.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: P51mus on October 26, 2012, 12:32:00 AM
I can't speak for anyone else, but thinking that what we have done so far may have helped the nosedive helps deal with this situation a little.

Schadenfreude (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCQGQ5qBQTA)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on October 26, 2012, 12:45:24 AM
We may not have contributed but you bet your rosy derriere I am going to use that news.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lily Barclay on October 26, 2012, 01:22:49 AM
(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.fragglerockforever.com%2FCoX%2Fncstocks.jpg)

Need to update that graphic to include the huge dip immediately after all the events and press coverage after double XP weekend.  :D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Celtic Fist on October 26, 2012, 01:25:33 PM
Checked the NCsoft stock numbers morning and they are a new 52 week low.

http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=036570.KS

Seems like some Justice .. keep up the good fight.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on October 26, 2012, 04:21:19 PM
If I was part of this company, I'd be horrified! Our customers hope we fail, keep up with our stock and cheer when it drops, make fun of our latest products and distribute mocking images online. I can't imagine a more dreadful situation. And it's an entertainment company?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on October 26, 2012, 04:27:58 PM
If I was part of this company, I'd be horrified! Our customers hope we fail, keep up with our stock and cheer when it drops, make fun of our latest products and distribute mocking images online. I can't imagine a more dreadful situation. And it's an entertainment company?

I don't think that's really a new thing. There is a redside of many of us that is waiting for Hollywood to get swallowed by a 9.9er to level the playing field in the hopes that professional film-making will take a step back to something a bit less formulaic and in-bred. The entertainment industry in general also currently wears the crown when it comes to pushing the government to find ways to bring them more money, as they whine that they're somehow being treated unfairly. And have you seen the kind of reputation EA currently has?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on October 26, 2012, 04:48:52 PM
Need to update that graphic to include the huge dip immediately after all the events and press coverage after double XP weekend.  :D

That last major drop started a couple days before that weekend.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Luna Eclypse on October 26, 2012, 05:43:57 PM
Their free-falling stocks make me giddy with delight. We cannot afford to let up on the pressure.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: eabrace on October 26, 2012, 06:00:48 PM
Whether or not we're in any way responsible for contributing to the continued decline of NCsoft stock, we can at least be certain that we're not helping to slow it down.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ironwolf on October 26, 2012, 08:14:27 PM
Here is the thing - we keep holding the carrot out all the time we are beating the snot out of them.

We can make this stop - sell the game - it is that easy.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Xieveral on October 26, 2012, 08:33:39 PM
This was just posted up on the Save CoH facebook group. An estimate of where NCSoft's stocks might be had they not closed the game. The poster does say the graph may be off since the figures don't start from zero.

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.lukasmattsson.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F10%2FNcSoft-stocks.png)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on October 26, 2012, 08:35:13 PM
On what do they base their estimates? How do they determine what fall is due to CoH's cancellation?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on October 26, 2012, 08:36:32 PM
This was just posted up on the Save CoH facebook group. An estimate of where NCSoft's stocks might be had they not closed the game. The poster does say the graph may be off since the figures don't start from zero.

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.lukasmattsson.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F10%2FNcSoft-stocks.png)

Who did this? Is it based on any professional trader speculation, or is it 'just for fun?'
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: zybron on October 26, 2012, 08:44:00 PM
Looks like they simply copied the graph from prior to the cancellation and tacked it onto the point where the announcement was made.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Xieveral on October 26, 2012, 08:56:11 PM
I believe they put the graph together for "fun" to show what NCSoft may have lost with the closure . The figures are based on the pattern prior to closing (a copy/paste like Zybron said)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on October 26, 2012, 09:40:28 PM
Anyone think it might be possible to get an 'official' speculation on this? Or is NC too remote for any Wallstreet news firm to give a darn?

And also, on the topic of whether or not we actually caused this... it's really not that hard to imagine. These trends tend to work like avalanches, and it all it takes is a little gust of wind to start an avalanche.

Similar to how gas prices were during the gulf war. All it took to alter gas prices, was for an Iraqi to fart in the general direction of a soldier from a U.N. nation.

In this case, assuming it was us, here's what I'd say happened. There's all different kinds of investors. Some are fiercely loyal and will give stocks a long-term chance. Others trade by the nano-second... constantly. Some of the latter are as timid as deer, and will flee into the forest the moment they hear a twig snap. No doubt the rally scared those guys off pretty quick. But they're also not the major investors so not much harm done. In the grand scheme of things, the damage probably isn't so bad thus far. But, I think the minor panic might've been enough to incite a slightly larger one. Other investors saw the lowbies panicking, (through the stock value) and on top of that saw the bad press. And there you have your snowballing effect (maybe).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: ohms on October 26, 2012, 11:45:28 PM
The graph has no bearing on reality. For example, the mid-September drop was most likely due to the loss of personal data of 5 million Japanese customers which the graph completely ignores.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on October 26, 2012, 11:49:28 PM
The graph has no bearing on reality. For example, the mid-September drop was most likely due to the loss of personal data of 5 million Japanese customers which the graph completely ignores.

Whoa... 5 Million??? I hadn't heard about this! Where's this info come from?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: ohms on October 27, 2012, 10:32:26 AM
Whoa... 5 Million??? I hadn't heard about this! Where's this info come from?

MY apologies, I misread the article. It doesn't say how many users had information leaked, only that NCSoft Japan has 5 million registered users. It wasn't widely reported so I have no idea how true it is.

http://www.mmoculture.com/2012/09/ncsoft-internal-error-led-to-latest-account-information-leak/
http://www.gameblogs.co.uk/posts/2012/09/ncsoft-internal-error-led-to-latest-account-information-leak/
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Rotten Luck on October 27, 2012, 02:10:32 PM
Internal Error huh.... Yup no connection to any Internal choice to turn off CoH.

Think someone might have Hacked the system?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on October 27, 2012, 03:05:41 PM
I don't know... I don't see any correlation (real or inferred) between the brief exposure of the customer data in Japan and the downward slide of their stock. Nothing seems to have happened to either bump their stock higher or send it going lower at a faster pace on Sept. 15th.

On the other hand, the graph is almost PERFECTLY in line with the date of the first Unity Rally! In fact I think it's off by only one day because of the fact that the rally happened on a weekend when the stock market wasn't open. As soon as it opened on the following Monday, it went into the SCREAMING DIVE that it's currently in and with only brief upticks, is still in!

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on October 27, 2012, 11:30:13 PM
Well NCSoftcore, if you're reading this... you know how to make the pain stop. Just uncancel our little game, and put it up for sale to responsible caretakers. This can all go away. You don't hafta be the pariah of the gaming world. It won't cost you a lot, and you might even be able to make yourselves look like good guys again.

And we promise we won't be yelling "in your face!" or anything. This has been a nightmare for us as well, and we want it to go away too.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The White Rager on October 28, 2012, 03:17:07 AM
Actually, if and when they do give us what we want, we should probably turn around and counter the bad press we started for a bit. No singing praises through cyberspace, just a little unraveling, some counter comments, a nice article or two on the same lines as what VV is sending out. To show NCSoft what happens when they do cooperate with us. 'We are a force for your own good OR your own destruction, and you choose which', is the lesson we ultimately want them to come away with.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on October 28, 2012, 03:28:08 AM
Heheh, we are but a syringe. Only they can choose what to load us with. A healing potion, or a deadly poison.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: srmalloy on October 28, 2012, 05:37:12 AM
This is exactly what "Maple Story", which is what Nexxon's big win, is.  It's a 2D MMORPG integrated with social networking.  Maybe we ought to be working on Nexxon.

Particularly because this article (http://allthingsd.com/20120827/exclusive-daniel-kim-stepping-down-as-nexon-america-ceo/), four days before NCSoft's bomb, announces Daniel Kim's replacement by Min Kim (Nexon's SVP of live games) as the CEO of Nexon America, and presents an interesting statement from Min Kim:

Quote
Min Kim said he sees a big opportunity lying ahead in the traditional games space, where people play games for years at a time and for long stretches every month.

This would appear to describe City of Heroes to a 'T', and Nexon -- as a major shareholder of NCSoft -- should be concerned that NCSoft has thrown away a prize opportunity to spearhead City of Heroes as a shining example of creating a game that has built up exactly such a dedicated playerbase.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on October 28, 2012, 09:36:40 AM
Well can we get the address for Min Kim of Nexon America and start sending him letters?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Turjan on October 28, 2012, 11:55:07 AM
There's one of the things that puzzles me - the whole Min Kim, Nexon US thing. If you read his interview that appeared in Forbes on October 5th -

Nexon America CEO Min Kim Explains Why Free-To-Play Is The Future Of Gaming (http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2012/10/05/nexon-ceo-min-kim-explains-why-free-to-play-is-the-future-of-gaming/)

- you can't help but think that keeping City of Heroes alive in its current form would've made the most sense from Nexon's point of view, especially if a sequel was planned using the IP (whether on pc of a different platform), just as with Guild Wars remaining open because GW2 was in development.

Given the image of MMO-centred business plans Min Kim is trying to put over in that article, I find it hard to believe that NCsoft kept Nexon out of the loop about the impending closure of City of Heroes, so once again one has to start wondering what the motivations behind the scenes were.


It's a puzzle - one for which, I'm afraid, we are missing several pieces - pieces that are in corporate hands, beyond our reach.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Rotten Luck on October 28, 2012, 12:27:54 PM
It's a puzzle - one for which, I'm afraid, we are missing several pieces - pieces that are in corporate hands, beyond our reach.

Your not the only one Turjan.  No one seems to know why.  It's part of the frustration we feel, kind of hearing someone died of a mugging.  Their is just no reason we can see.

If I do mean IF Ncsoft going to launch a CoH2 (even without our Devs... part two of our anger) announcing it and explaining that CoH going to go down Nov 30th so they can convert the servers to the new game we be overjoyed.  Our world updated and enhanced with new graphics better engine, and new game play styles are all things players said they wanted.

But this seems to be a franchise killing move like the end of Exteel, as well as others.  End the game and sit on the IP been done to much by NCsoft that we can even tease ourselves they have a CoH2.  The pattern doesn't fit.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: CapaDevans on October 28, 2012, 12:34:44 PM
Unless NC are selling out to someone with a superhero franchise already or far on in the works.

In which case their stocks tanking is probably helping the buyer. Which doesn't concern me much because I still think those numbers are good news for us.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on October 29, 2012, 05:17:50 PM
Yeah, ANY effort to capitalize on the CoH franchise is being destroyed by the current tactics. Now, maybe NCSoft assumes we're a vocal minority and most players will just be so relieved they'll leap onto anything. Maybe they are realizing there's something off but they're too proud (or too afraid of losing face) to step it back and fix it now. Maybe there's something none of us have thought of going on.

It's all a mystery, and all we can do is hope that we're going to make a difference.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Keyne on October 29, 2012, 06:17:15 PM
1) Competing business buys heavily into your stock
2) Pull the plug on one of your products to intentionally sabotage stock value
3) ????
4) Profit?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Codewalker on October 29, 2012, 06:37:27 PM
That would actually backfire pretty badly. As I uncovered while analyzing their balance sheet to determine why their Current Assets are so high, one of the bigger stockholders of NCSoft is... NCSoft. The company owns a sizable chunk of its own stock -- a little shy of half its recorded assets.

So they're hurt as much as anyone when their stock price falls. Probably more, since a it would devalue their overall assets, which would make them look bad to investors, causing the price to fall further.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on October 29, 2012, 06:53:02 PM
it sounds like they caught themselves in a downward spiral if things start to go badly for them

its like they were playing with a tower of cards, knock out one card and the whole thing can tumble down
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on October 29, 2012, 08:13:12 PM
it sounds like they caught themselves in a downward spiral if things start to go badly for them

its like they were playing with a tower of cards, knock out one card and the whole thing can tumble down

If that's the case, then...

(Mr. Burns)  EXcellent! (/Mr. Burns)

The more they hurt, the more they'll think about actually selling off assets. And the ONE asset that's likely causing them the MOST problems right now is City of Heroes.

HAMMER DOWN people! Ramp up the NOISE!!!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DrakeGrimm on October 29, 2012, 08:23:04 PM
If that's the case, then...

(Mr. Burns)  EXcellent! (/Mr. Burns)

The more they hurt, the more they'll think about actually selling off assets. And the ONE asset that's likely causing them the MOST problems right now is City of Heroes.

HAMMER DOWN people! Ramp up the NOISE!!!

Like I've said before...keep shouting until the walls of Jericho(metaphor: NCSoft) fall around them, leaving them dazed and confused.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Codewalker on October 29, 2012, 10:10:03 PM
That's true, but I wouldn't get too excited about it. Just look at the 6 month and 1/2 year graphs. NCSoft's stock price is fairly cyclical, climbing sharply when they release new games and then dropping back down shortly after.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on October 29, 2012, 10:27:58 PM
That's true, but I wouldn't get too excited about it. Just look at the 6 month and 1/2 year graphs. NCSoft's stock price is fairly cyclical, climbing sharply when they release new games and then dropping back down shortly after.

How many times can they launch a flop and actually keep investors fooled?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on October 29, 2012, 10:30:36 PM
How many times can they launch a flop and actually keep investors fooled?
As many times as they can fool investors with their own press releases, unfortunately.  Our goal, then, is to wake them up with information of our own, pointing out the history of failure.  If we keep twisting the knife hard enough, NCsoft's eventually gotta scream.

We've already heard the whimpering (http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,5966.0.html).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on October 29, 2012, 11:53:30 PM
I think I've said this before, but I can't find that post right now.

I think honestly - this time, with this closure, NCSoft is NOT going to get away with this - at least not unscathed.

We have an interesting confluence of things happening at close to the same time.

There is a bad economy, and thus gamers have to be more selective of their purchases.

Related to that is an issue that has been growing over several years - the lack of satisfactory customer service and/or value that people are getting fed up with. When your money is limited, you want VALUE for it and not to be treated like shit.

(To be fair - NCsoft has - in the past, been one of the BETTER companies in terms of customer support. I say this as someone who has sent in multiple in-game tickets and either got a prompt visit from a GM or an email that asked me to explain the issue in further detail. And the NCSoft GMs and crew ALWAYS came through. Mind - that's a reflection of the hard-working people at the NCSoft West offices and the server farm more than it is the home company. But just to be thorough and give credit where it's due and all.)

The rise of social media in the form of LiveJournal, Facebook and Twitter. (More the latter two. But LJ was the pioneer)

The Mass Effect 3 Ending Fiasco, where all of the above came together at once to FORCE EA and Bioware to compromise and give a (somewhat) better ending for the game.

Now let me backtrack a bit.

In the past, NCSoft closed 4 games. Dungeon Runners, Auto Assault, EXteel and Tabula Rasa. In every case, the fig leaf of the game being unprofitable or losing money could be used. Even in the fiasco between NCSoft and Richard Garriot, the fight was low key enough not to reach outside the hardcore gaming community.

(And on that subject of community - none of those games lasted long enough to DEVELOP a community of any real kind. But I'll come back to that point below.)

Let's take a side trip also - to the closing of Star Wars Galaxies last year. A lot of people complain about Sony (SOE) for that. But that really was not their fault. LucasArts decided not to renew the license (or they pulled it outright, I'm not sure if I remember which it was) and thus SOE legally could not continue the game.

(A side note - SOE actually has perhaps the BEST record of keeping older games going of all the MMO companies. Everquest was theirs, and it's still going. If DC doesn't pull the same license pull as Lucasarts, DCUO might actually last longer than Champions Online!)

SWG was obviously closed in favor of SWTOR. Well that game isn't doing so well either. It might be due to it just not being that great a game (as many people seem to think) or it might be because many fans shied away from EA and Bioware because of the ME3 debacle. Or it could be a combination of those things and the economy etc. But I tend to think the ME3 Ending had SOMETHING to do with it at least for a few months. I wonder now how much, if any, regret is going through the minds of the CEOs at Bioware, EA and Lucasarts now?

And the SWG fans certainly haven't forgotten. The gaming industry hasn't forgotten that closure. That one's still fresh in the minds of many fans and gamers. (And many of them I've noticed expressing sympathy with us on a few forums.)

So now we come to the closing of City of Heroes.

- Which was still doing financially well.

- Which was around for 8 solid years, and never ever went into the red.

- Which because of that time and because of the nature and the undeniable (award winning!) quality of the game - solid gameplay AND solid tools for RP - developed possibly THE most dedicated, coherent, mature, and MOTIVATED Community the gaming world has ever seen!

- A community which at the perfect time that it NEEDS it - has the TOOLS of the newly developed social media.

- And the EXAMPLE of the Mass Effect 3 Fans as a guide -

- AND the backing of one of the Fantasy Genre's finest writers -

- AND the goodwill and respect of not only many FORMER gamers, but even games that are in direct competition with it - namely Champions and DCUO.

This is a closing that shocked not just US, but dumbfounded the entire gaming industry and has left many wondering if their game is next.

Oh no. THIS TIME it's VERY VERY different. THIS time NCSoft made a MONUMENTAL misjudgment in which game to close in their stable to appease their stockholders. Because of their blindness to the Western Market and it's needs and because of their provincialism at the home office, they have NO IDEA what they have awoken.

The cyclical nature of their stock may have something to do with the downturn. The economy may also play into it.

But c'mon - LOOK at that graph and the timeline!

The graph goes UP sharply around the time that GW2 is released. There is a slight drop off of speed in the upward swing as the closure of City of Heroes is announced.

And then the Unity Rally happens on the weekend of the 7th.

And BAM - as soon as the stock market opens on the following Monday the NCsoft ticker takes a SCREAMING FALL. That despite some ups and downs since, has continued until now?

You want to tell me THAT is a coincidence? I wasn't sure myself until just this past week. But I'm convinced now that we STOPPED that upward swing COLD.

Oh no. No no no... We ARE having an effect. We HAVE ALREADY had an effect. Why do you think they even bothered trying to ask us to stop saying nasty true things?

Because what we are doing is WORKING. Because it's HURTING them.

Pop a rez. Plant your feet, and BRING THE NOISE.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Terwyn on October 30, 2012, 12:00:29 AM
Drums in the Deep.

We are coming.

^_^
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mentalshock on October 30, 2012, 12:01:15 AM
Drums in the Deep.

We are coming.

^_^

And we have a Cave Troll!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DrakeGrimm on October 30, 2012, 12:17:26 AM
Hold your ground, hold your ground!
Sons of Paragon, of the Isles, my brothers!
I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of heroes fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day.
An hour of woes and shattered shields, when the age of heroes comes crashing down!
But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you stand, Heroes of the City!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on October 30, 2012, 12:23:59 AM
Hold your ground, hold your ground!
Sons of Paragon, of the Isles, my brothers!
I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of heroes fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day.
An hour of woes and shattered shields, when the age of heroes comes crashing down!
But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you *stand, Heroes of the City!

**APPLAUSE!!!**

Damnit! A LIKE button! Where's the like button!?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on October 30, 2012, 12:53:52 AM
They're destroying my world.  I aim to misbehave.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DrakeGrimm on October 30, 2012, 01:17:01 AM
They're destroying my world.  I aim to misbehave.

...where in the bloody hells is that like button?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Twisted Toon on October 30, 2012, 03:34:30 AM
(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=malzeth.com%2Fimages%2Flike.JPG)

There ya go.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: LT. Couper on October 30, 2012, 04:26:28 AM
They're destroying my world.  I aim to misbehave.

Indeed.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: OzonePrime on October 30, 2012, 11:45:16 AM
They're destroying my world.  I aim to misbehave.
Most definitely!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on October 30, 2012, 09:25:36 PM
Wait till you see Nigel Smythe's post on www.cccpgroup.us
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lily Barclay on October 31, 2012, 05:48:45 AM
Just did a search for "NCSoft shares" on Google to see if any of our pages come up, and this thread was the first to pop up. Bottom  of the third page.  :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Beodren on October 31, 2012, 12:19:59 PM
Point is they bounced up heavily anyway...
I would advise offensive action. If I am correct a lot of gaming branch uses Twitter, right? Would we be able to trend a catchy anti NCSoft #tag (MMO killer is too close to us gamers, while sucks is just crude and impolite. Best would be opinion of person knowing a bit more about PR), their stocks would have to take a hit, not to mention a heavy bad PR. Problem may lie in fact, we lost a lot of people during silent period, so we might have to search for others, believing NCSoft needs to change ttheir approach.

Just throwing out an idea, because well... high spirits are all fun and games, but against everything, whoever bought NCSoft action at the very bottom had a pleasant suprise. Something, we definitly didn't wanted.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on November 01, 2012, 02:39:53 AM
Just did a search for "NCSoft shares" on Google to see if any of our pages come up, and this thread was the first to pop up. Bottom  of the third page.  :)
The way to get our stuff come up on the first page is to link to it every chance you get.  Your blog, facebook, anyplace you can post to, comments sections on Massively and other gaming sites.  Link to the posts on www.cccpgroup.us; the front page is ALL NCSoft criticism now and will remain so, but the only way for it to become visible is for links to be made to it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Rotten Luck on November 01, 2012, 02:46:23 AM
I'm trying... not easy when your not used to communicating.  Curse you NCsoft your making me Socialize!

On a side note ... new keyboard smaller keys... hmm not sure how I feel about it but it's fancy.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Terwyn on November 01, 2012, 02:47:10 AM
You know, something that occurs to me. The major cause of our ire is the disconnect between the work culture of North America and the work culture of Korea.

Many of us have vowed to avoid doing business with NCSoft ever again.

Our cause, being a public face of that cultural dissonance, is something that may very well spread outside of the gaming industry. I certainly have been working my contacts to make them aware of the consequences of this dissonance being left unresolved as far as it relates to their industry.

If a company betrays the trust of its loyal customers, what grounds do they have to avoid being mistrusted by the companies they would wish to work with in the future?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Jordan_Lee on November 01, 2012, 02:51:18 AM
This may (or may not have) been mentioned before. Since after 11/30 the general agreement is that NC Soft won't see another penny from us. Is there anyway to contact game stores that sell boxed games or product keys online and make it known that they risk losing customers by offering the games? I don't see big corporate chain stores like Game Stop giving in, but a few locally owned ones might, right?

:( My measly suggestion. I wish we had the numbers WoW does, then we could just take over the world.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Rotten Luck on November 01, 2012, 02:59:07 AM
I wouldn't punish a suppler just because they have a game on the shelf.  Working at a corner store some items come in bulk from the main company and others from orders from the store itself.  Then you have contracts agreements signed before any issues came up.

Our problem is not that CoX closing it's how it was closed the cold termination of a thriving studio (Paragon Studios).  The Silent treatment and the resulting feeling of we are seen as nothing important to NCsoft.  This is increased more so by the timing of the announcement.  Right after GW2, During the Labor day weekend in the US (big chunk of the western market) and then the news of Bit... I mean Blades and souls.  This gives the impression they were trying to hide the closing of City of Heroes in the news and Holiday bursts.  This is also enhanced by the time of year.  November and December Big Christmas buying times... time when game sales go up.

So by cutting us off at this time they in cress the chance someone will by GW2 or B&S for a replacement.  What they didn't expect is the Loud SaveCoH movement as stated by Positron.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Terwyn on November 01, 2012, 03:02:06 AM
Indeed.

To be truthful, I hold no qualms about buying NCSoft.

I have phrased it that way for a particular reason.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mentalshock on November 01, 2012, 03:07:24 AM
Indeed.

To be truthful, I hold no qualms about buying NCSoft.

I have phrased it that way for a particular reason.

I believe you termed it 'Corporate Vikingry'?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Terwyn on November 01, 2012, 03:17:43 AM
I believe you termed it 'Corporate Vikingry'?

Not so crassly. Most people would look at the term and think of something illegal.

I have nothing more than the intention to position myself in such a way such that they have no choice but to listen to what I have to tell them. By this I mean eventually accumulating more shares than Nexon. This is, after all, an extremely long-term plan.

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on November 01, 2012, 03:26:43 AM
Might be a much shorter term plan if we could manage to dip the price of shares to 100 Yuan with our actions.

Mind, that would be a...400% decrease in the stock price?  Methinks we would need a front page story on CNN to do that.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Terwyn on November 01, 2012, 03:29:46 AM
Might be a much shorter term plan if we could manage to dip the price of shares to 100 Yuan with our actions.

Mind, that would be a...400% decrease in the stock price?  Methinks we would need a front page story on CNN to do that.

Are you perhaps implying what I suspect you may be implying, dear wordsmith?

^_^
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on November 01, 2012, 03:38:38 AM
Are you perhaps implying what I suspect you may be implying, dear wordsmith?

^_^

Alas, no, except in that we need a MUCH higher level of visibility than we have.  I don't think it's out of the question to actually get it, but the odds are not in our favor, and NCSoft would have to be caught doing something seriously illegal.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Terwyn on November 01, 2012, 03:40:23 AM
I think it would be even bigger than CNN than you think. It would possibly be (in the game world sense) something on the scale of  the Libor rate fiddling that Barclays did. Yep, for you to drop it *that* much (especially when it is trading at above 200,000 yen right now), to get it down to 100 KRW, they would have to be dealing in something *seriously* illegal.

Actually, yen is the Japanese currency, the Korean currency is the Won. NCSoft is currently trading at the equivalent of ~15000 yen.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mentalshock on November 01, 2012, 03:44:41 AM
Actually, yen is the Japanese currency, the Korean currency is the Won. NCSoft is currently trading at the equivalent of ~15000 yen.

To be more useful, that's about $187.45 CDN, or $187 US.   Give or take a few cents for exchange rates.

   Oh, and by 'illegal', do we mean something along the lines of forging a letter, or otherwise presenting falsehood as fact?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on November 01, 2012, 04:02:33 AM
To be more useful, that's about $187.45 CDN, or $187 US.   Give or take a few cents for exchange rates.

   Oh, and by 'illegal', do we mean something along the lines of forging a letter, or otherwise presenting falsehood as fact?

Depends.  If you are talking about Tabula Rasa, that is "old news".  If you are talking about something brand new, especially once we can cite Tabula Rasa and point out it out as showing a history of deception...well now you are talking.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on November 01, 2012, 04:13:49 AM
Depends.  If you are talking about Tabula Rasa, that is "old news".  If you are talking about something brand new, especially once we can cite Tabula Rasa and point out it out as showing a history of deception...well now you are talking.
Hmm.  We should probably try to get in touch with ex-Paragon Studios folks then.  If anyone would have that kind of ammo against NC, it'd likely be them.  After all, unless someone knows something I don't, we've already discussed their behavior towards their customers, and apparently their habit of revaluing the worth of their IPs to justify their stock prices isn't enough.

Now, if NC acted in bad faith towards their employees when Paragon Studios was closed & gutted, well... that would be a big bullet for our guns, wouldn't it?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on November 01, 2012, 05:43:15 AM
Hmm.  We should probably try to get in touch with ex-Paragon Studios folks then.  If anyone would have that kind of ammo against NC, it'd likely be them.  After all, unless someone knows something I don't, we've already discussed their behavior towards their customers, and apparently their habit of revaluing the worth of their IPs to justify their stock prices isn't enough.

Now, if NC acted in bad faith towards their employees when Paragon Studios was closed & gutted, well... that would be a big bullet for our guns, wouldn't it?

Well now, you have to remember that what is LEGAL and what is INTERESTING are two different things.  For instance, apparently it is not fraudulent for NCSoft to value all their IPs together at about $3m for tax purposes, yet tell their stockholders that CoH itself is worth $80m.  It's not fraudulent...but it's not ethical, and I bet their stockholders don't know that little tidbit of information.  And that is the sort of thing they would find very difficult to explain to a CNN business reporter.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on November 01, 2012, 05:59:35 AM
Well then, the question is, how do we get this unethical-though-not-actually-fraudulent behavior into CNN or some other respectable news source's ears, and make them care enough to start digging into it?  If we can get them to put the thumbscrews to NCsoft, I could see some investors shying away from the company as a result.

Coupled with the glassdoor.com employee reports, straight-from-the-horse's-mouth bad press from ex-Paragon employees, customer testimonials from us, whatever complaints we can file with the BBB, and their history of shady activity re: the Tabula Rasa/Richard Garriott fiasco, it paints a very unflattering picture of NCsoft.  It would portray them as a company that is duplicitous, impulsive, pigheaded-if-not-outright-bigoted, unethical, and extremely poor at customer relations.  Definitely not a company I'd want to associate myself with as a stockholder, that's for sure.

And the best part about it, we're not exagerrating anything.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ammon on November 01, 2012, 06:38:21 AM
Alas, no, except in that we need a MUCH higher level of visibility than we have.  I don't think it's out of the question to actually get it, but the odds are not in our favor, and NCSoft would have to be caught doing something seriously illegal.
I'm not so sure.  Sometimes being caught doing something unethical that is legal but stinks, is worse than being caught and punished for something illegal.  With an illegal act, we kind of believe the courts and system will deal with it.  With something unethical and stinky that a company can expect to get away with, we all know it is up to us to bring about a change, and to make the transition from what is legal, to what is just.

In addition to that, suspicion and rumour are often worse left unaddressed than an actual guilty verdict.  A widespread suspicion is far more damaging than a legal judgement which people can believe has settled the matter.

At this time, the main suspicions we have are several:

1.  That NCsoft are not serving customer interests at all as they should (the most successful game ever closed) where the game was not making a loss and the motive is believed to be for more profit - forcing players to have to buy another game of some kind that they can make more money on, even though it is not a comparable product.  (Minor, but still somewhat disgusting and questionable and worthy of debate).

2. That NCsoft are failing to do their jobs properly in serving shareholder interests, causing masses of expensive negative opinion that was unnecessary and thoughtless, and flat out incompetent.  More importantly, once it becomes apparent that closing CoH is more expensive than they'd believed, not changing their business plans to adapt out of pride, or stubbornness would be a failure of legal responsibility to look after shareholder interests.

3.  That NCsoft are a company committed (and convicted of) continued use of deception and outright lies to promote their business interests.  Not just spin, but the claims that Garriott had resigned, for instance, or that they had "exhausted all possibilities" to find alternative solutions to closing Paragon and CoH with the minimum possible notice, are both outright lies.  False claims made for profit.  False advertising, false marketing, and deceptive business practices are something we know are not technically legal, but that we all know happen often.  Have NCsoft actually crossed a line with just how far they have gone?  Well, in the Garriott case, yes, without doubt.  In the CoH case ... we can't know without knowing just how much money their lies are enabling.  I think we have enough suspicion here to demand an investigation, at least.

These are just 3 obvious causes of suspicion and distrust, but all three are valid, and each feeds the other.  I'm certain if we were to dig we would find out more.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on November 01, 2012, 06:47:59 AM
One of the problems I've noticed is that most coverage of NCsoft has been very... piecemeal.  An issue here, a problem there, but nothing that wholesale addresses the history, and indeed the pattern of duplicitous behavior that NCsoft has displayed.  All companies have their small problems here and there, it's a necessary evil of doing business this day and age.  But NCsoft has a disturbing trend here that I don't think media watchdogs or investors are aware of.

If we can get some prime page space on a major news outlet, I think we should try to bust NC's chops across the board.  Lay out the whole spread of failure starting from Tabula Rasa to today.  State, repeat, and emphasize that NC has not only engaged in unethical business practices, but done so repeatedly, towards its customers, employees, associates, and investors alike.  With particular regard to shareholders, we need to make the point that any investment in NCsoft is a risky venture at best.  At worst, it's a case of throwing your money down the crapper.

If we could get them in legal hot water, that would be great, but it's not strictly necessary.  If we can get their investors worried, or scare them enough that they pull out for fear of losing their investments, that would be sufficient to get NCsoft to take us seriously.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mentalshock on November 01, 2012, 07:02:59 AM
Funny, I thought more or less plotting the downfall of an entire corporation would bother my sense of ethics. 

   But then I remembered that my own code of ethics leans more to the Deontological side of things.   That sort of ethics is best described as 'duty' based.    Therefore, defending what is important to me is certainly a worthy duty.

   So, no issue here.

    It just kinda strikes me as funny, to a degree.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on November 01, 2012, 07:15:18 AM
Funny, I thought more or less plotting the downfall of an entire corporation would bother my sense of ethics.
Well, it's kinda like plotting the downfall of an evil empire.  Your sense of ethics wouldn't be bothered if someone kicked Lord Recluse out of the Rogue Isles and turned the place into a haven of civil liberty under the rule of just laws, would you?  Same idea, different target.

We want NCsoft to relinquish CoH to a sufficient degree that someone else can manage it more responsibly.  Until then, we must continually give their PR department fits and reveal the terrifying truth to their shareholders.  This must continue until NC's willing to relent and play ball, or they collapse under the weight of their own unethical behavior.

Either way, I'd be content.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mentalshock on November 01, 2012, 07:22:15 AM
Well, it's kinda like plotting the downfall of an evil empire.  Your sense of ethics wouldn't be bothered if someone kicked Lord Recluse out of the Rogue Isles and turned the place into a haven of civil liberty under the rule of just laws, would you?  Same idea, different target.

We want NCsoft to relinquish CoH to a sufficient degree that someone else can manage it more responsibly.  Until then, we must continually give their PR department fits and reveal the terrifying truth to their shareholders.  This must continue until NC's willing to relent and play ball, or they collapse under the weight of their own unethical behavior.

Either way, I'd be content.

I think my problem stems from trying to be Lawful Good in a Chaotic Neutral world.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on November 01, 2012, 08:08:13 AM
I think my problem stems from trying to be Lawful Good in a Chaotic Neutral world.
Look at this guy, calling that a problem.  That's a good joke there, Mentalshock.

Being a better person than the world around you, and trying to make that world a better place as a result, is kinda what being a hero is all about.

"... for evil men to accomplish their purpose it is only necessary that good men should do nothing."
-Reverend Charles Frederic Aked (http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/12/04/good-men-do/)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mentalshock on November 01, 2012, 08:21:22 AM
Heh, it's only a problem if you worry too much about it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on November 01, 2012, 01:15:33 PM
I want to caution people here: I've seen at least one post that nobody's questioned state that NCSoft values their entire MMO IP collection at around $3M US (which we do have confirmation of, so that's not the problem), but tells its stockholders that individual MMO IPs are worth $80M US (which, to my knowledge, is merely the result of mass speculation on our part, not something we have hard numbers to back up).

We do have their quarterly report to stockholders...but I don't recall seeing IPs valued in the tens of millions on it. I could be misremembering, but before we make any serious efforts to "point this little tidbit out," we had best make DARN sure we can hand our sources for this "tidbit" to CNN/NBC/CBS/FOX/ABC/NPR/PBS/NYT/WSJ/whoever. We needn't have incontrovertible proof, but we need something more than "what if..." to give them. If there's a scent of possible malarkey, then the news agencies will be able to dig and fact check and maybe find real dirt even if we're WRONG. If we just tell them "we think..." though, they'll shrug because, really, they have better things to do than pursue a witch hunt against a foreign company that makes silly video games. Like pursuing witch hunts against domestic politicians!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on November 01, 2012, 01:59:14 PM
I think my problem stems from trying to be Lawful Good in a Chaotic Neutral world.

Psh. Chaotic Goods like me have all the fun, you know. Robin Hood, Oracle, Merlin...I'm in good company.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on November 01, 2012, 02:01:52 PM
Psh. Chaotic Goods like me have all the fun, you know. Robin Hood, Oracle, Merlin...I'm in good company.
Me, I strive for Neutral Good. I'm not sure how well I succeed. I know my image tends to be more "Comically Evil," but hey.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DrakeGrimm on November 01, 2012, 02:26:47 PM
There are benefits to being Lawful Evil like I am. <.< >.>
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Codewalker on November 01, 2012, 02:29:31 PM
Well now, you have to remember that what is LEGAL and what is INTERESTING are two different things.  For instance, apparently it is not fraudulent for NCSoft to value all their IPs together at about $3m for tax purposes, yet tell their stockholders that CoH itself is worth $80m.  It's not fraudulent...but it's not ethical, and I bet their stockholders don't know that little tidbit of information.  And that is the sort of thing they would find very difficult to explain to a CNN business reporter.

Intangibles are a tricky thing, and I almost regret posting that, because it can be easily taken out of context or misunderstood.

Standard accounting practice is to value things like Intellectual Property very literally -- the balance in the account is not how much it's actually worth, but how much the company has spent to acquire it. So if you create something from scratch, it's IP value on your books is zero, because you didn't  actually buy it form anyone. Things like salaries don't go in there either; those are operating expenses. The only time you'd increase the amount reported there is when you buy an IP outright from someone, or purchase a company for their IPs.

Intangibles are not usually revalued until you sell them. So if you buy "City of Gyros" from GreekWorks, Inc. for $5000, then turn it into a national franchise with hundreds of stores doing billions of dollars of business a year, the trademarks and everything are still reported as being worth $5000 on your books. Only when you turn around and sell it to McMonster Corp for $20 million does that value change.

US GAAP actually forbids revaluing intangibles because of the potential for abuse. I don't know enough about K-GAAP to know what it says. I do know that NCSoft switched from that to the international accounting standard IFRS last year, which does allow revaluing intangibles under some circumstances. In practice most companies still don't, because it's a lot of hassle and is very difficult to accurately value something like that until you have a buyer on the line who's willing to part with cash for it.

The only reason I mentioned it at all is because in theory at least, what NCSoft paid for the City of Heroes IP from Cryptic should be included in that account. I wanted it to be available as a point of reference, and it shouldn't be taken as a measure of what that property is worth today.

TL;DR: It's not fraudulent for the IP to be undervalued on their books, and might be legally required depending on what standard they're operating under. There's a lot of instances of NCSoft being deceptive but that isn't one of them.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Codewalker on November 01, 2012, 02:35:19 PM
I almost forgot, even after all of that, I definitely think $80 million is an absurd asking price for it, regardless of any other factor.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on November 01, 2012, 02:40:19 PM
- the balance in the acocunt is not how much it's actually worth

My brain made this "the balance in the coconut." :)

So, we can acknowledge a semantic difference between "value" and "worth," since NC Soft could be claiming a worth to investors based on attached assets and revenue? I'm not saying it's legal/illegal or ethical/unethical. That's never stopped a corporation from doing something. However, we don't need anything probative, just damning, in order to affect their image and stock prices.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on November 01, 2012, 02:44:49 PM
My brain made this "the balance in the coconut." :)

So, we can acknowledge a semantic difference between "value" and "worth," since NC Soft could be claiming a worth to investors based on attached assets and revenue? I'm not saying it's legal/illegal or ethical/unethical. That's never stopped a corporation from doing something. However, we don't need anything probative, just damning, in order to affect their image and stock prices.
False, actually. Corporations are very much stopped by what's illegal. It costs a lot of money to cover things up and deal with problems that might come to light, so they generally try to follow the letter of the law (and spend a great deal of money doing it), because it's cheaper in the long run. While there ARE people who will break the law - and corporations are just groups of people acting under a unified name - generally speaking, it is incorrect to state that legality doesn't ever factor in to a corporation's decision-making process.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Rotten Luck on November 01, 2012, 02:46:42 PM
Is there a None of thee above... or All of thee above option?

It seems based on a Dungeons and Dragons Alignment test I'm in truth Lawful Neutral.  Lawful neutral character acts as law, tradition, or a personal code directs her. Order and organization are paramount to her. She may believe in personal order and live by a code or standard, or she may believe in order for all and favor a strong, organized government. The common phrase for lawful neutral is "true lawful." Lawful neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you are reliable and honorable without being a zealot.

Guess that's true I do follow my own Personal code more then Law and Tradition.  So given that anyone up for some Gunpowder fireworks?  I say a good place is under the NCsoft building!  MAH HA HA HA.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on November 01, 2012, 03:01:09 PM
OK, ya got me. I was just browsing through in distracting myself from homework and didn't really think through what I was trying to say. :)

What we see these days, at least in the US, is a trend toward corporations finding it more economical to pay the lawyers than the technicians and engineers, in a sense.  I know that comes from the public and media finding the stories of corporate shenanigans "sexier" than the ones about corporations behaving, so it's not a truly accurate perception, but it's not patently false.  However, since the public perception is there, perhaps it's something we can use.

And, nice Dwight Schrute impression, BTW. ;)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Codewalker on November 01, 2012, 03:34:12 PM
Lawful neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you are reliable and honorable without being a zealot.

I'm not so sure I'd consider it the best alignment. To me, Lawful Neutral means "blindly does what the law says without considering the ramifications of those actions and whether it's morally and ethically right."

Remember the law is made by humans and is subject to the same faults as the people who wrote it. Just because someone is in a position of authority doesn't mean that they deserve it. Lawful neutral characters in D&D are excellent cannon fodder for lawful evil to use for their purposes.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on November 01, 2012, 03:40:59 PM
I'm not so sure I'd consider it the best alignment. To me, Lawful Neutral means "blindly does what the law says without considering the ramifications of those actions and whether it's morally and ethically right."

Well, technically, that's Lawful Stupid (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LawfulStupid). An alignment isn't a 100% thing. Some lawful people break the letter of the law in order to maintain the spirit of that law, for example.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: epawtows on November 01, 2012, 03:44:01 PM
I'm not so sure I'd consider it the best alignment. To me, Lawful Neutral means "blindly does what the law says without considering the ramifications of those actions and whether it's morally and ethically right."

Remember the law is made by humans and is subject to the same faults as the people who wrote it. Just because someone is in a position of authority doesn't mean that they deserve it. Lawful neutral characters in D&D are excellent cannon fodder for lawful evil to use for their purposes.

What this is really pointing out is that RPG alignment systems are of limited applicability to the real world.  Can be fine in a game, because the rulebook can say *exactly* what they are supposed to mean. 
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: V-Mink on November 01, 2012, 03:58:06 PM
What this is really pointing out is that RPG alignment systems are of limited applicability to the real world.  Can be fine in a game, because the rulebook can say *exactly* what they are supposed to mean.

RPGs with alignment systems also have the conceit -- explicit or implicit -- that there are some actions that are objectively evil always, which the players know but the characters may themselves not know.

(That, or you get things like whole chapters in Book of Exalted Deeds and Book of Vile Darkness that read like jurisprudence texts.  "Stealing bread is wrong... unless one is stealing to feed one's family.  Unless one's family is evil.  Unless for whatever reason they are being unjustly persecued even if evil.  Unless they have been legitimately cursed.  Unless that curse is levied by an evil church.  Unless because ALIGNMENT, deal with it!"  Argh.  :gonk: )
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on November 01, 2012, 04:19:51 PM
I almost forgot, even after all of that, I definitely think $80 million is an absurd asking price for it, regardless of any other factor.
This is really the crux of the matter, ain't it?

Somehow, whether or not the revaluing itself is legal or even common practice, NC has basically stated that CoH's value, alone, is now worth forty times what they'd previously stated the value of all their IPs combined.  One game just doesn't do that, especially not a game that is, admittedly, rather niche in its market scope and is about to be canned and gutted by its company, despite the fact that it's still operating in the black.

I'd be happy to wait until someone can get more solid numbers (I really wouldn't know where to begin research, or I'd do so myself), but still - where did this extra 78-million-plus in value come from?  If  I were an investor in NCsoft, I'd be asking that question, repeatedly, alongside threatening to pull my investment out if I didnt get a satisfactory answer.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on November 01, 2012, 04:24:25 PM
Again, I think we need to pull back from the "$80 million" figure; unless we have definitive statements that NCSoft has valued it at that level, we are in danger of delegitimizing our position by quoting it as if it were factually something they'd claimed.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on November 01, 2012, 04:51:56 PM
RPGs with alignment systems also have the conceit -- explicit or implicit -- that there are some actions that are objectively evil always, which the players know but the characters may themselves not know.

(That, or you get things like whole chapters in Book of Exalted Deeds and Book of Vile Darkness that read like jurisprudence texts.  "Stealing bread is wrong... unless one is stealing to feed one's family.  Unless one's family is evil.  Unless for whatever reason they are being unjustly persecued even if evil.  Unless they have been legitimately cursed.  Unless that curse is levied by an evil church.  Unless because ALIGNMENT, deal with it!"  Argh.  :gonk: )
Regarding the whole alignment debate... here.  Have it straight from the Celestial's mouth.

(https://i.imgur.com/pf8jt.png) (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0490.html)

Alignment ain't absolute, people.  What's in your heart, and what you actually strive for is at least as important as what you've actually done, or are doing.  Now, why the celestial is getting bent up over Roy's quips to his Dad, that I don't get... I mean, last I checked, taunting adversaries was considered a primary function of a tank.

Now, back on topic...

Again, I think we need to pull back from the "$80 million" figure; unless we have definitive statements that NCSoft has valued it at that level, we are in danger of delegitimizing our position by quoting it as if it were factually something they'd claimed.
Rather than pull back entirely, I think we should do some research.  Y'know, get the real numbers.  After all, the idea that they might be... 'massaging' the numbers they present to their stockholders is too good to just let go of.  We just have to get more solid info behind it.  Anyone have any idea where to begin looking for NCsoft's quotes of its value, both for tax purposes and shareholder purposes?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Flashtoo on November 01, 2012, 05:09:31 PM
Within the same context, look at the comparison between Roy and Miko - there is huge variance in the ways you can play the same alignment.

You can commit an evil act without being evil. You can follow laws without being lawful - or break them without being chaotic. It's about the way the character thinks and feels: actions and habits are only a remote product of alignment, not the defining features of it. There are so many other factors (ability scores and racial heritage, for instance) that figure in; even a cowardly city official could be Lawful Good with good enough writing behind him.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ammon on November 01, 2012, 05:42:14 PM
False, actually. Corporations are very much stopped by what's illegal.
That's not true either.  Legality, like ethics, is largely a non-issue to the modern corporation.  They are concerned with cost versus benefit, and there are a huge number of companies that actively flout the law, where the penalty, of a few thousand, is a minor cost against the reward of hundreds of thousands.  Further, there are companies who base their business on the unlikelihood of being convicted for practices that they do which deliberately and knowingly flaunt the law, but do so in a risk-managed way.

I get illegal phone calls all the time, calls that ignore the laws on unsolicited sales calls, and even ignore the 'do not call' registrations, made from companies in territories that do not have those laws, but fully on behalf of companies here in my home country.  This is an example of outright illegal activity that is circumvented with ease, knowing that the chances of actually being prosecuted are small.

A lot of business operates in 'grey areas' of the law, despite the fact that there is no such thing.  The law is either black or white.  Grey areas are where there is a gap between the black of what is forbidden and the white of what is allowed that companies are able to slip their activity into.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on November 01, 2012, 05:55:04 PM
While lobbyists would kill it dead, I wish Congress here in the States at least would institute a law confiscating ALL proceeds from illegal activity.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on November 01, 2012, 05:56:15 PM
Just trying to put an end to this debate.

In my experience, the personality, strengths and flaws of the person in charge permeates an entire organization, so that it becomes a magnification and reflection of his or her self. Therefore you will find scrupulously law abiding and ethical corporations in direct competition with corporations that bend the law and ethics to the breaking point. The unethical company will often seem to have the advantage, right until the moment the bad karma bites 'em.

For my part I cared nothing about NCSoft until they cancelled CoH in a ruthless, unexpected manner, having just posted expensive and attractive upgrades. From this, we've all unearthed other examples of misbehavior by NCSoft. All this reflects on the personality of Mr. Kim, and I deduce he is a person whose word cannot be trusted, he treats women shabbily, and he has no empathy for employees or customers.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: therain93 on November 01, 2012, 06:39:43 PM
While lobbyists would kill it dead, I wish Congress here in the States at least would institute a law confiscating ALL proceeds from illegal activity.

That would be the RICO Act - Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.  Property acquired through illegal means can be seized.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on November 01, 2012, 07:07:20 PM
That's not true either.  Legality, like ethics, is largely a non-issue to the modern corporation.  They are concerned with cost versus benefit, and there are a huge number of companies that actively flout the law, where the penalty, of a few thousand, is a minor cost against the reward of hundreds of thousands.  Further, there are companies who base their business on the unlikelihood of being convicted for practices that they do which deliberately and knowingly flaunt the law, but do so in a risk-managed way.
I work for a corporation that has very strict policies in place that prevent all sorts of activities on a large and on a single-employee scale precisely because we scrupulously follow the law. While you're right that there's a cost-benefits analysis involved, "jail time" is the cost of not following these laws, and so they're VERY careful about it.

I get illegal phone calls all the time, calls that ignore the laws on unsolicited sales calls, and even ignore the 'do not call' registrations, made from companies in territories that do not have those laws, but fully on behalf of companies here in my home country.  This is an example of outright illegal activity that is circumvented with ease, knowing that the chances of actually being prosecuted are small.
That's sad, but I am certain there are also companies that would make such calls were they legal that do not, as well. Perhaps you should start taking information down and see if you can't find enough others who are also receiving these calls to make those companies in violation find themselves in a few prominent "Action 2 News" type stories?

A lot of business operates in 'grey areas' of the law, despite the fact that there is no such thing.  The law is either black or white.  Grey areas are where there is a gap between the black of what is forbidden and the white of what is allowed that companies are able to slip their activity into.
Technically, if something is not illegal, it is legal. There's no gray area, as you said. The black of what is forbidden is the only area that is not the white of what is allowed.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on November 01, 2012, 07:18:28 PM
That would be the RICO Act - Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.  Property acquired through illegal means can be seized.

Hm. I wonder if RICO would be applicable here? They'd have to be charged with two Racketeering crimes within 10 years, from What I've read.

Let's see...The "Garriot Letter" Appeared to have been settled without charges, but there's still the apparent overvaluing of IPs. What else?

*"gambling, murder, kidnapping, extortion, arson, robbery...dealing in obscene matter, or dealing in a controlled substance or listed chemical" seems unlikely.
*Counterfeiting, Embezzlement, slavery, money laundering, and murder-for-hire are also not likely.
*Bankruptcy fraud is definitely not happening.
*Drug Trafficking is unlikely.
*No Copyrights seem to be infringed
*Doesn't appear to be any money laundering.
*Obviously no trafficking of aliens.
*Also obviously no acts of terror.

That leaves possibilities of bribery, theft, fraud, obstruction of justice, and securities fraud are the only things that could possibly fit in their MO. I'm not assuming that they have recently done any of this, but if we're looking for things they could be charged with under RICO, it'd probably be those.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on November 01, 2012, 07:35:09 PM
I'd rather keep things civil, if you'll pardon the pun.

By which I literally mean, non-criminal. Pursuing them on criminal grounds makes us look petty and desperate. And while a touch of desperation in the "we're the little guy and we have no power save our voices and our choices" sense is appropriate and true, pettiness is our enemy.

The more we keep courts and law out of this, the better. The more we make it about their PR and how their stock-holders see their management, the better.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on November 01, 2012, 07:38:44 PM
I understand. Simply thinking aloud.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Codewalker on November 01, 2012, 07:41:54 PM
Let's see...The "Garriot Letter" Appeared to have been settled without charges, but there's still the apparent overvaluing of IPs. What else?

Again, if the $80m is real and not something that somebody pulled out of their butt, being unreasonable in negotiations is not against the law. Neither is negotiating in bad faith if you don't intend to approve any deal. Petty and shortsighted, sure, but unfortunately there are no laws against being a douchebag.

If they actually lied directly to their investors, those investors (not some third party) might have a case for fraud. But proving willful intent to mislead in such a case would be very, very difficult.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: eabrace on November 01, 2012, 08:00:14 PM
Again, if the $80m is real and not something that somebody pulled out of their butt, being unreasonable in negotiations is not against the law. Neither is negotiating in bad faith if you don't intend to approve any deal. Petty and shortsighted, sure, but unfortunately there are no laws against being a douchebag.

If they actually lied directly to their investors, those investors (not some third party) might have a case for fraud. But proving willful intent to mislead in such a case would be very, very difficult.
Hmm...

(https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y38/eabrace/titan/th_jeep_brah_coh_freedom_1.jpg) (http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y38/eabrace/titan/jeep_brah_coh_freedom_1.jpg) (https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y38/eabrace/titan/th_jeep_brah_coh_freedom_2.jpg) (http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y38/eabrace/titan/jeep_brah_coh_freedom_2.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on November 01, 2012, 08:07:37 PM
I work for a corporation that has very strict policies in place that prevent all sorts of activities on a large and on a single-employee scale precisely because we scrupulously follow the law.

I would be very interested to know what company that is, because companies like that are the ones who get first consideration for my business.  I am in know way trying to pull info from you that you do not want to give, but that kind of at least appearance of responsibility from a corporation is a refreshing change from the perception to the contrary that we get from the media.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: eabrace on November 01, 2012, 08:33:58 PM
If it's anything like the company I work for, they probably only deal with a very specific segment of the public sector.  :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kheprera on November 01, 2012, 08:37:03 PM
Mine is like that.


8)




What?  ;D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on November 01, 2012, 08:59:31 PM
Yeah, I work for a defense contractor. The name is not well-known outside the defense contracting industry, but it was once a spin-off from Lockheed Martin. I've worked here since June, and so far, they've been nothing but stand-up, friendly, and overall a great place to work.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Twisted Toon on November 01, 2012, 09:30:31 PM
What this is really pointing out is that RPG alignment systems are of limited applicability to the real world.  Can be fine in a game, because the rulebook can say *exactly* what they are supposed to mean.
It also points out one of the reasons I never really liked D&D.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on November 01, 2012, 10:35:45 PM
I'm ex-Navy, but that doesn't really qualify me to patronize a defense contractor.

We have one, here, that has changed hands a few times. I think Tenneco was the last major corporation to own it, but it's locally owned, now. It's always been a good place to work, if you can get in the door.  :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on November 02, 2012, 05:44:56 AM
Let me say I very recently got the $80 million figure from a third-party source I consider trustworthy, along with some other information that would probably send blood pressures soaring, but I need to get confirmation of that figure from the parties directly involved.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Terwyn on November 02, 2012, 05:49:52 AM
Let me say I very recently got the $80 million figure from a third-party source I consider trustworthy, along with some other information that would probably send blood pressures soaring, but I need to get confirmation of that figure from the parties directly involved.

I have also received that same information.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ammon on November 02, 2012, 07:19:44 AM
Let me say I very recently got the $80 million figure from a third-party source I consider trustworthy, along with some other information that would probably send blood pressures soaring, but I need to get confirmation of that figure from the parties directly involved.
We also need to have confirmation of precisely what that $80 million was supposedly for.  Was that to buy out the entire game, studio and staff as well?  If so, that's pretty much in the ballpark I'd expected all along.  If that is $80 million for just the intellectual property rights, no code, data, etc, then its a ridiculous valuation... but still $20 million less than one single branding TV ad campaign in the US alone.  In other words, we still know we can stack the deck to make giving it away for goodwill and positive publicity cheaper than hanging on to it and repairing the PR damage.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on November 02, 2012, 07:38:23 AM
"...along with some other information that would probably send blood pressures soaring...."

We anxiously await the expiration of NDAs.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Codewalker on November 02, 2012, 04:29:11 PM
We also need to have confirmation of precisely what that $80 million was supposedly for.  Was that to buy out the entire game, studio and staff as well?

Just the IP, but without ridiculous strings being attached. Presumably would have to include the code, at least I would hope.

I'm not sure if that includes the account database though. Fairly certain it doesn't include server hardware, and definitely doesn't include things like the office assets, desktop PCs, etc.

I don't know if we'll ever get the full details stated publicly, it depends if certain things that were trying to be forcibly enacted ended up happening or not.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on November 02, 2012, 05:06:49 PM
Just the IP, but without ridiculous strings being attached. Presumably would have to include the code, at least I would hope.

I'm not sure if that includes the account database though. Fairly certain it doesn't include server hardware, and definitely doesn't include things like the office assets, desktop PCs, etc.

I don't know if we'll ever get the full details stated publicly, it depends if certain things that were trying to be forcibly enacted ended up happening or not.
It is utterly frustrating to not even know how to get in the know on things like that. It sounds fascinating.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Codewalker on November 02, 2012, 05:11:47 PM
It is utterly frustrating to not even know how to get in the know on things like that. It sounds fascinating.

I'm certain it's much more frustrating for people like VV who might be "in the know", but can't talk about it and correct inaccuracies, for fear of making things even worse for the people who are already being screwed.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on November 02, 2012, 05:14:18 PM
Probably. I know the one small thing I knew that I was asked not to share was frustrating to not be able to share. But...knowing was better than not, to my mind.

I like understanding things. If I understood them well enough, I could make broad statements like "your anger is justified" or "your anger is unjustified; I can't say why, but believe me, there are no bad guys here." Or, if I couldn't, at least I would know what the situation was (and maybe, just maybe, at least be able to privately brainstorm solutions. Nothing upsets me more than insoluble problems).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on November 03, 2012, 05:23:30 AM
Just the IP, but without ridiculous strings being attached. Presumably would have to include the code, at least I would hope.

I'm not sure if that includes the account database though. Fairly certain it doesn't include server hardware, and definitely doesn't include things like the office assets, desktop PCs, etc.

I don't know if we'll ever get the full details stated publicly, it depends if certain things that were trying to be forcibly enacted ended up happening or not.

For reasons I have explained before (but will reiterate here) 80 million for the IP and code is utterly ridiculous.

Book rights are worth close to zero because the original CoH books did so very poorly.  You would be hard-put to find a publishing company willing to take the project on now; even if one did, it would be at the standard advance of about $5k-$10k per book that an unpublished author gets.  The books would probably have to be self-published which opens up another can of worms--editing, printing and distributing those books would be very costly.

Comic rights: see book rights.

Move rights: movie rights are already tied up in a previous option.  At the moment they are worth nothing.  When the current option lapses, they will be worth at maximum $25k a year.  Movies are seldom made about dead games. 

Other gaming rights: the game is dead, long live the game?  Given what we've been doing, the gaming rights for other sorts of games are probably also worth close to zero.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ammon on November 03, 2012, 11:08:41 AM
For reasons I have explained before (but will reiterate here) 80 million for the IP and code is utterly ridiculous.
If it in fact does include the code (not yet confirmed?), VV, that makes quite a difference.  The code *is* the creative work and the license to publish it.  In book terms, its like granting not only the rights to use the characters and settings, but also granting all the works to date and full publishing rights, along with royalties etc.

But we are not talking books here, but software.  The code *is* the software and the product.  Sure, I personally still think the price is too high, but now probably only by double, rather than ten-times and so.  In other words, its a point to negotiate from.  Many negotiations begin with the seller asking double the value and the buyer offering half, and negotiating (haggling) from there to get to a deal.

All in all, an idea of price is a good thing, as it does allow for the starting of negotiation and offer.  We already had the means to drive down the asking price, but now we have a ballpark figure of where it is, and know that it is within the realms of possibility to achieve.  Even 80 million, assuming it does include all the code, is at least a starting point.  We know that one TV campaign in one country can cost more than that. 

Again, these comments are assuming that it does include the code itself - the software.  If this is purely the IP then you are right, 80 million is a ridiculously unrealistic amount, designed purely to declare they are unwilling to sell at all, and only putting a price on at all so they can tell their stockholders that they did not actually close the door to offers.  (They just made the door completely inaccessible, the wrong size, and otherwise completely unfeasible to use).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ammon on November 03, 2012, 03:52:34 PM
Good post, Gangrel.  Yes, I think that's pretty much spot-on, as I'd estimated in my original post on the topic some time back:

Now, from what I've seen and understood of the financial state of Paragon Studios and CoH, as a company it would likely (my opinion and estimate only) be valued at around $100 million as a complete business to takeover.  Remember, that's isn't to make a profit for shareholders, that's it reasonable value, so to speak.  In my professional opinion, anything lower than a value of around $50 million would be a complete insult.

I can tell you that I know (but cannot divulge my sources) that none of the offers made to NCsoft for CoH were anywhere near even half of that.  Steam offered something like $3million plus some profit share.  Imagine how such an offer as that must come across to a people whjo are known to be concerned about saving face and not insulting people.  Wow.  I wouldn't even speak to such insulting people either.

The other offers were all ridiculously low too.

That's not Steam's fault.  To them, CoH is seen mostly as low-hanging fruit, able to be easily plucked.  A game that is 8 yrs old, with small profits, in an ever-increasingly competitive market, and with a declining customer base.  Oh, and during a recession.


Of course, values on things are always a tricky business, and effectively, a pure guess.

As a general rule, a service business is valued at around its annual turnover, because Service businesses have very low barriers to entry, and are effectively dependant on the staff who provide the service (who may leave in a takeover).  Meanwhile a tech business is generally valued at 2-5 times its annual turnover, dependant on the amount of patents and intellectual property, because those create far higher barriers to entry.  But all of these valuations are based on the idea that just because a business did X amount of business last year, it should do about the same this year, and could do better if better managed...

The selling price of a thing is really determined by the guesses of two different parties.  The value the seller estimates his thing has, and the value that a potential buyer estimates the thing has.  Usually the two negotiate to some kind of compromise, but only if there is room somewhere in the middle.  If the two different opinions of value are just too far apart, generally no negotiation happens.

You can understand why Steam would offer so little for the game, considering they'd been mailed and told it was basically dead in the water and ripe for a low-ball bid to steal.  I can conversely understand why NCsoft may be asking so much, though I do think they are being unrealistic in the current economy and market (the increasing number of choices in MMOs in the market do mean that each can expect less market share, etc, current economic predictions are bearish on MMOs, and there's a global recession).

Of course, my initial valuation estimate was made assuming that it would be a takeover of the entire business, premises, staff, etc.  However, since the staff and premises both add ongoing costs, especially with the heavy over-staffing at Paragon due to development, these things don't add as much value to the business as you may imagine.  They just save a company having to organise location and recruitment for themselves.  The servers are not necessarily a major cost either, so again, including or excluding a load of second-hand servers may not affect the value that much either.

I personally think that all of the offers made by outside companies, including Steam, were at least under half what they'd have needed to be to be taken as a serious point of negotiation.  Ten million *might* have been enough to start a serious discussion, but less than 5?  No.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TonyV on November 03, 2012, 04:58:01 PM
Let me say I very recently got the $80 million figure from a third-party source I consider trustworthy, along with some other information that would probably send blood pressures soaring, but I need to get confirmation of that figure from the parties directly involved.

I have also received that same information.

I also received that same information from a third-party source I consider trustworthy.  While this doesn't necessarily make it 100% correct (it could, in theory, all be the same source who is incorrect), it does mean that VV, Codewalker, and other people here aren't just making stuff up.  :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: BryanSnowden on November 03, 2012, 10:03:34 PM
Are we sure it's not 80 Million "Won"?
OR, even if that was the *ahem* "offer" *ahem* couldn't we try to counter-offer/suggest  with whatever 80 million "Won" is in "Dollars" & if they balk suggest we saw/or didn't see - the $ sign - or that it was lost in translation??

*Actually, I just checked - using the converter I googled up it was around $73,333* So that might be "a slap-in-the-face"  :roll:
But, maybe we could go with something along this line of reasoning. Sorry, but $80 million is way more absurd in my mind than $73,333 is = while they still might see that as absurd & we might all agree - it's more than they can make off of it sitting in their basement till they go out of business...
Because unless they seriously surpirse us with the an ideal *CoH 2* that let CoH characters transfer in with more or less equivalent "stuff"/stats=(for lack of a better word)/etc.  Then, the odds that we're gonna play it would be miniscule... at best.
Somehow, We need to get to the 'stock holders/share-holders (more or less the same)
AND the 'stakeholders' (which can be totally different folks) = something i didn't realize until fairly recently when I was digging thru some investment guides & whatnot...

SURELY, stakeholders could be persuaded that 80 million Dollars US is pie-in-the-sky & NOT a realistic price = and therefor this "we;ve exhausted all options is a crock of "stuff"
I also noticed that the S.Korean Government has like 9% of the NCsoft Stock (I think), maybe there's some possibility of leveraging that = what government is going to think sitting on IPs forever = while essentially killing-off most/any of the innate value they may  possess (or might have have once possessed).
I mean, that's nothing short of destroying an asset, No?  It sure is IMO & I think that this a view that we could persuade others to agree with, and possibly more importantly "side with" - in any sort of (future?) "persuasive bargaining" that could lead to a deal that is a "win-win" for all involved, OR for those with "leverage to influence" said deal.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ammon on November 03, 2012, 11:16:02 PM
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on November 04, 2012, 04:57:47 AM
if the rumors are true and ncsoft does value coh at $80 million, then i too think that is prolly a gross overestimate of what it prolly is

i think coh could possibly top out at maybe $20-40 million (and even then that is prolly high estimate)

i hope that ncsoft will reconsider selling before we have to start fanning the fires
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: P51mus on November 04, 2012, 05:01:57 AM
Just a note, as far as I know, stock price is often determined not just by how well a company is doing now, but their potential to do well in the future (This basically makes it a weird kind of betting, but that's a bit of a tangent).  NCSoft's stockprice quite likely has some amount of inflation because of investors expecting them to actually expand into a market that's not Korea and do well at some point.

Our PR efforts remind investors of exactly how horrible NCSoft has been at expanding into other markets, and how little effort they put into understanding other markets so they can succeed in them.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The Fifth Horseman on November 04, 2012, 10:43:58 PM
Quote
and how little effort they put into understanding other markets
That makes an assumption they put any effort into it. Does not seem to be the case. NCSoft is THE company with most MMO shutdowns under its' belt to date.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TonyV on November 04, 2012, 10:44:10 PM
I don't think $80 million is really ridiculous or incredible if it includes all of the code (not least because that might include the code as is for i24 that was almost ready, so you are buying software with the big new update almost ready to launch).  I think it is a high asking price, but an asking price is just that.  It is only the opening move for negotiating the price down.

$80 million is extremely ridiculous, especially considering that the game is 8-1/2 years old.  Just to put this in perspective, this is more than the budget of all but the biggest blockbuster movies that come out.  Making a top-tier AAA brand new game would only run at most around $100 million; typically it actually costs much less.  Don't be fooled, $80 million is a slap in the face, NCsoft's way of telling everyone who asks that they're not going to sell the game, and the fact that they later said that they had "exhausted all possibilities" in keeping the game alive is an insult to its players.

I can't prove this, though I hope that at some point others will come out publicly regarding this, but I've gotten from multiple reliable sources that several attempts at negotiating reasonable terms for sale--counteroffers to NCsoft's opening move--were attempted and rebuffed.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on November 05, 2012, 01:08:29 AM
$80 million is extremely ridiculous, especially considering that the game is 8-1/2 years old.  Just to put this in perspective, this is more than the budget of all but the biggest blockbuster movies that come out.  Making a top-tier AAA brand new game would only run at most around $100 million; typically it actually costs much less.  Don't be fooled, $80 million is a slap in the face, NCsoft's way of telling everyone who asks that they're not going to sell the game, and the fact that they later said that they had "exhausted all possibilities" in keeping the game alive is an insult to its players.

I can't prove this, though I hope that at some point others will come out publicly regarding this, but I've gotten from multiple reliable sources that several attempts at negotiating reasonable terms for sale--counteroffers to NCsoft's opening move--were attempted and rebuffed.

This runs parallel to my beliefs/estimates. At most I could get up to $25-30M for CoH (engine, code base, content and IP including CoH2, etc), NCsoftcore's customer accounts for CoH players, Paragon Studios (which had already been disbanded and the office stripped) and some sort of hosting agreement for at least 6 months. The only really tricky things for valuation, IMO, are the customer account value and CoH2's value. Because after disbanding PS and tossing their customer goodwill on a bonfire, they'd gutted the value of the rest of assets. An $80M starting offer would make me think I was buying a bridge in a recently storm-wracked New York borough.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on November 05, 2012, 01:26:14 AM
This kind of valuation is not my specialty, but yes, you could easily shoot City of Heroes, the Movie with an all star cast for $80 mil.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ammon on November 05, 2012, 03:58:02 AM
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TonyV on November 05, 2012, 05:33:14 AM
Alternately I can buy a game where someone already took all those early developmental risks, did the years of work, and launched it successfully, and strat taking money tomorrow.

I would agree with this if City of Heroes were making as much money and had the subscriber base that it did at, say, launch and if it were still polished enough that it competed with current games not just graphically, but mechanically.  But it's doesn't.  The value of the game has depreciated over time, not increased.  I'm not saying it's worthless, mind you; if I thought that, I wouldn't have attempted to contact NCsoft to try to work something out and I seriously doubt anyone else would have.

But this game didn't cost $80 million to make.  Optimistically, it might make $3 - $5 million per year, assuming that sales don't drop during that time.  At that rate, it would take at least 16 years to recoup your money, possibly more.  NCsoft knows that no one is going to buy a game that, if they're able to keep it up-to-date for another 16 years, MIGHT come in the neighborhood of making back what they invested in it, at which point they MIGHT, if all goes impossibly well, actually make a tiny pittance of profit on it.

Asking $80 million wasn't just unreasonable; like I said, it was a slap in the face.  In fact, $40 million would have been a slap in the face, too.  The opening position if NCsoft were serious should have been somewhere in the $5 - $10 million range, and even that would need to be negotiated down some before someone wouldn't feel like they were selling their soul to Satan for buying it.

Plus, as I said, it wasn't like NCsoft tried in earnest to negotiate that price.  They stuck to it and then put out this insulting communication saying they had "exhausted all efforts."  That's BS, plain and simple.  With no game making money, as it is now, the property is worth $0 to them.  Not literally, not mathematically, as I'm sure it shows up with some figure next to it (hopefully not anywhere $80 million unless they're outright lying to financial authorities), but practically, it's dead weight to them.  If I offered them $10 on December 1 for it (not $10 million; 10 dollars), that would be $10 more in their company coffers than there was before with what they're doing with it now.  So yeah, $80 million was a joke.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on November 05, 2012, 05:52:50 AM
from what ive read around here i heard that valve supposedly offered $3 million for coh, which i think was pretty generous as it was pretty close to that $5-10 million top range that tony was talking about
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on November 05, 2012, 06:21:19 AM

SURELY, stakeholders could be persuaded that 80 million Dollars US is pie-in-the-sky & NOT a realistic price = and therefor this "we;ve exhausted all options is a crock of "stuff"
I also noticed that the S.Korean Government has like 9% of the NCsoft Stock (I think), maybe there's some possibility of leveraging that = what government is going to think sitting on IPs forever = while essentially killing-off most/any of the innate value they may  possess (or might have have once possessed).


I seriously doubt that anyone or entity that owns a significant amount of stock in NCSoft, even say 5% is totally blind about this transaction. They probably knew about it when the decision was made.

I dont know about anyone else but I yet to ever hear about any major investor, especially on the professional level that have no clue on what major moves transpire in a company they have a major holding in, especially as something as big as a "realignment.

Many people get the view that investors just throw money at a company and forget about it. Yes, many small timers do but when you are talking about 5% and up of a major company it would be the first time in history that the person or someone hired by that person is not watching the moves the corporation make like a hawk. Although I dont think the government gives a hoot about what NCSoft sits on as long as they get their cut.

And remember 5-10 miilion is nothing for them. That's toilet paper money. I'm not sure myself what they are getting out of it by sitting on the IP, but given that the company havent been ran into the ground in at least these 5 years since they bought COX I assume someone in that place have some sort of sense. They might be thinking thta they might just want to use it later and if they sell and then decide they want to revive it, you think who ever bought it will want to 3-4 years later after getting the game up and running and assuming it's success, want to sell it for say $5 million that is a reasonable offer now? Suppose it valued at $20 million then. That is $15 million lost to get something back that they could have just kept in the first place. The downside, and the part that I cant wrap my head around is that if they sit on it, as time go by, less of a chance of it ever returning to it's glory days under them. I'm not sure what they are doing or trying but I'm not a CEO of a major game company and I'm sure it takes a little bit of a different logic than many of us understand. Or else we'd all would be big fat cat million and billionaires leading major corporations that is making more money with each passing year.

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ammon on November 05, 2012, 07:01:11 AM
Optimistically, it might make $3 - $5 million per year, assuming that sales don't drop during that time.
Let me say up front that in arguing with you, Tony, I in no way do not hold you in high regard and respect you.  Quite the opposite.  If I didn't respect you so much I'd not spend so much time on our discussion. :)  However, I stil, respectfully, disagree, and I want to explain why.

I think a lot of the people pouring over the figures for NCsoft were estimating that CoH was generating between $3 million to $5 million a year in profit.  So they agree with you here.  But this neglects two major factors. 

First is that Paragon was massively overstaffed with developers, many of whom were apparently working on new secret projects that were generating no revenue, and did not contribute to earnings for CoH.  Lets imagine for a moment that all of the 80 devs were on pathetic wages of $25k a year, and that's $2 million just in the wages they take home, before factoring in taxes, pension contributions and the various other costs.  In the companies I've been involved in we usually estimate it costs double the actual wage for each member of staff, so $4 million if all of those 80 developers were on a lowly wage of $25k a year.  Cutting the developers working on new secret projects unrelated to CoH, reducing staff to levels needed to maintain and develop CoH directly, would most likely double the profit of CoH at a stroke, and very possibly more than double.

Second is that CoH was pretty poorly monetized generally.  The in-game store was doing fairly well, but we all know it was still getting traction, and that much more could have been done with paid add-ons.  The attempt to add an advertising based revenue stream was frankly bad, and doomed to fail from the start.  Nothing was done with sponsorship, and merchandising (Mugs, Mouse-mats, Bags, Jackets, etc) was barely thought of.  Usually, again, these kinds of revenue streams can double the overall profits.

In other words, proper marketing, not being dictated Korean style from a thousand miles away, could have easily had CoH earning at least $12 - 15 million in profit a year. 

Let's face it, a huge part of our shock and surprise over the closure of CoH is because we all knew instinctively that it should be making good profit, and we'd all seen things NCsoft just didn't seem to see, or in some cases, actually dragged their heels over when the ideas came from Paragon itself.

NCsoft would have known precisely how much of the potential profit of CoH was being spent on staff, premises, and other expenses, and just how much of those expenses were effectively used in long-term investment rather than actually on keeping CoH profitable.  If they are valuing the company high, there is probably reason for it, and not all of that reason will be ego.  None of it will be unwillingness to sell at the right price.  A board of directors isn't allowed to do that.  They have to serve the interests of the shareholders, except occassionally where duty to the stakeholders may dictate taking a short-term loss to maintain a long-term position.

If you'd like some illustrations from other businesses, I'll happily share some, like how Amazon was losing billions of dollars a year in the early years to gain volume.  Many who don't know such strategies compared their practices to selling dollar bills for 50 cents a shot and thinking that if they only sold enough of them they make a profit :).  Fact is it got them the volume to negotiate deals from suppliers noone else matches.  Amazon can now sell goods for a profit at less cost to the consumer than most stores can even buy the goods from the manufacturer.  Such is the power of bulk discounts.  Some very strange seeming practices are loss-leader tactics that make solid sense, even when outsiders don't see it.


Suppose it valued at $20 million then. That is $15 million lost to get something back that they could have just kept in the first place.
Exactly right.  Plus add in the thing that there are two sides of value.  The value to the buyer, and the value to the seller, and they don't always coincide.  That you can't see why NCsoft value CoH so high is going to be partly because that's the point.  A company doesn't want all its strategies to be transparent and visible.  They obviously do believe that CoH is more value to them by far than any offers made, but explaining why might only open the door to rivals hoping to exploit the same knowledge.

Stick to a fact - Guys who have built a multi-million dollar game, who have that much business knowledge and strategy, value it higher than those outside do, right now.  Each have their own reasons and bets behind their positions.  NCsoft are not mad, or stupid, so when you work out the other reasons for them not selling cheap, you'll be closer to working out their true position and strategy. 

If we are in a fight with NCsoft, the last thing you ever want to do in a fight is underestimate your opponent, especially in terms of his strategy.  It is much safer to assume he knows exactly what he is doing, and prepare for that in your own moves, than to assume he does not.  There is good reason that many corporate executives study Sun Tsu, and understand that hiding your true intentions in moves is good strategy.  Appear stupid and you will always beat your opponent while the fool is still laughing at you.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on November 05, 2012, 07:45:04 AM
Let me say up front that in arguing with you, Tony, I in no way do not hold you in high regard and respect you.  Quite the opposite.  If I didn't respect you so much I'd not spend so much time on our discussion. :)  However, I stil, respectfully, disagree, and I want to explain why.

I think a lot of the people pouring over the figures for NCsoft were estimating that CoH was generating between $3 million to $5 million a year in profit.  So they agree with you here.  But this neglects two major factors. 

First is that Paragon was massively overstaffed with developers, many of whom were apparently working on new secret projects that were generating no revenue, and did not contribute to earnings for CoH.  Lets imagine for a moment that all of the 80 devs were on pathetic wages of $25k a year, and that's $2 million just in the wages they take home, before factoring in taxes, pension contributions and the various other costs.  In the companies I've been involved in we usually estimate it costs double the actual wage for each member of staff, so $4 million if all of those 80 developers were on a lowly wage of $25k a year.  Cutting the developers working on new secret projects unrelated to CoH, reducing staff to levels needed to maintain and develop CoH directly, would most likely double the profit of CoH at a stroke, and very possibly more than double.

Second is that CoH was pretty poorly monetized generally.  The in-game store was doing fairly well, but we all know it was still getting traction, and that much more could have been done with paid add-ons.  The attempt to add an advertising based revenue stream was frankly bad, and doomed to fail from the start.  Nothing was done with sponsorship, and merchandising (Mugs, Mouse-mats, Bags, Jackets, etc) was barely thought of.  Usually, again, these kinds of revenue streams can double the overall profits.

In other words, proper marketing, not being dictated Korean style from a thousand miles away, could have easily had CoH earning at least $12 - 15 million in profit a year. 

Let's face it, a huge part of our shock and surprise over the closure of CoH is because we all knew instinctively that it should be making good profit, and we'd all seen things NCsoft just didn't seem to see, or in some cases, actually dragged their heels over when the ideas came from Paragon itself.

NCsoft would have known precisely how much of the potential profit of CoH was being spent on staff, premises, and other expenses, and just how much of those expenses were effectively used in long-term investment rather than actually on keeping CoH profitable.  If they are valuing the company high, there is probably reason for it, and not all of that reason will be ego.  None of it will be unwillingness to sell at the right price.  A board of directors isn't allowed to do that.  They have to serve the interests of the shareholders, except occassionally where duty to the stakeholders may dictate taking a short-term loss to maintain a long-term position.

If you'd like some illustrations from other businesses, I'll happily share some, like how Amazon was losing billions of dollars a year in the early years to gain volume.  Many who don't know such strategies compared their practices to selling dollar bills for 50 cents a shot and thinking that if they only sold enough of them they make a profit :).  Fact is it got them the volume to negotiate deals from suppliers noone else matches.  Amazon can now sell goods for a profit at less cost to the consumer than most stores can even buy the goods from the manufacturer.  Such is the power of bulk discounts.  Some very strange seeming practices are loss-leader tactics that make solid sense, even when outsiders don't see it.

Exactly right.  Plus add in the thing that there are two sides of value.  The value to the buyer, and the value to the seller, and they don't always coincide.  That you can't see why NCsoft value CoH so high is going to be partly because that's the point.  A company doesn't want all its strategies to be transparent and visible.  They obviously do believe that CoH is more value to them by far than any offers made, but explaining why might only open the door to rivals hoping to exploit the same knowledge.

Stick to a fact - Guys who have built a multi-million dollar game, who have that much business knowledge and strategy, value it higher than those outside do, right now.  Each have their own reasons and bets behind their positions.  NCsoft are not mad, or stupid, so when you work out the other reasons for them not selling cheap, you'll be closer to working out their true position and strategy. 

If we are in a fight with NCsoft, the last thing you ever want to do in a fight is underestimate your opponent, especially in terms of his strategy.  It is much safer to assume he knows exactly what he is doing, and prepare for that in your own moves, than to assume he does not.  There is good reason that many corporate executives study Sun Tsu, and understand that hiding your true intentions in moves is good strategy.  Appear stupid and you will always beat your opponent while the fool is still laughing at you.

yeah.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on November 05, 2012, 08:31:04 AM
The game engine is basically 8 yrs old, sure.  But it has been subject to continued maintenance, development and improvement for all of those years.  Issue 24 is bang up to date and still has so many features other games have no comparison to.

The game engine is at least 10 years old, and the design is close to 12. You need to date to when the tools were designed, not when the first finished product using them hit the market. Also, it wasn't being developed or improved all those years. In fact, it was rarely being worked on during that period. And some of the work didn't go very well. Even Ultra Mode is rather disappointing - giving very poor performance for the graphics quality. It wasn't until the last 2 years or so that any significant programming work was done on the engine outside of Ultra Mode. Which is why we started seeing all the new mechanics added crammed into this last period.

I think you're making a gross miss-estimate in equating a game engine and code base built on it to other software tools and products. It doesn't comprise a group of copyrights/patents/trade secrets that have intrinsic value as the latter often do. Because game engines such as this one are so highly optimized for their environment (otherwise they'd be garbage), they are more properly compared to firmware in terms of life expectancy/portability than to software (not exactly, of course... I suggest it as a possible idea to change point-of-view). We're talking firmware in control circuits for a specialized piece of machinery sort of value. Which after 10-12 years is exactly nothing unless you're still selling the same product. No one in their right mind developing a new game would come to NCsoftcore asking to buy or license the game engine unless they were also getting the CoH code base, content, IP, etc. That is, unless they intended to sell the same product. Given that... the game engine, code base and developed content really don't add any value beyond CoH being a $10M/yr gross business with expansion potential. There were other assets that did add to that, but the game engine isn't really one of them.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Undercat on November 05, 2012, 09:15:27 AM
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on November 05, 2012, 11:37:22 AM
Holy shit...

That pings with the resonance of truth Undercat. Hell even the NUMBERS match up!

I didn't think anyone could make me hate NCSoft more than I already did. But this just... there are no words.

Do you mind if I re-post this to the COH facebook pages I'm a part of? Or direct links back? This is EXPLOSIVE and needs to be spread around.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The Fifth Horseman on November 05, 2012, 01:07:21 PM
Is it possible that a major part of that $80 mln is their perceived value on customer data and account data?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Undercat on November 05, 2012, 01:26:53 PM
Do you mind if I re-post this to the COH facebook pages I'm a part of? Or direct links back? This is EXPLOSIVE and needs to be spread around.

Be my guest. Just be mindful that these facts, while suggestive, do not prove a causal link beyond doubt. Especially the coincidence of the asking price matching their initial losses---it may actually be the message I see it as being, but I would never attempt to testify to that effect.

I posted my thoughts here precisely because this is the heart of the community that was directly affected by NCsoft's actions. I haven't seen this connection made before and wanted to contribute my thoughts on the matter in an attempt to bring resolution to the questions surrounding the closure---to offer one more possible piece of the puzzle.

Facebook is not the heart of this community and as you can probably deduce from my post count, I'm not really big on starting firestorms. Moreover, I'm not altogether unsympathetic to their travails; my beef is what they did to me as a result. I was a perfectly satisfied customer. I could have forgiven the closure of a game that was actually losing them money. But the more I dug, the more I began to suspect it never had anything to do with CoX at all. And that really aggravated me. Their political-candidate-grade nullspeak only managed to inflame that aggravation.

So, if you have some other CoX community that is mulling about for answers to the question "why?", then by all means post away. But please be careful.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DamianoV on November 05, 2012, 01:43:51 PM
Just wanted to chime in with my own (obviously biased) perspective:

In brief, an object for sale has only 3 values: the revenue/utility you can get from it yourself, the amount someone else is willing to pay you for it, and $0.  The utility of CoH to NCSoft on Dec 1 is so close to $0 as to be indistinguishable from that number, and the price anyone will be willing to pay will be dropping like a stone as well.  If NCSoft is unaware of that at this point, they are fools of the first water, and fully deserve the loss of potential revenue that has, and will continue, to result.

Because you see, the true value here is not the code, the IP, the servers, the corporate structure, or even the devs, bless them all.  It is the _formerly_ active and loyal customer base.  And that value is already significantly depleted, being lost day by day, and will soon be so far diminished as to be effectively gone.

For NCSoft, at least.  Speaking as someone who's played and payed continuously since Day 1... that well has been well and truly poisoned.  Their only chance at getting anything tangible out of this debacle at this point is to sell it as fast as possible.... and they apparently have no such intent.  Too bad for them.  There are other companies to patronize and other services (Plan Z?) to support, after all.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Undercat on November 05, 2012, 02:20:39 PM
I have to admit, I have never heard about 1/2 the Tabula Rasa budget going towards the Garriots.

I just went and dug up some my sources, all of which are from exactly the same paper you reference. In this article (http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/common/printpreview.asp?categoryCode=123&newsIdx=32607) the fee is stated as being $16 million each. Now the slight difference in magnitude doesn't bother me---exchange rates fluctuate and they probably use the current exchange rate each time they quote costs like these---the question is whether it was x1 or x2. I don't know. And, of course, NCsoft bought out the Garriott's newly-founded game company specifically to produce a next-gen MMO, after their non-compete with EA had expired from the prior sale of Origin. That cost went somewhere. But I admit that what, exactly, is being included in the 100 billion won price tag quoted for Tabula Rasa is unknown to me and may or may not include any of these.

The fact that the same paper is quoting the 43 billion won acquisition price of the Garriotts and their game company in the same breath (along with the 2 million share options) in this article (http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/common/printpreview.asp?categoryCode=123&newsIdx=32607) is what led me to believe that the figures had been merged.

Quote
And Garriott had planned the trip and received approval from NCSoft to take the trip. Although *at one point* he wanted NCsoft to sponsor him (probably to help diffuse the costs), he ended up footing the $30million himself. Infact, he was already in training to go up into space during 2007 (source: Space.com (http://www.space.com/4410-astronaut-son-signs-space-tourist.html)

He did more than that. He convinced Kim to take a whole bunch of NCsoft employees on a null-gravity ride in the "vomit comet" some time before Garriott decided to take the actual trip to space. The plane ride was footed by NCsoft to the tune of $150,000, and Kim was one of the participants. There are numerous articles at Korea Times talking about Garriott's later trip to space and how displeased NCsoft was with it; moreover, the fact that they essentially fired him while he was in space says it all.

There are about 30 articles I went through by doing a site search at Korea Times. Wish I'd actually kept a log of each article so I'd know exactly where they were, but it wasn't my priority at the time.

Quote
Tabula Rasa was mainly a PvE game... it might have had the 3rd person action PoV (well, just like CoX really), but it was *not* a PvP focused game. It did have PvP, but you had to make the choice to go into it. It was not possible to go around just randomly ganking players. Sorry, had to correct that, as I played it from closed beta to closure.

I had heard that there was virtually no PvE content or experience in it at launch and that the real focus of the game was PvP, like Aion, but as I said, I didn't play it. I didn't play Aion until rather recently, either, after they had developed quite a bit of PvE content for it. If I hear that the focus of a game is PvP, I seldom pay any attention to it at all. (edit: I should point out that this is one of the reasons I'm leery of posting my comments outside this forum---such things actually do influence some people who are just feeling about for opinions and don't take the time to verify those opinions. I have a client, for example, who had a bad experience with HP and refuses to deal with them any more. None of my other clients have this issue---they didn't have the bad experience. Should I take this client's bad experience prima facie and not use HP products anymore? See, this is one area that I'm very careful about. Games, on the other hand, I'm not so careful about... ;) )

Quote
If CoX is just purely an innocent bystander in the fight between Garriott and Ncsoft, then why did it take almost a year for the closure to come through (and this was after the final judgement from the Garriott Vs NCsoft court case)?

It didn't. The xenophobia set in almost immediately, as you can easily verify by reading the various postings from American NCsoft employees about how they were treated by their Korean supervisors. It wasn't an accident that Korea clamped down on their US operations as tightly as they did. I'm sure they felt pretty badly stung by their social experiment of letting an American head the show for several years.

As for the closure of CoH, Richard Garriott's lawsuit regarding compensatory damages for his forced stock sale is probably what made them decide to throw in the towel completely. I suspect they viewed the entire American social and legal systems as being just too much bother. Develop at home and ship it abroad; no need to worry about obnoxious court systems that award huge damages to wayward employees with "poor work ethics." What it was, exactly, that finally put the wheels in motion is a question I cannot answer; what it was that set it into motion is a little more clear to me...or are you claiming that NCsoft's experience with Tabula Rasa had nothing whatsoever to do with their unwillingness to use American developers?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Codewalker on November 05, 2012, 02:36:31 PM
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on November 05, 2012, 03:26:34 PM
Wow...

...that's all I can say, Undercat. Excellent analysis. Because this Garriott guy struck out, the Koreans wanna go hide under the covers. It defies all logic of course, yet it explains so much.

Thanks for unveiling all that. So the folks at NCSoft, lost in their xenophobia and their grudge, really do have their fingers in their ears as we on the other side of the Pacific and the language barrier throw a vocal conniption of our own.

Pfft! What a pathetic way for this great game to end. Sure wish it had never been sold to NCSoft in the first place.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on November 05, 2012, 03:36:55 PM
Wow...

...that's all I can say, Undercat. Excellent analysis. Because this Garriott guy struck out, the Koreans wanna go hide under the covers. It defies all logic of course, yet it explains so much.

Thanks for unveiling all that. So the folks at NCSoft, lost in their xenophobia and their grudge, really do have their fingers in their ears as we on the other side of the Pacific and the language barrier throw a vocal conniption of our own.

Pfft! What a pathetic way for this great game to end. Sure wish it had never been sold to NCSoft in the first place.

it really is pathetic, but i agree with tony that if coh didnt get bought by ncsoft the game could have ended many more years ago

however to see something like this happen is inexcusable and they shouldnt be allowed to get away with it
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Osborn on November 05, 2012, 03:59:50 PM
You know, that's one of the reasons I've been steering clear of the various Garriott discussions. I know a lot of people are fans, and there's the whole controversy over the resignation letter being used to force him to exercise stock options early (and the resulting lawsuit). However I remember hearing about his 'joyride' right after TR launched and thinking some very unkind thoughts about the type of person who would spend that kind of money on diversions while his huge budget game was floundering.

TBH, if I were Taek Jin Kim, I probably would fired him, too. I doubt I would have closed TR, because there was always the potential it could be salvaged and make up some more of the losses, but who knows.

I really hope that the closing of COH and "realignment of company focus" are not fallout from that fiasco. It would be a shame.

My thoughts on Garriott's joyride through space are similar to those of CoH. If TR failed, then fine. Let it fail properly without putting a knife in its back, bow out gracefully and open source or sell the IP to somebody else who wants to keep the project running, even if they're bad at it (such as Garriott himself who tried to buy the IP).

I feel muchly the same way about CoH. If CoH was to fail, fine, but don't put a knife in its back and open the code up to people who want to let the game continue.

I mean, if Garriott or Paragon Studios couldn't run their respective game, fine, I just wish they were given the chance.

I hate this sort of thing where an IP can be hoarded by people with no intention to do anything with it when it still has potential. I'm completely fine with the concept of patents and copywrite in general just against this sort of sitting on good things to make slightly less good things more profitable.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ammon on November 05, 2012, 05:44:32 PM
You know, that's one of the reasons I've been steering clear of the various Garriott discussions. I know a lot of people are fans, and there's the whole controversy over the resignation letter being used to force him to exercise stock options early (and the resulting lawsuit). However I remember hearing about his 'joyride' right after TR launched and thinking some very unkind thoughts about the type of person who would spend that kind of money on diversions while his huge budget game was floundering.
I'm with Codewalker on that. 

But more than that, have any of you ever worked with Corporations?  Legal looks over everything which means most of even the simplest decisions take months.  Basically, sure, the CEO can often bluster past that, but it is prety darn rare and so against corporate culture.  If you want to start speculating and creating conspiracy theories, ask yourself why a corporation, with running stuff past legal teams even before blowing their noses, put out a forged letter? 

My only logical conclusion is that, for whatever reason, NCsoft were certain Garriot would acknowledge and agree with the letter when he landed.  I honestly can't think of any realistic rational alternative that fits with the fundamentals of how corporate culture works.  NCsoft were lead (by something) to believe that Garriot would ratify their letter, and instead found themselves in a massive lawsuit.  But his brother got a nice promotion in the same company right about the time the letter was done ...

Anyway, that's very wild speculation that I'm not presenting as anything but a purely personal speculation and opinion.  Certainly not an actual allegation that NCsoft were set up for a sucker punch in the courts that gained a massively overpaid person even more millions.


If we are to look at coincidentals and circumstantial evidence for clues about why CoH was closed, you know that the most likely is simply the 5 year timeline.

In an earlier post I bolded the words '5 year plan' because these are absolute golden words in marketing and investment.  Well, funnily enough, the decision to close CoH and paragon came really close to that 5 year date - how close I can't know without knowing when the decision to purchase Paragon was first touted (thus how much of the lead-in to buying time was in the 5 year plan), and how much sunsetting was included.

Business today is ruled almost utterly by the 5 year plan.  Too much so for my tastes by far, but I generally have to fit all my own work into such plans by my clients, and speak in their language, so I'm all too familiar with the term and its importance.  Businessmen and investors don't even move into an investment without looking for their exit strategy (the bit where they get out again with a ton of profit).

I would be utterly amazed if there were not a 5 year plan for Paragon Studios and CoH, or rather, a 5 year plan within Paragon, that they worked to, and a higher level 5 year plan of performance management that NCsoft refered to all along.  The decision to close Paragon Studios may literally have been made 5 years ago, based on performance indicators at various milestones, and especially at the 5 year stage.  Either the company, project, or product hits its targets (KPIs) at various points, or sooner or later it reaches a deadline at which it is scrapped.  No excuses, and no "But its so close now".  They draw hard lines just as professional gamblers do, and for the same reason.  If it hasn't paid off as expected by a certain time, you cut your losses and move on.

Now, I'm not presenting this as what happened either.  We can't know.  But I can tell you that this is precisely what gets most companies and products shut down.  They are given deadlines and performance targets, with a certain amount of leeeway, but at a set point a blunt decision is made with no grey area.  It either hit the target or it didn't.  If 5 years of knowing targets didn't let people hit them then another 5 months won't either.

The one fact we have to stick with is that offers of buying the IP didn't tempt a company (people paid to make money, not make personal decisions or play politics) to sell.  Whether or not their valuation was realistic, it will NOT be personal or political reasons, but ones that go into a balance sheet.  Let's not make it any more complex, or add any conspiract theories that just cloud the issue.

The root issue is very simple.  NCsoft value the thing far higher than any bidder so far has.  Our one hope is to lower the value they perceive it having, or at least to add in extra value in some way to getting rid of the problem.  Isn't that clear enough without needing to speculate much more?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on November 05, 2012, 05:52:58 PM
Considering that Arenanet and Carbine Studios are American studios, I would be inclined to disagree with your statement that NCsoft is unwilling to use american/european developers. It would probably be more accurate to say that NCsoft are unwilling to support something that doesn't fit in with their roster of game. Now, if something *does* appeal to them, then I believe that they would support it, especially if it is suitable for their own market. For something that is suitable for the US market alone? Possibly not.

That's an interesting point. How DOES Arenanet fit into all of this? Why are they allowed the amount of autonomy that they obviously are?

In fact it is possible for a gamer who's not in touch with gaming news to pick the product up off the shelf and completely miss the fact that this is an NCSoft product, with the absolute minimal NCSoft branding in the product. Though Arenanet are wholly owned by NCSoft, their "leash" seems to be amazingly loose.

Is it simply because of the proven track record with GW1? But if that's the case, why wasn't Paragon Studios given such freedom? 

Why the HELL did Arenanet get to develop Guild Wars 2 and Paragon Studios repeated efforts to make COH2 were shot down???

Something doesn't add up here. NCSoft is paranoid about all Western effort EXCEPT Arenanet and Guild Wars? The Hell??

Is it simply that GW 1&2 are Fantasy Games and the business model of Micro-transactions fits better with the Korean "model"? 



Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: P51mus on November 05, 2012, 06:09:56 PM
Now, I'm not presenting this as what happened either.  We can't know.  But I can tell you that this is precisely what gets most companies and products shut down.  They are given deadlines and performance targets, with a certain amount of leeeway, but at a set point a blunt decision is made with no grey area.  It either hit the target or it didn't.  If 5 years of knowing targets didn't let people hit them then another 5 months won't either.

But the Paragon Studios team, all of them, were surprised by the closing.  If there were targets to hit, they were never told about them.  Which is pretty ridiculous.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Osborn on November 05, 2012, 06:14:37 PM
But the Paragon Studios team, all of them, were surprised by the closing.  If there were targets to hit, they were never told about them.  Which is pretty ridiculous.

Or if there were targets to hit, they were hidden from the development team up until Black Friday.

That said, some responsibility for 'hitting targets' has to lie in the hands of the Publisher. The Developer can make a great game, but if the Publisher doesn't actually, you know publish the darn thing with any sort of advertisement budget, I'm not sure how entirely that's the development team's fault.

"Here, you have the best aim in the world. Hit this target... without a crossbow or anything to fire." is still a recipe for setting them up to fail.

And despite that they were still running in the black and making progress on the game at a somewhat fantastic rate, especially for an 8 year old game. So they were given nothing to fire and still hitting (known) targets with thrown rocks.

That's pretty impressive for a team in a genre that's in itself failing in general just based on shear saturation.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ammon on November 05, 2012, 07:15:26 PM
But the Paragon Studios team, all of them, were surprised by the closing.  If there were targets to hit, they were never told about them.  Which is pretty ridiculous.
Every company I've known to be closed through not hitting its targets is surprised they were not given an extension, or more understanding.  Every single one.  Or they say the targets were not realistic, or some other reason why they thought that they'd be the exception.  But as I say, its a hard rule that protects the professional gambler - there are no exceptions.

We know that time and again City was supposed to be revitalised and turned around. 

CoV for instance was supposed to bring in a whole new mass of players, almost doubling the player base by adding in villains and pvp to draw in new customers the game had not attracted before.  It most definitely failed to hit the performance it had promised, and instead, split the existing playerbase, such that each side seemed a bit less populated than before, and starting the disatisfaction about how hard it could be to find redside teams.

Of course, that was all under Cryptic, so lets look at ... Going Rogue.  Yeah, that hit all its targets didn't it?

Closing the French and German language support seem like a target in the original plan?  A sign of success?  How about closing the Offices in the UK for Europe?

Plans are usually about either growth, or milking cash during a sunset period.  City was not growing, so anything in that plan of five years about growth was not being hit.  Yes, the Market brought in extra revenue ... but did it take the income back to CoH's strongest point of subs?  Did it undo 5 years of declining player numbers?

We know, and have known for some years, that CoH has never been close to attaining what it had hoped to.  We just don't know how many of those hopes were actually the basis of financial performance targets.  The only persons who could tell us would be the head of Paragon Studios and the CFO there.

Again, I'm not putting thise forward as anything but an example that one doesn't have to get into conspiracy theories to speculate.  Occam's Razor will always say that failure to hit performance targets for Growth (and the game was shrinking, not growing) is alone enough reason to close many businesses.

The bottom line is still the same, it was profitable, but not profitable enough to run, but the current thinking on the value of the property is higher than anyone has come close to bidding.  Those are facts, and all else is speculation, which barring insider financial reports and reading contracts, are just blind guesses.

We should spend most of our time working on changing the valuations of what it is worth to sell, and what it is costing to keep closed, rather than on speculation and guesswork that we can never prove, and doesn't change the underlying need of what we must do.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: P51mus on November 05, 2012, 08:27:55 PM
We should spend most of our time working on changing the valuations of what it is worth to sell, and what it is costing to keep closed, rather than on speculation and guesswork that we can never prove, and doesn't change the underlying need of what we must do.

Yes, and what we do know is that the game was profitable, the game devs believed they were doing well, and I believe this is the first MMO shut down that was still profitable and said shutdown was because of the publisher running it (I don't know whether SWG was profitable or not, but that was shut down because lucasarts pulled the license on it).

The notion that something can be shutdown because it's not profitable enough and not in danger of going negative any time soon, and that the fans of it can be prevented from having access to it, is a horrible one and something I think can gain traction outside of our community.

Fear of Valve disappearing with their games is the biggest concern people who don't like Steam have, and that's a company with a sterling reputation, has committed to patching all games on their service for offline if they ever go under (I believe they've already prepared them actually?), has an offline mode for those games anyway, and has commited itself to never letting itself get bought out by anyone.

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Luna Eclypse on November 05, 2012, 08:42:36 PM
So yeah, how 'bout dem NCsoft stock prices, eh?

Their value is down to ₩203,500 today; a little over $186 USD if I'm reading the chart right.

Do we have enough severe PR attacks in reserve for after Nov. 30? I reckon there will be a hard drop in their stock value the closer we get to Shutdown, we should have some critically timed press coverage ready to go to capitalize.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: P51mus on November 05, 2012, 09:59:03 PM
Do we have enough severe PR attacks in reserve for after Nov. 30? I reckon there will be a hard drop in their stock value the closer we get to Shutdown, we should have some critically timed press coverage ready to go to capitalize.

I dunno, but election season in the US is almost over.  Election day is tomorrow (VOTE! If you haven't done so yet, and are in the US).

Should be easier to try and get coverage in non gaming news sites after this.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on November 05, 2012, 10:04:21 PM
I'm currently reading a book by Richard Torrenzano and Mark Davis on "digital assassination." It's interesting stuff, but there is nothing much in it that I would openly advocate. In fact, I wouldn't even openly discuss any of it on these boards.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on November 06, 2012, 12:27:28 AM
"Digital Assassination?" I so not like the sound of that. Remember to stay blueside, all. No lies, just the truth as loud as you can.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on November 06, 2012, 12:48:04 AM
Since NCSoft doesn't deal in truth - only in lies - I'd say that to them - Truth = Assassination.

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on November 06, 2012, 03:03:12 AM
Nope! Blue-side, all the way. Just saying: it's interesting reading.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Luna Eclypse on November 06, 2012, 03:42:28 AM
I would advocate that... but that's because I'm vindictive when it comes to useless overpaid corporate scumbags. And that is why I'm not participating in spreading the truth because I'll just start entertaining myself with off-color slander like "NCsoft makes murder porn." (Because I have a dark sense of humor).

So, good luck to those that are staying blue side in the fight. Make sure to lock the padded room after I go in so I don't cause any trouble.  :-X
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on November 06, 2012, 04:19:08 AM
We should spend most of our time working on changing the valuations of what it is worth to sell, and what it is costing to keep closed, rather than on speculation and guesswork that we can never prove, and doesn't change the underlying need of what we must do.

Ammon's right.  Stay on target.  We can speculate and investigate all we want after we get City revived.  For now, we need, badly, to keep focus.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on November 06, 2012, 04:23:59 AM
Ammon's right.  Stay on target.  We can speculate and investigate all we want after we get City revived.  For now, we need, badly, to keep focus.
So... just what's the goal then?

Communicate to investors that CoH as it stands is worth less and less with every passing hour, since it's currently generating no revenue and isn't returning anything in exchange for the cost of keeping it?  That CoH's value will drop precipitously when the game is closed, because a large number of dissatisfied customers who feel the closure was premature will simply cease purchasing NCsoft products altogether?  That NCsoft is digging itself a grave when it comes to profits by acting in such a xenophobic way towards its western customer base?

What's the message we need to be getting out, and to whom should that message be directed at?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on November 06, 2012, 05:00:11 AM
We need to spread two kinds of messages, the overt, and the covert.

The overt:

Attack NCSoft at every possible angle. 

Remind gamers every time an NSoft game turns up in the news that they are the Gamekiller; that time and money invested in an NCSoft game is pouring time and money down a hole, because it can be yanked out from under you without warning at any moment.  This means we have to be vigilant about articles and news-stories and make sure that the comments sections are flooded with our statements. 

Attack NCSoft on non-gaming fronts.  Flood feminist sites with items about the misogynistic nature of Bits and Tits.  Flood Parent sites with the soft-core nature of Bits and Tits, and suggest that if this is NCSoft's new direction, they might want to think twice about letting their kids play any NCSoft game.  Remind the parents of special needs children that NCSoft yanked a tool that had offered demonstrable help to children like theirs out from under those children--and deprived those in the future of that help.  Remind senior citizens that NCSoft yanked a game that they could have been playing with their grandchildren.  Use your imagination.  Above all, make it clear that we are not going away and will continue to point out why they are a company no one should do business with.

The covert:

Spook the stockholders with what we are doing.  Make sure they know what we are doing.  Watch for articles in business journals and sites about NCSoft and add comments about what we are doing.  It probably won't even matter if we make NCSoft lose subscribers; the fact that we are still at work could spook them and drive stock prices down.

As Ammon said, the important thing is to make it clear that we are not going away, that we are going to spend the same time and energy we spent in gaming on bringing the pain back to NCSoft, and that their reputation is eroding and it is going to cost them an increasingly expensive PR campaign.  And that the only way to make us go away is to sell the City to someone who will care for her.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Undercat on November 06, 2012, 05:11:34 AM
That's an interesting point. How DOES Arenanet fit into all of this? Why are they allowed the amount of autonomy that they obviously are?

I wondered about the same thing, but chalked it up to the fact that GW2 had been in development for several years and it didn't seem reasonable that NCsoft would kill ArenaNet before trying to recover some of their investment---especially since they have no motivation to "punish" anyone there, unlike Tabula Rasa with the Garriotts. Besides, it seemed to me that the axe might have swung over ANet next, maybe a year or so after launch, but now, after a bit more digging, I'm not so sure....

Considering that Arenanet and Carbine Studios are American studios, I would be inclined to disagree with your statement that NCsoft is unwilling to use american/european developers. It would probably be more accurate to say that NCsoft are unwilling to support something that doesn't fit in with their roster of game. Now, if something *does* appeal to them, then I believe that they would support it, especially if it is suitable for their own market. For something that is suitable for the US market alone? Possibly not.

I'm now inclined to agree with this statement. Considering that half of WoW's 10 million or so subscribers are in Asia, any game that doesn't have a future in Eastern markets could be assumed to be throwing away a huge chunk of potential revenue---perhaps even the majority of it. ArenaNet has apparently been quite savvy to that fact, targeting GW2 to fit the Asian market from the start; CoX, on the other hand, had no perceivable future there. Not only does ArenaNet have potential value in the East (reference (http://www.thestreet.com/story/11680010/1/kongzhong-corporation-partners-with-arenanet-to-bring-guild-wars-2-to-the-china-online-game-market.html)), but it would seem they have been singing pretty much the same song the Garriotts were singing years ago; namely, that they will deliver a WoW-killer:
Quote
O'Brien [president of ArenaNet] is confident the game [GW2] will overtake "World of Warcraft," the market leader produced by Irvine, Calif.-based Blizzard Entertainment, where he and ArenaNet's other founders worked before starting their studio in 2000. (ref) (http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2015645196_brier18.html)
...and, given historical precedent, this may be precisely what Kim wants to hear...
Quote
ArenaNet kept its autonomy and creative direction, in part because it has enthusiastic support from NCsoft Chief Executive Taek Jin Kim, a gamer and game designer. O'Brien said their conversations tend to be about game design, and Kim wants "to make games that he's proud of, that gamers are going to love and that are going to be the No. 1 games in the industry." (ibid) (http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2015645196_brier18.html)

One of the things that formed my opinion about NCsoft's xenophobia were repeated negative reports in Korea Times, for example:
Quote
Garriott's departure from NCsoft was seen as inevitable, as the company has never been pleased with his work ethic.
...
"And it seems like the company has been evaluating foreign developers more cautiously since all the trouble with Garriott," said an industry watcher. (ref) (http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2011/04/133_50226.html)

Yet it seems that NCsoft is still chasing the dream of a WoW-killer. Even after Garriott. So perhaps the closure of CoX was, indeed, not merely a reactionary and xenophobic withdrawal from the American market as either a production or consumption endpoint, but a judgment on the behalf of Kim and NCsoft that "little people don't matter." I find that a little more palatable than a nationalistic tantrum...but not by very much.

As for how the development cost of TR was calculated, to assume that none of the acquisition costs of the Garriotts were credited to the TR project would be to assume that none of their costs were, since the same article describes Richard's total take as being a figure that appears to arithmetically combine his buyout deal and stock option exercise. That, frankly, would seem a little odd to me. But it is irrelevant. While I still feel that NCsoft was stung by the Garriotts, and that the episode had some impact on their relationship with American developers, I concede that it may not have been quite that simple. As I said, I take that as a very small consolation, but right about now, I'll take whatever I can get.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Undercat on November 06, 2012, 05:41:45 AM
Remind gamers every time an NSoft game turns up in the news that they are the Gamekiller; that time and money invested in an NCSoft game is pouring time and money down a hole, because it can be yanked out from under you without warning at any moment.  This means we have to be vigilant about articles and news-stories and make sure that the comments sections are flooded with our statements.

Yes. Regardless of NCsoft's present position with respect to American game development, the fact remains that they exhibit inexcusably callous behavior toward any toys (and customers for those toys) that are no longer of interest to them. Eighty-million-dollars was way out of line, by any reasonable metric for valuation (although I admit that non-stratospheric earnings multiples were put out of fashion by the dot-com boom).

Quote
Attack NCSoft on non-gaming fronts.  Flood feminist sites with items about the misogynistic nature of Bits and Tits.  Flood Parent sites with the soft-core nature of Bits and Tits, and suggest that if this is NCSoft's new direction, they might want to think twice about letting their kids play any NCSoft game.

That might work for some fraction of the overall gaming population...but the fraction is probably not very large. The players of CoX are somewhat different from those in other MMOs I have tried, which is one of the reasons I like it. Consider also that B&S is presently NCsoft's most popular title in Korea. The majority of MMO gamers are probably male, like myself, and have little or no aversion to innocent T&A. In fact, I consider the idea of fantasizing about killing another human being (PvP) to be orders-of-magnitude more offensive than animated titillation. Why not start a crusade about that? Such topics can rapidly polarize people into religiously-devoted camps and could ultimately hurt the aims of the save-CoH crowd more than help it.

Quote
Remind senior citizens that NCSoft yanked a game that they could have been playing with their grandchildren.

This is a problem with the genre as a whole, as far as I'm concerned. It's one of the things that bothers me most about MMOs: they have no durability. I can go to gog.com and buy dozens of games that are 10-15 years old, enjoy them whenever I want to, play them with future generations, etc. No such guarantee exists for MMOs as a whole. Want to play vanilla WoW? Out of luck...gone forever, never to be seen by another soul again. It was simply a service, not art. That's kind of depressing, actually.

Quote
As Ammon said, the important thing is to make it clear that we are not going away, that we are going to spend the same time and energy we spent in gaming on bringing the pain back to NCSoft, and that their reputation is eroding and it is going to cost them an increasingly expensive PR campaign.  And that the only way to make us go away is to sell the City to someone who will care for her.

I whole-heartedly concur. Just please be careful what you do. Large corporations do not need to win in court: they can bankrupt small litigants in pre-trial.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ammon on November 06, 2012, 05:42:43 AM
Attack NCSoft on non-gaming fronts.  Flood feminist sites with items about the misogynistic nature of Bits and Tits.  Flood Parent sites with the soft-core nature of Bits and Tits, and suggest that if this is NCSoft's new direction, they might want to think twice about letting their kids play any NCSoft game.  Remind the parents of special needs children that NCSoft yanked a tool that had offered demonstrable help to children like theirs out from under those children--and deprived those in the future of that help.  Remind senior citizens that NCSoft yanked a game that they could have been playing with their grandchildren.  Use your imagination.  Above all, make it clear that we are not going away and will continue to point out why they are a company no one should do business with.
And don'y forget one of the strongest accusations of all - NCsoft callously closed a studio putting all of its staff, including but not limited to 80 developers, out of work.  Add in the managers, office staff etc and that's a LOT of people who were fired while working hard and earning profit for their parent company.  How's that for how NCsoft treat loyalty and respect people?

A change of focus would have been putting Paragon to work on something else.  Firing everyone as a reward for years of profitable service is business, but of the worst kind.

To an extent, I would honestly suggest that we play down the pornographic angle of Bits and Tits.  Nothing helps a product succeed more than being told it is disgusting, overtly sexual, or forbidden and bad for you.  How much of the success of Fifty Shades of Grey is down to all the discussion about it being pornographic? 

Parents railing against a game for being overly sexual will make every teenage boy in the world want to play.  Doesn't mean we can't use it for getting feminist support, but we need to be careful that this message is always targeted specifically to that audience.  Not somewhere young men will read it and become more interested in seeing what all the fuss is about.

On top of that, we could be seen as attacking another game.  Isn't our aim to unify players of other games to our cause, not to show them in our actions that we are yet another community of gamers who belittle the tastes of other gamers?  Attacking Blade and Soul directly sends the wrong message, sadly.  If we can use it to get coverage in mainstream, then I believe some of the mixed message may be a cost worth paying.  But if we can instead show understanding and support for all gaming tastes, I believe we'll be more likely to inspire that same supportive acceptance from other gamers too.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on November 06, 2012, 05:50:56 AM
Well, on account of Bits and Tits, there's also the demographics angle. If the portrayal of female characters is grossly insulting, and male players play it in expectation of scantily-clad co-players, then they'll be sorely disappointed by their absence. I mean, if I were a girl, I'd jump at the chance to play as seven feet of legs with a pair of novelty lemons stapled to two inches between my hips and neck, but that's just me.

Then again, I suppose there'll still be female characters around. I mean, dock workers need love too.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: P51mus on November 06, 2012, 08:56:32 AM
On top of that, we could be seen as attacking another game.  Isn't our aim to unify players of other games to our cause, not to show them in our actions that we are yet another community of gamers who belittle the tastes of other gamers?  Attacking Blade and Soul directly sends the wrong message, sadly.  If we can use it to get coverage in mainstream, then I believe some of the mixed message may be a cost worth paying.  But if we can instead show understanding and support for all gaming tastes, I believe we'll be more likely to inspire that same supportive acceptance from other gamers too.

I prefer mentioning how I can't trust NCSoft anymore.

That, and the blade and soul female characters are so exaggerated they're the opposite of attractive to me.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Turjan on November 06, 2012, 12:47:45 PM
I prefer mentioning how I can't trust NCSoft anymore.

That, and the blade and soul female characters are so exaggerated they're the opposite of attractive to me.
Indeed. As a caricaturist myself (a profession which relies on visual exaggeration of course), the word I use to describe B&S is this :-

grotesque
1 : odd or unnatural in shape, appearance, or character; fantastically ugly or absurd; bizarre; (horribly) distorted.
2 : a piece of work in this style


Caricature is one thing, but the art of caricature is knowing when exaggeration crosses a line. If you step over that line, what you create is no longer a caricature, but a grotesque. The figure art style in B&S has crossed that line. I find it visually repellant. The landscapes and scenery however should be commended - they're actually rather pretty and atmospheric.

It's interesting, this whole notion of 'outrage advertising' of course - saying something is 'disgusting' or 'obscene' has always been a trick to get folk curious. In the case of something like B&S however, such a bloom of interest could actually ultimately work in our favour. If the game got a boost of players from 'outrage advertising', that would look good for the company...but only until 90% of those players left once they'd seen what the fuss was about, and realised the game is actually so culturally alien to them that there's no reason to stick around. And then that sudden drop in playerbase looks bad for the company.

Time will tell I guess.

I think the message we need to get across is one of BETRAYAL. CoH is chugging along nicely for 8 years, there's no indication of anything different...then suddenly, bang, goodbye and goodnight. Our loyalty disregarded, 8 years worth of financial support for NCsoft cast aside, our wishes ignored. In short, we have been betrayed. And it is our right to let everyone know that, both because we're aggrieved and to hopefully prevent other people from suffering as we have.

And if that affects NCsoft stock price, then perhaps they might not be so hasty to betray their customers again in the future.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on November 07, 2012, 05:30:49 AM

That might work for some fraction of the overall gaming population...but the fraction is probably not very large. The players of CoX are somewhat different from those in other MMOs I have tried, which is one of the reasons I like it. Consider also that B&S is presently NCsoft's most popular title in Korea. The majority of MMO gamers are probably male, like myself, and have little or no aversion to innocent T&A. In fact, I consider the idea of fantasizing about killing another human being (PvP) to be orders-of-magnitude more offensive than animated titillation. Why not start a crusade about that? Such topics can rapidly polarize people into religiously-devoted camps and could ultimately hurt the aims of the save-CoH crowd more than help it.


I'm taking a cue from modern marketing here. For instance, did you know that Budweiser has ads that are ONLY placed in gay magazines?  The rest of the public never sees them.  Many other products do the same.  I'm suggesting a targeted approach, so that we send specific messages to specific groups.  Feminists will be offended by the objectification of women in Bits and Tits; parents will be outraged at the T and A.  Gamers?  Never mention it.  Target them with a message that they will consider relevant.  The whole idea is for anti-NCSoft messages to be hitting cyberspace and hopefully the news from every possible angle, and for reactions to be coming from places NCSoft never anticipated.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Undercat on November 07, 2012, 08:38:26 AM
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on November 07, 2012, 12:57:17 PM
You mention Redside/blueside, but that seems to be a narrow interpretation of it. Plenty of vigilantes would see NCSoft fall, and plenty of villains (Xanatos, anybody) would simply do whatever was most pragmatic.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Artillerie on November 08, 2012, 03:23:27 AM
Just saw this on Facebook - a sudden drop for NCSoft :

http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS

Apparently the lowest price in 2 years according to comments there.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: eabrace on November 08, 2012, 03:32:31 AM
Just saw this on Facebook - a sudden drop for NCSoft :

http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS

Apparently the lowest price in 2 years according to comments there.
(https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y38/eabrace/th_Motivator-Schadenfreude.jpg) (http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y38/eabrace/Motivator-Schadenfreude.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on November 08, 2012, 03:39:12 AM
Y'know, looking at this, the word I'm getting is less of a "drop" and more like, well... this (http://youtu.be/_d8ROhH3_vs?t=9s).

And it is positively delightful.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Terwyn on November 08, 2012, 04:00:51 AM
Blood in the water.
Consequences are dire.
Give us our game back.

^_^
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on November 08, 2012, 04:01:54 AM
Look out, NCsoft.  I just saw Captain Mako circling around your stock options.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: eabrace on November 08, 2012, 05:12:15 AM
Look out, NCsoft.  I just saw Captain Mako circling around your stock options.
"Are you outta your MIND? You're in SHARK territory now, NCsoft!"

(Fresh in my mind after documenting Infernia last week.)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on November 08, 2012, 05:51:23 AM
Just saw this on Facebook - a sudden drop for NCSoft :

http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS

Apparently the lowest price in 2 years according to comments there.

Not that I'm not heavily enjoying the schadenfreude here -- MUAHAHAHAHAHA!! *ahem*  ;D

but...

What the HECK just happened????   :o
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on November 08, 2012, 06:09:43 AM
Not that I'm not heavily enjoying the schadenfreude here -- MUAHAHAHAHAHA!! *ahem*  ;D

but...

What the HECK just happened????   :o

Maybe just tied into the election? Thought I saw a headline this morning online somewhere that there was a bit of a stock panic today.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on November 08, 2012, 06:15:01 AM
Ahhh yes of course. Stands to reason that Wall Street are in a panic that Obama's been re-elected. He's about the most anti-business chief executive this country has ever had.

I was hoping it was more due to the Starburst article (though I thought that was a long shot). But this makes more sense.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Terwyn on November 08, 2012, 06:16:32 AM
Why would a stock panic in the US effect a company on the Korean market? I think there's something else in play.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on November 08, 2012, 06:21:03 AM
Well consider - it's all connected - if U.S. Stocks tumble, then that's affecting the western market. Less value for the stocks = less value for the companies = less disposable income = less willingness to hire people = fewer jobs = more people under-employed = less disposable income for things like games and entertainment.

And the fact that this is heading into the Christmas Season is just doubly bad.

EDIT: So yeah - that's going to affect NCSoft because that means fewer people are willing to buy their games.

Of course we could be having a small effect even with all of this. If people have less disposable income, they're going to want to be much more careful of their purchases. They may actually be researching the games ahead of time. And a google search on NCSoft might just be turning up a few negative things here and there...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Terwyn on November 08, 2012, 06:23:34 AM
Well consider - it's all connected - if U.S. Stocks tumble, then that's affecting the western market. Less value for the stocks = less value for the companies = less disposable income = less willingness to hire people = fewer jobs = more people under-employed = less disposable income for things like games and entertainment.

And the fact that this is heading into the Christmas Season is just doubly bad.

I am aware of that, I just don't think the effect is that great.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on November 08, 2012, 06:27:08 AM
Ooooh...


Just as a "for example" I just now did a basic "News for NCSoft" search on Google and Look what just floated to the top! 

http://my.mmosite.com/2281165/blog/item/ncsoft_killing_them_softly.html (http://my.mmosite.com/2281165/blog/item/ncsoft_killing_them_softly.html)

(Gonna go do a quick crosspost on this up in the "Thank the media" thread.)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on November 08, 2012, 06:43:17 AM
I am aware of that, I just don't think the effect is that great.

Sadly, it doesn't usually take much. You can make a million jokes about it. I used to make a crack that there was a perk to living in the Middle East during the wars, because any civilian could influence global gas prices just by making an obscene gesture at an occupying soldier.

More recently, one on the Onion that was absolutely priceless. "Dow Jones plummets due to rumors of Dow Jones plummeting."
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Turjan on November 08, 2012, 03:21:16 PM
If the US economy tanks, then the world has a good chance of following it... and that markets reflected that.

Indeedy. This article in the Korean Times today shows what happens when the Korean won gains strength against the dollar -

Soaring won squeezes companies (http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2012/11/123_124251.html)
Quote from: The Korea Times Nov 8th 2012
The majority of exporters here have seen their bottom lines deteriorate as a result of the steep appreciation of the Korean won against the dollar and other major foreign currencies over the past few months.

- an effect that would be doubled should the dollar start to slide globally as well as the won strengthening of course.

Whether this is enough to have the sudden drop impact we've just seen on NCsoft's share prices is anybody's guess of course - their market is still mostly domestic, and their overseas products are digital rather than physical exports for the most part. Personally I'm going with what gangrel and Tim say about 'ripple effects' from small point sources disturbing the market.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The White Rager on November 08, 2012, 03:41:42 PM
 A simple 'NCSoft news' google gets nothing but 'they've closed CoH articles,' varying in tone from the merely reporting to the outright condemning. No Guild Wars II articles, just all about our fight. Way to go!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on November 08, 2012, 04:25:35 PM
As for the latest dive... when did the NCsoft financial report come out? Maybe that has something to do with it?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Terwyn on November 08, 2012, 04:27:12 PM
"Sir? We have a group of heroes from Paragon City who would like to have a word with you about your plans to foreclose on their city."

"How many? It's not like they have the resources to stop us."

"That's the thing, sir. It's all of them."
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Moonfyire101 on November 08, 2012, 05:04:16 PM
Wow! The stock just took such a dive! Thats great! keep up the good work everyone, it's working ;)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on November 08, 2012, 05:41:21 PM
Don't overreact. That's the sort of fluctuation that happens. Look at the view over five years for some perspective.

Now if they get down to 50,000 a share, back where they were in 2008, then you'll see some panic.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Celtic Fist on November 08, 2012, 09:47:16 PM
Short write up from one source on the reason for the big slide in the stock.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/49736295

It mention the reason is a dim forecast earnings until "Blade and Soul" is released in the Chinese market next year.  Gives impression the stock value could be suppressed for a while.  Markets are fickle so to each your own opinion. 
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lucretia MacEvil on November 10, 2012, 12:32:14 AM
Today they hit a new 52-week low that, from what I can tell from the charts, is the lowest their stock has been in about 2 years. 

Stay strong!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The Fifth Horseman on November 10, 2012, 02:57:42 PM
Indeedm, though that one has been a fairly brief blip (December 2010-January 2011). Last time their stock has been around this value for a longer amount of time was in June 2010.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on November 10, 2012, 03:46:39 PM
June 2010... that was the Garriott ruling, wasn't it?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Artillerie on November 12, 2012, 02:25:42 PM
Still going down :)

http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on November 12, 2012, 02:34:07 PM
You know, regardless of whether Obama's re-election is causing a world-wide stock market crash, our efforts can only help to make NCSoft's fall even faster. So keep it up.

I don't think this will ever happen, but isn't it entertaining to imagine plunging them down to cheap enough that we could buy their whole company? (Then again, I'm a guy who only buys lottery tickets when it's a 100 million-to-one ratio of payout to ticket price, and THEN considers it money spent on the entertainment value of imagining what I'd do with that much money. I know I'm spending money I won't see again; it's why I buy just one, and enjoy the fantasy.)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Nafaustu on November 12, 2012, 04:41:41 PM
You know, regardless of whether Obama's re-election is causing a world-wide stock market crash, our efforts can only help to make NCSoft's fall even faster. So keep it up.

I don't think this will ever happen, but isn't it entertaining to imagine plunging them down to cheap enough that we could buy their whole company? (Then again, I'm a guy who only buys lottery tickets when it's a 100 million-to-one ratio of payout to ticket price, and THEN considers it money spent on the entertainment value of imagining what I'd do with that much money. I know I'm spending money I won't see again; it's why I buy just one, and enjoy the fantasy.)

My father always said "Everybody needs a longshot."   Doubly applied here. :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Hyperstrike on November 12, 2012, 05:41:18 PM
Ahhh yes of course. Stands to reason that Wall Street are in a panic that Obama's been re-elected. He's about the most anti-business chief executive this country has ever had.

Of course he is!  He's an Illinois political hack!  If they're not chasing businesses away, they aren't "doing their job".
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Hyperstrike on November 12, 2012, 06:11:21 PM
While lobbyists would kill it dead, I wish Congress here in the States at least would institute a law confiscating ALL proceeds from illegal activity.

VERY slippery slope that.

Blow a red light?  That's illegal!  We're taking your car.

Killed a burglar breaking into your house and have someone classify it as unjustified?  That's homicide.  That's illegal!  We're taking your house!

The laws get changed so that something your business is doing, that was perfectly legal before, is now considered "wrong"?  We're taking your business!

Yeah.  While part of me wishes the "war on crime" had more muscle, all those protections on personal liberty and property, that politicians seem so blithely intent on eroding, are there for a reason.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The Fifth Horseman on November 12, 2012, 06:26:58 PM
VERY slippery slope that.

Blow a red light?  That's illegal!  We're taking your car.

Killed a burglar breaking into your house and have someone classify it as unjustified?  That's homicide.  That's illegal!  We're taking your house!

The laws get changed so that something your business is doing, that was perfectly legal before, is now considered "wrong"?  We're taking your business!

Yeah.  While part of me wishes the "war on crime" had more muscle, all those protections on personal liberty and property, that politicians seem so blithely intent on eroding, are there for a reason.

They did that exactly to Megaupload - and last I heard, they refused to return the seized assets and hardware, long after the seizure and other events leading to it were proven unlawful in and of themselves.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on November 12, 2012, 11:57:35 PM
Killed a burglar breaking into your house and have someone classify it as unjustified?  That's homicide.  That's illegal!  We're taking your house!

Pretty sure the penalty for homicide is a little more severe than that. I can't speak from personal experience, but I consider my source to be pretty reliable, so you can trust me on it.  ;)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Hydrith on November 13, 2012, 02:17:48 AM
Killed a burglar breaking into your house and have someone classify it as unjustified?  That's homicide.  That's illegal!  We're taking your house!

Depends on where you live.  Here in Alaska, I'm pretty sure you can kill a burglar who breaks into your house. :)

In the lower 48, though, I've heard stories of burglars breaking into houses, they fall down and hurt themselves, and get away with lawsuits against the owners.  People down there are nuts, it would never fly up here...but then again, we're barbarians up here.  We give away road kill to people who sign up for it :D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on November 13, 2012, 04:23:27 AM
Depends on where you live.  Here in Alaska, I'm pretty sure you can kill a burglar who breaks into your house. :)

In the lower 48, though, I've heard stories of burglars breaking into houses, they fall down and hurt themselves, and get away with lawsuits against the owners.  People down there are nuts, it would never fly up here...but then again, we're barbarians up here.  We give away road kill to people who sign up for it :D

not in texas, you break in someone house and they shoot you and you live, the first question authorities will ask the owner is why didnt you kill him? In fact they only have to be merely trespassing. In other states those No trespassing signs may be a joke. Here, it's serious buisness. It means they warned you, you ignored, so they can shoot you no questions asked. 
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: eabrace on November 13, 2012, 04:40:40 AM
not in texas, you break in someone house and they shoot you and you live, the first question authorities will ask the owner is why didnt you kill him?
As long as you don't shoot him in the back, you're good to go.  If you shoot them in the back, there will be more questions, but you're probably still going to be OK.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on November 13, 2012, 04:45:00 AM
Looks like they finally levelled out (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS) at around 170,500, currently sitting at 171,000.  They're still lower now than they have been in years.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on November 13, 2012, 04:46:24 AM
As long as you don't shoot him in the back, you're good to go.  If you shoot them in the back, there will be more questions, but you're probably still going to be OK.

yep.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on November 13, 2012, 04:51:22 AM
not in texas, you break in someone house and they shoot you and you live, the first question authorities will ask the owner is why didnt you kill him? In fact they only have to be merely trespassing. In other states those No trespassing signs may be a joke. Here, it's serious buisness. It means they warned you, you ignored, so they can shoot you no questions asked.

If I break into a house in Texas, I've made a serious vocational and/or life choice error somewhere along the line.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Hyperstrike on November 13, 2012, 04:54:09 AM
not in texas, you break in someone house and they shoot you and you live, the first question authorities will ask the owner is why didnt you kill him? In fact they only have to be merely trespassing. In other states those No trespassing signs may be a joke. Here, it's serious buisness. It means they warned you, you ignored, so they can shoot you no questions asked.

This is why "If at first you don't succeed, headshot, headshot again!"
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on November 13, 2012, 06:37:29 AM
Texas: where "gun control" means "a steady hand."
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Twisted Toon on November 13, 2012, 07:18:06 AM
Depends on where you live.  Here in Alaska, I'm pretty sure you can kill a burglar who breaks into your house. :)

In the lower 48, though, I've heard stories of burglars breaking into houses, they fall down and hurt themselves, and get away with lawsuits against the owners.  People down there are nuts, it would never fly up here...but then again, we're barbarians up here.  We give away road kill to people who sign up for it :D
In most states down here, you can shoot someone who breaks into your house, if you have a reasonable fear that they would cause you harm: Self Defense.

Other states, you'll get arrested if you shoot the ground outside of your house trying to stop a burglar. A couple of years ago, I recall reading an incident that went that way in...New Hampshire, I believe.

Also, I was told, by a police officer no less, that if you were to shoot a Jehovah's Witness on your property, drop the T.V. next to him. Then you can claim that he was robbing you. I'm still not entirely certain if he was joking...  ???
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on November 13, 2012, 01:27:48 PM
Texas: where "gun control" means "a steady hand."
I like that one! (I can't believe I hadn't heard it before, unless you just made it up?)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Artillerie on November 13, 2012, 02:21:06 PM
Looks like they finally levelled out (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS) at around 170,500, currently sitting at 171,000.  They're still lower now than they have been in years.

Thank you for the update - we will have to see what happens now.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: General Idiot on November 13, 2012, 02:30:37 PM
Might be premature though. One day of not going down is not a reversal of a several month trend, especially when over that time there's been several points where it's gone up for a day or two before dropping again. Assuming I'm reading that graph right, anyway.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Turjan on November 13, 2012, 05:00:08 PM
Best guess seems to be that the US election results and talk of "fiscal cliffs" has caused a lot of investors to pull out (at least temporarily) from 'risk' stocks, especially in the far east. What constitutes 'risk' to such people is unknown to me because I'm an artist not a stockbroker ???

In addition to NCsoft's stock, you might also want to keep an eye on Nexon, seeing as it's becoming more and more apparent the two are effectively a partnership now. With that in mind, here's a snapshot of how Nexon is doing today :-

(https://i.imgur.com/7hMai.jpg)

http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/3659:JP/chart

As you can see, even though it's a Korean-based company, Nexon is floated on the Japanese stockmarket. Why? *shrug* I have no idea - artist, remember ;)

Their shares seem to have pulled up a little today, moreso than NCsoft's which seem to have merely levelled out. Will either or both of them claw their way back up over the next few days? Have to wait to see what happens in the US markets for the answer to that one I think.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: V-Mink on November 13, 2012, 05:36:50 PM
I find that fascinating, of course, but the thing that leaps at me is the sharp drop in their stock in mid-August which seems to mirror the one NCSoft experienced.  Speaking redside, I like to think that NCsoft's boneheaded move in closing a modestly profitable game had some effect on that, but rationally, I have to wonder if there wasn't something that the world financial wizards knew or suspected at that time, and if the closing of CoH was meant to mitigate or take advantage of that.

I realize Nexxon and NCsoft are effectively partners, but did other game companies (specifically MMO companies, but also other companies in divergent industries) also experience that same dip at that time?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on November 13, 2012, 05:45:19 PM
And they're slipping down again (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS), losing a solid 1,500 won/share since yesterday.

So much for levelling out.  Now they're below 170,000.  Last time they were this low was around May 3-7 of 2010.  All of the gains they made for just shy of the last two and a half years are kaput.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ironwolf on November 13, 2012, 06:54:38 PM
[EDIT: Snipping political discussion ~Agge]
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on November 13, 2012, 08:45:52 PM
Let's keep US politics out of the discussion, Ironwolf.

NC's only down to 150,000 and still slowly dropping. But they're still way ahead from back in 2008.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ammon on November 13, 2012, 11:15:07 PM
But they're still way ahead from back in 2008.
Can you imagine being the one to break the news to stockholders that you'd just lost/reversed the last 4 years of growth? :)

The thing with shares is that, until something changes, its an avalanche effect.  Share prices drop, so some shareholders want to sell before it drops further and may take years to recover, which makes the shares price drop further, and so the cycle rolls, until it reaches a level where someone sees it as an absolute bargain that won't likely slide lower and buys in.

Personally, I think the shares are some months from bottoming out, and if there's any more bad news about GW2 or Blade and Soul - which there will be if they don't fix the root of all the bad PR they've been collecting - the slide could become a real landslide pretty quickly, and last longer.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on November 14, 2012, 03:09:04 AM
I know this is barely related, but I was going through my bag of random pocket change from my travels during the 90s. Turns out I have 11400 KRW, among other various and sundry currencies. Kinda feel like just mailing the 10000 KRW bill to Mr. Kim. Sort of a, "How's the color of this money for ya?" :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on November 14, 2012, 03:40:58 AM
"The thing with shares is that, until something changes, its an avalanche effect."

I do hope you're right, Ammon.

"Can you imagine being the one to break the news to stockholders that you'd just lost/reversed the last 4 years of growth?"

Hmm... thoughts like that keep me warm at night. That and the kitten. Okay, mainly the kitten, but that's beside the point.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on November 14, 2012, 03:43:47 AM
That and the kitten. Okay, mainly the kitten, but that's beside the point.
Envying you so damned much right now.  I miss my late kitty.

For now, I will comfort myself with schadenfreude.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on November 14, 2012, 03:49:29 AM
Sorry to 'jack the thread.

Yeah, lost my Sealpoint Birman a couple months ago. Only eleven. We got our last cat to twenty!

Got a simple black kitten from the shelter. So loving and happy and bouncy and fun! Love love love him. Go get a kitten as soon as you can bear it.

Okay, back to the thread.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Turjan on November 14, 2012, 11:55:35 AM
No, let's keep talking about cats ;)

I lost an old dear feline friend just last week - ex-feral guy, no idea how old he was, but I know he was at least 12. And still hunting right up until he curled up purring and switched off his own lights - in fact just two days before, he'd brought in the mother of all rats. In his time he'd caught countless rats, rabbits, mice, pigeons...and also along the way a stoat, a weasel and even a mole. Never seen a hunter like him. He carried on being the Hunter Supreme right til the servers went down, so to speak - an example to us all :)

Now, back to stocks!

I find it interesting that while Nexon is managing a tiny clawback rally in share price, NCsoft is not. In fact, this current decline seems to be part of a longer trend that hasn't let up since the flush of GW2's launch wore off. The conspiracy theorist in me is beginning to wonder if there's more behind the NCsoft scenes than even the most skeptical of us has pondered...

I see that today NCsoft share prices are 37% less than they were the day they announced the closure of CoH - sure, I'm under no illusions here, there's no way CoH is responsible for all that loss (or even a decent sized chunk of it really) but nevertheless, on a chilly November morning, that is a warming sight, is it not? ;D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on November 14, 2012, 12:47:56 PM
No, let's keep talking about cats ;)

I lost an old dear feline friend just last week - ex-feral guy, no idea how old he was, but I know he was at least 12. And still hunting right up until he curled up purring and switched off his own lights - in fact just two days before, he'd brought in the mother of all rats. In his time he'd caught countless rats, rabbits, mice, pigeons...and also along the way a stoat, a weasel and even a mole. Never seen a hunter like him. He carried on being the Hunter Supreme right til the servers went down, so to speak - an example to us all :)
Talk about your one-cat war on nature.  It's like reading about an ancient kung-fu master who fights wolves, bears and tigers for practice, only it's a cat.  I mean, cripes, a stoat and a weasel?  Those things can kill a cat.  The mole's just pure sadism; I mean, poor things are defenseless once you dig them up or yank them out of their burrows.  Your kitty just didn't tolerate the existence of anything rodent or even vaguely rodent-like in his territory.

Sure your kitty didn't originally hail from the Rogue Isles?

In stock news, NC's still slipping away (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS), they're now officially below 160k. at 159.5k won at last close.  They hit a low during trading of 156k; that's kinda dire of a portent.  They could yet fall that far.

I don't think I need to say that all their gains from the last 2-3 years are pretty much kaput at this point.  I feel sorry for their investors.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on November 14, 2012, 12:56:57 PM
Cat awesomeness

Holy crap, it's Cat Norris!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on November 14, 2012, 02:00:49 PM
There was a study once wherein they got cat-owners to let them put little cameras on their cats. Turns out the little beasts are genuine monsters when it comes to hunting; the kill-counts are way, way higher on just about all of them than any of their owners ever suspected. I've read unrelated theories based on cat behavior that they may not even truly be domesticated; like tigers who eat their owners one day, cats are still wild animals who just have come to recognize a source of comfort and occasional companionship. With house cats, we're safe mainly because we're too big to kill.

That said, I know enough people whose cats love them dearly that it's probable that they are capable of affection without being fully domesticated, if that latter theory is even true.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Flashtoo on November 14, 2012, 04:20:49 PM
I have three rescue cats now, all indoor moggies, and between them, their known kill count is one (a large moth, swatted out of the air and eaten, by the biggest one). Wouldn't be surprised if the female caught a few creepy-crawlies as well, but the youngest is basically still a kitten and would probably just run away from anything big enough to notice. My first cat, however, was a not-quite-feral lady that we took in and she brought us plenty of little animals; I'm pretty sure she saw us as her children. When she was dying of mouth cancer she tried never to let us see her in pain, though sometimes we could hear her crying when she went off to be alone. I miss her terribly. Hell, I miss my current three terribly; they're in Massachusetts and I'm in Texas.


Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Rotten Luck on November 14, 2012, 04:36:29 PM
I have two Rescued cats... heck almost all my animals I had throughout life been rescued one way or another.  Just got a grey fur ball of a kitten!  ... still hasn't learned not to go after my toes when I'm asleep.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: V-Mink on November 14, 2012, 04:51:04 PM
No, let's keep talking about cats ;)

I lost an old dear feline friend just last week - ex-feral guy, no idea how old he was, but I know he was at least 12. And still hunting right up until he curled up purring and switched off his own lights - in fact just two days before, he'd brought in the mother of all rats. In his time he'd caught countless rats, rabbits, mice, pigeons...and also along the way a stoat, a weasel and even a mole. Never seen a hunter like him. He carried on being the Hunter Supreme right til the servers went down, so to speak - an example to us all :)
Whoa!  Neko-ro Mifune!  CLAWS OF JUSTICE DO NOT RETRACT!  :D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on November 14, 2012, 04:51:11 PM
Cats think humans are bad hunters. If your cat leaves you birds on the front porch, dump a deer or something on the same spot, right in front of him. That'll wise him up on who the apex predator is.

I'm sorry I got this started. Back to stocks before we earn the mods' attentions. Slight uptick but way to early to call it a rally.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on November 14, 2012, 04:52:53 PM
Well, to tie it in with the meme thread, and to rub it in their faces...

Anyone skilled enough in Flash to make an animation of lemmings parading down the curve?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blackgrue on November 14, 2012, 06:55:13 PM
Random hopeful thought: If we got 65 billion dollers by the end of the month, we could buy a controlling interest in NCSoft *grin*
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The-Hunter-JLJ on November 14, 2012, 07:12:43 PM
I'll check the cushions of the couch when I get home tonight...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Turjan on November 14, 2012, 08:10:18 PM
There's something fitting about the current NCsoft stock slaughter and talk of killer cats really ;D

So I put the images together for the lulz - on the left is NCsoft's share price over the last year, culminating in November's Share Price Massacre, and on the right is my recently departed killer cat Boris (he was a feral Russian Blue, what else could I have called him? ;) ) in the process of dismantling a rabbit in the outbuilding he'd claimed as his dacha. There's a visual poetry of sorts there, is there not?

(https://i.imgur.com/SgDCq.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: chasearcanum on November 14, 2012, 09:55:15 PM
On the cat topic:

I have 4:

We started with 1- Penny, my wife's magnificently defiant silver longhair that didn't appreciate me stepping into their lives. She was a queen and extremely possessive of her favorite underling, my wife, and didn't take kindly to this intruder showing up.  It was a contest of wills, and my mastery at scritches barely made up for the moments when I earned her angry glare that said "your shoes will suffer tonight while you sleep."

We thought Penny could use a companion, so at Christmas we got an all-black american shorthair kitten- Cinder, my little lump of coal.   She's daddy's little girl, lovingly crawling onto my arm whenever she wants scritchies, regardless of what I'm doing or what she has to claw into to get there.   Everyone else calls her "devilcat" because she's got this nasty tendency to establish dominance through fear, and establishing fear through creative bloodletting.   

Then 2 kittens-Francis and Suki- showed up on our doorstep- they're a bonded pair.  Suki's a runt that looks like a miniature maine-coon and Frankie's her gargantuan all-black bodyguard.  He's the gentlest guy, but fiercely protective of his sister, rescuing her from any fight, calming her when she has a seizure, and cuddling with her whenever possible.  She's the sweet, innocent-looking, evil mastermind that knows that she can get him to attack Cinder just by going up to the sleeping black lump of coal and squealing like she's been attacked.  He then lumbers into the room and launches his 18-lb mass into the air above Cinder before she even blinks the sleepy look off her face.

After Penny passed away, we waited a bit, not sure how to replace the silver queen.  A friend referred us to a posting for a kitten needing a home and we decided to adopt, sight unseen.  Turns out that she's remarkably similar to Penny... in appearance.  In demeanor they couldn't be more different  While Penny had a composed ladylike regal air, Keyta's makes use of Matrix-like gravity-defying hyperactivity.  She moves more like a grey squirrel than a cat.... a hypercaffeinated grey squirrel may be a better description... on acid.

That's our crew.

Now, back to the stockwatch...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on November 14, 2012, 10:00:07 PM
Now, back to the stockwatch...
"Next time, on Stockwatch:"

And now I'm envisioning a soap opera done Hetalia Axis Powers-style with personifications of the companies on a stock exchange whose plot is based on their rise and fall.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The Fifth Horseman on November 14, 2012, 10:15:47 PM
What if...
Such a show actually exists in-universe in Plan Z?  8)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on November 15, 2012, 12:37:02 AM
There are a lot of rumors that Taek-Jin Kim is trying to unload the other half of his stock in NCSoft.  And that Nexon is not a happy camper at this moment, when the stock they bought has lost 1/3 of its value.

Would anyone like a nice slice of schadenfreude with a balsamic vinegar glaze?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JWBullfrog on November 15, 2012, 12:55:45 AM
And just because the word has been invoked I give you, courtesy of the nice folks at Avenue Q...
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCQGQ5qBQTA (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCQGQ5qBQTA)
 
caution: maybe use headphones. not for children and perhaps NSFW
 
 
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lily Barclay on November 15, 2012, 03:13:46 AM
Well, to tie it in with the meme thread, and to rub it in their faces...

Anyone skilled enough in Flash to make an animation of lemmings parading down the curve?

Quite possibly. >.> <.<

Unfortunately the time is more lacking than the skill.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Frostyfrozen on November 15, 2012, 08:00:33 AM
Has anyone given any thought to inform the other community's of the possible coming storm? Or are we just going to let them find out and start to point fingers at us.
If you know or not but it seems the CoH community is the most versed in NCsoft history then the other NA games community's of theirs.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on November 15, 2012, 08:17:17 AM
Quite possibly. >.> <.<

Unfortunately the time is more lacking than the skill.

Isn't there a map editor for Lemmings that lets you import a bitmap?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: pewlagon on November 15, 2012, 08:24:40 AM
Inform the CoH forums? Sadl,y I wouldn't because at this point any positive hope thread, farewell message, etc. winds up in the hands of a certain group of angsters. My Youtube editor, and 8-year vet and poster on those forums, was in frightened off by that group to the point where she removed the CoH forums from her Faves list. And the Mods, what few are left, are pretty much letting them get away with whatever they want. I wouldn't post anything over there unless you have people you can PM to get the information.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on November 15, 2012, 08:42:30 AM
Inform the CoH forums? Sadl,y I wouldn't because at this point any positive hope thread, farewell message, etc. winds up in the hands of a certain group of angsters. My Youtube editor, and 8-year vet and poster on those forums, was in frightened off by that group to the point where she removed the CoH forums from her Faves list. And the Mods, what few are left, are pretty much letting them get away with whatever they want. I wouldn't post anything over there unless you have people you can PM to get the information.

Aye. There's a small group of characters, roughly 3 or 4, who have more or less set themselves up like a police force, upholding the law of an ego-maniac empire, where hope without an indeterminate amount of reason, is forbidden.

I'm very curious about how this came about too, because I've never seen anything like it before. Not on political forums, not from the biodrones (SWTOR fans) when SWG was closing, not from atheists/scientists in religious debates, or anything else. And they laugh at anyone saying it's possible that NCsoft may have sent in professional unicorns to spread ridicule even though it is now an acceptable PR tactic.  :roll:

The only way they MIGHT accept ANYTHING that comes from this camp, is if a redname comes right out on those forums and says, "This is what's happening."
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on November 15, 2012, 01:40:56 PM
Hmmm... Methinks they doth protesteth too much? Eth?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on November 15, 2012, 03:09:44 PM
Curses.  There was a small rebound of NCsoft's stock price (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS) today; it gained 3,000 won in value, approximately equal to $2.7 USD.

Still, they're below 165,000, and still have a lot to make up for if they want to get back to where they were this time last year.  In fact, their stock price would have to just about double.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: chasearcanum on November 15, 2012, 07:06:12 PM
If it comes from a redname I will accept it.

However, you guys didn't exactly paint yourselves in a good light when you all jumped on Hitstreak in the past, even accusing NCsoft of feeding him lines to the public.

Sword swings both ways.

CM, what bugs me most is your selectivity.

Yes, we have extremists prone to drama, ridiculous conspiracies, and overinflated egos on these boards but most of us try not to feed them or encourage them without censorship just as I hope we don't censor you.  That doesn't mean we endorse them or agree with them, and they are BY FAR the minority here.  You seem to be ignoring every other moderate, constructive, positive poster or you read every one of those posts in some weird way as if you assume that htey're also the authors of the more quirky crap that pops up here.  Please be careful when you make broad statements about the community, as I believe that you could be a good moderating force if you didn't feed the trolls here.

We need fewer of these extremist drama queens here, not one on the other extreme of every argument trying to counterbalance them.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on November 15, 2012, 07:25:29 PM
To perdition with the CoH boards, and let the unicorns devour it. I've been locked out of it for ages, and could care less.

What we need to watch for is unicorns, "professional" or otherwise, sent into this board.

And in that spirit, Chasear and CM, fixing blame is not productive. Take it to PMs and let's stay focused. This thread is for stock-watching and commentary. (And I'm sorry I derailed us with kittens. Didn't mean to. And Turjan made something cool out of it.)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Copper Cockroach on November 15, 2012, 07:28:22 PM
If it comes from a redname I will accept it.

However, you guys didn't exactly paint yourselves in a good light when you all jumped on Hitstreak in the past, even accusing NCsoft of feeding him lines to the public.

Sword swings both ways.

Who are "you guys"?

I don't remember this jumping-on-Hit Streak thing... I guess I must've skipped the meeting. Sorry, I'll try not to make a habit of it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on November 15, 2012, 07:44:58 PM
Who are "you guys"?

I don't remember this jumping-on-Hit Streak thing... I guess I must've skipped the meeting. Sorry, I'll try not to make a habit of it.

I vaguely remember it, but I would hardly call it an attack on Hitstreak. From what I saw, Hitstreak was our most vocal dev-side supporter. The closest thing to an 'attack', was the suggestion that NCsoft was using Hitstreak as the messenger, in the hopes that all of our anger would be unleashed on PS instead of NCsoft.

Remember that there were no official announcements from NCsoft about CoH at all until October. And that was only a response to a massive player campaign. Even now, the response to the campaign is the closest thing we have had to an official shutdown announcement from NCsoft. Titan/SaveCoH players can't be the only ones who find that weird.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on November 15, 2012, 09:14:27 PM
I don't even remember it being that close to foil-hat conspiracy theory, but I'd have to dig pretty far back. My recollection is that we were speculating on the possibility of not only Jessie being in the unfortunate position of having to be the mouthpiece for NCSoftcore, but Andy quitting or being fired because he refused to do it.  That was all cleared up to majority satisfaction during the first Coffee Talk that followed.

Also, Jessie has pinkeye.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Turjan on November 16, 2012, 12:54:35 AM
There are a lot of rumors that Taek-Jin Kim is trying to unload the other half of his stock in NCSoft.

Interesting...I'm wondering now if my tinfoil hat theory of Kim wanting to bug out to manage the NCsoft pro-baseball team might actually have some legs to it after all... :o
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on November 16, 2012, 12:59:08 AM
Interesting...I'm wondering now if my tinfoil hat theory of Kim wanting to bug out to manage the NCsoft pro-baseball team might actually have some legs to it after all... :o

If he manages the baseball team as well as he managed NCSoft Interactive....
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on November 16, 2012, 01:03:15 AM
I'm suddenly imagining the basketball league in this week's How I Met Your Mother.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Turjan on November 16, 2012, 01:04:08 AM
If he manages the baseball team as well as he managed NCSoft Interactive....

Well, as I understand it, Korean pro-ball teams do usually run at a loss, so...yeah, very probably ;)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Twisted Toon on November 16, 2012, 04:54:00 AM
Interesting...I'm wondering now if my tinfoil hat theory of Kim wanting to bug out to manage the NCsoft pro-baseball team might actually have some legs to it after all... :o

Maybe he secretly reads these boards and you gave him the idea... :o
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lily Barclay on November 16, 2012, 07:17:32 AM
Also, Jessie has pinkeye.

I still giggle anytime anyone brings that up.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Artillerie on November 16, 2012, 01:56:42 PM
Just saw this put up on Facebook :

http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ammon on November 16, 2012, 04:03:55 PM
Not as bad a day for them as Nov 8th when it looks like quite a lot of shares got sold, but yes, their prices are still in freefall, with no sign of bottoming out.  Their seeming inability to do anything PR wise to rally any faith in the market value is only adding to the investors jumping off.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on November 16, 2012, 04:39:03 PM
Wow... look at that one year view! Ever since Sept 7th, around the time of the AP33 rally they've steadily lost ground, and November has been disastrous.

Still not back where they were in 2008, though. I need to break out my voodoo dolls.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The Fifth Horseman on November 16, 2012, 06:21:45 PM
I can't shake the feeling there is something seriously wrong with that picture.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: V-Mink on November 16, 2012, 07:12:54 PM
IT's worth looking at the volume, however. November 8th, obviously, maps to a strong sudden downturn in their prices, but no other dip matches to a corresponding increase in volume; and the June 22nd spike in volume doesn't map to any spike or dip.

For a slightly different look at NCsoft's stock, look at the three- or five-year graph.  NCsoft is doing poorly compared to the past year; and over the past 104 weeks this is as low as they've been; but beyond that, they've been in far worse shape than they are now.  Also, two years ago, they were not too much better than they are now.  One could say that the 'gravy train' is over for them, but I'm not so sanguine; they've been in worse shape.

Another item of interest is how the graph takes peaks and valleys.  It seems to struggle to reach the peaks, but then topples into valleys easily/quickly.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Technerdoc on November 16, 2012, 09:28:54 PM
Just a little noob question: What exactly is this Stockwatch? When I'm searching the german news then I get the NC-Soft news like "There is an significant growth and they are making a lot of money because of Guild Wars and Blade & Soul", not a single word about this Stockwatch diving like a lemming down the cliff...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on November 16, 2012, 09:49:26 PM
... I get the NC-Soft news like "There is an significant growth and they are making a lot of money because of Guild Wars and Blade & Soul", not a single word about this Stockwatch diving like a lemming down the cliff...
Where the the blue heck are you getting your news?

We've been watching the Reuters stock graph (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS) showing NCsoft's stock prices on the Korean stock exchange (it's a Korean company).  Stock prices are in Korean Won (KRW).

Bloomberg's stock quote (http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/036570:KS) seems to concur.

Interestingly enough, 4-traders.com lists the estimated 2012 company value (http://www.4-traders.com/NCSOFT-CORP-6492298/financials/) of NCsoft... at -593 billion korean won.  It's the second entry in the right-hand column on the linked page.  Oddly enough though, their data seems a little weird - for instance they list NCsoft's last close price (http://www.4-traders.com/NCSOFT-CORP-6492298/consensus/) at 165,200 won (that was a couple days ago, they've fallen rather precipitously since then), and they have no quote available, so I'd kinda take their info with a grain of salt.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on November 16, 2012, 10:17:33 PM
Just a little noob question: What exactly is this Stockwatch? When I'm searching the german news then I get the NC-Soft news like "There is an significant growth and they are making a lot of money because of Guild Wars and Blade & Soul", not a single word about this Stockwatch diving like a lemming down the cliff...
It's a compression of the words "stock" and "watch." This thread is a "stockwatch" because it is, quite literally, an exercise in watching NCSoft's stock.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Technerdoc on November 16, 2012, 11:49:57 PM
I think I get it now, thanks. The problem is, the people here are only intressted in Guild Wars 2 from NC-Soft, no one cares about the news from City of Heroes. I read only things like: "Ah it's this game, I played it one time, to bad they close it but... whatever..."

It's a shame...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Luna Eclypse on November 17, 2012, 01:20:26 AM
Looks like they're at a low that haven't seen since around March/April 2010.

I doubt they'll see much of an upswing when B&S and Wildstar launch, just that temporary surge of interest where people try the games and quit.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TonyV on November 17, 2012, 02:59:46 AM
To be fair, the decline of NCsoft shares have *not* hit the news... unless you are actually *looking* for information about NCsoft shares prices, and even then, it is still more than likely going to just chuck you to the Reuters/Yahoo/bloomberg Share page for them.

Actually, it is starting to make financial news (http://www.cnbc.com/id/49736295).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on November 17, 2012, 04:24:37 AM
I cannot for the life of me find a link, but I believe I saw a report that even Korean players are disappointed with Bits and Tits; the complaint is that you run through the sparse content very fast and then are left with yet another Korean Grind where you have literally nothing to do but engage in mass battles.  Which are virtually identical to every other Korean Grind's mass battles, except with more jiggly bits.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on November 17, 2012, 04:49:01 AM
I cannot for the life of me find a link, but I believe I saw a report that even Korean players are disappointed with Bits and Tits; the complaint is that you run through the sparse content very fast and then are left with yet another Korean Grind where you have literally nothing to do but engage in mass battles.  Which are virtually identical to every other Korean Grind's mass battles, except with more jiggly bits.

so their supposed "next big thing" is also flopping in the one place that they thought it would succeed regardless lol

ncsoft doesnt seem to know jack about their clientele
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: ohms on November 17, 2012, 12:04:16 PM
I cannot for the life of me find a link, but I believe I saw a report that even Korean players are disappointed with Bits and Tits; the complaint is that you run through the sparse content very fast and then are left with yet another Korean Grind where you have literally nothing to do but engage in mass battles.  Which are virtually identical to every other Korean Grind's mass battles, except with more jiggly bits.

I remember reading a similar report, Blade & Soul's player retention wasn't great. I'll have a poke around a bit later to try and find it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Frostyfrozen on November 17, 2012, 04:05:25 PM
I think this is what you all speaking of . . I came across it and thought of you all. :)

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2012/08/133_117289.html

Umm intresting.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: ohms on November 17, 2012, 04:21:58 PM
That was the one. rae posted it last month:

http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php?topic=5654.0
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dior on November 18, 2012, 08:39:25 PM
I can't shake the feeling there is something seriously wrong with that picture.

Nothing seriously wrong with that chart!! Its the way we want it to be going isnt it?

If it were your health chart, they would be wheeling you into Intensive Care!

Im just getting ready to send NCSoft Board of Directors a "we wish you a merry and prosperous christmas" card.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on November 18, 2012, 10:39:04 PM
Nothing seriously wrong with that chart!! Its the way we want it to be going isnt it?

If it were your health chart, they would be wheeling you into Intensive Care!

Im just getting ready to send NCSoft Board of Directors a "we wish you a merry and prosperous christmas" card.

I'd rather send them an Ebenezer Scrooge card with Scrooge saying "You should die and decrease the surplus population."
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lucretia MacEvil on November 18, 2012, 11:32:22 PM
Im just getting ready to send NCSoft Board of Directors a "we wish you a merry and prosperous christmas" card.
I'd rather send them an Ebenezer Scrooge card with Scrooge saying "You should die and decrease the surplus population."

VV, I think the implication of dior's card is that selling the game would make us merry and them prosperous (or at least less poor).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on November 18, 2012, 11:52:21 PM
I know I don't want anyone to die. Yet.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: V-Mink on November 19, 2012, 12:11:41 AM
I'd rather send them an Ebenezer Scrooge card with Scrooge saying "You should die and decrease the surplus population."

I'd settle for them being visited by the Ghosts of MMO Gaming Past, Present, and Future...

Future: "Remember that crappy game company that shut down decent games, then all the companies did the same thing and shut down good games in favor of crrrrrrrap?  So we all told them to get stuffed, made our own games that were, you know, fun, and the publishers failed to make any more money and went out of business?  Yeah, good times.  What was the name of that company, anyway?"

Yeah, I know, pipe dream, but in the long run, it's better that they get hit with a clue-by-four.  Sometimes, the best thing is not to "make more money."
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The Fifth Horseman on November 19, 2012, 09:01:45 AM
VV, I think the implication of dior's card is that selling the game would make us merry and them prosperous (or at least less poor).
I was under the impression it was sarcastic. The only thing it was missing is "Good luck with that."
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on November 19, 2012, 04:50:14 PM
Looks like NC's momentarily levelled out (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS) again.  Has anyone been on the lookout for any information they've released to the public on their business plans?  I'm kinda wondering if this is just a bunch of speculators taking a chance on a random low-stock, or if there's something behind this sudden lack of abject free-fall.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Codewalker on November 19, 2012, 04:53:12 PM
Haven't seen any news, but it's pretty much impossible to tell from only one data point. Could be normal fluctuations, could be people buying because it's lower, could be that it was overvalued to begin with and is now closer to the equilibrium point.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on November 19, 2012, 05:39:56 PM
Maybe just investors banking on the holiday spending. It's hard to think any company that markets to kids won't see at least some improvement in December.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on November 19, 2012, 05:44:11 PM
Maybe just investors banking on the holiday spending. It's hard to think any company that markets to kids won't see at least some improvement in December.
Be that as it may, right now I'm kinda hoping NC winds up with a lump of coal big enough to solve the fossil fuel crisis indefinitely.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Celtic Fist on November 19, 2012, 06:21:37 PM
Article from the Korea Times being discussed on the media thread.  Provides some details on the fall of the stock value for NCsoft.  I wrote a short email thanking the author for article.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2012/11/134_124954.html

Celtic Fist


Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Harermuir on November 21, 2012, 10:26:08 PM
Do we have any way to increase the fall of NCsoft stockwatch ? I mean by raising some fund to buy ad space in some korean or US economical newspaper, and use this for an open letter to stockholder, pointing, as customer, how we feel NCsoft decision is poor from an economical view, cutting down a project who could have been beneficial without any promotion, letting some valuable ressource sleeping (i think of the IP) when they can be sold or rented, choosing to target narrower audience with new project ? Sure, this is dirtier that we have done from now. But i think we should bring the bad publicity where it will really matter.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on November 22, 2012, 12:26:56 AM
Yeah...I think that might step on some legal toes...slander/libel laws and such. You'd be treading on very thin ice, from my non-lawyer point of view.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on November 22, 2012, 02:18:39 AM
Blueside, I think the best way to make them keep tanking is another Call to Action. On that note, keep your eyes peeled - the secret project is just crossing the Is and dotting the Ts on stage one. Stage two, well, we'll be needing your help, so keep watching the forum.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lily Barclay on November 22, 2012, 07:44:33 AM
Blueside, I think the best way to make them keep tanking is another Call to Action. On that note, keep your eyes peeled - the secret project is just crossing the Is and dotting the Ts on stage one. Stage two, well, we'll be needing your help, so keep watching the forum.
You know y'all are killing me with suspense, yes?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ammon on November 22, 2012, 08:09:42 AM
You know y'all are killing me with suspense, yes?
It literally is the final polish on the project that's underway, so it won't be long until we need everyone's help with the crazy long-shot. :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: saipaman on November 22, 2012, 09:09:35 AM
Are we going to turn the tables on them by buying NCSoft and then firing everyone?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Jetfire99 on November 22, 2012, 09:58:53 AM
this is the cloest we may get to Arachnos and Longbow getting boots on the ground over there. Nice find on the link.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ammon on November 22, 2012, 10:16:50 AM
Are we going to turn the tables on them by buying NCSoft and then firing everyone?
You'd probably only need about $1 billion to own enough of a majority of the stock to force something like that, thanks to the drop in prices.  There must be a couple of hundred of us, really actively campaigning, so we probably only need to put in about $5 million each... ;)

But then, suddenly buying all that stock would raise the stock prices again, and guess who you'd have given the billion to to buy their shares?  Yup, we'd be giving money to the people who did this to buy their shares.  One heck of a golden parachute for those we fired! :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DamianoV on November 22, 2012, 12:36:56 PM
I was reading around on MMORPG.com this morning... seems there's a bit of a kerfluffle with GW2 right now, too?  First expansion looks to be upsetting some of the player base?  Nexon looks to be getting a fair share of blame over there for the change in philosophy, but NCSoft is also in less-than-good-odor, from what I can tell.  Just thought I should mention it, given the thread topic.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lily Barclay on November 22, 2012, 03:31:59 PM
It literally is the final polish on the project that's underway, so it won't be long until we need everyone's help with the crazy long-shot. :)

Nail, furniture, or shoe?  ;)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lily Barclay on November 22, 2012, 03:36:18 PM
Just thought I should mention it, given the thread topic.

How dare you de-derail a thread!  >:(
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TonyV on November 22, 2012, 03:49:40 PM
Nail, furniture, or shoe?  ;)

Sausage! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kielbasa)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DrakeGrimm on November 22, 2012, 03:58:25 PM
Sausage! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kielbasa)

Your ideas intrigue me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter. <.<
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ammon on November 22, 2012, 04:15:00 PM
Sausage! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kielbasa)
Words to live by: Never polish another man's sausage.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on November 22, 2012, 04:17:30 PM
But should you ever sausage another man's Polish?

No I have no idea what that's supposed to mean, leave me alone.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on November 22, 2012, 04:39:15 PM
Brief rally on the 20th, lost it all on the 21st, currently stagnating at 160ish, as low as it's been since April 2010. Trading is stagnant too. Yeah, not a stock I'd rush to invest in. But I still wanna see it go down to 50, where it was back in 2008.

"I was reading around on MMORPG.com this morning... seems there's a bit of a kerfluffle with GW2 right now, too?"

Details! Links! You mean "The Lost Shores" article?
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/6898
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ammon on November 22, 2012, 08:12:08 PM
But should you ever sausage another man's Polish?
Never sausage a Polish man?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Beodren on November 22, 2012, 09:23:47 PM
As a Pole (Yup, a real one), i do not approve of sausaging polish man, but I do approve good polish sausage.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: epawtows on November 23, 2012, 03:51:19 AM
As a Pole (Yup, a real one), i do not approve of sausaging polish man, but I do approve good polish sausage.

And don't try it with anyone from the neighboring country.  Or you could have a sour Kraut.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Rotten Luck on November 23, 2012, 04:01:47 AM
And don't try it with anyone from the neighboring country.  Or you could have a sour Kraut.

Now now that's taking a Joke to it's Worst.... Curses now I want some.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on November 23, 2012, 05:54:59 AM
i love this thread, combination of both informational posts and hilarious derailment posts lol
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Frostyfrozen on November 23, 2012, 08:44:09 AM
Reading the player reviews is harsh on that GW2 event. A new game and the first try at a non Halloween event and people rack the Dev's over the coals.
Makes me think many of them would push my Granny of a sidewalk for walking slow.
( Feel better now thankyou :) )
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on November 23, 2012, 11:53:44 AM
I see green numbers on NC's price change (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS).  I hate seeing green numbers on NC's price change.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: pogoman on November 23, 2012, 05:33:34 PM
Blueside, I think the best way to make them keep tanking is another Call to Action. On that note, keep your eyes peeled - the secret project is just crossing the Is and dotting the Ts on stage one. Stage two, well, we'll be needing your help, so keep watching the forum.

Can't wait for stage 2! Keep us updated, please!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: LuchRi on November 23, 2012, 05:55:39 PM
I'll be keeping my eyes open for Step 2... not sure if I can help, but if so I will!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on November 24, 2012, 01:34:14 AM
Stage one has been launched. Stage two is scheduled for Monday, when everyone's had a chance to recover from the traditional tryptophan poisoning. Keep your eyes on the forums and the news.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on November 24, 2012, 01:56:24 AM
I think that the GW2 Unrest is explained by this article, which is FAR more serious a charge than some disappointment over an in-game event.

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs.cfm/blogId/1209/entry/24237/utm_campaign/MMORPG%20Daily%20Digest%20Email/utm_source/MMORPG/utm_medium (http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs.cfm/blogId/1209/entry/24237/utm_campaign/MMORPG%20Daily%20Digest%20Email/utm_source/MMORPG/utm_medium)

This also may be the smoking gun that explains WHO canceled CoH and WHY.

The who:  Nexon.

The why: because OUR devs could not, or would not, monetize the Ascendant end-game, turning CoH into the Korean Grind Microtransaction Hell so beloved of Nexon.

Poor Arenanet.  And this does not bode well for Carbine and Wildstar.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on November 24, 2012, 06:08:43 AM
Jesus...

I'm beginning to wonder if we've had the wrong target all this time.

And if so, that's just Machiavellian genius on Nexon's part. They get NCSoft to take all the blame and anger and hatred and even have their stock tank while they get to sit back and look innocent until NCsoft falls far enough in stock price to acquire at firesale prices.

Then they swoop in and acquire the IP and rights to NCSoft's library and maybe even resurrect City of Heroes and they look like saviors, until they start monetizing the fuck out of everything like they're starting to in Guild Wars 2.

I'd rather City of Heroes STAY dead rather than poison it's memory by resurrecting it as a blood-sucking vampire version of it's former self.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on November 24, 2012, 06:17:36 AM
NCsoft is hardly blameless in this - remember that they didn't really didn't give two lumpy, corn-decorated.... candy bars about it while it was still going.

Judging by their past history, the most likely scenario I can envision is NCsoft hearing the offer/ultimatum/what-have you and basically going, "yeah, sure, screw'em".
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lucretia MacEvil on November 24, 2012, 06:36:20 AM
Stage one has been launched. Stage two is scheduled for Monday, when everyone's had a chance to recover from the traditional tryptophan poisoning. Keep your eyes on the forums and the news.

Can vegetarians get in on it early?

Please?

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: ukaserex on November 24, 2012, 06:36:32 AM
I have little doubts that Nexon was the catalyst behind this - and it is possible that getting the NCSoft stock price to tank is part of their plan - however, it does sound like the stuff of movies.

I look forward to the month of December to see, once the game is dead, what new information comes to surface.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: P51mus on November 24, 2012, 06:58:09 AM
I have little doubts that Nexon was the catalyst behind this - and it is possible that getting the NCSoft stock price to tank is part of their plan - however, it does sound like the stuff of movies.

Could've sworn someone on this forum said that Nexon is angry about how much NCsoft's stock has fallen since they acquired a sizeable portion of it.  Can't remember where exactly, and not sure what the source was.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ammon on November 24, 2012, 07:51:02 AM
The why: because OUR devs could not, or would not, monetize the Ascendant end-game, turning CoH into the Korean Grind Microtransaction Hell so beloved of Nexon.
To be fair, the entire end-game of CoH was locked away not only behind pay-to-win, but full subscription.  You had to both subscribe and grind to get all those incarnate powers slotted up.  Unlike microtransactions, where once you bought it you have it til the game closes, the Incarnate ascension stuff would be unuseable the moment you stopped subscribing, even if you'd been a subscriber from the very start.  The ultimate in rented power.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on November 24, 2012, 08:52:39 AM
To be fair, the entire end-game of CoH was locked away not only behind pay-to-win, but full subscription.  You had to both subscribe and grind to get all those incarnate powers slotted up.  Unlike microtransactions, where once you bought it you have it til the game closes, the Incarnate ascension stuff would be unuseable the moment you stopped subscribing, even if you'd been a subscriber from the very start.  The ultimate in rented power.
]

True-ish.  But if I understand the poster correctly, the way that Nexon works is that you either faceplant a lot or you pay from the get-go.  Casual gaming becomes casualty gaming. 
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on November 24, 2012, 09:23:49 AM
True-ish.  But if I understand the poster correctly, the way that Nexon works is that you either faceplant a lot or you pay from the get-go.  Casual gaming becomes casualty gaming.
Having played a lot of Nexon games, this is basically how it goes.  Most Nexon games assume a certain minimum of cash expenditures as part of a player's levelling strategy.  If you don't then you're underpowered, and frequently you'll hit a point where diminishing returns on loot-per-kill-per-death can't fund the cost of your constant deaths, especially if you attempt to solo.

This is a common scheme in most pay-to-win games, particularly of Korean, Chinese, and Japanese origin.  Rappelz, Luna Online, Fly For Fun, Mabinogi, Ghost X, Dungeon Fighter Online, Trickster Online, Monato Esprit, and Maplestory (admittedly to a lesser extent in Maple's case) for instance, are all games I've played that have done this.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Turjan on November 24, 2012, 04:56:58 PM
Having played a lot of Nexon games, this is basically how it goes.  Most Nexon games assume a certain minimum of cash expenditures as part of a player's levelling strategy.  If you don't then you're underpowered, and frequently you'll hit a point where diminishing returns on loot-per-kill-per-death can't fund the cost of your constant deaths, especially if you attempt to solo.

I've not played any Nexon stuff myself, and I had been wondering exactly what their style was - that explains it perfectly for me, ta Kaiser.

So basically they're pushers who are foisting drugs cut with bulking agent on you, and after a while the hit you get off them isn't enough to make scoring the free stuff worthwhile, so you have to fork over the dosh if you want a real high. That's...unsettling, to say the least. :o
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on November 24, 2012, 06:23:04 PM
So basically they're pushers who are foisting drugs cut with bulking agent on you, and after a while the hit you get off them isn't enough to make scoring the free stuff worthwhile, so you have to fork over the dosh if you want a real high. That's...unsettling, to say the least. :o
Kinda, same idea but here's how it actually works.

In a typical Nexon (or hell, any Korean-developed grindgame), it's expected that you'll spend a certain amount of cash on things that boost your levelling speed or make levelling easier.  Stuff like CoH's amplifiers and XP boosters or windfalls.

If you do not buy these things, eventually you'll run up against stronger and stronger enemies, until you reach enemies that take an entire HP bar or most of your MP bar to kill.  You have to rest after each foe, and you've got a good chance of dying in a one-on-one conflict.  Soon after this point, you face enemies of a similar caliber in groups and thus you hit a brick wall.

These enemies are designed with the boosters in mind, so that a player with the boosters will find them a reasonable and rewarding challenge, while those without will suffer.  This is compounded by looot diminishing returns.  If you find enemies of your level too hard for you, you can't go back and fight earlier enemies because they give reduced rewards, until they eventually stop giving rewards at all.  You have no option to counter your lack of power via farming.

Eventually, you hit a point where you are unable to continue without other people carrying you, or purchasing cash shop items to deal with it yourself.  Considering what the communities are typically like on games like this, I can almost understand those who decide to pay up to avoid dealing with them.

Let me use Dungeon Fighter Online as an example.  As you level, and get better gear, the costs of repairing that gear starts to grow exponentially.  There will come a point at which, if you are not fighting enemies well above your level, the costs of repair will exceed the money you make from a dungeon run.  And up until recently, they had a system where you can only do a certain number of dungeon runs per day.  As a result, cash shop items that buff your stats, or increase the payout at the end of each run, or make holding a high dungeon rank easier (which in turn increases the payout at the end), are very lucrative.

Further, certain classes (the Berserker comes to mind), are designed with cash-shop items in mind.  In the Berserker's case, their most powerful skill (Frenzy), has a recoil effect - it saps your health to use it, and you gain health with each kill.  The higher its level, the less health it drains and the more you get back per kill.  You need to max it out to make it useful, otherwise it drains you far too quickly for your killing to keep up.  The only items that can artificially improve your Frenzy skill are only available through the cash shop, or from players who've purchased them through the cash shop.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on November 24, 2012, 06:33:24 PM
For those of you who are interested, there're several articles on Cracked.com about the shady ways these games addict customers and milk them of their money.

http://www.cracked.com/article_18461_5-creepy-ways-video-games-are-trying-to-get-you-addicted.html

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-borderlands-2-remorseless-addiction-machine/

http://www.cracked.com/article_18709_6-devious-ways-farmville-gets-people-hooked.html

If I may, for the health of the gaming community we really need a name/label for exploitative, pay-to-succeed games like those described above. "Grindfest" implies doing not-fun things to succeed, but games that only allow you to succeed based upon your monetary investment are a new low and demands a new name for us to slap on them as a warning to others.

Moving on, over thanksgiving I finally had the chance to speak face-to-face with a good friend who works in computer games and lent me his insights into NCSoft. I'm confident that he will not mind my sharing, provided I don't divulge the source. Y'all will just need to take my word on it, and I'm sorry what I have to say is discouraging.

He worked for a US-based game company that somehow affiliated with NCSoft. They had expected support in the way of game engines, only to be told, "nope, you need to come up with all that on your own." They got no support from Korea, zero, while the Koreans expected their cut of whatever was generated. Apparently, their reluctance to share anything doomed the project. (He now works in San Francisco. having developed a successful MMO whose name y'all would know. On a personal note, he's also the friend who showed me CoH in the first place.)

His take on the CoH situation is similarly discouraging. Apparently the Garriott fiasco has sparked xenophobia, and NCSoft "just wants the relationship with the west to end." They want to do business now only with fellow Asians. So the arbitrary CoH shutdown and the treatment of Paragon employees is a logical consequence of a corporate temper tantrum. We are, all of us, victims of the messy Garriott-NCSoft feud.

As to the IP, he considers it in character for Kim and company to shove CoH into an archive forever. I think they might even erase the code out of spite. The estimated worth of the game is trivial to them. They believe (rightly) that MMO players have limited time and money to invest, and tend to invest in one game at a time. Therefore, why sell CoH to a competitor who will only draw away customers from their own games? (The fact that we don't give a dead donkey's kidney for their freaky Korean underage hooker martial arts fapfest notwithstanding. NCSoft is not known for understanding the audience, except how to addict and exploit them, and doesn't even want to understand the western audience.)

As to Kim himself, my source says NCSoft's current stock slump stems not mainly from our efforts, but from the company CEO abruptly selling all his NC stock to Nexon. This is interpreted as him not having confidence in the company. It badly screws over his employees who now find themselves holding a depressed stock. I believe this speaks volumes about the man.

All our protests and actions, in sum, have little effect except to make them madder, as they literally no longer want our business. Due to language and cultural insulation, we have little power to affect their bottom line in Asia.

So... the advice we arrived at is to proceed with Plan Z. If we want a CoH-like experience, it would be best to approach American game companies and ask for a new superhero MMO, or build and own it ourselves if possible. Forget about dealing with NCSoft in any way (as they are sociopathically exploitative and callous.) Keep in mind that superhero MMOs enjoyed marginal success at best compared to every businessman's secret, impossible dream of rivalling Warcraft.

In any case, the discussion I had with him indicates that lights-out on the first really is the end of Paragon City, barring a pirated copy of the code on a pirate server. Please feel free to fact-check, as I only have hear-say to report. And sorry to be the bearer of such dreadful news.

I'll conclude by once again cursing Jack Emmert for selling his lovely creation to such wretchedly unfit caretakers.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: WildFire15 on November 24, 2012, 08:21:08 PM
At the moment, I'm waiting to hear from Posi or Brian Clayton over whether the game is defiantly not going to be sold or not. Given their current position, not selling would be daft when there's still interest.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Undercat on November 24, 2012, 10:12:36 PM
His take on the CoH situation is similarly discouraging. Apparently the Garriott fiasco has sparked xenophobia, and NCSoft "just wants the relationship with the west to end." They want to do business now only with fellow Asians. So the arbitrary CoH shutdown and the treatment of Paragon employees is a logical consequence of a corporate temper tantrum. We are, all of us, victims of the messy Garriott-NCSoft feud.

wth? You could almost have copied that paragraph verbatim from a diatribe I vented on this forum about a dozen pages back, but I was later able to find news copy claiming that executives at ArenaNet felt they had a wonderful relationship with Kim and NCsoft, contradicting the xenophobia hypothesis. On the other hand, given the direction that ArenaNet itself has been heading recently, it is entirely possible that the glowing comments I uncovered simply predate a more general "falling out" between NCsoft and the Western market. After all, it must have become obvious to NCsoft that they were going to lose their Garriott appeal long before the verdict was handed down in early October. The loss of that appeal shares a strangely coincidental timing with their closure of CoX and Kim's subsequent sale of a sizable portion of his personal stock in the company.

Quote
As to the IP, he considers it in character for Kim and company to shove CoH into an archive forever. I think they might even erase the code out of spite.

If Korean equity markets operate in a manner even remotely similar to ours, then executive management at NCsoft would have to possess a death wish to irrecoverably mark an asset to zero value without recourse to market. In this country, they would be subject to a shareholder lawsuit, and one for which the responsible individuals might be held personally liable. Executives of public corporations have a fiscal duty to protect the interests of their shareholders. For management to refuse a buyout offer they feel to be insufficient is one thing; indeed, even if they make decisions that ultimately harm their investors, it may still not constitute tort if their actions were performed in good faith. But for them to simply destroy value out of spite or gross negligence would be quite another matter.

Yet, in the end, I agree that nothing done by this community is likely to have the slightest influence on NCsoft whatsoever. We are simply too small. They probably correctly assume that a majority of online gamers possess rather Machiavellian personalities---young, self-interested and fairly ruthless. There will not be an exodus from their other games over the closure of CoX. Most players of these other games could give a rat's exhaust pipe about the fate of any game they aren't personally invested in, even if it presages an incident that may affect their own pet universe in the future. Do you see GW2 players flocking to our cause in droves? No. What about Aion players? No.

Why should NCsoft care if 3 percent of their (former) customers hate them? Why should they care when these (former) customers squawk if no one else is listening? If, by now, we had mobilized half of their total audience to support our cause (say, by sympathetically logging out for a month), I assure you that NCsoft would be doing everything humanly possible to restore CoX to permanent service. That hasn't happened. It won't happen. They know it. That's why they don't care: there's always a fresh supply of disinterested chumps coming down the pike to keep the use-and-discard business model going. Once any particular batch of marks get screwed and boycott, the next chumps will already be lining up. It may not be flattering, but provided you steer clear of religious or political issues, it is largely accurate.

Yet the days of that abusive model are numbered. The stranglehold that large publishers have held on the gaming market is evaporating before our eyes. Established game production personalities are becoming cognizant of the potential to raise millions of dollars via social funding systems, like Kickstarter; and the plethora of low-cost development tools that are becoming available, coupled with direct-to-consumer digital distribution systems, threaten to marginalize publishers even further. Why spend $60 on some big-name box that, as often as not, turns out to be generic crap when you can roll the dice on 4-6 smaller Kickstarter projects instead? Or even just wait six months to let the wheat separate from the chaff? Why spend $60 on some dumbed-down, bubble-headed eye candy game when you can pick up six or more classic titles for the same fee? The games on offer at places like gog.com may not sport quite the pulchritude of their dermatologically-perfect competitors, but they often exhibit more substance in five minutes of gameplay than their newer kin can claim in a start-to-finish play-through.

Game production is following a trend started by laser printers, digital audio recorders, CMOS video cameras and Internet blogging software: democratization via commoditization. I have watched the price of gigabit colocation drop from tens-of-thousands-of-dollars down to about $1200/mo. Hell, in Missouri the cost of a gigabit connect to your home is less than $100 from Google fiber. Coupled with continuing trends in CPU core density and better parallelizing compilers, the days of the $100 million+ MMO run by "me-too" companies chasing Blizzard's tail may be numbered. A few years ago, I would have called Project-Z an exercise in denial; today, I consider it more a potential hallmark of the future.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on November 24, 2012, 10:41:52 PM
"You could almost have copied that paragraph verbatim from a diatribe I vented on this forum about a dozen pages back..."

Then please consider it confirmation from someone who has actually seen NCSoft's way of doing business up close.

"I was later able to find news copy claiming that executives at ArenaNet felt they had a wonderful relationship with Kim and NCsoft."

Yeah, I'm sure Paragon Studios had a "wonderful relationship" with NCSoft right up until....

"If Korean equity markets operate in a manner even remotely similar to ours, then executive management at NCsoft would have to possess a death wish to irrecoverably mark an asset to zero value without recourse to market."

"...not selling would be daft when there's still interest."

I really hope you're both right, obviously. I am simply relaying the assessment of my good friend in the business. He feels it's more probable NCSoft wants CoH to die. Consider the bad PR the CoH community represents to them.

"...the days of that abusive model are numbered."

Ultimately, the days of any abusive business model are numbered.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on November 25, 2012, 03:24:22 AM

As to the IP, he considers it in character for Kim and company to shove CoH into an archive forever. I think they might even erase the code out of spite.

In any case, the discussion I had with him indicates that lights-out on the first really is the end of Paragon City, barring a pirated copy of the code on a pirate server.


Two things I am not worried about, Collette.  Because it is not just Kim and NCSoft that are involved.  At this point, it's clear that Nexon is pulling some strings too, and Nexon is Japanese, not Korean.  They have no reason to support Kim's xenophobia, and they are not (according to MY source) at all happy about the nosedive the stock they bought has taken.

First, they cannot erase the code, short of tracking down everyone that has a copy of CoH on his or her machine.  MOST of the code resides on our individual computers.  That is why CoH can run on crap connections that won't run other games; what the server code does is talk to the Mapservers to tell our machines where on the map our characters are relative to everyone else's character and all the NPCs in the zone--plus some of the NPC dialogue (some was moved there to avoid leaks in the "Who Will Die" arcs.  We have the game code resident on our own machines, and the maps.  This is how you get the demorecords to play back without a connection to the server.  What you do not see in the demorecord is what the mapservers take care of.  Could they erase the mapserver code?  Yes, but some people have copies of that, too, for perfectly legal reverse engineering purposes.  Plus, I have ZERO doubt that some of the devs have backup copies on their own machines at home.  It might be a pain in the butt to put the pieces back together again, but it can be done.  Could you erase the NPC dialogue?  Sure, but what would be the point--assuming anyone at NCSoft knows where to find it?  The very fact that NCSoft was so obdurate about being of any help means that they essentially know nothing about how the game runs or what lives where.

Could they erase the customer account database?  Maybe.  But that's a legal gray area.  Plus, there are CoH customers that subscribe to other NCSoft games.  You erase their data and you lose them for good.  This means they would have to go through the NCSoft Customer Database and identify only those who were CoH and only CoH subscribers and erase their accounts individually.  Not too hard to do for a handful of Facebook pests...a lot more difficult for people you are trying to keep.  And the stockholders would be furious, because that's spitting in the face of customers who might decide to subscribe to Bits and Tits, GW or GW2.

Could they lock up the IP?  Maybe....but that is where they get into something no CEO ever wants to face--the wrath of the stockholders.  If a legitimate buyer with the right price came along, and they can no longer throw up a smoke-screen of "legal liabilities" because the game has been shut down and is effectively dead, if they did NOT sell, the stockholders (with Nexon leading the charge) are going to throw a revolt and put someone in charge who WILL sell.

That might just happen anyway, with Nexon holding a fire sale on all the IPs that NCSoft has been squatting on, should anyone show any interest in them.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Undercat on November 25, 2012, 04:08:20 AM
That might just happen anyway, with Nexon holding a fire sale on all the IPs that NCSoft has been squatting on, should anyone show any interest in them.

I, too, am secretly hoping that NCsoft goes belly up just so the IP they're sitting on comes oozing out of their carcass. I'm not sure I'm quite as optimistic about that prospect seeing reality as you may be, but one can always hope.  :P
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on November 25, 2012, 04:11:46 AM
Yeah, as amusing as the prospect is, with three quarters of their income coming from Korea, bombing everywhere else would just be a setback as long as they can keep pumping out grinders.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on November 25, 2012, 04:35:57 AM
Only so much productivity can overcome a lack of consumer confidence. I'd be interested in ownership demographics based on geography (percentage of owned stocks by country).  I suspect that the majority of their stocks are not held by Westerners.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on November 25, 2012, 05:05:24 AM
I'm still seeing more green in their price change (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS).  I'm not happy about this.

Of course, they're still floundering pretty hard and can't seem to stay above 165k won, but I'd love for them to dip below 150k, just to see what panic it induces.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Turjan on November 25, 2012, 03:38:30 PM
At this point, it's clear that Nexon is pulling some strings too, and Nexon is Japanese, not Korean.  They have no reason to support Kim's xenophobia, and they are not (according to MY source) at all happy about the nosedive the stock they bought has taken.

Actually, technically Nexon IS a Korean company (the company was set up in Korea in 1994), but its stock is floated on the Japanese stock market instead of in Korea. It gets muddy though because I believe their global HQ is in Japan...and both the new CEO of Nexon US and his predecessor are Korean, and they seem to have a greater degree of autonomy from Nexon HQ than NCsoft West ever had from NCsoft KR.

What does that all mean to us?
*shrug*
I have no idea - I've given up trying to work out what the NC-Nexonsoft bosses are up to. In my book, they're both barking mad and completely out of touch with the games market of the future.

I too have heard that Nexon is none too happy about the share crisis of their new best buddy and corporate bedmate NCsoft. From what I can tell, the shareholders aren't happy about TJ Kim's silence as to why he undersold 2/3 of his shares to Nexon. They were happy initally because it looked like a hand in hand merger of corporate giants, each promising to lend its own strength for the good of both...but now that shine has worn off and Kim is still being as silent to his shareholders as he is to us about the reasons for closing CoH, confidence has ebbed away along with the share price.

What puzzles me is Nexon being as unhappy as they are. TJ Kim has been their biggest rival in Korea for many years, so if anyone's going to have a shot at knowing what makes him tick, it's them. So if his behaviour since the share sale is confusing THEM then what chance have WE got of knowing what the hell is going on? ???

My bet is still on TJ Kim wanting to gradually cash himself out of NCsoft and still keep as many memories in his dragon's hoard as he can - which for us means he won't sell the CoH IP...but nor will he let Nexon have it either. And even if it becomes worthless to hang on to, he'll keep it anyway because that's simply what he does.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on November 25, 2012, 03:51:25 PM
Naturally I hope V.V. is right and the IP gets sold quickly. And yes, the re-emergence of CoH from the death of NCSoft would certainly satisfy me. But like Turjan, I have a bad feeling about the nature of Kim himself. And I remember some lovely videogame properties that have gone by the wayside when their company collapsed.

Anyway, reported my source's feelings. Beyond that, I'm as much in the dark as anyone, and eager to hear Monday's announcement.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Undercat on November 25, 2012, 05:32:39 PM
Actually, Kim is very much a minority shareholder at this point, and the IP for all of the games in his "dragon's horde" is owned by NCsoft's shareholders, not by Kim. Whatever that nut might have wanted to do with NCsoft and CoX will soon become quite irrelevant if shareholders lose confidence in his leadership and replace him.

Not to say that his replacement is guaranteed to be any better, of course....
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on November 25, 2012, 05:39:59 PM
I'm still seeing more green in their price change (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS).  I'm not happy about this.

Of course, they're still floundering pretty hard and can't seem to stay above 165k won, but I'd love for them to dip below 150k, just to see what panic it induces.

I think the Christmas season cancels all bets against NCsoft. Or pretty much ANY toy/entertainment company for that matter.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ammon on November 26, 2012, 02:34:37 AM
Actually, Kim is very much a minority shareholder at this point
Yes, he sold out 15% to Nexon, retaining around 10% then of his previous 25% share.  The fact that he sold three-fifths of his entire holdings is what has shaken the value so hard.  A CEO selling his shares short is always a worry.  Doing it before a major launch that is supposed to raise the value, even more worry.  Selling the majority of his shares is just ... suicidal, on top of selling them short, right before the big new launches.

One of the more interesting rumours I heard recently is that yes, the whole Garriott thing is very much part of these seemingly crazy decisions, but not as others are supposing.  What I heard is that NCsoft don't feel very confident in their handling of the US, and feel that the damage of the Garriott case has only weakened their position in the West, and so the deal with Nexon is primarily to use Nexon's strengths as an international distributor and monetizer, while NCsoft focus on their strength of developing original games.

No idea where the CoH saga falls into all this, but it is possible that CoH having been originally developed by Cryptic made it no longer fit into their new strategy, while selling it was something they were not sure about (did the license include all rights to resell as they wished?).

Certainly, the only major gains that can be seen for NCsoft in this deal with Nexon is gaining access to a company far better at International business and marketing.  What would possibly confirm this is looking to see if the CEO of NCsoft reinvested much of his money from selling NCsoft shares into buying Nexon shares.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: LuchRi on November 26, 2012, 03:36:52 AM
The question I have is, would that kind of trade at a time like this constitute insider trading? If so Kim could be looking at a MASSIVE legal ogre hammer coming his way unless he was very sneaky or very cleaver about it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on November 26, 2012, 03:43:48 AM
(<snicker> "Cleaver!")

I don't know what the laws are in SK or Japan, but it's usually difficult to prove insider trading. If the stocks continue to tumble, the repercussions may be bad enough without jail time. Oh, but a body can dream, though, right?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: LuchRi on November 26, 2012, 03:47:39 AM
I would have to imaigne that selling stock in a company of which you are CEO and then buying up stock in the company that you sold it to wuld be at least somewhat illegal, even without brining CoH into the picture. shortsell the stock and then put your money in with the people you shortsell to... seems kinda out there to me.

Unless the CoH closure was to distract FROM his stock sell in foreign markets.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on November 26, 2012, 03:55:20 AM
I'm very tired from a long weekend with extended family, so I apologize if my memory is faulty, but I thought that sort of "trade" was common in mergers, at least in the States.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: BryanSnowden on November 26, 2012, 05:28:44 AM
IF, I were to guess (Or rather - scour the net for much longer than I care to calculate or even guess),
I'd bet it has something to do with THIS => http://www.mmoculture.com/2012/11/gstar-2012-mabinogi-ii-arena-developed-by-nexon-and-ncsoft/ (http://www.mmoculture.com/2012/11/gstar-2012-mabinogi-ii-arena-developed-by-nexon-and-ncsoft/)
I could be wrong,  but looks like he took his "eggs" and put them in a new Nexon/NCsoft "basket"... ?

I don't know much of anything about this *mabinogi 2* - and "Call me Ishmael..." = But, I suspect it's closer to the "WoW-Killer" they've been hunting for like the 'White Whale' for all these years now, no?

So, that would make it "Mabi-nogi Dick" right? ;)

Or it could, depending on how that game goes over in the long run - particularly if it flops!
That is there business model now right? "Flush" money on game after game until they find the next WoW = before someone else beats them to it? They're really just gambling at this point - albeit with other people's money & lives - it's still gambling = Gambling on them finding the next WoW, the REAL trick is funding the finding of it - Before people stop giving them money to hunt with?
Or until their Corporate "Golden-Parachutes" are big enough they don't care anymore, whichever comes first.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Turjan on November 26, 2012, 12:43:33 PM
I don't know much of anything about this *mabinogi 2* - and "Call me Ishmael..." = But, I suspect it's closer to the "WoW-Killer" they've been hunting for like the 'White Whale' for all these years now, no?

I knew nowt about it either, but a bit of snuffling around leads me to believe Mabinogi II : Arena will have more in common with the good ol' coin op Gauntlet than an MMO. Check out the games expo gameplay vids here :-

http://news.mmosite.com/content/2012-11-08/mabinogi_ii_arena_camera_footage_from_game_demo.shtml

The article even mentions a choice of 4 characters : Archer, Bard, Heavy Hammer, Sword+Shield (to me that reads as Elf, Wizard, Barbarian, Valkyrie). It's gory too, with blood splashing everywhere. Everything I've seen about it so far screams "games cabinet in an arcade" to me.

So they think resurrecting old coin ops with a modern graphic makeover is the brave new future that will save their share prices? How odd ???
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on November 26, 2012, 12:48:51 PM
I knew nowt about it either, but a bit of snuffling around leads me to believe Mabinogi II : Arena will have more in common with the good ol' coin op Gauntlet than an MMO. Check out the games expo gameplay vids here :-

http://news.mmosite.com/content/2012-11-08/mabinogi_ii_arena_camera_footage_from_game_demo.shtml

The article even mentions a choice of 4 characters : Archer, Bard, Heavy Hammer, Sword+Shield (to me that reads as Elf, Wizard, Barbarian, Valkyrie). It's gory too, with blood splashing everywhere. Everything I've seen about it so far screams "games cabinet in an arcade" to me.

So they think resurrecting old coin ops with a modern graphic makeover is the brave new future that will save their share prices? How odd ???

...I like it. Old games are fun. I see no reason not to resurrect them. SO, NCSoft, Nexon: While you are horrible people, I applaud your quest to bring arcade-style beat-em-ups back to the fore.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The Fifth Horseman on November 28, 2012, 06:46:57 AM
Looks like the stock stabilized at 167 000 KRW. That's around $150 per share.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Arctic Force. on November 30, 2012, 06:04:30 PM
I find this fitting for Today http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=036570.KS
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on November 30, 2012, 06:12:01 PM
Another drop? Or something more specific?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The Fifth Horseman on November 30, 2012, 07:03:33 PM
A 2% drop in 2 days.  :D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on November 30, 2012, 11:52:31 PM
The redside me wants to see the stock freefall and crash to 100 won the moment they turn off the servers.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Jordan_Lee on November 30, 2012, 11:55:18 PM
The redside me wants to see the stock freefall and crash to 100 won the moment they turn off the servers.

Just your redside? Because my blueside is cheering that all the way.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JWBullfrog on December 01, 2012, 12:02:03 AM
The redside me wants to see the stock freefall and crash to 100 won the moment they turn off the servers.

My inner Praetorian wishes them all good fortune... while secretly plotting to insure their utter and absolute failure.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: biomekanic on December 01, 2012, 03:20:10 AM
Reading the player reviews is harsh on that GW2 event. A new game and the first try at a non Halloween event and people rack the Dev's over the coals.
Makes me think many of them would push my Granny of a sidewalk for walking slow.
( Feel better now thankyou :) )

Ok, I'll admit, I play GW2. The vast majority of my CoX friends were pre-orders for it, and I got it before the announcement.

GW2 is nice and all, but certainly not a replacement for CoX. The handling of the event was bad, and they should have learned a lot more from their Halloween event on what to do and not to do, but it certainly didn't seem that way.

Funny enough, they've just now released the ability to completely change your characters appearance, including gender. This costs 1000 "gmes", IIRC, which translates into a fair chunk of real world change; $10 will buy you 800 gmes. You can buy gems for in-game money. Right now around 1 gold piece per 100 gems... which is a lot of in-game money. You can buy a cheaper kit, to change your hair color and style, as well as eye color, for "only" 400 gems (again, IIRC).

Arenanet seems really fond of doing 1 time events during the work/school day, which appears to piss off a huge part of their player base.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: KSinclaire on December 01, 2012, 06:41:55 AM
Ok, I'll admit, I play GW2. The vast majority of my CoX friends were pre-orders for it, and I got it before the announcement.

GW2 is nice and all, but certainly not a replacement for CoX. The handling of the event was bad, and they should have learned a lot more from their Halloween event on what to do and not to do, but it certainly didn't seem that way.

Funny enough, they've just now released the ability to completely change your characters appearance, including gender. This costs 1000 "gmes", IIRC, which translates into a fair chunk of real world change; $10 will buy you 800 gmes. You can buy gems for in-game money. Right now around 1 gold piece per 100 gems... which is a lot of in-game money. You can buy a cheaper kit, to change your hair color and style, as well as eye color, for "only" 400 gems (again, IIRC).

Arenanet seems really fond of doing 1 time events during the work/school day, which appears to piss off a huge part of their player base.

*nudges* It's 350 gems, actually. For the full appearance edit. Hairstyle/color by itself is 150. And you can get that with.. 3-4 gold, through currency trading. But, yes, they are rather fond of doing their events at.. inconvenient times. I actually didn't get to see any of the Lost Shores event.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on December 01, 2012, 07:24:45 PM
i hope to see their stocks burn faster than a thermite balloon in the next few days
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on December 02, 2012, 07:38:08 AM
i hope to see their stocks burn faster than a thermite balloon in the next few days

This may very well be the first time I'll be looking forward to Monday.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Samuraiko on December 02, 2012, 07:53:07 AM
Y'know, I am kicking myself for not demoediting a mayhem mission and changing the artwork on the front of the bank to the NCsoft corporate logo, and then having an 8-man MM team with full pets just go swarming through the place like a plague of Egypt.

BTW - the day that NCsoft files for bankruptcy, I'm hosting a barbecue here in Seattle.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on December 02, 2012, 08:04:29 AM
BTW - the day that NCsoft files for bankruptcy, I'm hosting a barbecue here in Seattle.

Honestly, I think that's a little uncalled for. Wishing unemployment on tens of thousands of employees and or depriving possibly millions of gamers just like ourselves has no moral or ethical grounds - they did us no harm.

But if the day comes when Taek Jin Kim and whoever else made and executed the decision to murder City of Heroes are dragged by their feet outside NCsoft headquarters and publicly flogged by the players of the games they buried, I'll be buying a cattle prod and an airplane ticket to Korea.

Hey, a man can dream.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: downix on December 02, 2012, 08:07:19 AM
Y'know, I am kicking myself for not demoediting a mayhem mission and changing the artwork on the front of the bank to the NCsoft corporate logo, and then having an 8-man MM team with full pets just go swarming through the place like a plague of Egypt.

BTW - the day that NCsoft files for bankruptcy, I'm hosting a barbecue here in Seattle.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite
I'll bring the desserts

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ichaerus on December 02, 2012, 08:43:13 AM
Y'know, I am kicking myself for not demoediting a mayhem mission and changing the artwork on the front of the bank to the NCsoft corporate logo, and then having an 8-man MM team with full pets just go swarming through the place like a plague of Egypt.

BTW - the day that NCsoft files for bankruptcy, I'm hosting a barbecue here in Seattle.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Will you allow us to show up in costume for your barbecue?  Can I bring beer for the adults, and soda or juice boxes for the kids?  ;D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on December 02, 2012, 09:12:37 AM
BTW - the day that NCsoft files for bankruptcy, I'm hosting a barbecue here in Seattle.
But if the day comes when Taek Jin Kim and whoever else made and executed the decision to murder City of Heroes are dragged by their feet outside NCsoft headquarters and publicly flogged by the players of the games they buried, I'll be buying a cattle prod and an airplane ticket to Korea.
While I can understand the sentiment, I honestly wouldn't want to wish physical harm on NCsoft publically - you know some muckraker will try to use statements like that to smear us as hateful monsters.  It's ammo for the unicorns.

However, if NCsoft fails as a company due to their own stupidity and mismanagement of their assets, I won't be shedding tears, that's for sure.  Instead, I'll be booking a plane ticket to Seattle for a wonderful barbecue.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 02, 2012, 09:38:03 AM
Rumor hath it that Nexon is buying up the cheap shares.  This could get interesting if true.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ammon on December 02, 2012, 10:29:04 AM
BTW - the day that NCsoft files for bankruptcy, I'm hosting a barbecue here in Seattle.
There are days in Seattle where the weather suits a barbeque?  Or is this a localized version of "a cold day in hell" :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Turjan on December 02, 2012, 11:18:52 AM
Rumor hath it that Nexon is buying up the cheap shares.  This could get interesting if true.
What, they didn't get enough when TJKim undersold 2/3 of his stock to them? ;)

I dunno, maybe NCsoft shares are like Pringles, and now Nexon has popped, they just can't stop...or something. Personally I'd think cheap NCsoft shares would be more like a saccharin coating around a tablet of pure bitter quinine...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The Fifth Horseman on December 02, 2012, 11:23:45 AM
Sounds like they want a controlling interest
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kistulot on December 02, 2012, 01:11:59 PM
While it is possible for NCSoft to go bankrupt and all of the employees lose their jobs...

There are scenarios where the entire company could quite blissfully die and the workforce could be taken along with the company by another smart enough to not want to hire all new people.

Of course, people in redundant departments like admin and HR could still be affected unfortunately, but this is still something worth keeping in mind. I want NCSoft to tank as much as the next person, but I want it to do so in that way where it doesn't hurt the little guy, or the middle guy, or really anyone besides the people on top.

Unfortunately the way it usually goes is the person on top, even if damaged in a way where any of us would be up a certain creek without paddles, they have enough to still sit pretty for the rest of their lives.

How they could do what they did to Garriot and just end up throwing money at the problem bothers me a lot. Sometimes its hard not to feel like if you have money there are no consequences for even the dumbest or thoughtless of actions. Fingers crossed that I'm proven wrong :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Jordan_Lee on December 02, 2012, 03:40:39 PM
Rumor hath it that Nexon is buying up the cheap shares.  This could get interesting if true.

New conspiracy theory? Nexon takes a good chunk of NCSoft, NCSoft drops CoH, stocks plummet, Nexon buys up more NCSoft, and more, and more, and then...controls NCSoft??

I don't know how any of that stuff works. I just enjoy all the diabolical schemes and conspiracy theories that people keep making up.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: houtex on December 02, 2012, 05:08:07 PM
All due respect to 'not hurt the little man' ideas re: NCSoft tanking, let me say this...

They work there.  They rumormonger like the rest of us.  They KNOW what's going on.  If they stay, and the company tanks, then that's their own fault for not being proactive.

Yes yes... job market, economy... whatever.  A bad company, and you stay?  You're either getting paid to stay, love it so much you can't leave, or are stupid/shortsighted/scared witless.  Probably a couple of other veins, but them three are prevaling.

I will not weep for any person involved with NCSoft if the company fails, as long as CoH is kept locked away in the vaults of NCSoft.  They have choosen their beds and layed in them.

Let us not worry about 'the little people' of that company, because they can do that for themselves, and should.

/And yes, I've been one of those.  It sucks, but life moves on.
//Did NCSoft think of 'the little people', meaning us, or the Studio?  Nope.  Not so much, methinks, or we'd all still be on, the Devs would still be in the Studio.
///Business is business... And that's all that is.  NCSoft is now bad business, and stickin' around is... well, that's their problem, those 'little peoples.'
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on December 02, 2012, 05:28:38 PM
I don't recall seeing this brought up, but there was a blurb in a short Bloomberg article from the beginning of November that was about major Korean companies. It's really more a list of stats, but in the middle of it is a fragment about NCSoft citing their Q3 earnings.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-08/correct-south-korean-equity-movers-nhn-gs-hyundai-ncsoft.html
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: eviella on December 02, 2012, 08:45:29 PM
There are days in Seattle where the weather suits a barbeque?  Or is this a localized version of "a cold day in hell" :)

Late spring and summer in the Seattle area is almost always beautiful.  We just don't advertise it much, and the rainy winters keep a lot of people away. 
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mistress Urd on December 02, 2012, 09:35:41 PM
Y'know, I am kicking myself for not demoediting a mayhem mission and changing the artwork on the front of the bank to the NCsoft corporate logo, and then having an 8-man MM team with full pets just go swarming through the place like a plague of Egypt.

BTW - the day that NCsoft files for bankruptcy, I'm hosting a barbecue here in Seattle.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

One of many BBQ happening that day.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on December 02, 2012, 09:37:11 PM
Late spring and summer in the Seattle area is almost always beautiful.  We just don't advertise it much, and the rainy winters keep a lot of people away.

Don't want dirty tourists coming in and mucking it up? Bad enough with all the sailors over in Bremerton? ;)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The Fifth Horseman on December 02, 2012, 10:10:14 PM
Can't wait till Monday to see how badly the stock bombs now.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Tubbius on December 02, 2012, 10:16:38 PM
Ooooooo.  That's tomorrow.  :o
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Technerdoc on December 02, 2012, 10:45:34 PM
Maybe it's going up now...  ???
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: chaparralshrub on December 02, 2012, 10:51:14 PM
Well, NCSoft knows what they can do that will completely silence all of this bad press they're going.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on December 02, 2012, 10:54:51 PM
Um. Yeah, the KRX actually opens in an hour. This might be a good night. I'll have to run for more beer, I think. Something snooty, like Stella Artois or something else I can't pronounce.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: epawtows on December 02, 2012, 10:57:30 PM
I'll bring the desserts

I've been told that I bake a mean cheesecake.  Will be happy to bring it. 

When it gets closer to Easter, we should think about a meet-up at Norwescon. 
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Globetrotter on December 02, 2012, 11:00:37 PM
Um. Yeah, the KRX actually opens in an hour. This might be a good night. I'll have to run for more beer, I think. Something snooty, like Stella Artois or something else I can't pronounce.

Take something stgronger and unpronounceable http://www.alliantie-van-biertapperijen.nl/bier.php?p=228 (http://www.alliantie-van-biertapperijen.nl/bier.php?p=228)  8)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on December 02, 2012, 11:21:26 PM
I think that's illegal, here. :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Tubbius on December 02, 2012, 11:37:18 PM
Looks like the stock thingy on page 21 is updated to show stuff for December 3.

Well, let's watch and see, I guess.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: srmalloy on December 03, 2012, 12:46:36 AM
Well, NCSoft knows what they can do that will completely silence all of this bad press they're going.

I don't think it would stop all the bad press. It would slow the flood of bad press they've been getting, but I don't think that simply coughing up the game is going to make us all forget -- much less forgive -- what they did. I expect that we would continue to see people spreading the word that NCSoft considers you -- and the rest of its customers -- a fungible commodity with an infinite supply, so they are free to do whatever they want to you, and you can just suck it up. That's why I didn't bother with any sort of expression of my disappointment with Aion when I quit playing it; I was certain that the corporate attitude would be 'bye, there are thousands more to take your place'.

[[EDIT: Fixing flubbed bbcode ~Agge]]
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Tubbius on December 03, 2012, 01:13:05 AM
The green. . . it slowly climbs.  :|
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kistulot on December 03, 2012, 01:35:47 AM
I don't think it would stop all the bad press. It would slow the flood of bad press they've been getting, but I don't think that simply coughing up the game is going to make us all forget -- much less forgive -- what they did. I expect that we would continue to see people spreading the word that NCSoft considers you -- and the rest of its customers -- a fungible commodity with an infinite supply, so they are free to do whatever they want to you, and you can just suck it up. That's why I didn't bother with any sort of expression of my disappointment with Aion when I quit playing it; I was certain that the corporate attitude would be 'bye, there are thousands more to take your place'.

I have this urge to keep nudging you with my elbow whilst going "shhhhhh" louder and louder.


[[EDIT: Fixing flubbed bbcode in quote ~Agge]]
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on December 03, 2012, 06:35:12 AM
Honestly, I think that's a little uncalled for. Wishing unemployment on tens of thousands of employees and or depriving possibly millions of gamers just like ourselves has no moral or ethical grounds - they did us no harm.

But if the day comes when Taek Jin Kim and whoever else made and executed the decision to murder City of Heroes are dragged by their feet outside NCsoft headquarters and publicly flogged by the players of the games they buried, I'll be buying a cattle prod and an airplane ticket to Korea.

Hey, a man can dream.

I dont think anyone really wishes harm on unsuspecting employees; but lets face it, they work for a labile company becoming rather... well-known for unwise business decisions.

I'd say almost certainly they will end up losing those jobs one way or another. NCSoft is probably the kind of outfit that waits till everyone leaves the building for lunch, locks the doors and then texts everyone that they are now fired. I could TOTALLY see them doing that.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TonyV on December 03, 2012, 07:15:01 AM
Rumor hath it that Nexon is buying up the cheap shares.  This could get interesting if true.

Sounds like they want a controlling interest

I don't know if it's true or not, but when a stock tanks like NCsoft's has, it's actually not unusual for a company (or its investors) to start buying back stock at a higher price to make it look better than it actually is.  That could (not saying is, because I don't know) explain why they've had some positive bumps the past week after pretty steady decline.

However, it almost never works to provide long-term stability.  Either they managed to buy back most of their stock to the point where it makes them look really bad, or they run out of money to keep buying and have to stop, sending the stock plummeting again.  Some really big companies can afford to do it for a while until whatever financial hurt they're in passes, it helps to give their investors faith in the company's ability to weather storms.  If Nexon is doing it for that reason, I can't imagine that it will end any way but badly.

Or The Fifth Horseman could be right.  They could be doing it to make a play for controlling interest.  If that happens, well, I'm not sure we'll be in any better of a position that we're in now dealing with NCsoft, but it almost certainly would mean management changes and different people to be targeting for communications.

Or the opposite could happen.  If NCsoft's stock falls much more, it could spook Nexon to the point where they just want to dump their shares while they still can, cut their losses, and go their merry way.  If that happens, NCsoft has some very hard days ahead of it.

In any event, they really could have used some positive PR right now, they aren't getting it, and I really do believe that we are making a difference.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on December 03, 2012, 07:21:36 AM
i agree, it does seem that almost any event that happens in the future timestream still ends with ncsoft getting screwed over

i think it might help them slightly if they actually negotiated a sale for the games IP and accounts, it would be the quickest way to satisfy all of us and would stop our continual spreading of bad PR (although i think most of us have gotten to the point of personal boycott of ncsoft products due to the way they handled this whole matter)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The Fifth Horseman on December 03, 2012, 09:03:15 AM
The stock did start at +2%. Now it's at +0.3%. The bombing, it has begun.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Sarge Morris on December 03, 2012, 09:16:55 AM
BTW - the day that NCsoft files for bankruptcy, I'm hosting a barbecue here in Seattle.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

I'm hosting a matching barbecue in the Greater Philadelphia area.  I like that idea. 

In the current global economy, things are pretty cutthroat.  You've got to be smart to survive.  What NC Soft did was decidedly not smart.  Its simply Darwin at work.  If they're not smart enough to go where the money is, they get what they deserve.  They took my game and my friends away from me. I'm taking my money away from them.  Their loss.  And when they fail, they'll only have themselves to blame.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blackbird71 on December 03, 2012, 07:19:54 PM
Considering some people (not all, but some people) here, I doubt the bad PR would stop even if NCsoft did everything *and more*.

Some people just want to hate on someone, even if the someone does everything in their power to rectify the situation...

Some people would just see it as "too little, too late."  Personally, if NCSoft were to sell the IP and game now, after turning down prevous offers and the game has already gone dark, I would interpret it as a purely selfish move to slow the bleeding rather than any desire to generate or maintain good will among their customers, and I would not be likely to cut them any slack for it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TonyV on December 03, 2012, 07:32:11 PM
Considering some people (not all, but some people) here, I doubt the bad PR would stop even if NCsoft did everything *and more*.

True, but you'd be surprised how far an apology and a legitimate attempt to make things right would go.  I think that if NCsoft were to let go of the IP and post something that amounts to, "We were wrong, we're sorry.  We know that things will never be the same, but we've heard you and we're trying our best to undo what damage has been done," I think a LOT of people would feel a lot better about the company and they could still use it for some positive PR.

But to be honest, I don't see anything remotely close to that happening anytime soon, certainly not in that tone.  If they decided to sell it tomorrow, I can almost guarantee you that the tone would be more like, "Hey look!  We took this dead property worth practically zero and made some money off of it!"  Some people would forgive and forget, but undoubtedly a lot more would continue the battle to bring down NCsoft.

As for me, if they issued a mea culpa and made an honest attempt to make things right, I'd probably post something saying that I'm glad they finally figured out what we've been saying all along, and hope that they remember the lesson well going forward and stop killing off communities.  If they adopted the latter tone, I'd be happy for the sake of the game and I'd probably stop actively lobbying for NCsoft to suck air, but I wouldn't ask people who are still angry to stop since, frankly, I understand where they're coming from and wouldn't be convinced that NCsoft isn't going to turn around and do the same thing to Arena.net or someone else in the not-too-distant future.  And if NCsoft does do it to someone like that, you'd better believe that I'm going to be standing there with that community helping out any way I can.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JWBullfrog on December 03, 2012, 07:32:52 PM
Some people would just see it as "too little, too late."  Personally, if NCSoft were to sell the IP and game now, after turning down prevous offers and the game has already gone dark, I would interpret it as a purely selfish move to slow the bleeding rather than any desire to generate or maintain good will among their customers, and I would not be likely to cut them any slack for it.

The important point is that they sold the game.
I simply do not care what becomes of NCSoft otherwise. If they die, that's probably their own fault. If they succeed, somebody got their act together. They only had one product I was ever interested in and, we know how that has turned out.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Technerdoc on December 03, 2012, 07:36:51 PM
How long can a company do this? Closing games, treat the community like shit, don't sell any from this IPs and hope that the lemming-games play one from their other games? I mean we wasn't the first one, but we was always thinking that this can't happen to us, beccause our game is profitable...

One time it just have to be the big crash there. Life is just not fair  :-\
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: srmalloy on December 03, 2012, 08:10:29 PM
Considering some people (not all, but some people) here, I doubt the bad PR would stop even if NCsoft did everything *and more*.

Some people just want to hate on someone, even if the someone does everything in their power to rectify the situation...

Had they done everything in their power to rectify the situation, they would have set a reasonable price and sold Paragon Studios and City of Heroes before the sunset, so that the Paragon Studios staff and resources could have been transitioned to the buyer's employ, development and operation of the game temporarily halted while the transfer of the server configurations to new hardware under the control of the buyer took place (or snapshotting the servers while leaving them up and making the playerbase aware that nothing they did after date X would be preserved under the new management), and the game restarted, instead of squeezing City of Heroes tightly in their fist crying "My Precioussss..."

And I don't think that keeping the gaming community aware of NCSoft's demonstrated attitudes and practices, as a warning to people considering taking up one of their MMOs, constitutes 'hating on' NCSoft. If someone genuinely wants to play Aion, or Blade & Soul, it's their decision, but making sure that they're informed about what they may be setting themselves up for is a service to the community. If it happens to cut into NCSoft's bottom line, well, that's a consequence of the business decisions that NCSoft makes; if they hadn't been making their decisions based on the almighty bottom line and their view of the image of the company, they wouldn't be in the position of having tens of thousands of severely honked-off ex-players ready to do NCSoft dirty.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 03, 2012, 08:15:47 PM
I too read what VV and Fansy said about legal complications. About a week or so ago someone on Virtue was talking about that over the LFG channel and I boiled my response down to "I'll believe it when I see it". Eventually the person who was really touting this rumor accepted my viewpoint even if they didn't completely agree with it.

You see, NCSoft has a habit, nay, a history of killing games and then sitting on the IP. I'm a skeptic, and one who believes in studying what history teaches us. Sure, people can change, companies too can change, but its relatively rare. Usually they keep doing the same things, again and again, until their hubris and lack of foresight trip them up in some fashion. Sometimes the trip-up is minor, sometimes its devastating.

So yeah, until that rumor becomes truth, its just another unconfirmed bit of info: what we in TransFormers fandom somewhat mockingly refer to as "SECRET INSIDE SOURCES". In the case of VV, I respect her, unlike some info-spouting fanboy that nobody knows from Adam. As such I do not doubt her sincerity, clout, or intent. However she's a messenger in this particular case, and the message could be flawed.

So, as I have said elsewhere: time will eventually tell the tale, as it does in all things.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blackbird71 on December 03, 2012, 08:42:00 PM
If it happens to cut into NCSoft's bottom line, well, that's a consequence of the business decisions that NCSoft makes; if they hadn't been making their decisions based on the almighty bottom line and their view of the image of the company, they wouldn't be in the position of having tens of thousands of severely honked-off ex-players ready to do NCSoft dirty.

That's just it though; if they had been making decisions based on the bottom line (at least, the long-term bottom line, and not just the next quarterly report), I have to believe that NCSoft would have either kept the game running as a profitable entity, or sold it while it was active and had appreciable value.  Everything I know about business (which is probably more than most people but less than many) tells me that their decisions make no sense, either in terms of customer relations or overall profitability.  From an outside observer, NCSoft's choice appear to be driven more by stubborn pride than anything else, and that is no way to successfully run a business.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on December 03, 2012, 08:43:16 PM
I should note that VV has, herself, stated that keeping up the pressure is crucial even now precisely because NCSoft must feel a desire to sell. So, if it is in fact now possible, they must feel the pressure EVEN HARDER so that the sudden ease of selling combined with the increase of pressure acts to pop the cork out of the bottle in which they've stuffed the deed to CoH.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 03, 2012, 08:47:48 PM
Wholeheartedly agreed.

I'm not advocating doing nothing, nor am I pooping on the proverbial party (which was a cause some nameless posters formerly here and on the CoH boards seemed frighteningly dedicated to). I'm just saying I'll believe it when I see it.

I think my favorite line from ANGEL describes my mindset pretty well:

"...if nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do. 'Cause that's all there is. What we do. Now. Today."

I don't fight for CoX because I believe I'll be rewarded in some way (be it the return of the game, chiefly), but rather because I feel what NCSoft did was wrong, and fighting for our beloved game and community is the right thing to do.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on December 03, 2012, 08:51:15 PM
True, but you'd be surprised how far an apology and a legitimate attempt to make things right would go.  I think that if NCsoft were to let go of the IP and post something that amounts to, "We were wrong, we're sorry.  We know that things will never be the same, but we've heard you and we're trying our best to undo what damage has been done," I think a LOT of people would feel a lot better about the company and they could still use it for some positive PR.

The sad thing is, even though every word of this is true, and we see it at play in current events with BP, I just don't think it's culturally possible.  I know people have said that this kind of xenophob-esque rhetoric is out of line, and I agree. But an unpleasant truth is still a truth.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on December 03, 2012, 08:54:58 PM
The sad thing is, even though every word of this is true, and we see it at play in current events with BP, I just don't think it's culturally possible.  I know people have said that this kind of xenophob-esque rhetoric is out of line, and I agree. But an unpleasant truth is still a truth.

Heh...

Dear stereotypical people: If stereotypes are wrong, please do your part to stop proving them right."
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Technerdoc on December 03, 2012, 09:02:35 PM
Sorry in destroying any illusions, but absolutly nothing will happen there. NC-Soft never wanted to sell or keep the game running, there are other ways how to handle this when they really wanted to do this and we will never find out the reason. I don't see any sense why they do this like that, but it's their way that they never sell anything. I will be surprised when this will happen, but I'm sure that there was some companys intressted in City of Heroes when other smaller games, also close to the shutdown find someone too. Maybe they really wanted to make a part 2 in some years when everyone will forget what happend here, who knows.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on December 03, 2012, 09:11:03 PM
anything ncsoft makes would be an abomination and i would refuse to play it

as far as we know the devs secret project got trashed when they all got fired

if ncsoft wants to make anything else, it wont be from our devs and thus will prolly be terrible and horrible abomination disrespecting the original game
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Technerdoc on December 03, 2012, 09:15:11 PM
Right, the people will never accept a part 2 from an other team so long the better part 1 is still running, so the game must be closed...

Hmm it's still stupid...  :-\
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 03, 2012, 09:16:34 PM
Sorry in destroying any illusions, but absolutly nothing will happen there.
You know what, I'm pretty cynical, but you aren't clairvoyant and you don't know that. That's simply your belief. Well-founded, yes, but a belief all the same.

I believe it too, but I don't make declarations of certainties that I cannot know. I always reserve the option to be mistaken.

Maybe they really wanted to make a part 2 in some years when everyone will forget what happend here, who knows.
Yeah, again, cynic here, but guess what...some people have long memories. I still recall the shoddy treatment and lies Miramax gave the fans of the Crow franchise in regards to the release of "The Crow-Salvation" back in 1999-2000, and while there aren't a lot of us, I'm not alone. I boycotted every single Miramax release for over 2 years.

Only 2 things will make me "forget", 1 is a possibility (insanity/amnesia/senility), the the other a certainty (death). And again, I won't be alone.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on December 03, 2012, 09:18:29 PM
Right, the people will never accept a part 2 from an other team so long the better part 1 is still running, so the game must be closed...

Hmm it's still stupid...  :-\

If part 1 is better, don't make part 2?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: srmalloy on December 03, 2012, 09:27:59 PM
I should note that VV has, herself, stated that keeping up the pressure is crucial even now precisely because NCSoft must feel a desire to sell. So, if it is in fact now possible, they must feel the pressure EVEN HARDER so that the sudden ease of selling combined with the increase of pressure acts to pop the cork out of the bottle in which they've stuffed the deed to CoH.

This. Remember that, as things stand right now, there is nothing more that NCSoft can do to us. Fire the developers? Three months back. Shut down the game servers? Done. Closed the forums? Done. Packed the IP away in a box, never to see the light of day again? Their history with other IPs would suggest that this is where CoH will wind up; certainly it's already been binned. We, on the other hand, are under no such restriction. Our efforts to raise NCSoft's business practices to the light of public scrutiny will continue to haunt NCSoft like Banquo's ghost, and the more publicity we can get, the more we can erode confidence in NCSoft's performance, the closer we will get to convincing them that the only way out of the pit they have dug for themselves is to sell City of Heroes.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on December 03, 2012, 09:29:51 PM
Does this mean I don't have to be nice, anymore?  >:(
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JWBullfrog on December 03, 2012, 09:34:11 PM
Does this mean I don't have to be nice, anymore?  >:(

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTh5JzRziHE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTh5JzRziHE)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Technerdoc on December 03, 2012, 09:37:09 PM
No I'm not a clairvoyant but even when, maybe Disney buy the IP, without a developer team it only makes sense when they  re-hired them and this is not sure that they really come back. Or they buy it to make a part 2, but why buy City of Heroes when they have a much better known Marvel franchise and can just use this for a game? It's hard to belive that they really do this, or anyone else and brings the money and do this gamble.

The problem is with the part 2, that part 1 have so many content that people will always miss something. The game is old, the market has changed and maybe they wanted to change the gameplay to reach more people. For example I don't like Guild Wars 2, but millons are playing it and like it. I don't know why, the reviews was great but I think the game is absolutly boring. It looks like that I'm a part of a minority group and the same can happen to City of Heroes 2. Everyone said about the new copy protection sytems for example on the PC they don't buy this game, but then an Assassins Greed was one of the top sellers list anyway. People forget such things fast and here in Germany no one cares about what happend here. There was a news about the shutdown of course and with 2 messages under it...
   
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: unladenswallow on December 03, 2012, 09:37:49 PM
Dear stereotypical people: If stereotypes are wrong, please do your part to stop proving them right."

Well stereotypes are almost always based on a partial truth that is viewed through biased eyes. When I was in China I was frequently told in general conversation by people I had just met that I was fat. As if I had forgotten this somehow. the reality is there are very few fat people amongst the middle to lower income populace which is the majority of the country's population. It's not something they normally see. They are also more straight forward and blunt in conversations by western standards. All of these factors lead to me hearing "Ah, you are fat!" quite often. This is why many tourists who are largely unaware of the culture assume that people from China are rude and from their set of social guidelines and ignorance of aspects of Chinese culture they are. You can only make assessments base on the body of knowledge you have. I was able to take all of this into consideration when this happened but because of the social norms I grew up with I still felt as if it were rude even though I fully understood the social mechanics behind it.

I understand and even share much of the concerns many people have about being "xenophob-esque " but even with that you have to take it with a grain of salt. I'm sure similar cultural factors figure in to how NC Soft has treated us and they have been discussed at great length on at least one other thread. As a community I think we have done our cultural homework well enough that we should be able to make clear references to their actions without having to constantly adding apologetic cultural caveats in our posts when we describe the way they treated us as contemptible or in this case that their cultural norms would not allow them to make a satisfactory apology to us even if they wanted to. Given the great deal of attention we have given this issue I wouldn't think that addressing such issues directly were xenophobic but just what dwtruducken said it was addressing an unpleasant truth.

Sorry if this post seems a bit of an overstatement or possibly superfluous but I find cultural/social issues interesting and thought this might help.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Undercat on December 03, 2012, 10:43:14 PM
Remember that, as things stand right now, there is nothing more that NCSoft can do to us.

Wrong. They can sue every site that harbors detailed content about the game, including this one, for exceeding the provisions of fair use. Similarly, they could force Youtube to remove many of the videos derived from the game's content.

Of course, no sane company would dare sue their fans for making promotional use of their intellectual property...but I think we can pretty safely conclude that they don't give a flying fart about the CoX property itself at this point. If you step on the tiger's tail hard enough, you might be quite surprised just how hard he can bite.

And if anyone steps outside the facts and wanders into speculation in their attacks, NCsoft might sue them for libel. Whether they win or not is almost irrelevant; they can drive you to bankruptcy before you even set foot in a courtroom. Being the subject of a lawsuit is not the kind of excitement any sane person should be looking for.

Think that other gaming communities will rally to your side if NCsoft starts playing hardball? Perhaps not, especially if NCsoft can make a cogent argument that you were attacking it mercilessly and they responded just to make it stop. If they put up with PR attacks for months, then finally clamp down, the group here might find itself in a very awkward position of being portrayed in the public eye as a collection of bitter extremists. The general public knows next to nothing of our plight. They don't know and they don't care. You shouldn't expect them to automatically take our side just because you feel we have been wronged, and make no mistake, I feel we have been wronged.

NCsoft did not close the game by credibly saying, "we're sorry, but we just can't afford to keep the game running...we really want this game to prosper, and we know how much you all love your home here, but there's not enough demand for it and we're losing money on it, so we can't continue." They couldn't say it. It wasn't true. What we received instead was an imperial dismissal: "We're done with you now, peasants. You don't factor into our plans any longer. Now go away before we set the guards upon you." Their intransigent refusal to negotiate a continuation of the game on other terms deprives them of the privilege to repudiate their initial dismissive impression.

I, too, think we're owed an apology as customers.

But if, once we receive any apology, we continue to drive the screws in, we would look mean and petty. Moreover, there's another thing to consider here: if NCsoft's PR firm---which is unquestionably monitoring the activities of this group, if for no other reason than to spot potential libel or outright copyright infringement---if they were to get the reasonable impression that there would be no benefit to having NCsoft relent, what do you suppose their recommendation would be? We are playing a political game here, folks, and we need to think like political animals.

In game theory, there is a rather interesting result from experimental automata on the prisoner's dilemma. It turns out that no program, regardless of sophistication, has been able to outdo the overall performance of an extremely simple agent---one that retaliates exactly once for every attack made upon it, but otherwise defaults to a position of unbroken trust. More aggressive retaliators tend to get into "scorched earth" exchanges with their opponents, while more forgiving agents get walked upon.

Making NCsoft uncomfortable is only half the battle. In order to induce them to sell, we have to convincingly demonstrate that the discomfort will stop when they acquiesce. If we cannot make that argument stick, this is all a waste of time. They, too, can take a hardline "screw them to death" position and curl up like a little turtle, refusing to sell the CoX IP until the copyright expires, at which point many of us will undoubtedly be dead...and finding a computer old enough to play this game might be difficult or impossible.

So you think everything will be peachy if we can just drive them into bankruptcy? If they reorganize, they can restructure their debts without liquidating most of their assets. I can assure you that no one here will be considered a creditor in any reorganization proceeding. Even if the IP is sold at that point, the purchaser may well be Asian and harbor their own resentments about the behavior of this group.

I'm not saying that I will ever personally buy another NCsoft product again, but I will make an effort to keep my mouth shut if they take their foot out of my ass. If we turn this into a racial and moral crusade of indignity, you can expect disaster to follow.

I prefer to play this game to win. If that means I have to cheer when they sell the IP, I will cheer. If it means I must smile and say "thank you," I will smile and say "thank you." What I think about their behavior personally doesn't matter to anyone but me. The game is worth more than my pride. I will do whatever I need to do to execute my aim, and my aim is to have them sell the rights to someone who cares.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Electric-Knight on December 03, 2012, 11:59:33 PM
I could prattle on about things I don't know and state guesses as facts and toss in a few (rather good) jokes that came to mind from other posts, but, instead...

How them stocks?
:D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 04, 2012, 12:02:34 AM
Look, I just want an opportunity to use an image of Nelson Muntz at NCSoft's expense, is that so wrong? :D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on December 04, 2012, 12:07:35 AM
Nononono! I wanna hear the libelous, scandalous prattling!  :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The Fifth Horseman on December 04, 2012, 07:14:39 AM
Gentlemen, I'm pleased to announce that the numbers are in red. The stock fell -1.86% since yesterday.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Electric-Knight on December 04, 2012, 07:18:54 AM
(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=gifrific.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F09%2FSeinfeld-Laughing-with-Cigar.gif)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: healix on December 04, 2012, 07:24:24 AM
(https://i.imgur.com/8cKMd.gif)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 04, 2012, 08:05:59 AM
Gentlemen, I'm pleased to announce that the numbers are in red. The stock fell -1.86% since yesterday.

As promised!

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.corvusonline.net%2Fforum_images%2Fnelson_haw_haw.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on December 04, 2012, 08:10:07 AM
"...the numbers are in red."

Heh! November was a dreadful month for them. If December is equally bad, they'll be back where they were in 2007.

Investors and NCSoft are likely asking themselves why. Perhaps they should be asking instead why so many are cheering about it. I believe in the laws of karma, and having so many people justly angry at you is very bad karma. Moving on....

"Wrong. They can sue every site that harbors detailed content about the game, including this one, for exceeding the provisions of fair use. Similarly, they could force Youtube to remove many of the videos derived from the game's content."

True, but the data would simply resurface elsewhere.

I'm no lawyer. But I do know that in the US, verifiable cases of Internet libel go unpunished by the courts. There are simply too many unicorns for the courts to take such things seriously. Despite this, I do not advocate libel, but that we ought instead to simply say the truth about NCSoft as loudly as possible: NCSoft sucks.

They can attempt to take legal action against us for that, yes. As I said, I'm no lawyer, but I am military. And I know that a "formless" enemy like us is almost impossible to fight. We have no head to strike off, no heart to stab, we cannot be defeated if they attack. The worst they can do to us is to hoard the IP out of spite, and they will only succeed in this so long as Mr. Kim is in charge. Every fall in their stock brings him closer to ouster.

But we... we will never stop, not until they sell. And they cannot stop us, no matter what they do.

(I did raise the alarm against one possible endgame: deletion of the files. Other voices have convinced me that is not among Kim's options, thank heaven! I'm sure he'd do so with pleasure.)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The Fifth Horseman on December 04, 2012, 08:35:42 AM
They can attempt to take legal action against us for that, yes. As I said, I'm no lawyer, but I am military. And I know that a "formless" enemy like us is almost impossible to fight. We have no head to strike off, no heart to stab, we cannot be defeated if they attack.
The worst thing they could do is cause us to disperse and act individually. That would make it impossible to call the campaign off, ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEImdPWgIGk

Quote
(I did raise the alarm against one possible endgame: deletion of the files. Other voices have convinced me that is not among Kim's options, thank heaven! I'm sure he'd do so with pleasure.)
Do not underestimate the power of human pettiness and spite.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Undercat on December 04, 2012, 12:05:20 PM
I'm no lawyer. But I do know that in the US, verifiable cases of Internet libel go unpunished by the courts. There are simply too many (word substituted) for the courts to take such things seriously. Despite this, I do not advocate libel, but that we ought instead to simply say the truth about NCSoft as loudly as possible: NCSoft sucks.

To say "NCsoft sucks" is merely an opinion. I think it would be pretty unlikely to ever land you in court. I, too, am not an attorney, but I worked in publishing, marketing and advertising for over a decade and became pretty sensitive to legal issues that affected those trades. I wrote a large number of product reviews about professional media equipment, not all of which were especially flattering. My understanding of the general principles of libel law in this country, for all the little it may be worth, is that you typically need to make a damaging claim that is purported to be fact, but which is actually untrue, or make an especially vicious and unwarranted attack, in order to be successfully sued. While I don't doubt there may be special exceptions, truth and accuracy are normally considered privileged defenses in defamation cases; after all, if that were not the case, newspapers, magazines and television networks could be sued merely for publishing unflattering news about people or corporations. Fortunately things are not quite that bad. That's why I said "...if anyone steps outside the facts...."

I should probably underscore that opinions are not considered facts (a review is largely an opinion, after all), so provided it is clear you are making a subjective judgment, and you don't descend into outrageous invective, you're probably also safe in most jurisdictions. But don't construe that as legal advice by any means---as I said, I'm not an attorney or a scholar, and as far as I'm concerned, nothing is final until the Supreme Court says it is. On each specific case, at that. I've heard of some really outrageous suits. You take your chances anytime you assume an adversarial posture with anyone, that's the only thing I'm certain of, and it's what I'm trying to get across here.

Quote
But we... we will never stop, not until they sell.

No argument there. I say shine a spotlight on the turds...until they sell. But the impression I'm getting from some posters in various forum threads here is more akin to a call for unlimited war---a vindictive "no quarter" attitude that would persist long after NCsoft sold the IP, assuming they ever did. What motivation would NCsoft have to sell the IP if they didn't think their tormentors were ever going to go away? Who are we to demand unconditional surrender, then execute the defeated for "war crimes?" I chuckle at the very thought. We'll be plenty lucky enough if we can just get them to cough up the IP at all. Even if they were to go bankrupt and be liquidated instead of reorganized, there's no guarantee that the trustee (assuming that's how they do things there) would award the CoX IP to a party friendly to our cause.

All I'm saying is that we should attempt to play a politically savvy hand.

What I, personally, would like to see is for a large U.S. corporation to make a reasonable bid for the CoX assets and announce to us publicly that they did so. If NCsoft's executive management refuses the bid, which I sadly suspect they might do, then we can turn right around and take the issue to some of their shareholders (http://investors.morningstar.com/ownership/shareholders-major.html?t=036570&region=KOR&culture=en-us). Let them start asking questions for us. Have them pester NCsoft's management to accept payment for a property that otherwise would simply rot in the ground. We, as individuals, are easy to ignore. Institutional investors are not as easy to ignore, even the smaller ones (since trading prices are determined at the margins). My goal would be to seed an atmosphere of "no confidence" within the NCsoft investor community, right up to Nexon, that leads to a serious dialog about what the CoX property is worth, and to good-faith negotiations about selling it. I honestly don't think that NCsoft's management is acting as a prudent fiduciary of their shareholder's interests at the moment.

I think Mercedes got us off to a very good start. If she doesn't have a nervous breakdown, I'm hopeful that we actually will win this war, even if NCsoft won the first skirmish by riding in with their gunship and blowing up Home-Tree.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Inkitgee on December 04, 2012, 01:35:12 PM
I took a look at the stocks for myself and I couldn't stop myself from letting out a hearty chuckle.

Welp... all I can say is they did it to themselves.

 8)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on December 04, 2012, 03:10:00 PM
Very nice posts, Undercat. I agree whole-heartedly. There must be incentive for NCSoft to do as we want. If the pain won't stop, there's no incentive.

Given my own academic background, I was particularly amused by the (very accurate) explanation of prisoner's dilemma agents and the best winning strategy in a repeated-games scenario. I've written genetic algorithms that evolve this very behavior pattern as the optimum.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on December 04, 2012, 03:20:44 PM
"...the numbers are in red."

Heh! November was a dreadful month for them. If December is equally bad, they'll be back where they were in 2007.

Investors and NCSoft are likely asking themselves why. Perhaps they should be asking instead why so many are cheering about it. I believe in the laws of karma, and having so many people justly angry at you is very bad karma. Moving on....

Not to mention, the idea of being sued for libel - individually or as a group - for saying the equivalent of "NCSoft sucks!" would be the very definition of a stupid idea. I am not sure a US judge would even allow this to come to trial - it is the very definition of frivolous lawsuit.

Such a case would get media attention. Given their recent problems, do they need "People say NCSoft sucks! NCSoft strikes back legally! Pictures at eleven!" headlines, even if only online?

What if there were a trial! Enter a lot of evidence to the fact that indeed, NCSoft does "suck."  Even uninterested parties could examine the evidence, leading to a conclusion of "Yup... they really do suck." Reams, and reams and yet more reams of evidence regarding years of craptacular business practices. GENIUS IDEA!

TBH, NCSoft has way bigger fish to fry right now other than trying to legally shut down the internet because disgruntled ex-customers are saying - with justification - that they suck. The smart thing for them to do would be to give us what we want, and make this firestorm of negative PR go away, or at least die down a bit.

I don't think they're going to do that though: its all about saving face. Even if you're already tarred and feathered, we still got to deny reality and try to save nonexistannt face. That's ok, we got plenty more tar and plenty more feathers where those came from. I feel general delight that their stock has sunk yet further.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Nafaustu on December 04, 2012, 03:48:51 PM
Relevant
This game is filled with tl;dr that has nothing to do with cats.   You're about to lose the internet's attention.   Or at the very least, we're slightly off-topic.   I think we had a separate legal doom thread where the greater majority of this was discussed.

Not Relevant
My general option is freedom, in case anyone cares.   If no one fights an outrageous act for fear of retribution then nothing will ever change and we may as well belly up like a terrified, submissive animal and consume all the corporate poo without so much as a glass of water to wash it down.  I'd like to buck that particular social trend in at least one aspect of my life.

Relevant Again
Do we have a general picture of Korea's overall markets today?   I'm not totally convinced Korea isn't crashing in general.   How steep is NCSoft's comparative curve?   I really have no idea how to search for this information; I avoid the stockmarket, in general, like the plague.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on December 04, 2012, 04:20:19 PM
"There must be incentive for NCSoft to do as we want."

Agreed. Pave your opponent's road to retreat with gold. However, while we could call off the formal campaign, I'm sure a quiet animosity would continue. NCSoft's burned their bridges in the west.

"...it is the very definition of frivolous lawsuit."

I have seen frivolous lawsuits used as a weapon by corporations to harass other corporations into bankruptcy. (A specific example: Marvel vs. Jim Shooter's Defiant Comics.) But we are not a corporation. We are formless, as I said. And trying to sue us from across the Pacific? Good luck with that.

..."we may as well belly up like a terrified, submissive animal and consume all the corporate poo...."

I agree that "learned helplessness" and withdrawal is a danger. This group fills me with hope that together we can teach corporations that they work for us, not the other way 'round.

"Filled with tl;dr..."

I would like to buck that particular social trend.

"Do not underestimate the power of human pettiness and spite."

Indeed. They might spread rumors they'd done so as a tactic to make us give up. I think that would only backfire on them. Just anticipating possible moves and countermoves....
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lucretia MacEvil on December 04, 2012, 05:22:04 PM
"...the numbers are in red."

Heh! November was a dreadful month for them. If December is equally bad, they'll be back where they were in 2007.

Investors and NCSoft are likely asking themselves why.

If December is just as bad in spite of being Holiday Shopping Month....
Any investor who misses THAT red flag is definitely blind.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: zybron on December 04, 2012, 05:23:43 PM
Do we have a general picture of Korea's overall markets today?   I'm not totally convinced Korea isn't crashing in general.   How steep is NCSoft's comparative curve?   I really have no idea how to search for this information; I avoid the stockmarket, in general, like the plague.

This post: http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,5250.msg52124.html#msg52124 has a link to both the Korean stock exchange and NCSoft. They are not following a general Korean trend.

Here's a chart with NCSoft and the Korean composite index for direct comparison:
NCSoft and KOSPI (http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=036570.KS+Interactive#symbol=036570.ks;range=20120930,20121203;compare=%5Eks11;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on December 04, 2012, 05:32:35 PM
Thank you, Zybron.

"If December is just as bad in spite of being Holiday Shopping Month...."

Y'all please correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think Christmas is a big deal in Korea. (never mind! Just looked it up. 30%. Hey, that is a significant factor!)

A stagnant Christmas or one more good shock of bad news ought to do it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Iron-Emerald on December 04, 2012, 06:21:04 PM
I can't help but echo what Undercat said. NCSoft have no incentive to ever sell CoH if the same level of negativity was to continue regardless.

For myself I'd forgive them if they helped the game to continue, though I wouldn't forget without some kind of very convincing argument of why the game was closed the way it was. But fundamentally in my experience it's very easy for people to make a mistake, it's almost impossible for some people to ever admit such a thing. If NCSoft actually got the courage to stand up and say "We're sorry, we handled this wrong and we're going to try and do x to at least improve things" then I'd at least gain some respect back for them.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on December 04, 2012, 06:35:23 PM
i think as a collective whole we would mostly desist with the negativity should the IP be sold

however to kind of defend ourselves against the few unicorns and pancakes out there who would want an endless war, we can very clearly stat that "we" (IE, titan network) does not support the actions of those few outliers, since the titan network is basically spearheading the efforts to the save the game

most likely any singular person or group smaller than we are would just be treading water and likely not amount to anything
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: srmalloy on December 04, 2012, 07:41:05 PM
For myself I'd forgive them if they helped the game to continue, though I wouldn't forget without some kind of very convincing argument of why the game was closed the way it was. But fundamentally in my experience it's very easy for people to make a mistake, it's almost impossible for some people to ever admit such a thing. If NCSoft actually got the courage to stand up and say "We're sorry, we handled this wrong and we're going to try and do x to at least improve things" then I'd at least gain some respect back for them.

Being a Korean company, though, I would expect that they would view an admission like that as being an admission of failure that would need to be accompanied by a high-level manager resigning as expiation for having made the bad decision in the first place (i.e., sacrificing himself to save face for the company), and getting NCSoft into that position feels as if it would be a real stretch; the Western market just isn't that important to them.

Although, I can equally see where, if we did manage to convince Disney to buy CoH, and they were successful in prying it out of their grasp, then turned around and gave it the marketing promotion it needed to become much more successful than it ever was under NCSoft, there'd be just such a resignation by someone taking responsibility for failing the company by making the decision to close the game, rather than support it the way Disney had.


With apologies to Percy Bysshe Shelley, a comforting image to take away:

I met a traveller from a foreign land
Who said: A vast broken facade of stone
Stands in the desert. Near it, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered CEO lies, whose frown,
and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And below the corporate logo these words appear:
"My name is NCSoft, master of MMOs:
Look upon my ROI, ye competitors, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: pewlagon on December 04, 2012, 11:47:27 PM
Massively just ran an article citing the layoffs ("realignment") of the NcSoft Seattle offices. While it doesn't effect ANet or Carbine, it certainly impacts, to some extent, the portions that oversee games designed outside the US (Aion, Lineage 2, Blade & Soul).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: PartyKake on December 04, 2012, 11:54:05 PM
...
With apologies to Percy Bysshe Shelley, a comforting image to take away:

I met a traveller from a foreign land
Who said: A vast broken facade of stone
Stands in the desert. Near it, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered CEO lies, whose frown,
and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And below the corporate logo these words appear:
"My name is NCSoft, master of MMOs:
Look upon my ROI, ye competitors, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.


*applause*
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Electric-Knight on December 05, 2012, 12:11:49 AM
As to the subject of positivity toward NCsoft, should they sell...
It's a fact: contented people (and gamers) do not a successful army make.

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Opilion on December 05, 2012, 12:39:07 AM
Stocks continue to drop.  NCSoft might hit a new 52 week low today.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Codewalker on December 05, 2012, 12:47:15 AM
Whoa, it took a dive since the last time I checked today. Trading volume is WAY up today as well.

Methinks news of more downsizing the in the Western market - which has been loudly proclaimed to be an expansion avenue for NCSoft a few times - doesn't bode well.

Victoria's interview in a major Korean newspaper (in the Money section, no less!) might have given investors a thing or two to think about as well.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Arctic Force. on December 05, 2012, 12:48:56 AM
New 52 week low
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Dr Shadow on December 05, 2012, 12:49:29 AM
I do believe that's a free fall.
http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=036570.KS
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on December 05, 2012, 12:49:40 AM
I was gonna post this comment under the Article of Awesomeness thread, but I think it's more appropriate, here:

This makes a sudden influx of cash look more and more inviting! We need a full court press on TF Hail Mary and knock it out of the park.
.
.
.
Hat trick.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DrakeGrimm on December 05, 2012, 01:03:49 AM
If they sell? We stop. That's it, in a nut shell. War over, pack your gear, we're all goin' home.


So if they want us to stop, they need to sell. If they never sell, we never stop.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Opilion on December 05, 2012, 01:07:43 AM
An hour in, and down 8%.  Is it wrong to smile?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The Fifth Horseman on December 05, 2012, 01:12:04 AM
... 7.89% drop?  :o
Looks like somone (or several someones) offloaded around 75000 shares within half an hour of the stock market opening.

Red is my new favorite color.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Terwyn on December 05, 2012, 01:12:36 AM
I am not smiling, I will full admit to that.

I very much regret that the necessity of our actions will unfortunately harm those with whom we have no quarrel (namely the families of those staff at NCSoft who are now at risk), and I certainly wish that another path had been chosen.

I am not adverse to showing kindness to NCSoft, but that kindness will necessarily be unfathomable ruthless in its execution.

I had hoped this would not have been necessary.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on December 05, 2012, 01:15:02 AM
Someone's text under their dots says, "A leader must be as fair as a hurricane." That applies, here.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DrakeGrimm on December 05, 2012, 01:15:47 AM
I am not smiling, I will full admit to that.

I very much regret that the necessity of our actions will unfortunately harm those with whom we have no quarrel (namely the families of those staff at NCSoft who are now at risk), and I certainly wish that another path had been chosen.

I am not adverse to showing kindness to NCSoft, but that kindness will necessarily be unfathomable ruthless in its execution.

I had hoped this would not have been necessary.

A noble sentiment, and I'm certainly not looking down on you for it.

They declared war on us. They destroyed our City. Our Home. Our community, though fighting to stay together is fragmenting without a central nexus to call home. Our lives have been impacted in a tangible way by this.

When I think about all the people who found each other through this game, when I think of the friends and families I met because of this community, and when I think about all the others who will never have the chance to meet those same people...I feel no remorse.

They made their bed, now they can lay in it, collateral damage be damned.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Terwyn on December 05, 2012, 01:17:14 AM
Exactly.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DrakeGrimm on December 05, 2012, 01:28:22 AM
Quite a line of sociopathic thinking there....

This is war. Empathy isn't for soldiers. NCSoft is an enemy combatant, nothing more.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blitzwing on December 05, 2012, 01:30:09 AM
I do believe that's a free fall.
http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=036570.KS

Screw free fall, that's pulling a Thelma & Louise right off the nearest cliff!  O_o
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Vasarto on December 05, 2012, 01:31:22 AM
Hmm.  Folks, anyone got an address for Nexxon?  Their big money-maker is Maple Story.  I could make the case CoH functioned rather like Maple Story for many of the players (the RPers specifically) with the rich ability to social-network within the game itself.  We might be able to do a back-door on NCSoft via Nexxon.

Here is the American office  - Pretty sure its acurate - Source = http://www.basilmarket.com/forum/1628009/0/Nexon_Americas_HQ_adress_and_phone_number.html

Nexon America Inc.
Los Angeles CA 90005
213-389-3440

HQ is in Japan somewhere.

http://company.nexon.co.jp/

Might wanna try google translate but it dont help much but it helps a little.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on December 05, 2012, 01:32:34 AM
Screw free fall, that's pulling a Thelma & Louise right off the nearest cliff!  O_o

At least Thelma and Louise were having fun...  8)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on December 05, 2012, 01:32:54 AM
We're not looking for scorched earth, here. If this does mean layoffs, which it most likely does, the first ones to go are not going to be anyone on our shit list. It'll be people like GM_Lloyd or Hitstreak: good people just doing their jobs, not decision makers.

So far, everyone one with whom we've directly interacted with at NCSoft have been good people. It's the heartless barstewards at the top who we hate.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 05, 2012, 01:35:00 AM
Quite a line of sociopathic thinking there....

Vengeful, yes. Short-sighted? Yes. Sociopathic, not necessarily.

That said, I don't support a scorched-earth policy either. I want NCSoft to sell the IP and then go about their business, not to watch their employees get cast to the 4 economic winds like the Paragon crew were.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: houtex on December 05, 2012, 01:38:11 AM
I said it before, if anyone hasn't jumped ship, they deserve their plight.  NCSoft WILL cut off their hands and feet and then the arms and legs to save the head.  Anyone working there at the appropriate appendage level still... well...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn0WdJx-Wkw (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn0WdJx-Wkw)

Pretty much.  Time to be looking for something else to do, because that ship is sinking fast at 144k KRW.  It's not if.  It's when they lose their jobs now, so be proactive.

I know it sucks.  I'm not happy about the colateral damage being generated, but it's NOT OUR FAULT.  NCSoft corporate screwed themselves by being stupid, and this is simply BUSINESS.  And not even our business, the business of investing... they are now a bad investment, apparently, because they can't be trusted to run a company correctly.  Simple as that.  CoH is sort of icing on the cake of their bad management, what with the 5 MMOs shut down as well as the Garriott stupidness.

Bail, peons.  Bail as if your life depended on it, because it pretty much does.   That's my take, anyway.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DrakeGrimm on December 05, 2012, 01:39:10 AM
Vengeful, yes. Short-sighted? Yes. Sociopathic, not necessarily.

That said, I don't support a scorched-earth policy either. I want NCSoft to sell the IP and then go about their business, not to watch their employees get cast to the 4 economic winds like the Paragon crew were.

That's my ideal outcome, honestly. But until they do sell they are still my enemy, and I refuse to show them any mercy what-so-ever. After all, they showed us none.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: pewlagon on December 05, 2012, 01:39:27 AM
Rerardless of anything, NcSoft needs a good PR spin. The best thing that comes to mind is embracing the CoH's communty's want to have the game back online. It would be a reversal of the negative backlash already affecting them. If they continue to march forward, as they are, then it will be a continued example of the bad practices that have brought them to this low.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Fulcrum on December 05, 2012, 01:41:59 AM
Quite a line of sociopathic thinking there....

Sociopaths have a use.  They can go in do a job that needs to be done that no one else is willing to do.

And they don't care.  8)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 05, 2012, 01:44:50 AM
Its the people making the decisions at NCSoft that I have issues with, not the majority of their employees.

Of course so long as companies like Wal-Mart, Monsanto, and pretty much every big-oil business exist, places like NCSoft don't quite inspire the same level of ire in me.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on December 05, 2012, 01:46:35 AM
I'm not advocating mercy, just moderation and strategy.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Triplash on December 05, 2012, 01:55:55 AM
That's my ideal outcome, honestly. But until they do sell they are still my enemy, and I refuse to show them any mercy what-so-ever. After all, they showed us none.

I could live with them showing us no mercy if they'd showed any to Paragon Studios.

How many employees work at the Seattle office? More or less than the 80 that they threw away three months ago?


We need a full court press on TF Hail Mary and knock it out of the park.
.
.
.
Hat trick.

Or to put it another way, we've got 'em against the ropes now, and if we can just line up a hole in one we can launch a piledriver right in their sticky wickets.
.
.
.
Something from curling.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Sajaana on December 05, 2012, 02:18:03 AM
They are rallying from the big, 10% drop early in trading.  They are a little under 8% loss from where they started today.

We need to go get the article to the WSJ or Wired or something.  The recent bad PR here and with the Seattle "restructuring" might be shaking confidence.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Aggelakis on December 05, 2012, 02:29:47 AM
It tanked all the way down to 141kW, but it popped back up a bit to 146kW. Still a -12kW drop from yesterday even after the uptick.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on December 05, 2012, 02:35:27 AM
I do believe that's a free fall.
http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=036570.KS
And they have nobody to blame but themselves.

Quite a line of sociopathic thinking there...
Sociopathic?  Sociopathic was killing a vital community.  Sociopathic was gutting a development studio that was operating in the black.  Sociopathic was giving aforementioned community bullshit non-answers when asked why.  Sociopathic was laying off even more western employees in the face of a scathing-yet-entirely-deserved onslaught of negative press, all because they can't grow a pair of cojones and admit that they screwed up and go back and make things right!

I have no more sympathy for NCsoft as a company.  The individual base-level employees?  I feel real sorry for them, especially the ones in danger of being laid off.  I really hope they find new jobs as their company folds up.  But for NCsoft's leadership?  Haha, nope.  No sympathy for them at all - they're the ones the suffering little guys should blame.

After all, they're the ones that brought this whole mess down on NCsoft's head.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DrakeGrimm on December 05, 2012, 02:36:11 AM
Which is still pretty much a free fall. Any US company that took a dip of $11 in stock over the course of a day would collectively soil themselves and start looking at who to fire for this debacle. Oh. Wait.

/me eyes NCSoft's Seattle office with a sad, knowing gaze.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: PartyKake on December 05, 2012, 02:42:54 AM
And I guess that you don't give 2 hoots about how Beastyle was doing? Guess you weren't worried about putting him out of a job.

Yeah, as i said, nice line of sociopathic thinking....

And i thought we were *better* than this. But honestly not giving 2 hoots about the fact that you could well be directly responsible for making people unemployed doesn't even bother you? Guess that means that you are truly a sociopath.

Did you weep for the independent contractors who were still working at their posts on the second Death Star?

Didn't think so.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on December 05, 2012, 02:47:20 AM
And I guess that you don't give 2 hoots about how Beastyle was doing? Guess you weren't worried about putting him out of a job.

Yeah, as i said, nice line of sociopathic thinking....
We weren't the one who put Beastyle out of a job.  NCsoft did.  They could've done numerous things prior to now to avoid having to lay off anyone, let alone Beastyle.  But they didn't, and what's worse, they didn't even give us a genuine, believable reason as to why.

Don't blame us for NCsoft's dumb decisions, please.  I respect you too much to believe you'd stoop that low.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on December 05, 2012, 02:49:51 AM
Beastyle isn't out of a job. Yet.

And, considering the OSHA compliance on the Death Star, getting blown up was the least of their problems. Seriously, have the people in that galaxy even heard of a railing?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Fulcrum on December 05, 2012, 02:52:12 AM
Beastyle isn't out of a job. Yet.

And, considering the OSHA compliance on the Death Star, getting blown up was the least of their problems. Seriously, have the people in that galaxy even heard of a railing?


People in that universe know better than to walk too close to a 30km drop. ;)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on December 05, 2012, 02:57:45 AM
Or the edge of space, or the tube the planet destroying death-laser shoots out of...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Fulcrum on December 05, 2012, 03:00:18 AM
Their latte's also don't carry the warning 'This beverage is hot, don't be an idiot and spill it in your lap'.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: PartyKake on December 05, 2012, 03:03:03 AM
That just gave me the hilarious image of Darth Vader sans mask, advertising the dangers of hot beverages not in their proper containers.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: eabrace on December 05, 2012, 03:11:21 AM
People in that universe know better than to walk too close to a 30km drop. ;)
Fortunately the Gungans don't come over to visit very often.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on December 05, 2012, 03:13:36 AM
Fortunately the Gungans don't come over to visit very often.

Maybe Gungans are exactly the reason why there's no railings. For the lulz.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Fulcrum on December 05, 2012, 03:16:04 AM
Fortunately the Gungans don't come over to visit very often.

I suspect that's the exact reason there ARE no Gungans in the future.  ;D

*Edit:  of that universe.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on December 05, 2012, 03:26:32 AM
<ahem>

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0c/Opening_crawl.jpg

Not the future.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Opilion on December 05, 2012, 03:34:04 AM
I read Fulcrum's post as referring to Star Wars' future;  that is, episodes 4-6.

Halfway through the trading day and NCsoft is down 7% whilst KOSPI is up .6%.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Fulcrum on December 05, 2012, 03:40:21 AM
I read Fulcrum's post as referring to Star Wars' future;  that is, episodes 4-6.


You.. win an internet!   ;D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Opilion on December 05, 2012, 03:42:03 AM
Yay!  My first internet!  I'll cherish it always.  ;D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lily Barclay on December 05, 2012, 04:37:14 AM
The star wars derail in this thread gave me my biggest lol of the day.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on December 05, 2012, 04:55:35 AM
Just looked over today's stocks.

Is that the Korean article doing that? 'Cause that right there is what we 'round here call a faceplant! Yippie ki-yay, m___ ___s!

Since the Unity rally, their stock has been cut in half.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lily Barclay on December 05, 2012, 04:58:13 AM
Just looked over today's stocks.

Is that the Korean article doing that? 'Cause that right there is what we 'round here call a faceplant! Yippie ki-yay, m___ ___s!

I imagine it helped, but the "realignment" of NCSoft West was also a huge factor.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 05, 2012, 05:05:55 AM
I personally do not want anyone to lose their jobs.  Except Kim and his wife.

I hope ArenaNet can buy their firm back and have everyone keep his or her job.

I want someone to buy City that will treat it and the studio properly.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Fulcrum on December 05, 2012, 05:07:32 AM
I personally do not want anyone to lose their jobs.  Except Kim and his wife.

I hope ArenaNet can buy their firm back and have everyone keep his or her job.

I want someone to buy City that will treat it and the studio properly.

*looks up from where he was welding supports to a lawn-chair with multiple rings for the myriad balloons*

Does this mean we'll have to delay your flight, VV? ;)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: mikoroshi on December 05, 2012, 05:09:47 AM
*looks up from where he was welding supports to a lawn-chair with multiple rings for the myriad balloons*

Does this mean we'll have to delay your flight, VV? ;)

All I can picture is that series of strips in Bloom County where they tried to send Cutter John into space and Opus got stuck on the wheelchair:
(https://lh3.ggpht.com/-krTwcOOl7CM/T4eQBZLbo7I/AAAAAAAABAw/wDG3cRFdjLw/s1600/bloom+county_balloon+ride.gif)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 05, 2012, 05:12:03 AM
This is not going to make for happy stockholders, who will be looking for ANY way to make money and will ruthlessly shitcan anyone that gets in the way.

Garriott might be able to buy back Tabula Rasa, the Auto Assault guys might get THEIR game back
Who knows, the whole vault might get emptied.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Fulcrum on December 05, 2012, 05:13:39 AM
Wow, that would be a great turnabout...    Even better if we were the direct result of it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on December 05, 2012, 05:14:12 AM
You know... the lawnchair balloon notion just gave me an insane campaign idea.

How about we do the weather balloon thing, and launch Statesman to the edge of space with a "SaveCoH" ribbon, or a message for Disney attached to him?

Those amateur space videos get TONS of youtube hits.

Dunno, maybe I really AM drunk, but that seems like it'd be a blast even just to try.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Opilion on December 05, 2012, 05:25:26 AM
I'm tired, so I may be wrong, but a 12,000 won drop (so far) at 21.9 million shares seems to work out to about a $232 million loss today.  That had to have raised some eyebrows.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Triplash on December 05, 2012, 06:18:21 AM
A few hours later with a more level head, and I'm realizing how right you guys are about not wanting other employees to lose their jobs. "Two wrongs don't make a right" and all that. My apologies to the people whose livelihoods are at risk with this company.

Oh and if it did end up making them clear out the whole closet, and maybe Dungeon Runners could get up and running again somehow, well that would be a pretty good thing too. It's been a while since I've worn my Corrugated Cardboard Epaulets of the Prostrated Rhinoceros into battle. They've probably gotten rusty. Or... soggy. :o
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The Fifth Horseman on December 05, 2012, 09:12:00 AM
Blueside:
You want us to play your newer games, NCSoft?
Well, you can forget it. We're done, tired of the shitty way you treat your customers. You want our business? You can't have it.
But we did you a big favor - we brought you plenty of media attention!  ;D

Redside:
Like all guilty men, you try to rewrite your history, to forget all the worlds and beings the NCSoft Corporation has destroyed.
If we could show the corporation's true face, customers will cease to believe in it. There will be blood in the water, and the sharks will come. All we have to do is sit back and watch as your own shareholders consume you.   8)

... yes, Iron Man 2 is awesome. But that's besides the point.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on December 05, 2012, 10:12:54 AM
Excuse me while I indulge in my oft neglected redside....

"COME!!! LAUGH WITH ME!!! MUA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!"

"We'll show them! We'll show them ALL! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!"

(Can you tell my favorite redside arc was Vernon Von Grun? ^_^)

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: johnrobey on December 05, 2012, 10:22:31 AM
Excuse me while I indulge in my oft neglected redside....

"COME!!! LAUGH WITH ME!!! MUA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!"

"We'll show them! We'll show them ALL! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!"

(Can you tell my favorite redside arc was Vernon Von Grun? ^_^)

Ok, I'll laugh with you:   :D BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

I wonder whether NCSoft is still as confident as they once claimed that they'd not regret their decision to close City of Heroes.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ammon on December 05, 2012, 01:03:17 PM
I almost feel sorry for Nexon.  Its like they paid for their 15% stake in NCsoft twice.  First by buying them for almost $700 million, and then by seeing their value decrease by a truly humongous amount since that time in June...  There's more than a little irony in the fact that at first, eyebrows were raised that they were bought at under the market value, but no you can see that they massively overpaid what those shares are worth today. :D

The CEO of NCsoft is almost certainly not the only CEO under increasing scrutiny and question over this whole debacle.  It would be very hard for the CEO of Nexon to now justify his decision which partly caused this whole mess, which currently can only look a lot like throwing away a not inconsiderable amount of Nexon's money.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Triplash on December 05, 2012, 01:31:17 PM
I almost feel sorry for Nexon.  Its like they paid for their 15% stake in NCsoft twice.  First by buying them for almost $700 million, and then by seeing their value decrease by a truly humongous amount since that time in June...  There's more than a little irony in the fact that at first, eyebrows were raised that they were bought at under the market value, but no you can see that they massively overpaid what those shares are worth today. :D

Looks like doing business with NCSoft lately ends up costing people a lot more than they thought it would.  >.>
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lily Barclay on December 05, 2012, 03:23:12 PM
Excuse me while I indulge in my oft neglected redside....

"COME!!! LAUGH WITH ME!!! MUA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!"

"We'll show them! We'll show them ALL! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!"

(Can you tell my favorite redside arc was Vernon Von Grun? ^_^)
*hands you a celebratory vial of bees*
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blitzwing on December 05, 2012, 03:28:48 PM
That gives me an idea....

Hey, Tony, how about making a sticky link to their stock-watch(and locking it), so we can watch the ongoing faceplant?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lily Barclay on December 05, 2012, 03:38:58 PM
That gives me an idea....

Hey, Tony, how about making a sticky link to their stock-watch(and locking it), so we can watch the ongoing faceplant?

Our instead of inflating the amount of stickies, you could just favorite it in your browser like I did. 8)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Copper Cockroach on December 05, 2012, 03:41:50 PM
How about we do the weather balloon thing, and launch Statesman to the edge of space with a "SaveCoH" ribbon, or a message for Disney attached to him?

Get off Emmert's back, all that nerfing was, like, a million years ago! Sheesh, let it go alrea... oh wait, you mean a mannequin dressed up as the character Statesman? Never mind!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Fulcrum on December 05, 2012, 03:43:51 PM
Get off Emmert's back, all that nerfing was, like, a million years ago! Sheesh, let it go alrea... oh wait, you mean a mannequin dressed up as the character Statesman? Never mind!


...  Wait, can't we just do both? ;)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Yoru-hime on December 05, 2012, 03:52:38 PM
Mannequin?  ???

...

Oh! MANNEQUIN!  Of COURSE that's what we were doing. Haha haha... :D

On an utterly unrelated and completely not illegal note, does anyone know if you can get refunds on tranquilizer darts?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Frostyfrozen on December 05, 2012, 03:54:43 PM
So does anyone know or Looked in to Toon Town Player numbers its a year older then CoH & Disney still has that going. And I do remember seeing some Saturday morning commericals for it a year ago.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on December 05, 2012, 04:25:14 PM
Actually, kids are sending Lego people to the edge of space with a camera for around $300 US. If we could get a Captain America action figure mocked up like States, it's eminently doable.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Nafaustu on December 05, 2012, 04:27:04 PM
*post removed due to Titan Network refusing to delete posts at users request, and not deleting user account*

Did cmgangrel pick up his internets and go home?  :(   We need that guy, he keeps us grounded.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on December 05, 2012, 04:28:25 PM
Yeah, I'm baffled by all the post-removals with that same message. I hadn't seen any drama that I know of, but I do know that it's possible to have tons of it without most people ever noticing.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Opilion on December 05, 2012, 04:32:19 PM
Something went down with cmgangrel in this thread:

http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,6967.0.html (http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,6967.0.html)

Beyond that, I couldn't say.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Minotaur on December 05, 2012, 04:36:34 PM
Yeah, I'm baffled by all the post-removals with that same message. I hadn't seen any drama that I know of, but I do know that it's possible to have tons of it without most people ever noticing.

Yes there was drama, and I haven't got to the bottom of what it was, and as Nafaustu said, Gangrel is a very useful person to have aboard. I met him at the EU player meet (which he co-organised with his GF) and he is well connected, well informed and his views are usually pretty accurate.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on December 05, 2012, 04:42:40 PM
*hands you a celebratory vial of bees*

Can I toss them at Taek Jin Kim? I'd love to see his impression of Nick Cage. :D

"NO NO! NOT THE BEES!! AHHHHHH!!!"



Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: ohms on December 05, 2012, 04:48:02 PM
Did cmgangrel pick up his internets and go home?  :(   We need that guy, he keeps us grounded.

Yup, threw his toys out of the pram.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on December 05, 2012, 06:51:42 PM
Something went down with cmgangrel in this thread:

http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,6967.0.html (http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,6967.0.html)

Beyond that, I couldn't say.

Another departure without a resignation/grievance post?

*sigh*

How can the problem be corrected, if it isn't pointed out?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on December 05, 2012, 06:53:31 PM
"Yes, there was drama."

I know nothing about this. I've crossed paths with the arbiters here for... call 'em comments made in the heat of the moment. I've found them fair and reasonable. They do a necessary job and deserve our support. Let's hope the Gangrel will cool off and come back soon.

"Can you tell my favorite redside arc was Vernon Von Grun?"

When CoH comes back up, join me in AE, and I'll show you what Von Grun's been up to since. Egad, how I love mad science!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Perfidus on December 05, 2012, 06:55:21 PM
The way I see it, whatever happened with Gangrel, in the end, isn't even our business anymore. It's between the moderators and him, what with all the posts being gone. We can't bring this up in every thread.

In other news, looks like NC's stock isn't recovering from that nosedive last night. I wish we could have a hidden camera in their offices to see what's being discussed right now.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on December 05, 2012, 06:58:17 PM
In other news, looks like NC's stock isn't recovering from that nosedive last night. I wish we could have a hidden camera in their offices to see what's being discussed right now.
I would settle for a hidden speaker in Taek Jim Kim's office, some voice modulation software, and a Korean translator.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Fulcrum on December 05, 2012, 07:01:29 PM
I would settle for a hidden speaker in Taek Jim Kim's office, some voice modulation software, and a Korean translator.

I would settle for a hidden dead fish in Taek Jim Kim's office.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Nafaustu on December 05, 2012, 07:04:46 PM
I realize this may be slightly counter to what we're trying to accomplish, but we are dealing with American jobs here.

Me?   I'm a nobody, i've got no connections in the industry.  My marketing degree is rusty and I haven't had to write a resume in at least two years.

That being said, is there anything we can do to help all these people who are getting re-aligned out of their jobs?   I can't think of anything directly, but all of us are much more clever and capable and clever then just me.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: johnrobey on December 05, 2012, 07:07:36 PM
I would settle for a hidden dead fish in Taek Jim Kim's office.

ROFL!!!!!! ;D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Perfidus on December 05, 2012, 07:09:11 PM
Consider this, Nafaustu. Last I heard, about 60/80 of Paragon Studios were reemployed. If these people that same level of talent and resolve, I think they'll be just fine. I hope it's the case, the idea of anyone being unemployed in the holiday season, especially if they have a family, just breaks my heart.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Minotaur on December 05, 2012, 07:13:14 PM
Consider this, Nafaustu. Last I heard, about 60/80 of Paragon Studios were reemployed. If these people that same level of talent and resolve, I think they'll be just fine. I hope it's the case, the idea of anyone being unemployed in the holiday season, especially if they have a family, just breaks my heart.

I don't think it was the Paragon people he meant, the redundancies at NCSoft were something more recent and different, Seattle ?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Perfidus on December 05, 2012, 07:14:13 PM
No, yeah. He was talking about the Seattle guys, not Paragon. What I was doing was using Paragon as a reference for how quick some of these ladies and gentlemen can find work again. Sorry for that mix up.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Nafaustu on December 05, 2012, 07:32:00 PM
No, yeah. He was talking about the Seattle guys, not Paragon. What I was doing was using Paragon as a reference for how quick some of these ladies and gentlemen can find work again. Sorry for that mix up.

I got you.   I just feel so...helpless.   And I hate advancement through the misfortune of others.   So as pleased as I am the stock is reflecting poor corporate decision-making, I feel bad for all the little people that are also getting hurt by it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Perfidus on December 05, 2012, 07:37:00 PM
I admit, I feel torn as well. When I first heard the news, I snickered and actually said "Good" aloud, because of what it represents. It didn't take long for me to realize that this is just NCSoft doing what they do best. Scapegoating foreigners to make up for their own losses and misfortune. And that these are people, hard working people no doubt, now suddenly jobless in the end of the year.

I really do wish NCSoft would just pack their things and get out of the western market all together. (But not before selling their IPs, hopefully.)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on December 05, 2012, 08:04:30 PM
I appreciate your generous spirit, Perfidus. It speaks very well of you. You too, Nafaustu.

NCSoft could have avoided all this by simply saying, "look, we're moving out of the West. Business stuff. We're putting the City up for sale. Y'all have been great and we hope someone else picks the game up." There would have been no hard feelings at all. But nooooo! No, they gotta try an' destroy it.

So as for the rank and file... sleep with dogs, you will get fleas. The good folks at Paragon have already found that out to their discomfort.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on December 05, 2012, 08:05:45 PM
I'm going to paraphrase something I said earlier.

It's NCsoft's fault that their employees are losing jobs, not us.  It was their poor decisions that led to their stock falling.  It was their poor decisions that led to CoH's closing.  It was their poor decisions that led to Paragon Studios being gutted.  Maybe we've hastened things along some, maybe we enjoy the schadenfreude of watching NCsoft suffer.  But we are not to blame for the consequences of their actions.

Had we simply BOHICA* when the closure was announced, Paragon Studios would've still been closed.  NCsoft would still be pulling out of the United States.  It would just be slower and more protracted, with all the underhanded BS involved quietly swept under a rug instead of being pointed out loudly by us.  Workers would still be laid off left and right - NCsoft just would be dealing with a lot less negative press about it.

I'll say it again: actual events would not change.  The only thing we've done so far is point out what is happening.  All of the harm that has been done is NCsoft's doing, and theirs alone - we've just made sure that NC can't count on people ignoring the problem.

It's okay to feel sympathy for laid-off NCsoft employees, especially refugees of Paragon Studios.  I wouldn't want to see anyone lose their job.  But the fact of the matter is, jobs are going to be lost as NCsoft flounders, and they're going to cut American jobs first because those jobs are the least valuable to NCsoft, from the standpoint of NC's leadership.  Until NC's leadership changes their attitude towards Americans, American-made MMOs, and American-run development houses, that's not going to change, and there's nothing really we can do except pressure them to change.

Or pressure them into the ground, whichever comes first.  Given their obstinacy, and their tanking stock price, the latter seems more realistic.

My advice to any non-Korean NCsoft employee - your job security is in very real peril.  If you haven't been laid off yet, it's a matter of months at most.  Start jobhunting now, and bail the minute you get something halfway decent, or as soon as you legally can if you're under contract.  We don't want to see you suffer due to the stupidity of NCsoft.

*Bend Over, Here It Comes Again
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Perfidus on December 05, 2012, 08:10:11 PM
Thank you, Colette.

I don't disagree with you, Kaiser. It's acceptable to hate NCSoft and feel glad about their misfortune, but still feel empathy for those whose lives are being negatively affected in the process. That's where I'm at right now, and I agree with the poster (maybe you?) who said those remaining in western NCSoft offices ought to look hard at themselves and what's going on around them. They need an exit strategy.

I'll never understand why Synapse would sign up again to stay with an NCSoft subsidiary. But then, I don't have a family. I have no one to care for but me. I understand he has bills to pay, a family to feed, and a life to live. But I can't be expected to know what it's like.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on December 05, 2012, 08:19:50 PM
"...actual events would not change.  The only thing we've done so far is point out what is happening...."

Little disingenuous, Kaiser, forgive me.

Look over the memes section. We're actively engaging in a campaign to make NCSoft look bad. I personally made an image comparing NC's management to vampires, not to mention that "NCSoftcore" line. We're cheering their stock plummet. Granted, we were provoked, but we need to own up to that, and accept the moral responsibility for it.

For one thing, accepting moral responsibility and reflecting on our actions is a large share of what separates us from them, and keeps us "blueside." I applaud Perfidus' reflection, while urging us all to accept the costs and continue.

(Aside: I just realized one of the things I love most about the superhero genre: staying "blueside" is part of one's identity and character, and there are clear and unmuddied limits. You're obligated to choose your side every single day. What a healthy and useful ethical lesson to teach people!)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Enson Red Shirt on December 05, 2012, 08:39:36 PM
don't just watch the stock trade it :) when it nose dives buy a bunch when it start to recover sell to the bid that panicks people and they sell too also if you own many shares and dump alot fast you trigger automated HFT systems and can cause a stock havock i have been trading theis stock since the closure anouncement and i just sold 18,000,000 shares in another company to free up more capital you folks keep up the good no make that great work in telling the world about ncsofts wrong unethical doings and i'll keep ruining their stock individuals and non koreans make up about 70%
of their shareholder base i may be a Red shirt here but i am Doctor Evil everywhere else www.evilincorporated.us
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: chasearcanum on December 05, 2012, 08:44:23 PM
Making NCSoft look bad when they make boneheaded decisions isn't necessarily "bad."

1) Raising a mirror to the ugly isn't wrong. 
2) It serves as a lesson for others.  If the public spectacle of a floundering NCSoft public opinion gives other companies pause and causes them to more carefully weigh their options, then we may prevent this spectacle in the future.
3) Many of us had made clear that we would laud their merits should they come to a community-minded resolution.  With a little maneuvering and some support from us, they can easily ride the wave of celebration if the game were rescued.

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on December 05, 2012, 08:50:06 PM
Little disingenuous, Kaiser, forgive me.

Look over the memes section. We're actively engaging in a campaign to make NCSoft look bad. I personally made an image comparing NC's management to vampires, not to mention that "NCSoftcore" line. We're cheering their stock plummet. Granted, we were provoked, but we need to own up to that, and accept the moral responsibility for it.

For one thing, accepting moral responsibility and moral reflection is a large share of what separates us from them. I applaud Perfidus' reflection, while urging us all to accept the costs and continue.
I can understand the point you're trying to make.  Yes, we are deliberately engaged in the creation of anti-NCsoft memes and cheering as NCsoft tanks.  I mentioned the latter outright.

But I gotta ask - would any of those memes or images even exist, had NCsoft not given them reason to? Meme images get generated for virtually everything - what we're doing is no more evil than, say, a political cartoon in your morning newspaper.  Furthermore, how much damage have they actually done?  Has our negative press campaign been directly attributable to the loss of someone's job yet?

This is why I say actual events would not change.  Eliminate the folks (including myself) watching NCsoft's stock like a vulture.  Eliminate the meme campaign.  Eliminate all the negative press thus far that we've produced.  There still exists a ton of really stupid business decisions that NCsoft has made, and that other outlets have reported on, that would lead to their stock price tanking.  NCsoft's apparent goal is to pull back from western markets - everyone who has been fired would probably still have been fired.

I will admit, there is hate here for NCsoft - but when asked, most people will agree that the hate doesn't extend to NCsoft's ground level employees.  Only its leadership (or more correctly, their high-ranking employees demonstrating a startling lack thereof).  Yes, NCsoft tanking as a company will harm the people employed by that company, but that's something we can't help.  Maybe we should launch a campaign offering to help laid-off NC employees find new jobs in their area?

I say that if NCsoft doesn't want bad press, they should stop giving people reasons to make bad press.  Common wisdom says that you don't kick a hornet's nest unless you're comfortable with the idea of being swarmed afterward.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: SARobb on December 05, 2012, 09:00:22 PM
Common wisdom says that you don't kick a hornet's nest unless you're comfortable with the idea of being swarmed afterward.

Or if you have a 1988 Chevrolet Luv truck to dive into the second one of those little buggers shows it's face... just sayin'  ;D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: chasearcanum on December 05, 2012, 09:21:02 PM
Ok, I'm not really a stock-person, so maybe some people can enlighten me:

Some people here have pointed to the big stack of money NCSoft is sitting on to suggest that their market capitalization decline doesn't matter much.  To me, that would indicate a even bigger problem.

Gross simplification here, but it seems like Market capitalization is the perceived 'worth' of a company.  That includes the value of all currently held assets plus the value of potential future earnings.  If you're sitting on a pile of assets and you're declining in value, then people are losing confidence in your ability to bring in future earnings.

To me, the "hitting rock bottom" isn't a stock value hitting "0" in this case, but somewhere around  ~53,000w.  Around that point, the market valuation would be close to parity with the assets I've heard it said that they're sitting on.  If it dipped below that, it'd be more profitable to cut up the company and sell off its assets.  You know its worth at least that much, after all.

So, if you went from a 52-week high of 328,500 and now sit at 141,000, then you've lost close to 2/3 of the value that's attributed to future potential...

Am I missing something here?

(rough numbers on the back of a napkin and never invested anything here, so please help if I'm missing something here..


Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: mikoroshi on December 05, 2012, 09:43:08 PM
I believe someone pointed out that the numbers you're seeing don't mean much until you multiply them by the number of stocks that exist in NCSoft.  Overall, since around the time they announced the shuttering of Paragon and CoH, investors lost a total of ~$232,000,000  (I am terrible at math, someone please correct me).

If this happened to an American company, people would be buying new underwear.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: chasearcanum on December 05, 2012, 09:54:32 PM
I believe someone pointed out that the numbers you're seeing don't mean much until you multiply them by the number of stocks that exist in NCSoft.  Overall, since around the time they announced the shuttering of Paragon and CoH, investors lost a total of ~$232,000,000  (I am terrible at math, someone please correct me).

If this happened to an American company, people would be buying new underwear.

I know- tried to account for that.

my estimate of 53,000 won for the "bottom" share value  was taken by taking the won value of the assets they're sitting on that people were reporting and dividing by the total number of available shares out there.   Essentially a "if we shut down, cashed out everything and just paid the shareholders, what would each share be worth?"

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on December 05, 2012, 09:59:28 PM
While I can understand the Machiavellian appeal of buying up NCSoftcore stock at a low point, I cannot in good conscience contribute to this. Whatever the motivation, whatever the intended outcome, we would be investing in NCSoftcore, however temporarily. In fact, my future purchase of anything with their name attached to it is fully dependent on, not their sale of the CoH IP and related pieces, but how they handle it. I can't really even tell you specifically what I would have to see from them that would assuage the bad feelings they have created in their handling of the situation, so far.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on December 05, 2012, 10:03:56 PM
While I can understand the Machiavellian appeal of buying up NCSoftcore stock at a low point, I cannot in good conscience contribute to this. Whatever the motivation, whatever the intended outcome, we would be investing in NCSoftcore, however temporarily. In fact, my future purchase of anything with their name attached to it is fully dependent on, not their sale of the CoH IP and related pieces, but how they handle it. I can't really even tell you specifically what I would have to see from them that would assuage the bad feelings they have created in their handling of the situation, so far.

agreed with this

the amount needed to buy up a large enough amount of stock in ncsoft to force them to sell the IP would be too much for crowdsourcing

what we need is for them to actually sell the IP and then we can crowdsource to help buy it out of ncsofts hands then we will wash our hands of ncsoft for good
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Codewalker on December 05, 2012, 10:21:23 PM
While I can understand the Machiavellian appeal of buying up NCSoftcore stock at a low point, I cannot in good conscience contribute to this. Whatever the motivation, whatever the intended outcome, we would be investing in NCSoftcore, however temporarily. In fact, my future purchase of anything with their name attached to it is fully dependent on, not their sale of the CoH IP and related pieces, but how they handle it. I can't really even tell you specifically what I would have to see from them that would assuage the bad feelings they have created in their handling of the situation, so far.

Which assets are you looking at, just fixed, or are you counting cash equivalents and the like?

The reason I ask is that their last yearly report indicated that a substantial chunk of their short term assets was their own stock. I know they've sold some it it since then in order to fund some acquisitions, so it's less than it was, but still might account for part if it -- the value of which would now be lower of course.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on December 05, 2012, 10:31:54 PM
Which assets are you looking at, just fixed, or are you counting cash equivalents and the like?

The reason I ask is that their last yearly report indicated that a substantial chunk of their short term assets was their own stock. I know they've sold some it it since then in order to fund some acquisitions, so it's less than it was, but still might account for part if it -- the value of which would now be lower of course.

I'm not sure what you mean, here, but my knowledge of any of that stuff is pretty limited. I was just addressing the idea (that seems to pop up on about ever other page of this thread) that we, either as a crowdfund or as individuals, buy up a bunch of their stock.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on December 05, 2012, 10:42:38 PM
I believe someone pointed out that the numbers you're seeing don't mean much until you multiply them by the number of stocks that exist in NCSoft.  Overall, since around the time they announced the shuttering of Paragon and CoH, investors lost a total of ~$232,000,000  (I am terrible at math, someone please correct me).

I see NCsoftcore stock cratered again today, down more than 7% due to an all out free-fall in morning trading. So just this morning alone NCsoftcore investors lost an aggregate $220M. And the market cap of the company has now dropped under $3B. Let's just do this quickly with estimates (I'm not looking up the exact ecxhange rates, stock prices and market shares, but just going off easily acquired summary data)...

Mkt Cap on Sept 1 ~= 21.9 million shares outstanding * 0.28M Won/share * $881/million Won = $5.4B
Mkt Cap on Dec 5 ~= 21.9 million shares outstanding * 0.147M Won/share * $924/million Won = $3.0B

So, the investors have been losing an average of about $25M/day since Sept 1. Good thing for Mr. Kim that he sold most of his stake to Nexon for $685M. I wonder how much of that was in Nexon stock though. They haven't been doing well either; having dropped about 45% since early August (most of that drop was in mid Aug).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on December 06, 2012, 12:14:53 AM
"...would any of those memes or images even exist, had NCsoft not given them reason to?"

Just so, Kaiser. I believe we are taking the right actions, but let us also follow the good example of Nafaustu and Perfidus, and be mindful of the consequences of those actions.

Is that "red shirt" guy who doesn't believe in periods for real? I'm kinda smellin' horned horse.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Opilion on December 06, 2012, 12:35:13 AM
A bit of a rally thus far.  I suspect shares will climb back up to around the 151,000 won mark today (+/- 1000).......  still below their previous 52 week low.

NOTE:  I am not an analyst.  Don't go out and buy shares based on my prediction.  :P

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DrakeGrimm on December 06, 2012, 01:55:28 AM
The nose diving has begun! As of this posting, down -2500 won and still free falling.

That loud whistling "ERRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWW" sound you hear is their stock prices--and investor faith--plummeting to terra firma.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JWBullfrog on December 06, 2012, 01:56:20 AM
I am reminded of a certain famous coyote...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Vasarto on December 06, 2012, 04:14:09 AM
seems like it fell below another $100,000 from yesterday. I am not sure if I read the review right but could this daily decline be a indication of what is happening to them through coincidence or through all of us?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Perfidus on December 06, 2012, 04:17:07 AM
I don't want to say we're solely responsible but I bet we're at least partly so.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: General Idiot on December 06, 2012, 06:13:29 AM
One more straw on the back of that camel, at least. I highly doubt we're the one that broke it, but we're still there.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on December 06, 2012, 07:07:38 AM
I am reminded of a certain famous coyote...
Coincidentally, I am too (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq_bjaI0NTo).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: emu265 on December 06, 2012, 07:15:13 AM
I don't want to say we're solely responsible but I bet we're at least partly so.
It'd be egotistical to assume full responsibility.  But it'd be ignorant to assume we've got nothing to do with it ;)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Perfidus on December 06, 2012, 07:23:00 AM
Hence my tempered response! I like to think I'm a balanced individual. I hope.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: emu265 on December 06, 2012, 07:29:54 AM
Hence my tempered response! I like to think I'm a balanced individual. I hope.
Of course. I just had to say something because I'm procrastinating.  And apparently stalking you today.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Perfidus on December 06, 2012, 07:32:14 AM
There are worse fates than being stalked by an emu. I'm flattered, even though I know it's happenstance. <3
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 06, 2012, 07:46:32 AM
I know- tried to account for that.

my estimate of 53,000 won for the "bottom" share value  was taken by taking the won value of the assets they're sitting on that people were reporting and dividing by the total number of available shares out there.   Essentially a "if we shut down, cashed out everything and just paid the shareholders, what would each share be worth?"
That's traditionally called Book Value.  However if you a believer in PEG ratios, the Price/Earnings/Earnings Growth, a "fair" price would be around 88,000 give or take.

Let's face it, the run up to 375,000 was very unwarranted.  The fundamentals simply didn't reflect the numbers required for that value.  I considered the slide that started in early October of 2011 as sanity/sobering up/getting clean/what stays in Vegas momment of investors that hopped on the NCSoft stairway to heaven now realizing that a P/E ration of 70 isn't a good thing when the company's trailing twelve months of earnings are now going down.  That plus the perceived delay in both GW2 and B&S that were suppose to be another Aion miracle in sales simply screamed SELL.  Then when the actual 3Q 2012 numbers were released about a month ago and showed that there wasn't another Aion sales growth miracle, the selling started all over again but this time the volume of shares traded was HUGE, over 10 times normal.

So now the stock is off over 60% from it's high and 33% since the 3Q numbers were released.  And I do believe that the article in The Korea Times kicked the stock back into a decline.  However, it's still hasn't broken it's 3 year low.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 06, 2012, 07:54:11 AM
And while I'm here, Market Cap loss is meaningless unless you bought at the peak and are still sitting on the stock for the past 14 months hoping that the decline was irrational, rather than the run up from 55,000 to 375,000 in 34 months.

Reminds me of the home sales boom and bust cycle, both this last one and the one in the mid to late 1980s.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on December 06, 2012, 07:59:12 AM
it looks like the stocks still on the decline although much slower than yesterday immediately post article release

still, if you saw the companys stock you invested in drop nearly 10% in 2 days, something would definitely be wrong

if the stock continues on this trend of decline then ncsoft will eventually be very limited in what options it could do to potentially reclaim some of its investors trust
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 06, 2012, 08:17:50 AM
But at some point the analysts will say it reached a fair value based on it's fundamentals, it's sector and compared to it's direct competitors.  Remember for every seller there's a buyer and if there isn't there isn't a sale and the price doesn't move.

There are two types of "people" who play the market, investors who buy for the long term or traders who try to make money based on short term swings in price.  Heck Apple is down 7.5% over the last week, 23% from it's peak like ten or so weeks ago.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: johnrobey on December 06, 2012, 12:36:12 PM
I may get flamed for this, but I don't particularly wish NCSoft ill or hope they go out of business.  I know many feel otherwise.  While I don't like their decision to sunset City of Heroes (nor understand their reasons for it), what's bothered me most has been the emotional impact felt by so many.  I want to see City of Heroes back, along with the dev team of Paragon Studios.  I'm still hoping NCSoft will sell the rights to City of Heroes, whether it be to Disney or any other company who can act as a worthy custodian for it. If that means NCSoft has to go out of business first, well okay.  I don't presently plan to subscribe to or purchase anything from them anytime soon.  Apart from my feelings as a fan of CoH, I don't like how they treated us as customers, basically stonewalling and ignoring us and others.  Hopping on board Boycott NCSoft is no problem for me since they aren't offering any products or services I want.  I'm still hoping for a swift rez for CoH, and otherwise still commited to what consumer actions we as fans can take to help bring about its restoration.  Thanks for letting me say my piece. 
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on December 06, 2012, 12:52:31 PM
While I can understand the Machiavellian appeal of buying up NCSoftcore stock at a low point, I cannot in good conscience contribute to this. Whatever the motivation, whatever the intended outcome, we would be investing in NCSoftcore, however temporarily. In fact, my future purchase of anything with their name attached to it is fully dependent on, not their sale of the CoH IP and related pieces, but how they handle it. I can't really even tell you specifically what I would have to see from them that would assuage the bad feelings they have created in their handling of the situation, so far.
Well, one thing you could do if you wanted and were confident the price would keep going down: short sell the stock.

It pushes the price down, and you only "invest" in it at less than the amount for which you sold it. Whereas the ideal with normal stock trading is to buy at a nadir, hold on to it, and sell at a peak, the ideal with short-selling is to sell stocks you haven't bought yet at a peak, and then cover the sale later at a nadir. "Short-covering" is what the second step is called.

A short sale is actually a promise TO sell the stock to somebody at a given price. You have to give them what you promised by a certain time, but you can buy the stocks to cover the sale at any time before then.

Shot selling has the tendency to drive the price down just as buying has the tendency to drive it up. But there's no real market manipulation going on here if you start short-selling it right now. With it in freefall, many investors are likely doing similar as they are riding the trend.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Fulcrum on December 06, 2012, 12:58:28 PM
Right now it looks like the stock is being bunny-hopped between computerized automatic stock orders now that it's hit a certain threshold as they try to maintain it's value...   the synchronicity of the last few hours is pretty impressive. 


I can honestly say that if I owned stock in this company, I'd have to use a crowbar to keep my rump from eating the seat below me.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on December 06, 2012, 01:07:18 PM
Right now it looks like the stock is being bunny-hopped between computerized automatic stock orders now that it's hit a certain threshold as they try to maintain it's value...   


I've never seriously followed stocks before. Could you explain how you can tell that's what's happening? I just want to understand. Thanks.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on December 06, 2012, 01:24:16 PM

I've never seriously followed stocks before. Could you explain how you can tell that's what's happening? I just want to understand. Thanks.
This is only a guess, but from what he said, it sounds like he's saying somebody is setting up computerized automatic stock orders to sell and buy at a specific price. This would only work without losing money if the sold stocks were being bought preferentially at the higher-than-market price so they're ping-ponging the same stock shares back and forth, creating the illusion that some of the stocks are trading at a fixed value. No stocks are changing hands out of a small cabal of buyers, so this truly is an illusion of activity at a certain price level.

His mention of "synchronicity" makes me think he is using a regularity of the price and timing of stock sales to detect it. He might just be looking at a plateau of price and seeing a suspiciously regular "bump" up in price back to a certain value that is implying this automated price-fixed mass sale.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Fulcrum on December 06, 2012, 01:27:30 PM
http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=036570.KS

I was always an armchair speculator, even when I was making money on the markets.   Strictly amateur investing...   but it looks like someone has set up 'buy' orders at a certain price thresholds to bump the price up... and another 'buy' at slightly less... and another at slightly less than that, bumping the price up temporarily each time...  giving it that peculiarly 'even' bounce.

It could even be a single large group of investors buying and selling to keep the price plateaued.

It'l change when another big group takes a chunk of stock and drives the price back down, or the money runs out to 'bounce' it... at which point it may or may not enter freefall again.

At least, that's what I suspect.  It's entirely possible I'm completely wrong and it's just an aberration in the numbers.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Merseine on December 06, 2012, 01:58:41 PM
I noticed something today in the Business Week link
http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?ticker=036570:KS (http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?ticker=036570:KS)


52 Week High:   12/7/11 - 328,500               52 Week Low:     12/5/12 - 141,000

I know it's been commented on before - but I just realized that the High is one year ago tomorrow.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TonyV on December 06, 2012, 05:02:16 PM
Just in the interest of preparing everyone emotionally, I actually suspect a stock price bump before too long.  To be honest, I actually expected a bump after the announced layoffs in Seattle; typically investor knee-jerk reaction is that layoffs mean that a company is "trimming the fat," so to speak, and streamlining operations.  (Which is the official message NCsoft is putting out, by the way.)  The fact that it didn't bounce on the news is moderately interesting, in that to me it indicates that investors aren't buying it--metaphorically or literally.  But whatever...

Anyway, not that I'm going to go out and buy NCsoft stock, but a lot of investors (myself included) look specifically for stocks that have fallen or recently taken a beating to invest in.  Not that I'm looking to lose my butt on buying up junk stocks, but a lot of times investors buy and sell based solely on emotional reaction to some situation, such as a bad financial report or some bad PR move, but the company itself is a decently stable company.  In that kind of situation, a low stock price means essentially that the stock is "on sale," that it will likely go back up, and you can make money thanks to other investors' overreaction to something.

To be honest, I wouldn't touch NCsoft with a 10-foot pole, but then I'm not exactly an unbiased investor when it comes to the company right now.  Plus, I feel that I might have a better finger on the pulse of what it's going through than some investment adviser who doesn't know one thing about the game development industry or gamers themselves; that you really have to have a pretty good idea of what kind of games are market killers versus just DOA.  So right now, because NCsoft's stock is so low, a lot of investment sites actually are recommending that people buy it.  As a result, people probably will actually buy it, thus raising the price.

But long-term, I think that these investment advisers are assuming that NCsoft will be able to continue along like they have in the past, when in fact, things have changed.  Before, NCsoft was a growing company with a stable of profitable titles, new games in development, and a bright future.  Now, thanks to the actions of their executive management, they've killed off a game that had stable income, one that at least had potential (Tabula Rasa), and two of the games they were counting on being monsters did pretty well, but thanks to a pretty dramatic shift in business models, don't have a lot of potential for long-term stable income.  Oh, and they have one studio (Carbine) working on a game (Wildstar) that is probably at least another year or two out, if it ever gets released at all.  In short, their medium-term prospects don't look good.

In my opinion, it looks to me like NCsoft is basically conceding the Western market.  Just as Bugs Bunny cartoons are quite different from Japanese anime, Western-style MMOs are generally quite different from Korean-style MMOs.  Years ago, NCsoft was on the right track; they created a western subsidiary to handle the North American and European gaming markets.  Unfortunately, the past few years, they've done nothing but hamstrung that subsidiary, forcing it to make critical errors based on their own flawed perceptions and goals.  We're never going to be Korea, and if NCsoft had realized that two or three years ago, they might not be in the predicament they're in today.  Maybe instead of buying a baseball team (http://www.ncdinos.com), they would have invested in marketing and support for their North American and European operations doing stuff like, you know, making games.  There is, in my humble opinion, an extremely insightful and probably really accurate analysis (http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3296837&cid=42197775) of what I think NCsoft's motivations are over on Slashdot.  Probably a bit of a simplification, but still probably more-or-less accurate.

Anyway, I don't know that NCsoft will really completely go under.  A lot of it is going to depend on how well Blade and Soul and Guild Wars 2 does in Asian markets.  If they do well in somehow managing to find a way to scrape out a consistent source of income, they'll probably linger on.  But if they fail like Aion did, or if people just buy the box and don't continue investing in microtransactions at the level that I'm pretty sure we were with City of Heroes: Freedom, it's entirely possible that the company will either tank completely and go out of business, or more likely, get bought by someone else, stripped of its assets (quite possibly including IP), and sold off for scraps.  About the only thing I'm almost certain of is that they're pretty much dead in the water here, and if I worked for Arena.Net or especially Carbine, I'd be looking hard to jump ship before they close down those studios.

I guess time will tell and we'll see.  I do think it's telling that it looks like even the knee-jerk investors have lost confidence in the company.  It wouldn't surprise me if the stock price bumped up at least some as other investors try to get in as the elevator comes back to the ground floor, but for the long-term, I certainly wouldn't bet on the company and I still believe that there is at least a decent chance that someone will be able to get the IP for City of Heroes on the cheap who can revive the game.  Unfortunately, it also means that there will be opportunity for third parties to acquire the IP specifically for the purpose of not reviving it, to effectively prevent it from competing with their own products.  It really just boils down to exactly who it is and if they want they want to do.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on December 06, 2012, 05:11:33 PM
Unfortunately, it also means that there will be opportunity for third parties to acquire the IP specifically for the purpose of not reviving it, to effectively prevent it from competing with their own products.  It really just boils down to exactly who it is and if they want they want to do.
TF Hail Mary, GO!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on December 06, 2012, 05:59:51 PM
here is, in my humble opinion, an extremely insightful and probably really accurate analysis (http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3296837&cid=42197775) of what I think NCsoft's motivations are over on Slashdot.  Probably a bit of a simplification, but still probably more-or-less accurate.

Hey Tony? That link doesn't work.

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Valjean on December 06, 2012, 06:48:16 PM
I may get flamed for this, but I don't particularly wish NCSoft ill or hope they go out of business. 

I agree with you on this. In my mind, there's a difference between NCsoft the company, the NCsoft executive leadership, and the NCsoft employees.

As a company, NCsoft has done great things for the industry in helping to expand the MMO market. The NCsoft employees are probably great people who are just doing their job. I think the issue comes down to the leadership and their seemingly confusing strategies.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little David on December 06, 2012, 07:47:22 PM
I won't argue that it's a delimma worthy of Solomon when it comes to rooting for NCSoft's demise. I do recognize that the other dev studios and NCSoft's own line employees are going to be collateral damage whenever NCSoft feels the burn. It's not something I'm happy about.

... But the way I see it, the death of five different games and the studios that developed them shows just how willing NCSoft is to axe their own properties. City of Heroes proves that those developers and employees are never going to be immune, no matter how many people play the game or how long it lives. Tabula Rasa proved how far NCSoft is willing to go to get rid of a game and developer they want gone, and that was at a time NCSoft's stock prices were on the up and up.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: srmalloy on December 06, 2012, 08:07:44 PM
There is, in my humble opinion, an extremely insightful and probably really accurate analysis (http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3296837&cid=42197775) of what I think NCsoft's motivations are over on Slashdot.  Probably a bit of a simplification, but still probably more-or-less accurate.

That is, at its base -- and I wasn't the one to write that comment -- essentially the same thing that I've been saying. That City of Heroes kept making a profit in the Western market, while NCSoft's vaunted grindfest MMOs kept flopping there, was a profound embarrassment -- it made them look incompetent, that they either had no nunshi for the Western market, or couldn't be bothered trying to understand what the differences were between the Asian and Western MMO market. With CoH buried, they can go back to shoving one grindfest after another down our throats in the hope that we'll suddenly realize how much better they are, and not have to face the possibility that they're doing the equivalent of camouflaging chicken to look like a salad and trying to feed it to vegetarians.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TonyV on December 06, 2012, 08:20:06 PM
I agree with you on this. In my mind, there's a difference between NCsoft the company, the NCsoft executive leadership, and the NCsoft employees.

As a company, NCsoft has done great things for the industry in helping to expand the MMO market. The NCsoft employees are probably great people who are just doing their job. I think the issue comes down to the leadership and their seemingly confusing strategies.

Yeah, but practically speaking, you can't cause the company harm without affecting its non-executive employees.  It's not like I sit around dreaming of releasing my frustration and anger on some visual effects artist who works at Carbine or some janitor who works in Seoul who might be out of a job if NCsoft closes down.  Still, I won't deny that I have quite a bit of ill will towards NCsoft for what they've been doing to the City of Heroes community and the staff of Paragon City.

What I think is being lost in feeling sorry for the employees who will be hurt if NCsoft tanks is that employee has already been hurt for being associated with the company.  Hell, employees are being hurt right now for being associated with the company.

Personally, I don't care so much if they go out of business, but at the very least, I want them to change.  And change hardly ever happens without some pain for motivation, and I can't think of any good way to make the executive leadership feel some pain without risking the poor guys and gals who just want to do a good job getting stuck in the middle.  As long as the status quo works for them, they're going to keep doing the same thing to other communities and other studios.

Some people have held that the "collateral damage" of people losing their jobs is too much, and that we shouldn't really be going after NCsoft like we are.  To me, though, the logical extension of that is that no matter how bad a company, no matter how evil its practices, you should never say a negative word about them or try to get them to change their ways because someone might lose jobs.  While I feel sorry for people who get caught in the crossfire, I just can't subscribe to that point of view.  People have to be able to do what they can to get companies to change.

Maybe it will cost some jobs.  Then again, it might get NCsoft to change, and who knows?  Our efforts today might be the difference between NCsoft shutting down Carbine studios and laying off even more people and allowing the management there to buy out the company and keep them employed.  And if we're able to follow through on making this a bigger issue than just one game, maybe we can make a positive change in the game publishing/development industry such that people rarely have to lose their jobs at all because of strategic organizational realignments.  In the short term it sucks, but in the long term I'm genuinely hoping that the dings that NCsoft is taking today will result in a net positive down the road--not just for the community (though that is our primary goal), but to to other studios, developers, artists, etc.

Meanwhile, if anyone does know of a way to change NCsoft's mind, to force the issue with the executive management while posing minimal risk to the soldiers on the line, I'm all ears.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on December 06, 2012, 08:59:33 PM
For those feeling for the potentially unemployed employees of NCSoft should it fall, I will point out some things:



If the economy is bad enough that they cannot, then they likely wouldn't have been long for employment anyway, as that means there wasn't really room for their jobs in the economy. Tragic, but not ours nor NCSoft's fault.

So wish them well, pray for them, and hope that the economy is good enough to support their jobs so they can find new ones.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Triplash on December 06, 2012, 09:06:30 PM
Some people have held that the "collateral damage" of people losing their jobs is too much, and that we shouldn't really be going after NCsoft like we are.

The way I see it, it's not that we shouldn't continue to press on; this is the most effective, perhaps the only, way we can initiate change. I just can't cheer and shout hooray over it, not over something that could cost blameless employees their jobs.

What we need to remind ourselves here is, any job lost in all this is ultimately NCSoft's doing. They've been making a series of management choices regarding the western market that are at best misguided, and reacting to the backlash from those decisions with continued poor choices.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on December 06, 2012, 09:09:23 PM
NCSoft is not the only tech-related stock I've been seeing a downward trend on, lately, though it is the most dramatic drop. Apple took a rather news-worthy drop, but they appear to be rallying, today.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JanessaVR on December 06, 2012, 10:02:43 PM
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Minotaur on December 06, 2012, 10:20:26 PM
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Perfidus on December 06, 2012, 10:24:14 PM
It is. But don't forget it's not us making them get canned. He or she worded it a bit poorly there, and certainly too harshly but it's not like we're the ones who'll give them the pink slip.

I don't like the idea of innocent, hard working people losing their jobs, not in the holiday season, not in any season. But as NCSoft continues making their mistakes, and we push them on it, it's unfortunately inevitable.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DrakeGrimm on December 06, 2012, 10:25:40 PM
A bit harsh on people like Beastyle that were ex-CoH and work in NCSoft Seattle.

Not really. By this point, they know who they're working for. If they aren't sprucing up their resume already, they're in for a rude awakening soon. NCSoft has made its bed. Now they have to lie in it. Do any of us like it? Are any of us gleefully rubbing our hands together over it? No. But we're not the ones making poor decisions that affect NCSoft employees: Their management is.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on December 06, 2012, 10:28:30 PM
NCsoftcore is not in any danger of going out of business any time soon. The drop in their stock price really has little affect on their business; it only directly affects their investors (which does in this case include NCsoftcore itself). And even in that case only the investors who are selling (which doesn't include NCsoftcore). To use an analogy: their stock drop is like having your home's property value cut in half overnight. That doesn't affect the home as a home per se. It's still the same house. Right up until you try to sell it or borrow against the equity (I'm ignoring property tax issues as they are pertinent to the analogy). The same is true with stock. The only way the drop would directly impact NCsoftcore is if they needed to raise capital through selling stock or borrowing against their assets (which, as mentioned, include a large chunk of their own stock). Flush with cash from GW2 sales and cutting costs in the West, they really have no need to raise capital even if they have plans for expansion in some other area. They have plenty of cash and are still turning an enviable 20% profit (about twice that of Activision Blizzard or Apple). So the company's financial situation remains fine.

Now, NCsoftcore West is a different story. Anyone who works there and isn't polishing their resume, lining up references and keeping an eye on their bank balance is an idiot.

I have a small but growing suspicion that the "realignment of focus" and the stated desire to expand in the Western market may mean NCsoftcore West closing as a publisher (and remaining only to oversee production studios or simply shutting down altogether) and Nexon America becoming the publisher for NCsoftcore products in North America. That is, I think NCsoftcore may be internally admitting failure as a Western publisher and outsourcing that to someone they think can do it better.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Minotaur on December 06, 2012, 10:28:52 PM
Not really. By this point, they know who they're working for. If they aren't sprucing up their resume already, they're in for a rude awakening soon. NCSoft has made its bed. Now they have to lie in it. Do any of us like it? Are any of us gleefully rubbing our hands together over it? No. But we're not the ones making poor decisions that affect NCSoft employees: Their management is.

That was it, I got the impression some people here WERE gleefully rubbing their hands together.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Perfidus on December 06, 2012, 10:30:06 PM
I'm certainly not.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 06, 2012, 10:34:11 PM
Nor I. In the end, all I want is our game back.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Samuraiko on December 06, 2012, 10:43:01 PM
I gleefully rub my hands and delight in the downfall of the corporate decisionmakers who chose to close COH.

Admittedly, the secretary, the janitor, the average Joes and Jills who had nothing to do with said decision... them I feel sorry for.

But the rest? They can rot in hell for all I care.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 06, 2012, 10:46:01 PM
As I said before, so long as the likes of Monsanto still exist, I just can't be bothered with any real thoughts of vengeance towards the NCSoft execs.

Just sell the game to someone who will use it, and I will cheerfully ignore your company to the end of days.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Triplash on December 06, 2012, 10:51:30 PM
As I said before, so long as the likes of Monsanto still exist, I just can't be bothered with any real thoughts of vengeance towards the NCSoft execs.

Just sell the game to someone who will use it, and I will cheerfully ignore your company to the end of days.

Exactly. Same here.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Perfidus on December 06, 2012, 10:59:45 PM
I'd have a hard time holding the hate if they caved and did the right thing, the thing they should've done to start with. I'm not an inherently hateful person.

That being said, I'd never stop warning all those who wish to play an NCSoft game. These hypothetical people deserve to be informed about the company's practices.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on December 06, 2012, 11:01:22 PM
It's so simple a Clockwork could understand it.

If COH != OWN(RSP.CRP) Then TSK = ATK.CRP(OWN.COH)

CRP(OWN.COH) = NCS

RSP.CORP != NCS

TSK = ATK.NCS until NCS != OWN.COH

If COH = OWN(RSP.CRP) Then TSK = PLY.COH

If TSK = PLY.COH Then NCS.RLV = 0
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on December 06, 2012, 11:04:42 PM
I like the cut of your gibberish, sir!  8)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Dragonicism on December 06, 2012, 11:08:03 PM
It's so simple a Clockwork could understand it.

If COH != OWN(RSP.CRP) Then TSK = ATK.CRP(OWN.COH)

CRP(OWN.COH) = NCS

RSP.CORP != NCS

TSK = ATK.NCS until NCS != OWN.COH

If COH = OWN(RSP.CRP) Then TSK = PLY.COH

If TSK = PLY.COH Then NCS.RLV = 0

Is... Is that..? That's the very style of code output by the service droids in Praetoria. I don't know the language itself, but I think I understand it. I don't suppose I could request a translation to Java or C++, so everyone else can understand it?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on December 06, 2012, 11:11:53 PM
i agree that the average poeple losing their jobs is not cool, however as pointed out, that if ncsoft is going under realignment anyway then the jobs were hanging by a thread likely to be cut at a moments notice like with out devs

the jobs being lost are purely due to ncsofts business management stupidity (both in goals as a company and decision making)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JanessaVR on December 06, 2012, 11:12:31 PM
Is... Is that..? That's the very style of code output by the service droids in Praetoria. I don't know the language itself, but I think I understand it. I don't suppose I could request a translation to Java or C++, so everyone else can understand it?

Heh.  You're over-thinking it.  I'm a programmer, too, and they baffled me at first in Praetoria as well, as I was trying to read them as code.  They're abbreviated words, not function/method calls.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Perfidus on December 06, 2012, 11:16:06 PM
Yeah, it's gibberish, just like a lot of Resistance speak. But -fun- gibberish!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: kierthos on December 06, 2012, 11:20:14 PM
It's so simple a Clockwork could understand it.

If COH != OWN(RSP.CRP) Then TSK = ATK.CRP(OWN.COH)

CRP(OWN.COH) = NCS

RSP.CORP != NCS

TSK = ATK.NCS until NCS != OWN.COH

If COH = OWN(RSP.CRP) Then TSK = PLY.COH

If TSK = PLY.COH Then NCS.RLV = 0
Is... Is that..? That's the very style of code output by the service droids in Praetoria. I don't know the language itself, but I think I understand it. I don't suppose I could request a translation to Java or C++, so everyone else can understand it?

I'll do my best

COH = City of Heroes (obviously)

OWN = owner

RSP = responsible

CRP = corporation

TSK = task

ATK = attack

NCS = NC Soft

RLV = relevant

PLY = play

Therefore:

If City of Heroes is not owned by a responsible corporation, then the task is to attack the owner of City of Heroes.

The corporation that owns City of Heroes is NC Soft.

The task is to attack NC Soft until NC Soft no longer owns City of Heroes.

If City of Heroes is owned by a responsible corporation, then the task is to play City of Heroes.

If the task is playing City of Heroes, then NC Soft is no longer relevant.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Triplash on December 06, 2012, 11:22:46 PM
Is... Is that..? That's the very style of code output by the service droids in Praetoria. I don't know the language itself, but I think I understand it. I don't suppose I could request a translation to Java or C++, so everyone else can understand it?

If COH != OWN(RSP.CRP) Then TSK = ATK.CRP(OWN.COH)
If City of Heroes is not owned by a responsible corporation, then the task is to attack the corporation that owns City of Heroes.

CRP(OWN.COH) = NCS
The corporation that owns City of Heroes is NCSoft.

RSP.CORP != NCS
A responsible corporation is not NCSoft.

TSK = ATK.NCS until NCS != OWN.COH
The task is to attack NCSoft until NCSoft does not own City of Heroes.

If COH = OWN(RSP.CRP) Then TSK = PLY.COH
If City of Heroes is owned by a responsible corporation then the task is to play City of Heroes.

If TSK = PLY.COH Then NCS.RLV = 0
If the task is to play City of Heroes then NCSoft's relevance is zero.


I'll do my best

Jinx! :o
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on December 06, 2012, 11:23:24 PM
Can you imagine trying to speak in an object-oriented language?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Hyperstrike on December 06, 2012, 11:34:03 PM
I gleefully rub my hands and delight in the downfall of the corporate decisionmakers who chose to close COH.

Admittedly, the secretary, the janitor, the average Joes and Jills who had nothing to do with said decision... them I feel sorry for.

But the rest? They can rot in hell for all I care.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

I wouldn't call their stock tumble a "freefall".  But schadenfreude makes it even nicer.  Since now we get to see them bounce off the rocks on their way down.

 ;D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mentalshock on December 06, 2012, 11:41:11 PM
I wouldn't call their stock tumble a "freefall".  But schadenfreude makes it even nicer.  Since now we get to see them bounce off the rocks on their way down.

 ;D

Hopefully, sharp pointy ones.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on December 07, 2012, 12:22:43 AM
The new official NCsoft themesong: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbqvFFdyNqc
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: johnrobey on December 07, 2012, 01:19:34 AM
The new official NCsoft themesong: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbqvFFdyNqc

Good one!  In that case, I'd like to offer a little Ti Kwan Leap (original by the Franatics):  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8VD4JXUozM
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Vasarto on December 07, 2012, 01:55:29 AM
welll..DOUBLE BUGGER!

Looks like NCSOFT is going to be getting 686.8 million dollars from Nexon.. Not to mention gone up by 1.39....

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/08/nexon-ncsoft-idUST9E8GV09P20120608?type=companyNews
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Jetfire99 on December 07, 2012, 02:00:18 AM
welll..DOUBLE BUGGER!

Looks like NCSOFT is going to be getting 686.8 million dollars from Nexon.. Not to mention gone up by 1.39....

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/08/nexon-ncsoft-idUST9E8GV09P20120608?type=companyNews

Just a heads up check the date that's from June, take it easy chomper.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Vasarto on December 07, 2012, 02:03:29 AM
oh..lol...then why was it the first page when I googled ncsoft? lol.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Tubbius on December 07, 2012, 02:43:02 AM
I love the Praetorian Clockwork language.  :)  It makes this English teacher smile.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Vasarto on December 07, 2012, 02:47:34 AM
I love the Praetorian Clockwork language.  :)  It makes this English teacher smile.

What is a Praetorian Clockwork language?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TargetOne on December 07, 2012, 03:01:49 AM
oh..lol...then why was it the first page when I googled ncsoft? lol.

Because they only put out press releases when they have GOOD news to report? And that was the last bit of "good news" they had?  ;D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Sarge Morris on December 07, 2012, 03:16:30 AM
The new official NCsoft themesong: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbqvFFdyNqc

I see what you did there, and I raise you some Chapin.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkSRF-uHlWk

I think this is more fitting, seeing as how the crew is obscenely overconfident and blissfully unaware of their predicament until they're completely and utterly screwed.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TargetOne on December 07, 2012, 03:57:18 AM
I was curious to see how much NCSoft's stock fluctuations relate to its overall corporate value, so I started comparing its market capitalization (total value of all outstanding shares) to other major entertainment companies.

As of this moment, NCSoft's market cap (according to Reuters) is 3.2 trillion Korean Won, which (based on the current exchange rate) translates to $2.9 billion US dollars.

Now, some other companies, in no particular order:

Walt Disney Company:           $87.8 billion (yikes!)
CBS Corporation:                    $22 billion
Electronic Arts:                        $4.5 billion
Valve Corporation:                  (privately held, so market cap does not apply, but its equity according to wikipedia is an esitmated $2.5 billion.)
Activision/Blizzard:                  $12.6 billion
Nexon                                     $4.8 billion (converted from Japanese Yen)

And Perfect World Co. Ltd., which trades on Nasdaq? A paltry $498 million. Which doesn't seem to bode well for those who might be pinning their near-term hopes for superhero MMO gaming on Champions Online. (No wonder Perfect World isn't investing much money in development of Champions, they just can't afford to.)

TargetOne
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on December 07, 2012, 04:43:54 AM
I'm proud to say that both kierthos and Triplash are fluent in Praetorian Clockwork.  Both provided excellent (if a bit literal) translations.

Below is the exact translation I had in mind when I wrote it.

Quote
If COH != OWN(RSP.CRP) Then TSK = ATK.CRP(OWN.COH)
If City of Heroes isn't owned by a responsible corporation, then we should attack that corporation.

CRP(OWN.COH) = NCS
NCsoft is the corporation that owns City of Heroes.

RSP.CORP != NCS
NCsoft isn't a responsible corporation

TSK = ATK.NCS until NCS != OWN.COH
We should attack NCsoft until NCsoft gives up CoH.

If COH = OWN(RSP.CRP) Then TSK = PLY.COH
Once CoH is owned by a responsible corporation, we should resume playing it.

If TSK = PLY.COH Then NCS.RLV = 0
Once we can play CoH again, NCsoft doesn't matter.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Sajaana on December 07, 2012, 08:08:57 AM
Blah...it's looking like it's trying to rally.  149,500 now.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Dragonicism on December 07, 2012, 09:06:19 AM
Blah...it's looking like it's trying to rally.  149,500 now.

SELL! SELL! SELL! Get out of the sinking ship!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on December 07, 2012, 09:43:39 AM
What is a Praetorian Clockwork language?
Glad you asked!

In Praetoria, they have Clockwork like on Primal Earth.  But rather than being the psychically cobbled-together scrapmetal monstrosities of the clockwork king, they are sleek android servant robots, invented by Praetor Keyes (Anti-Matter) and popularized by Praetor Barry (Neuron).

Clockwork, when speaking, use a simple code-like abbreviation of the English language.  Clockwork-speak is different from the speech of ordinary citizens, or in Clockspeak, CWK.SPK != CIT.SPK.

The Clockwork's shorthand consists of 3-4 letter abbreviations for nouns, verbs and most adjectives, coupled with simple linking terms to form sentences.  For instance, in Clockspeak, Praetoria is simply PRA.  Emperor Marcus Cole (AKA Tyrant) is MCL.

Common linking terms are = (equals or is), != (does not equal or is not), > (greater than), < (less than), and simple conjunctions, adjectives and adverbs such as "if", "else", "then", "while", and "until".

To indicate possession or subject-predicate relation, you enclose a term in parentheses, and place the term it relates to or is possessed by outside of it.

You can also add ! to the front of any term to indicate "is not" - for instance, !ALV (not alive) means that the subject is dead.  Adding ? before a term indicates a question.  So "?YOU = ALV" means "Are you alive?"

So, If you want to state that Emperor Cole could kill Praetor White in a fight, you'd say...

Quote
If EMP.MCL.ATK(PRT.WHT) then PRT.WHT = !ALV

Now, if you want to say that Emperor Cole HAS killed Praetor White in a fight, that would be...

Quote
EMP.MCL.ATK(PRT.WHT) until PRT.WHT = !ALV

And if you want to state that you are running from Praetor White because you were discussing whether or not Emperor Cole could kill him...

Quote
TSK.ABT(TLK(If EMP.MCL.ATK(PRT.WHT) then ?PRT.WHT = ALV));TSK = ESC(PRT.WHT)

This has been a crash-course in Praetorian Clockwork language.  Now if you'll excuse me, I hear thudding boots and swearing.  I think I may need to ESC(PRT.WHT).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on December 07, 2012, 09:50:58 AM
Looks like NCSOFT is going to be getting 686.8 million dollars from Nexon...

One more thing to note about that deal from June... that was a private transaction with the stock purchased from Taek-Jin Kim, not NCsoftcore. The money went into his pocket, not the company's.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Triplash on December 07, 2012, 12:16:40 PM
... proud ... Triplash ... excellent ... translation ...

Woohoo! I won!

/e endzonedance


Clockwork, when speaking, use a simple code-like abbreviation of the English language.  Clockwork-speak is different from the speech of ordinary citizens

Let's just be glad Portal Corps never had a gift shop. Cause sooner or later somebody would've had to write a Rikti to Clockwork dictionary, and that poor bugger's head would have exploded.


Not to mention the joke books:

?RSN = CKN(CRS.ROD)

RSN = GLR(EMP.MCL)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The Fifth Horseman on December 07, 2012, 12:19:47 PM
Praetorian Clockwork language feels like a frankenstein monster of Assembly-style mnemonics with C-style syntax and objective programming. WNT=DNT
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blitzwing on December 07, 2012, 05:06:24 PM
Great, now you've gone and reminded me of the classic 'Rikt-E-raser' from The Cape Radio....  ;)

'Compulsion, atypical, must consume grenade...nomnomnom-'  =pingpingping=  'REMORSE!'  -BOOM-

:D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Tubbius on December 07, 2012, 06:34:25 PM
Quote
Not to mention the joke books:

?RSN = CKN(CRS.ROD)

RSN = GLR(EMP.MCL)

....

Why did the chicken cross the road?

For the glory of Emperor Marcus Cole.

Right?  :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DJMoose on December 07, 2012, 07:00:48 PM

?RSN = CKN(CRS.ROD)

RSN = GLR(EMP.MCL)

Why did the chicken cross the road?

For the glory of Emperor Marcus Cole.
Right?  :)
That is the funniest thing I have seen all day! ;D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Triplash on December 07, 2012, 07:12:23 PM
....

Why did the chicken cross the road?

For the glory of Emperor Marcus Cole.

Right?  :)

Bingo! You win a month's supply of Enriche! ;D


That is the funniest thing I have seen all day! ;D

Thank you, thank you! I'm here all week :D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: HarvesterOfEyes on December 07, 2012, 07:57:35 PM
Listening to Rikti speak makes me want to exclaim:

"Subject: Your English, terrible"
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Minotaur on December 07, 2012, 08:07:44 PM
Listening to Rikti speak makes me want to exclaim:

"Subject: Your English, terrible"

"Subject:English, terrible: yours" or similar I'd have thought
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on December 07, 2012, 08:41:33 PM
Listening to Rikti speak makes me want to exclaim:

"Subject: Your English, terrible"
"Subject:English, terrible: yours" or similar I'd have thought
You're both close.

It would be:
"Subject: your English.  Status: terrible!"

Also acceptable:
"Your: English.  Status: terrible!"

Rikti Translation: difficult.  Dialects: numerous.  Variances: dependent on: degree of: Riktification.  Differences include: Positioning: colons, degree of: subject/verb colon usage, variances in: post-colon capitalization, as well as: others.

SPK:RKT.CWK.HYB = SLF.EVD

SLF.STS = BRN:HRT

REQ(MED:PAIN)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: eabrace on December 07, 2012, 09:09:39 PM
SLF.STS = BRN:HRT
Yeah, sometimes trying to read those makes my BRN:HRT too.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on December 07, 2012, 09:19:24 PM
Yeah, sometimes trying to read those makes my BRN:HRT too.
At least it's not as bad as trying to figure out what your average Resistance member is trying to say.  Or puzzling out the tortured mess of Resistance Clockwork output.

Now that's an exercise in brainmelting torture.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The Fifth Horseman on December 07, 2012, 09:20:42 PM
English: yours: terrible.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on December 07, 2012, 09:22:23 PM
English: yours: terrible.
Look out folks, we have a genuine Rikti among us.

No seriously, good job.  That's about the Riktiest of Rikti dialects, right there.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Xieveral on December 07, 2012, 09:29:09 PM
?RSN = CKN(CRS.ROD)

RSN = GLR(EMP.MCL)

I have my first signature thanks to you <3

(cranky settings won't let me put it in a shiny quote box though ;-;)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Triplash on December 07, 2012, 09:31:06 PM
SPK:RKT.CWK.HYB = SLF.EVD

SLF.STS = BRN:HRT

REQ(MED:PAIN)

Now you just need to add Resistance into that and have Dillo speak it, and your journey to the dark side will be complete.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Triplash on December 07, 2012, 09:34:06 PM
I have my first signature thanks to you <3

(cranky settings won't let me put it in a shiny quote box though ;-;)

pffft... who needs quotes? Enjoy! :D <3
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on December 07, 2012, 09:39:52 PM
Now you just need to add Resistance into that and have Dillo speak it, and your journey to the dark side will be complete.
Look, pal.  I may be a megalomaniacal spider-themed villain intent on one day usurping Lord Recluse and controlling the known world.  I'm also fairly decent at puzzling out odd robotic/extradimensional/extraterrestrial dialects of English.

But I am not a masochist!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Tubbius on December 07, 2012, 09:42:56 PM
NCSoft's stock is going boingy boingy and slowly climbing.  :|
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on December 07, 2012, 09:47:51 PM
*grumble* They're almost back up to 150,000 (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=036570.KS).

I wonder what caused the sudden small upswing?  It's not like NC's doing anything different in its wholesale mismanagement of its assets.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: LadyImmolatasia on December 07, 2012, 10:23:42 PM
A small rise in stock was inevitable as they even out. They still have the massive ass whooping to their overall value they've received this year.
Title: Love the tag line. Are you the author or just someone with great taste?
Post by: RandomUnicorn on December 07, 2012, 10:58:50 PM
We were heroes. We were villains. At the end of the world we all fought as one. It's what we did that defines us.
The end occurred pretty much as we predicted: all servers redlining until midnight... and then no servers to go around.

Somewhere beyond time and space, if you look hard you might find a flash of silver trailing crimson: a lone lost Spartan on his way home.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 08, 2012, 12:47:31 AM
Some people are buying, assuming that NCSoft has completely bottomed out and they are getting a bargain that will rise.

This might ALSO reflect Nexon buying NCSoft stock in an effort to get, not just a controlling, but a majority share.  They won't do it too fast though, because they won't want to make the price rise.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on December 08, 2012, 05:18:59 AM
Some people are buying, assuming that NCSoft has completely bottomed out and they are getting a bargain that will rise.

This might ALSO reflect Nexon buying NCSoft stock in an effort to get, not just a controlling, but a majority share.  They won't do it too fast though, because they won't want to make the price rise.

this seems the most logical to me, and if it is the case, its looking more and more like ncsoft might get taken over by nexon in the next year
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JanessaVR on December 08, 2012, 05:36:43 AM
this seems the most logical to me, and if it is the case, its looking more and more like ncsoft might get taken over by nexon in the next year
If so, then VV was probably right - NCSoft might not be our real foe here.  If they're just Nexon's puppet now, then it was probably Nexon that ordered the hit on CoH, even if NCSoft pulled the trigger.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Perfidus on December 08, 2012, 05:43:59 AM
That's something that a lot of people felt from the start, actually. And if true, our goal needs to be getting the IP from NCSoft before Nexon takes them.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 08, 2012, 06:30:14 AM
Nexon doesn't have controlling ownership, they don't have majority ownership, they simply got 15% ownership.  They haven't put anyone onto the board of directors.  The only thing they can do with that much stock is to crash the price by dumping it onto the market all at once.  That's a great threat except they've already lost 40% of their money during it's crash.  How much more money are they willing to lose?

Again, every stock transaction has a buyer.  People are buying the stock because they either think the sell off is an overreaction or the stock is now at a price that's more reasonable in relation to the company's fundamentals, as in sales and profits.  Since the stock went up today people either thought the hit it took a couple a days ago was too much or it could simply be a case of "rising tide raises all boats".  Don't normally follow the Korean exchange too closely.

Here in the states, we have a slew of investment types who have declared the PC as dead, being replaced by smartphones and tablets.  Because of that hardware and software companies that specialize in PCs are also being poo-pooed.  Now I imagine this isn't a US trend, the PC is dead, but a world wide one and in Korea a online game company that's primary sources of income are from PC games are also on investor's naughty lists along with PC Bangs (PC gaming cafes) and hard drive companies.

Looking at Nexon's 3rd quarter numbers show that their Korean sales are down 20% year to year and 22% in North America.  For Nexon their biggest market is China and it's growing quickly.

Now if Nexon or NCSoft can come out with a popular MMO that's scalable on smartphones to tablets, I would imagine their stocks will shoot up again.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 08, 2012, 10:08:28 AM
We know Nexon bought 15% of NCSoft stock from Taek Jin Kim himself.

What we do not know is how much more they have bought through proxies since that time.

We also do not know what Taek Jin Kim's first wife--the one he had to give half of his (original 60%) stock share to in the divorce--has done with HER 30%.  No one seems to have tracked that.

As for PCs being dead, I say again, if you want to track how many PCs are operating, you don't track the number of new PC sales, you track the number of sales of high end video cards.  People are no longer buying new PCs every year or so, they are upgrading instead.  The PC is far from dead.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: johnrobey on December 08, 2012, 10:12:18 AM
Nexon doesn't have controlling ownership, they don't have majority ownership, they simply got 15% ownership.  They haven't put anyone onto the board of directors.  The only thing they can do with that much stock is to crash the price by dumping it onto the market all at once.  That's a great threat except they've already lost 40% of their money during it's crash.  How much more money are they willing to lose?

Again, every stock transaction has a buyer.  People are buying the stock because they either think the sell off is an overreaction or the stock is now at a price that's more reasonable in relation to the company's fundamentals, as in sales and profits.  Since the stock went up today people either thought the hit it took a couple a days ago was too much or it could simply be a case of "rising tide raises all boats".  Don't normally follow the Korean exchange too closely.

Here in the states, we have a slew of investment types who have declared the PC as dead, being replaced by smartphones and tablets.  Because of that hardware and software companies that specialize in PCs are also being poo-pooed.  Now I imagine this isn't a US trend, the PC is dead, but a world wide one and in Korea a online game company that's primary sources of income are from PC games are also on investor's naughty lists along with PC Bangs (PC gaming cafes) and hard drive companies.

Looking at Nexon's 3rd quarter numbers show that their Korean sales are down 20% year to year and 22% in North America.  For Nexon their biggest market is China and it's growing quickly.

Now if Nexon or NCSoft can come out with a popular MMO that's scalable on smartphones to tablets, I would imagine their stocks will shoot up again.

In that case we should figure out if there is anything else we can reasonably do to get NCSoft to sell the IP.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Codewalker on December 08, 2012, 04:33:04 PM
As for PCs being dead, I say again, if you want to track how many PCs are operating, you don't track the number of new PC sales, you track the number of sales of high end video cards.  People are no longer buying new PCs every year or so, they are upgrading instead.  The PC is far from dead.

IMO tablets and mobile gaming are much more likely to steal market share from console games, not PC games.

PC gamers still play on PCs and not consoles for a reason. Mobile devices won't change that.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 08, 2012, 05:48:02 PM
PC gamers still play on PCs and not consoles for a reason. Mobile devices won't change that.

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.corvusonline.net%2Fforum_images%2FPeteThis01.jpg)

Every couple of years, someone trots themselves out to go stand on some digital street-corner and loudly announces that the Death of PC gaming is nigh via some long-winded article. They always manage to get a few converts to sip that particular Kool-Aid and chime in, but most of us just look at them askance and say "Uh, yeah, whatever" and call it a day. They've been wrong every time in the past, and they will continue to be wrong for the foreseeable future.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on December 08, 2012, 05:54:24 PM
Every couple of years, someone trots themselves out to go stand on some digital street-corner and loudly announces that the Death of PC gaming is nigh via some long-winded article. They always manage to get a few converts to sip that particular Kool-Aid and chime in, but most of us just look at them askance and say "Uh, yeah, whatever" and call it a day. They've been wrong every time in the past, and they will continue to be wrong for the foreseeable future.

What I can never grasp is, why is there such an obsession with it in the first place? Nobody would keep saying things like this if they weren't hoping for it to be true.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on December 08, 2012, 06:00:53 PM
Rivalry? There's a lot of conflict between proponents of various platforms so if one of them died out or faded into insignificance, it would make their claims that their own preferred platform is "best" slightly more credible.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on December 08, 2012, 06:17:51 PM
Rivalry? There's a lot of conflict between proponents of various platforms so if one of them died out or faded into insignificance, it would make their claims that their own preferred platform is "best" slightly more credible.

There's nothing stopping one of them from competing in the PC market though. Compatibility between platforms is easier now than it has been at any other time in gaming history.

Or is PC just not seen as being worth the trouble because a PC can't follow you around during your day and spam you with ads?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The Fifth Horseman on December 08, 2012, 06:39:05 PM
Quote
People are no longer buying new PCs every year or so, they are upgrading instead.
Unless they skimped so long on upgrading critical parts that the machine can't really be upgraded.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on December 08, 2012, 06:47:48 PM
Unless they skimped so long on upgrading critical parts that the machine can't really be upgraded.

True, but even so, if they have a habit of upgrading their PCs, odds are they're going to assemble one from individual parts too.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on December 08, 2012, 06:50:19 PM
Or is PC just not seen as being worth the trouble because a PC can't follow you around during your day and spam you with ads?

That's pretty much the problem: God forbid we not be spammed with ads every minute of every day.

I have no desire to join the legions who spend 80% of every 24 hours with their noses glued to a smartphone screen, and then when they finally go to bed the phone is tucked under their pillows so that if someone texts them they'll know immedjutly!!!... so I guess I am just old and cranky.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 08, 2012, 07:01:59 PM
What I can never grasp is, why is there such an obsession with it in the first place? Nobody would keep saying things like this if they weren't hoping for it to be true.

I think part of it is the desire to be right about something of importance that's forthcoming. There's this personality type that wants to be a doomsayer and be right about it. They are probably the types that like to say "I told you so."

Granted, that's not true in every case.

We often see similar declarations as well, like the death of the PC in general (to be brought about by tablets, smart-phones, cloud computing, etc), the desktop PC (the previous list, plus laptops as as a cause), and printed media (caused by computers, and now e-readers and other types of digital media).

It does get tiresome after a while.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 08, 2012, 07:07:18 PM
I don't know of anyone who buys a PC every year.  Smartphones I can believe but I'm not one of those nut jobs either.  Tablets are still rapidly evolving and even though the iPad 4 has an impressive bit of hardware performance wise I'm not a fan of a closed ecosystem.

And the "PC's are Dead" mantra is talking about the consumer/home PC market.  Yes I've had computers since my Atari 800 in college with it's 300 baud modem, I'm the exception but most people only use their PCs for accessing the Internet (and a tablet it good enough for that) and for school children doing their written reports.   Most people game on a console not a PC.  So I can grok where stock analysts are coming from when they keep declaring that "PCs are dead".  They missed out on Dell and Compaq and Gateway in the 80s and 90s so they are just looking for the next big thing in the consumer marketplace.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 08, 2012, 07:10:50 PM
Most people game on a console not a PC. 

Which has been the case for a good many years now. And yet there's still a market for PC gaming. Its not nearly as big as it used to be, but it survives.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: johnrobey on December 08, 2012, 07:22:52 PM
What I can never grasp is, why is there such an obsession with it in the first place? Nobody would keep saying things like this if they weren't hoping for it to be true.

I think part of the obsession is one we know either first- or second-hand: the allure of the New Shiney.  Another piece is self-interest.  Fame, fortune, even religious cults may form around the person able to accurately predict that which has a direct bearing on the welfare of the group.  I'd guess this second piece is only slightly diminished in present times from what it was in antiquity, if at all.  Besides, look at how fun and useful small, portable computers are (whether called smartphones, androids, etc.)

You may have heard, as I once did, that initially no one could think of a use for a personal computer.  Why would one want one?  Until one engineer said he thought his mother would use one to store her recipes on.

There's nothing stopping one of them from competing in the PC market though. Compatibility between platforms is easier now than it has been at any other time in gaming history.

Or is PC just not seen as being worth the trouble because a PC can't follow you around during your day and spam you with ads?

I'll always be a fan of full sized keyboards and detest texting, but I'm an admitted old guy.  Do you have an ad-blocker installed on your PC, Tim?  Yeah, i thought so.  Me too.  BTW, I'm not trying to take away from what you're saying.  Humans do a lot of things that strictly speaking aren't rational but make sense anyway, such as falling in love.  (I'll leave it to others to find better examples.)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 08, 2012, 07:40:30 PM
Which has been the case for a good many years now. And yet there's still a market for PC gaming. Its not nearly as big as it used to be, but it survives.
Yes but from a PoV of a stock market analyst, they are looking for companies that cater to huge markets or supply materials to companies that cater to huge markets.  And right now they aren't seeing PCs as being a product that sells into a huge market (consumer/home) anymore.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 08, 2012, 07:50:58 PM
The original statement that prompted my reply was Tim wondering aloud about the obsession to declare the market dead. This declaration is not always coming from stock-market analysts.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: ukaserex on December 08, 2012, 08:05:42 PM
It is true. The sad part about the majority of venture capitalists and other investors is that they don't just look for a return of their investment dollar, but the highest return for their dollar. There are some niche marketeers, but they seem to be few and far between.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mistress Urd on December 08, 2012, 08:35:14 PM
At this point my only comment is, when NCSoft is delisted I can throw a party.  :P
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kistulot on December 08, 2012, 08:38:06 PM
At this point my only comment is, when NCSoft is delisted I can throw a party.  :P

I bring the chips!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Perfidus on December 08, 2012, 08:38:51 PM
When NCSoft is in ashes, then you have my permission to party.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blue Pulsar on December 08, 2012, 11:14:08 PM
I think, possibly related to their stocks, knowing their income would be interesting. Anyone know of how their profits are trending in the wake of the shutdown announcement and after? The more we know, the better. I'm not one that is so good at tracking such information even though I am positive it is out there.

I, along with most here, would truly like to believe that shutting down our home has been problematic for them and I don't believe that belief is misplaced or simple, unguided opinion. I hate to see any company suffer in these times, but I hate even more feeling cheated and stolen from. Especially by someone who thinks that it is in anyone's best interest.

Ideally, I think that most of us, myself included, would like to see the company do badly, then either relinquish the rights to the game or reopen it. After that, I would love to see their stocks, sales, and reputation soar. But, as they say; Knowing is half the battle, and I'd love to know how their general sales and/or subscriptions to their other games are doing.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kistulot on December 08, 2012, 11:25:34 PM
When NCSoft is in ashes, then you have my permission to party.

...in that vein, musn't their punishment be more severe?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: eabrace on December 08, 2012, 11:34:44 PM
I don't know of anyone who buys a PC every year.
I think the least amount of time I've gone between new systems was about two years, but I have three systems running.

I just upgrade components in my gaming PC until the motherboard isn't able to support it anymore (recently replaced it due to the fact that I just couldn't get new AGP graphics cards anymore), but my last file server had been up and running since 1998 (and still on Windows 98) when I finally replaced it a couple of years ago.  My laptop is still doing just fine after a memory upgrade or two over the years and I think I've had it since '05 or '06.

Aside from the laptop, I've been buying components and building my own systems since about 2000.  Since they don't track new PC sales by looking at components, I've spent a whole lot of money they aren't taking into account.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Vasarto on December 08, 2012, 11:37:09 PM
I bring the chips!

For those old enough I got this recipe for a cocktail called a Triforce

Goldschlager - Gannon
99 Bananas - Zelda
Captain Morgan Black - Link

In that order in a shot glass.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: P51mus on December 08, 2012, 11:59:47 PM
Yes but from a PoV of a stock market analyst, they are looking for companies that cater to huge markets or supply materials to companies that cater to huge markets.  And right now they aren't seeing PCs as being a product that sells into a huge market (consumer/home) anymore.

Steam is telling me there are 4,621,711 people on it right now.  Is that not big?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 09, 2012, 12:10:50 AM
I bring the chips!

Make em sweet-onion flavor chips, and I'm down! :D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Vasarto on December 09, 2012, 12:22:08 AM
Make em sweet-onion flavor chips, and I'm down! :D

I will bring some Seven Layer Dip

refried Beans and cheese
Spinach
Clam
Onion
Frito Lay Jalapeno cheese
Guacamole
Salsa - Medium

Also I will make scones and bring coke
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 09, 2012, 01:40:23 AM
Steam is telling me there are 4,621,711 people on it right now.  Is that not big?
Compared to 1.26 million XBox 360 sales in the US just during the month of November and over 500,000 PS3 sales during Black Friday weekend, no it's not big.

Anyways that's just people logged in to Steam.  Heck I'm logged into Steam but I'm not playing any games right now.

Since FatherXmas was taken I'm using another former CoH character, AtomicSamuraiRobot as my Steam name.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on December 09, 2012, 01:51:54 AM
For those old enough I got this recipe for a cocktail called a Triforce

Goldschlager - Gannon
99 Bananas - Zelda
Captain Morgan Black - Link

In that order in a shot glass.

Layered?

If my research proves it's cool (gluten free) I'll have to try that.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on December 09, 2012, 01:53:33 AM
Compared to 1.26 million XBox 360 sales in the US just during the month of November and over 500,000 PS3 sales during Black Friday weekend, no it's not big.

Anyways that's just people logged in to Steam.  Heck I'm logged into Steam but I'm not playing any games right now.

Since FatherXmas was taken I'm using another former CoH character, AtomicSamuraiRobot as my Steam name.

Steam also isn't the only PC game service. Origin has, or at least had within the past year, over 10 million users, and that's WITH a ton of bad PR surrounding their rather scary ToS, stock disasters, and EA earning the "Worst Company of 2011" award.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Vasarto on December 09, 2012, 01:56:07 AM
Well from what I see nc went up a little bit. Stll pretty sure they are still a lot down from what they were from the end of November though.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 09, 2012, 03:54:14 AM
Here's another thing that all those analysts are not taking into account.

The West is getting older.

No, really, seriously older.  As in, I am 62, sitting in a zero gravity recliner, with a padded lapdesk I got from an Old Fart catalog holding my keyboard in an ergonomically comfortable position, with not one, but TWO Very Large monitors to hold my stuff.  That is my work rig and my gaming rig.  My father in law's is similar, with even bigger monitors.

Console games are not much fun for my aging reflexes.  I have real problems with joysticks; people with arthritic fingers have even more troubles with joysticks.  Plus, the TV you are gaming on is probably not the one on the living room, but one in the family room with furniture comfortable for kids but not old bones, and with a TV that is fine for watching a movie but gives you squinty headaches when you are trying to game.
I have trouble gaming on a laptop, and as you chillun age, you will discover the same thing.
I can't play on a netbook.
A tablet is Right Out.
Smartphone?  bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

If you intend to market to the US, the UK and Europe, you ignore the Aging of the West to your peril.  As the West ages, and people discover the sort of setup that my father in law and I have, I would expect PC Games to get more, not less, popular.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 09, 2012, 04:04:53 AM
with a padded lapdesk I got from an Old Fart catalog

I want to buy stuff from the Old Fart catalog! Heh :D

All kidding aside, you're absolutely correct. In my case though, while I have no real dexterity issues, I don't like touch-screen interfaces when compared to ye olde keyboard. For one thing, fingerprints on a Keyboard are all but invisible. Get em on a touch-screen, and I go OCD in a hurry.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on December 09, 2012, 04:52:14 AM
I'm not seeing any damage control efforts from NCSoft. We're hitting them with everything we have, and there's no opposition.

Are we beneath their notice? Their declining stock belies that. Several times our efforts have immediately preceeded a tumble.

Perhaps they're not answering because what we're saying is true, and answering would only draw more attention.

But then, they would mount a media compaign touting them and their recent efforts, trying to outshout us, especially before Christmas.

It feels like they're turtle-ing, trying to hide behind language barriers until this blows over. I wish we had more ears and voices in Korea.

What's their next move?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on December 09, 2012, 04:53:27 AM
Here's another thing that all those analysts are not taking into account.

The West is getting older.

Even worse for NCsoftcore... their own analysts appear to be oblivious to the fact that the gamer population of the East is aging even faster than that of the West. The Eastern gaming population is also becoming increasingly female. Yet NCsoftcore seems more inclined than ever to market to twitch-gaming impulse-buying porn-loving young males. Of course... that particular demographic is notoriously easy to get money out of in exchange for junk. Which seems to be increasingly what NCsoftcore has to sell. So maybe they do know what they're doing.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on December 09, 2012, 04:57:55 AM
If you intend to market to the US, the UK and Europe, you ignore the Aging of the West to your peril.  As the West ages, and people discover the sort of setup that my father in law and I have, I would expect PC Games to get more, not less, popular.

I still have the reflexes and the dexterity for consoles and portables (though probably won't for much longer), but consoles bore me now. Even when I compare it to the games I used to play at that child, they feel dumbed down. Even simple side-scrollers that don't need a plot more than 2 paragraphs long, are nowhere near as challenging. Just like traditional entertainment media now, everything seems to be targeting the K-8 crowd, treating anyone older than that as an afterthought.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on December 09, 2012, 05:49:57 AM
i dont do consoles much anymore because they are just so damned expensive when compared to PC gaming

consoles require: TV (anywhere from $100-3000), console and accessories (~$400 +/- 100), games (~$60 +/- 10 each), and the required need to upgrade when a new console comes out to play new games (usually new system out every 2-3 years)

a PC requires: 1 upgrade ~5 +/- 2 years to keep up with the current games (or if parts die) which runs ~$1500-2000 for high end components (assuming brand new full upgrade, individual parts vary and can be less), can play pretty much any game regardless of generation so your games dont become "obsolete" after 2 generations, and can get games MUCH cheaper (IE through steam very easy to buy most games <$20 with how often they do sales, even on new $60 games)


then when you get to the portability issue, a laptop can run the same computer games you play at home, while your console is chained to your TV and thus required a different system rebuying the same games, or getting different games for about the same price as the regular console.


i havent touched a console is close to 2 years now because its just so much more convenient and cheaper to play on PC
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 09, 2012, 05:57:29 AM
I'm not seeing any damage control efforts from NCSoft. We're hitting them with everything we have, and there's no opposition.

Are we beneath their notice? Their declining stock belies that. Several times our efforts have immediately preceeded a tumble.

Perhaps they're not answering because what we're saying is true, and answering would only draw more attention.

But then, they would mount a media compaign touting them and their recent efforts, trying to outshout us, especially before Christmas.

It feels like they're turtle-ing, trying to hide behind language barriers until this blows over. I wish we had more ears and voices in Korea.

What's their next move?

Well there are a number of answers to that, and without having an insider on the ground in NCSoft Seoul, we are not going to know.

It could very well be that we are considered to unimportant to bother with.  That could be because we are Western and a fraction of their market.  Or, because we really are NOT affecting the stock plunge that much (there are a number of factors affecting it at the moment, although I think the fact that it dropped 12,500 won after the article in the Korean Times has a good 60% chance of being a solid hit on our part).   Or, because we are insignificant because we are (or were) mere customers, and our job is to sit down, shut up, and take what we are given.

It could be because they are still following the H & K strategy of hiding in the bunker.  It's one they are comfortable with, as a culture.  Hide from something long enough, it will get tired and go away. 

It also could be because (WARNING!  DONNING TIN FOIL HAT!) what we have here is a war invisible to us going on between Nexon and NCSoft, in which Nexon is attempting to gobble up its nearest competitor.  I do have some interesting facts.  Speculations I will put in [] brackets.

Taek Jin Kim divorced his first wife recently [early this year?].  He had to give her half of his 60% share of NCSoft as part of the settlement. [we don't know what happened to that 30% of NCSoft stock]

He then married his second wife, who is a former Nexon executive.

He then sold half of his remaining stock to Nexon.  [rumor has it he would like to sell the rest]

Second wife is put in charge of NCSoft West.

Guild Wars sells 2 million copies, although they were expecting it to sell 6 million, based on the number of sold copies of GW1.  One reason it only sold two million is because they shut off sales, claiming they weren't ready to handle that many all at once, thus chopping off a lot of impulse purchases.  [WTF? you boast that you EXPECT to sell 6 million copies and you aren't ready to handle that number when you go on sale??]

NCSoft West unilaterally murders CoH.

[Now, if I were going to try to take over a company, the easiest way is through the bedroom, not the boardroom.  CoH would just be collateral damage in a greater war.  Distract the CEO.  Give bad advice.  Drive stock prices down, buy the stock when it bottoms out through proxies until you have the majority share, then come in and fire everyone that isn't one of your stooges.]
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on December 09, 2012, 06:34:10 AM
I feel like I need to bathe after merely reading that! Fascinating speculation.

Anyway, my best guess: NCSoft's winding up for some sort of counterpunch. Not directly at us, mind. I anticipate some PR blitz in Korea to shore up their stock hits and negate our efforts. And our campaign's hamstrung so long as we don't have Korean speakers working with us. They're anathema here... but we need to hit 'em there.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 09, 2012, 07:29:48 AM
Well there are a number of answers to that, and without having an insider on the ground in NCSoft Seoul, we are not going to know.

It could very well be that we are considered to unimportant to bother with.  That could be because we are Western and a fraction of their market.  Or, because we really are NOT affecting the stock plunge that much (there are a number of factors affecting it at the moment, although I think the fact that it dropped 12,500 won after the article in the Korean Times has a good 60% chance of being a solid hit on our part).   Or, because we are insignificant because we are (or were) mere customers, and our job is to sit down, shut up, and take what we are given.

It could be because they are still following the H & K strategy of hiding in the bunker.  It's one they are comfortable with, as a culture.  Hide from something long enough, it will get tired and go away. 

It also could be because (WARNING!  DONNING TIN FOIL HAT!) what we have here is a war invisible to us going on between Nexon and NCSoft, in which Nexon is attempting to gobble up its nearest competitor.  I do have some interesting facts.  Speculations I will put in [] brackets.

Taek Jin Kim divorced his first wife recently [early this year?].  He had to give her half of his 60% share of NCSoft as part of the settlement. [we don't know what happened to that 30% of NCSoft stock]

He then married his second wife, who is a former Nexon executive.

He then sold half of his remaining stock to Nexon.  [rumor has it he would like to sell the rest]

Second wife is put in charge of NCSoft West.

Guild Wars sells 2 million copies, although they were expecting it to sell 6 million, based on the number of sold copies of GW1.  One reason it only sold two million is because they shut off sales, claiming they weren't ready to handle that many all at once, thus chopping off a lot of impulse purchases.  [WTF? you boast that you EXPECT to sell 6 million copies and you aren't ready to handle that number when you go on sale??]

NCSoft West unilaterally murders CoH.

[Now, if I were going to try to take over a company, the easiest way is through the bedroom, not the boardroom.  CoH would just be collateral damage in a greater war.  Distract the CEO.  Give bad advice.  Drive stock prices down, buy the stock when it bottoms out through proxies until you have the majority share, then come in and fire everyone that isn't one of your stooges.]
I agree, I think the article in The Korea Times made the average person in Korea aware of what NCSoft did and on face value, shutting down a game that was making money, seems odd for a company whose 2nd quarter was in the red for the first time in years.  Bad press from a widely read local source (as oppose to US/EU MMO gaming websites) about a game that was not really known about in their gaming press sort of added fuel to the sell off which had died down for a while.

As for GW2 sales.  Well GW1 sold 7 million boxes over all four expansions.  A person buying the original game and each expansion separately counts as 4 boxes where their last box edition which contained all four counts only as one.  So it's kind of tough to extrapolate how many GW1 fans were just waiting to hop into GW2.  Plus as far as I can tell it hasn't been released in Asia, or at the very least their servers are completely segregated from the American and European servers because that's all I can see when I log in to GW2.  NCSoft's IR slideshow of Aug 2012 states that the Asia launch would take place in approximately 12 months after the US/EU launch (page/slide 17).

Now supposedly ArenaNet has five years worth of expansions outlined and I'm not sure if they are going to do paid expansions or not.  Right now the world consists of a single continent so there is always new frontiers over the horizon without the need of major global disaster to change the face of the planet or opening up rifts to other worlds.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on December 09, 2012, 07:32:53 AM
Well there are a number of answers to that, and without having an insider on the ground in NCSoft Seoul, we are not going to know.

It could very well be that we are considered to unimportant to bother with.  That could be because we are Western and a fraction of their market.  Or, because we really are NOT affecting the stock plunge that much (there are a number of factors affecting it at the moment, although I think the fact that it dropped 12,500 won after the article in the Korean Times has a good 60% chance of being a solid hit on our part).   Or, because we are insignificant because we are (or were) mere customers, and our job is to sit down, shut up, and take what we are given.

It could be because they are still following the H & K strategy of hiding in the bunker.  It's one they are comfortable with, as a culture.  Hide from something long enough, it will get tired and go away.

It also could be because (WARNING!  DONNING TIN FOIL HAT!) what we have here is a war invisible to us going on between Nexon and NCSoft, in which Nexon is attempting to gobble up its nearest competitor.  I do have some interesting facts.  Speculations I will put in [] brackets.

Taek Jin Kim divorced his first wife recently [early this year?].  He had to give her half of his 60% share of NCSoft as part of the settlement. [we don't know what happened to that 30% of NCSoft stock]

He then married his second wife, who is a former Nexon executive.

He then sold half of his remaining stock to Nexon.  [rumor has it he would like to sell the rest]

Second wife is put in charge of NCSoft West.

Guild Wars sells 2 million copies, although they were expecting it to sell 6 million, based on the number of sold copies of GW1.  One reason it only sold two million is because they shut off sales, claiming they weren't ready to handle that many all at once, thus chopping off a lot of impulse purchases.  [WTF? you boast that you EXPECT to sell 6 million copies and you aren't ready to handle that number when you go on sale??]

NCSoft West unilaterally murders CoH.

[Now, if I were going to try to take over a company, the easiest way is through the bedroom, not the boardroom.  CoH would just be collateral damage in a greater war.  Distract the CEO.  Give bad advice.  Drive stock prices down, buy the stock when it bottoms out through proxies until you have the majority share, then come in and fire everyone that isn't one of your stooges.]

I think you need to check the integrity of your conductive cranial prophylactic. Some bad info is getting in. Did you remember to cover the ears completely and make sure it comes all the way down to the base of the skull in the back? I find mine gets leaky if I don't.

To the best of my knowledge and ability to quickly check on the 'Net...

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Beltor on December 09, 2012, 08:17:56 AM
It sounds like a merger was planned between Nexxon and NCSoft that may change into a takeover. COH was just caught in the crossfire.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 09, 2012, 12:11:00 PM
Kosmos, it was Brian Clayton who told me that Song-yee Yoon was the CEO of NCSoftcore West; I'm going to assume that since he was reporting to her, he knows what he is talking about.

At the moment, I cannot remember where the information that she was once a Nexon Exec came from, but it was in an article in the gaming press, and no one corrected it.

The information that he had split a 60% share with the ex was extrapolation from an article that said he had to "split" his share with his ex-wife.  I assumed (incorrectly, obviously) that since he had 30% he must have originally held 60%.  "Split" to me implies "divided in half."

I would love to know where in that timeline Yoon was promoted to CEO of NCSoftcore West--before, or after selling the stock to Nexon?

I did warn you it was a tin-foil-hat conspiracy theory.  This is what happens when you give a writer very little data to go on.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DrakeGrimm on December 09, 2012, 12:42:55 PM
Kosmos, it was Brian Clayton who told me that Song-yee Yoon was the CEO of NCSoftcore West; I'm going to assume that since he was reporting to her, he knows what he is talking about.

At the moment, I cannot remember where the information that she was once a Nexon Exec came from, but it was in an article in the gaming press, and no one corrected it.

The information that he had split a 60% share with the ex was extrapolation from an article that said he had to "split" his share with his ex-wife.  I assumed (incorrectly, obviously) that since he had 30% he must have originally held 60%.  "Split" to me implies "divided in half."

I would love to know where in that timeline Yoon was promoted to CEO of NCSoftcore West--before, or after selling the stock to Nexon?

I did warn you it was a tin-foil-hat conspiracy theory.  This is what happens when you give a writer very little data to go on.

Behold the trap of the writer. Give us too little data, and our brains start manufacturing their own...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Turjan on December 09, 2012, 06:35:52 PM
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on December 09, 2012, 07:08:43 PM
"Lee used to work for Arthur Andersen...."

Whoa, waitasec, the same Arthur Anderson accounting firm convicted of helping Enron with their shenanigans, then went bankrupt? Dear Lord! That is one stone-cold rotten-to-the-bones woman.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Andersen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Andersen)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron)

That's like... the business equivalent of finding out she was a member of the Nazi party.

"How many Arthur Anderson accountants does it take to change a light bulb?

Three! One to change the bulb and one to rip you off."
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 09, 2012, 08:46:00 PM
You can't paint the entire company, Arthur Andersen, with the Enron mess.  It was a very large company with lots of branches and I'll say most of them were fully on the up and up.  Enron was a case where one group, including it's senior management, soiled the name of the entire company for all of it's 85,000 employees.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 09, 2012, 08:54:30 PM
What I found interesting in those linked articles was this bit.

"Yoon is especially known as the "genius'' who received her Ph.D from the Massachusetts Institute of Technoloy (MIT) at the age of 24. She inspired a popular TV series ``KAIST'' starring actress Lee Na-young as an engineering progidy."

They have an 81 episode drama about;

"A situation drama on students of Korea Advanced Science and Technology. The story of love, agony and endless research of the top brains in the field of science. It also presents a role model of a free, creative youth and their professors dictating what education should be. K.A.I.S.T stands for Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology."

I take it they didn't make them out to be a bunch of socially inept misfits.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Tubbius on December 09, 2012, 09:26:49 PM
This is getting heavy.  :o
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 09, 2012, 09:59:12 PM
Holy crap, I just walked into an episode of "White Collar", minus the cool-factor and the commercials.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Axonius on December 09, 2012, 10:22:55 PM
Lots of valid theories here, but there is one more possibility that I haven't seen anyone mention...Is it possible that there is some dirty laundry in the CoX reported financials?

While we all loved the game, do we really know for certain that it was in fact making money and not some fancy financial account involved?

I mean, NCSofts behavior  as it relates to the CoX decisions, is exactly in line with the behavior of a company that is trying to cover up something.

Like everyone else, I'm still trying to make sense of this.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Turjan on December 09, 2012, 10:25:28 PM
Dear Lord! That is one stone-cold rotten-to-the-bones woman.

He's a bloke, this Lee Jae-ho. Here's the photo from the article :-

(https://i.imgur.com/kOhN0.jpg)

I didn't know about the Enron connection, Colette...most enlightening! If their Chief Financial Officer was involved in that, it might explain how so many weird figures show up in their accounting reports - and how ArenaNet doesn't in fact seem to show up at all for years. I believe that's what they called in the Enron incident : "creative accounting" ;)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on December 09, 2012, 10:45:56 PM
Whoops, yeah! Got the two confused. Need a playbook.

"You can't paint the entire company, Arthur Andersen, with the Enron mess."

Guilt by association fallacy, I know. Quite correct. Still...

"If their Chief Financial Officer was involved in that, it might explain how so many weird figures show up in their accounting reports..."

First I've heard of that. Let's keep the possibility of financial shenanigans in mind without leaping to unfounded conclusions.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on December 09, 2012, 10:54:00 PM
Kosmos, it was Brian Clayton who told me that Song-yee Yoon was the CEO of NCSoftcore West; I'm going to assume that since he was reporting to her, he knows what he is talking about.

I had assumed you had inside info and I was mainly looking for when she took over the CEO role at NCsoftcore West and couldn't find anything at all about it. Since Lee was NCsoftcore CFO and NCSW CEO at the same time, I wouldn't be surprised if they just moved the latter title from Lee to Yoon without an announcement. I think it more likely that she was simply in the chain-of-command as CSO between Clayton and Lee after they did away with a discrete NCSW CEO and started running the show from Korea.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 09, 2012, 11:37:44 PM
He's a bloke, this Lee Jae-ho. Here's the photo from the article :-

(https://i.imgur.com/kOhN0.jpg)

I didn't know about the Enron connection, Colette...most enlightening! If their Chief Financial Officer was involved in that, it might explain how so many weird figures show up in their accounting reports - and how ArenaNet doesn't in fact seem to show up at all for years. I believe that's what they called in the Enron incident : "creative accounting" ;)
The only Enron connection was that he once worked for Arthur Anderson and there was a cover up at Arthur Anderson about Enron.  Arthur Anderson was a world wide accounting agency with 85,000 employees.  Unless Colette has something that ties him to Enron, it's simple guilt by association.  It would be equivalent to blaming a chemical engineer working for Dow Chemical in the US for the Bhopal Tragedy.

Edit: Okay, how did I double post this?  What was I thinking?  Sorry Colette, didn't mean to pile on.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 10, 2012, 12:44:03 AM


While we all loved the game, do we really know for certain that it was in fact making money and not some fancy financial account involved?



What we have is a logical extension of previous behavior.

In the shutdowns of Exteel, Dungeon Runners, Auto Assault, and especially Tabula Rasa, NCSoft loudly proclaimed that they not only were not making any money, they were losing money.  With CoH there has not been a single word along those lines.  Which suggests that they were at least breaking even, or making a modest profit.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kistulot on December 10, 2012, 12:50:35 AM
With CoH there has not been a single word along those lines.  Which suggests that they were at least breaking even, or making a modest profit.

And with this previous history, I imagine Paragon Studios would have been far more paranoid about their jobs than they EVER showed themselves to be.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blue Pulsar on December 10, 2012, 07:36:11 AM
...
While we all loved the game, do we really know for certain that it was in fact making money and not some fancy financial account involved?

I mean, NCSofts behavior  as it relates to the CoX decisions, is exactly in line with the behavior of a company that is trying to cover up something.

As others have said, they closed down other games and gave reasons openly as to why. Among those reasons was the lack of income. I have heard it stated here many times that CoX was one of it's most profitable ventures inside North America. It would be out of their norm to close down a game because it was not making money and not admit it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on December 10, 2012, 05:01:26 PM
Especially since most of us would probably have nodded sadly but understood if it had been announced (and verified) that it was "not making money."

The outrage here is not over just the closure. The outrage is over its inexplicability and the refusal to make any effort to help the fans save their game. While there will always be people who rage that water is wet and that they people can't flap their arms hard enough to fly and carry the ragers with them, most of us are not that unreasonable. If it was truly a problem of the game just losing money, the volume and organization of our efforts would be deflated by the fact that we are, in the end, reasonable people who simply want to be treated reasonably.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on December 10, 2012, 05:41:24 PM
"Unless Colette has something that ties him to Enron, it's simple guilt by association."

Yes, as I conceded earlier. Nevertheless, involvement with Arthur Anderson is worth noting.

I have a question for the technically minded among us.

Assuming no development staff and no future updates, a single server with tech staff, (I've heard this called "life support mode") what is the absolute minimum monthly cost to allow City of Heroes to run? How much money does CoH need to break even under those conditions?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mandrake on December 10, 2012, 08:27:08 PM
If you were to run on 'life support mode' ... you could only handle a few hundred to possibly a few thousand players at a time depending on how efficient the code is and how awesome the server is. Probably can virtualize everything you need on one, I imagine a couple are needed for all the database and game server transactions going on. I'm sure it is probably designed somewhat modular in this way - I could be wrong.

If it were truly just a single server - you could just have one or two people monitoring the server to do restarts and maintenance. Possibly be regular restarts due to the likely constant queue to get in.

All in all it wouldn't cost much of anything. Active server staffed location (server farms that have people onsite at all times and will perform certain tasks that are included with the monthly fees) Probably around $300 - $500 USD per month cost. Which you would most definitely cover if you still wanted to charge even a minimal fee for access.

Just a matter of doing it or not.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on December 10, 2012, 08:38:18 PM
In other words, NCSoft could have pared down costs and continued running CoH for a trivial sum, easily recouped. Okay, we have verifiable mathematic proof that these guys are douchebags.

Meanwhile, they seem to have stabilized a bit. http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS) Let's see how they hold up against our next salvo.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DrakeGrimm on December 11, 2012, 12:32:28 AM
In other words, NCSoft could have pared down costs and continued running CoH for a trivial sum, easily recouped. Okay, we have verifiable mathematic proof that these guys are douchebags.

Meanwhile, they seem to have stabilized a bit. http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS) Let's see how they hold up against our next salvo.

You may fire when ready. /Tarkin
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on December 11, 2012, 04:41:34 AM
Quote
Guild Wars sells 2 million copies, although they were expecting it to sell 6 million, based on the number of sold copies of GW1.  One reason it only sold two million is because they shut off sales, claiming they weren't ready to handle that many all at once, thus chopping off a lot of impulse purchases.  [WTF? you boast that you EXPECT to sell 6 million copies and you aren't ready to handle that number when you go on sale??]

Allegedly they shut off sales because the servers were so overloaded that players zoned in and all but could not move, for the lag. GENIUS!!

Still a very poorly thought out move, but this IS NCStupid we're talking about - so what else would we expect. You don't shut down the kitchen when the hotcakes are flying out the door, that's just stupid.

Do these people even have actual business degrees, as opposed to hanging any shingle under their names that they feel like, because INTERNET and who will know, anyways? Do they even have a clue about basic human psychology? No and no again, is my guess.

They know about as much about business as I do about neurosurgery.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on December 11, 2012, 04:49:33 AM
"NCStupid?!" OOoohhh... I feel new memes brewing! Bless'ya, Illusionss!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blitzwing on December 11, 2012, 04:55:57 AM
They HAVE been exceptionally quiet in the last 3-4 days...as far as I can tell, they've stopped responding to anything....

...given how hard and repeatedly we've been hitting them, they're either in a punch-drunk state of confusion...or are potentially gearing up for a nasty counter-strike....  *ponders*
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: MishaFox on December 11, 2012, 05:39:24 AM
This may seem like stating the obvious but it's plain to me that something is seriously messed up at NCSoft. Something is going on in the background that we aren't aware of. I think something big is about to happen there. I feel like a person in Hawaii on Dec 6, 1941.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 11, 2012, 05:41:40 AM
This may seem like stating the obvious but it's plain to me that something is seriously messed up at NCSoft. Something is going on in the background that we aren't aware of. I think something big is about to happen there. I feel like a person in Hawaii on Dec 6, 1941.

Then let us hope the bombers are going the other direction this time.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Feycat on December 11, 2012, 06:53:29 AM
Allegedly they shut off sales because the servers were so overloaded that players zoned in and all but could not move, for the lag. GENIUS!!

Still a very poorly thought out move, but this IS NCStupid we're talking about - so what else would we expect. You don't shut down the kitchen when the hotcakes are flying out the door, that's just stupid.

Except that isn't what happened.

NCsoft forced Anet to release GW2 before they were ready to do so.

It was Anet's decision to shut off sales because their infrastructure was groaning - but at no time was anyone unable to move from lag. Most of the problems had to do with zoning parties into the same instances, overflow servers becoming glitched, and glitched events.

Anet is a great dev team and had repeatedly told us through the long betas that they wouldn't even release hype about systems they didn't have working yet to the general public. Anet's decision to shut down sales is because they actually give a crap about their player's experiences, it was not a decision of NCsoft's.

NCsoft's stupid move was to shove GW2 into a release just to shore up their terrible Q3 numbers.

I'd also like to see a cite on the "expecting 6 million in sales" thing. I hear it thrown around, but as someone who was avidly watching Anet through the beta process, I never saw it. People may be confusing it with the announcement that the GW franchise as a whole sold 6 million units as of April 2009, but I could be wrong, I'd love to see a link.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 11, 2012, 09:09:22 AM
I'd also like to see a cite on the "expecting 6 million in sales" thing. I hear it thrown around, but as someone who was avidly watching Anet through the beta process, I never saw it. People may be confusing it with the announcement that the GW franchise as a whole sold 6 million units as of April 2009, but I could be wrong, I'd love to see a link.

I found the link to an interview with an NCSoft flack when I was searching three months ago when the shutdown was first announced.  NCSofte definitely said confidently they figured on selling 6 million boxes, and part of the reason their stock dropped after the release was that it was only 2 million.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Feycat on December 11, 2012, 01:34:30 PM
I found the link to an interview with an NCSoft flack when I was searching three months ago when the shutdown was first announced.  NCSofte definitely said confidently they figured on selling 6 million boxes, and part of the reason their stock dropped after the release was that it was only 2 million.

I would really love to see it, no snark, seriously.

Not like it would SURPRISE me to find NCsoft blowing smoke up its own ass as Anet's expense, all things considered, y'know? :-/ But I'd like to see it just so I can have a cite to point at. I can't find anything with that number.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on December 11, 2012, 02:05:43 PM
Then let us hope the bombers are going the other direction this time.

The bombers have already been here, there is nothing left here for them to hit. Gotta think of it like that.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on December 11, 2012, 02:11:54 PM
Quote
It was Anet's decision to shut off sales because their infrastructure was groaning - but at no time was anyone unable to move from lag

People were experiencing extreme lag -because- the servers were so overloaded. I saw a tutorial video on YouTube where someone was demonstrating how to roll a new character over there, when they zoned into the game there were easily 100-150 characters standing en masse at the zone-in location. It looked like a subway platform.

No, the official reason was not "people cannot move from lag." But that's a logical side-effect of a massively overloaded server.

I waited to roll a character until CoX shut down, because not only did I want to enjoy CoX till the last minute with no distractions, I wanted to have room to move once I zoned in. Which did work.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Feycat on December 11, 2012, 03:46:31 PM
I waited to roll a character until CoX shut down, because not only did I want to enjoy CoX till the last minute with no distractions, I wanted to have room to move once I zoned in. Which did work.

And I rolled my characters the moment head start was available and played every day, and never ever experienced that level of lag.

Yes, the servers were crowded, but they never hit that level of performance issue. Someone with a crappy computer making a youtube video doesn't mean much.

It sure would be nice if some people could Save COH without continually bashing GW2.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on December 11, 2012, 03:56:02 PM
Well, with all the fury directed at NCStupid, no surprise everything they run is getting caught in the crossfire, no matter the quality.

Soon as CoH is liberated, we'll forget and move on, and GW2 can continue... until it gets the axe in another fit of caprice.

They've regained their losses and stabilized. I don't like that.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on December 11, 2012, 04:49:19 PM
It sure would be nice if some people could Save COH without continually bashing GW2.

I think you're a little overly sensitive on this. Discussing GW2's launch issues and NCStupid's questionable decision to limit new player downloads of the game because their servers were were emitting sparks and small bits of fire, like an Arachnos base map about to explode [we've all been on those maps... "meltdown imminent!"], is not "bashing the game." Its honest statements about a stupid problem that should have been foreseen months before launch of the game. You'd think it'd be all about giving people playing a new game the maxium bonding experience... but no.

All of this isn't exactly making NCSilly look any smarter. And that is the point here, not some imaginary "bashing." I am also playing GW2, but I realize that its not going to be met with shining praise here on Titan. It is also in no way, shape or form safe from the axe any time NCStupid gets another bright idea. I play with that foremost in mind.

Quote
Someone with a crappy computer making a youtube video doesn't mean much.

When the person in question is reporting for a MMO website, yeah it kinda does.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on December 11, 2012, 04:51:54 PM
Well, with all the fury directed at NCStupid, no surprise everything they run is getting caught in the crossfire, no matter the quality.

Soon as CoH is liberated, we'll forget and move on, and GW2 can continue... until it gets the axe in another fit of caprice.

They've regained their losses and stabilized. I don't like that.

I'd be careful with this bloodlust thing I see sometimes popping over on these boards. It doesn't really help our cause and may put off people that would otherwise be sympathetic to it. I know, NCsoft isn't exactly our best buddy right now, but hey, I have already seen accusations of a smear campaign going on against them on the talk page in their Wikipedia article. So please cool your heads a little bit.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on December 11, 2012, 04:53:21 PM
They've regained their losses and stabilized. I don't like that.

Ups and downs happen; it is the long term that needs worrying about.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Feycat on December 11, 2012, 04:53:38 PM
I think you're a little overly sensitive on this. Discussing GW2's launch issues and NCStupid's questionable decision to limit new player downloads of the game because their servers were were emitting sparks and small bits of fire, like an Arachnos base map about to explode [we've all been on those maps... "meltdown imminent!"], is not "bashing the game." Its honest statements about a stupid problem that should have been foreseen months before launch of the game. You'd think it'd be all about giving people playing a new game the maxium bonding experience... but no.

Except that isn't true, so yeah, it's bashing. And going back through your post history, you haven't had much good to say about that game, just a lot of talk about how crappy and boring it is.

It doesn't exactly lend you an air of neutrality.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Feycat on December 11, 2012, 05:01:00 PM
I'd be careful with this bloodlust thing I see sometimes popping over on these boards. It doesn't really help our cause and may put off people that would otherwise be sympathetic to it. I know, NCsoft isn't exactly our best buddy right now, but hey, I have already seen accusations of a smear campaign going on against them on the talk page in their Wikipedia article. So please cool your heads a little bit.

This exactly.

My GW2 guild is full of ex-COH players, some of whom were there right until the end, and some of whom quit playing years ago but still hold the game in their hearts and were devastated to learn of its impending closure.

They won't come here, they won't participate in this movement, specifically because of crap like this. Heck, GG, who is the leader of one of the Plan Z projects, posted on the COH forums that the failure of GW2 and the closure of NCsoft is necessarily part of the stated goals. Whether or not her opinion is a widely held leadership position or not, it's certainly the impression that one gets.

People who've just lost one home aren't going to flock to help out the people trying to burn their new one down.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kistulot on December 11, 2012, 05:09:07 PM
People who've just lost one home aren't going to flock to help out the people trying to burn their new one down.

I know a lot of times over the years, some game annoying me or another made me wish downfall on it. When WoW stopped working on my machine and tech support kept blaming my computer when it was happening on my friends' systems as well, I wanted the whole thing to blow up. As an example. But having felt the death of a game, I don't think we should wish that on anybody.

Even DRM loving lore retconning scum suckers like bli-

So anyway, yeah, let's try to stay positive. Even if this means just not bashing on NCSoft for things that arent concrete facts, and keeping in mind arenanet =/= ncsoft  (which means we can call out NCSoft for a poor launch of GW2 if they forced it, but saying Arenanet should have its doors closed is a no-no) we really do want to stay the side that good, logical, sane people want to be on.

If we want anything more than just retribution, anyway.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on December 11, 2012, 05:10:11 PM
"I have already seen accusations of a smear campaign going on against them on the talk page in their Wikipedia article."

That would actually be true. We are telling the unpleasant truth about NCSoft, as loud as we possibly can. NCSoft would be well served to ask "why are our former customers so furious with us that they're waging a smear campaign?"

NCSoft callously and capriciously pulled the plug right after selling us a ton of updates, including "nature mastery" three days before the announcement. Their answers have been arrogant and condescending. We're not just kids upset because a toy's been taken from us. We're adults who have had a bellyful of corporate swindles, and we're not lying down and taking it anymore.

I am sorry if other NCSoft games like Guild Wars are being damaged by our actions, (well... not Blade and Soul. It's plain creepy!) but NCSoft will forevermore carefully consider when closing their games, so I'm confident we're actually contributing to Guild Wars' long-term survival and well-being.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Feycat on December 11, 2012, 05:16:03 PM
I am sorry if other NCSoft games like Guild Wars are being damaged by our actions, (well... not Blade and Soul. It's plain creepy!) but NCSoft will forevermore carefully consider when closing their games, so I'm confident we're actually contributing to Guild Wars' long-term survival and well-being.

Agreed on all these points, actually. (B&S is creepy as hell to me!) It's why I'm still on these boards despite finding a home in GW2 - I honestly believe that our media blitz about COH has caused enough face-losing that they may hesitate to pull a similar move on other MMOs.

We didn't protest or quit playing COH when they closed 4 other MMOs, we all had our blinders on. I actually hope like hell that the fact this group raised our voices and screamed when it happened to us makes me think that NCsoft may have to ask themselves if they want to risk it happening again. Better to cut loose the studio than that - and Anet being cut loose would make me SO freaking happy.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on December 11, 2012, 05:18:52 PM
"I have already seen accusations of a smear campaign going on against them on the talk page in their Wikipedia article."

That would actually be true. We are telling the unpleasant truth about NCSoft, as loud as we possibly can. NCSoft would be well served to ask "why are our former customers so furious with us that they're waging a smear campaign?"

Perpetrating a smear campaign and spreading the truth about company's questionable business practices are two different things. The former will not win us many friends and will only further damage our position. Think of what happens if Disney - or any other company we are hoping to take CoH over - sees how we are handling the game closure. Then imagine what they would think would happen if they stepped on our toes, which in business world sometimes happens. Do you think they would race to purchase the game with a buzzing wasp nest that our community is degrading into attached?

We're not just kids upset because a toy's been taken from us.

Good. Stop acting like you are, then.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Sekoia on December 11, 2012, 05:46:36 PM
I deleted a few posts.

Please refrain from calling someone a sock puppet unless you have something much more substantial to base that claim on than "they disagree with me" or "they aren't rabidly seeking the destruction of NCsoft".

It's also entirely inappropriate to tell people to get off the forums because you don't like what they have to say.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kistulot on December 11, 2012, 05:49:28 PM
Thank you, Sekoia.

I never like posts needing to be deleted or anything like that, but I think we really do need to stay positive here, and some things don't help...

But we can all just move on and stay positive in the future easily enough! :D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: therain93 on December 11, 2012, 06:04:53 PM
Perpetrating a smear campaign and spreading the truth about company's questionable business practices are two different things. The former will not win us many friends and will only further damage our position. Think of what happens if Disney - or any other company we are hoping to take CoH over - sees how we are handling the game closure. Then imagine what they would think would happen if they stepped on our toes, which in business world sometimes happens. Do you think they would race to purchase the game with a buzzing wasp nest that our community is degrading into attached?
Yep, this exactly. 
I tossed a thread onto mmorpg.com (be warned, wear a thick flame-proof suit if you dare visit it) regarding the boycottncsoft.com website; not surprising, but the response was mixed with reactions coming from both ends of the spectrum.  One particular poster who was critical of the movement (or one particular poster actually) made a very important statement (although unjustified in that particular context and was eventually modded out): we DO represent the CoH community at large.  "Bad" behavior on the part of a few can smear all of us and have unexpected repercussions.  We all have to be level-headed in our approach to raising awareness of NCsoft's practices. 
 
There may be bloodlust in your heart, be keep a cool exterior and be thoughtful in your posting.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on December 11, 2012, 06:11:17 PM
Agreed on all these points, actually. (B&S is creepy as hell to me!) It's why I'm still on these boards despite finding a home in GW2 - I honestly believe that our media blitz about COH has caused enough face-losing that they may hesitate to pull a similar move on other MMOs.

We didn't protest or quit playing COH when they closed 4 other MMOs, we all had our blinders on. I actually hope like hell that the fact this group raised our voices and screamed when it happened to us makes me think that NCsoft may have to ask themselves if they want to risk it happening again. Better to cut loose the studio than that - and Anet being cut loose would make me SO freaking happy.

I for one have no hate for GW2 or Arenanet. I've been playing GW2 sporadically here and there. I've been impressed with the game a lot. It's very good. And I'll likely play more soon.

(I don't think it's anywhere NEAR as "groundbreaking" as a lot of people say. It's a high-fantasy MMO. That's not exactly genre busting. It has a lot of little quality of life upgrades that are nice and make the gameplay more convenient. And reward you more for sheer exploration than any other game other than COH. But that's about it.)

Some dear friends who bought the game on pre-order and jumped in early were raving about it and were about to drag me in.

And then Black Friday happened. And I regretfully told them I couldn't make that purchase or personally support the game monetarily in any way. I was disappointed, because I WANTED to play.

I'm serious. I COULD. NOT. DO. IT. I actually went down to a Gamestop and held the box in my hand for 15 minutes trying to convince myself to buy it for my friends sake. (Because in the case of at least one, it's the ONLY game they are now playing.)

But that NCSoft logo kept burning in my hand.

My friends surprised the heck out of me by chipping in and dividing up funds and bought me an account. "Call it an early Christmas Gift" was one response.

Well heck - what can you do? I can't refuse that gesture!

So yes. I'm in. And although an initial purchase was made on my behalf, I guess I technically stuck to my vow of never giving NCsoft another penny of my money.

I can do positive game reviews for them. If I was a video maker like Samuraiko I'd happily make videos of the gameplay and post on youtube and point out the cool things. I can learn the lore (and it's very interesting) and talk about it. And I can encourage COH players not to hate on them.

I can/would do all those things. But no money. None. Sorry. Can't.

Which is not to say I would refuse to support Arenanet IF THEY ESCAPED from NCSoft! If that happened I'd do a 180 and IMMEDIATELY do all I could to support them. Heck - I'd buy a whole new retail box if they did that! I like the game and the studio enough to wish them the best.

I don't think I'm alone or even in the minority here in my feelings. And there are plenty here who actually aren't as adamant about these sorts of things who have no problems making that purchase and enjoying GW2.

So please don't say Titan boards are a cesspool of hate for GW2. That's simply not true. We completely recognize that Arenanet is in a similar position as that of Paragon Studios. They're good people making a good game whose publisher may yet kill their game for no good reason.

If that happens, I'd like to think that Guild Wars players would JOIN us. We'd certainly fight on their behalf as well as ours!

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on December 11, 2012, 06:18:11 PM
Except that isn't true, so yeah, it's bashing.

GuildWars2 did NOT have server load issues at launch, and the game did NOT become unavailable as a download for a time due to players overloading the servers? Really? Ok then.

I am tempted to ask why you think the download ability was really pulled, then, but I'm not going to continue to argue about this; it is at best academic. You seem unable to admit the veracity of anything except the aforementioned shining praise when it comes to this issue, so I will leave you in whatever version of MMO reality that you inhabit. Just don't get too attached, because when NCSilly gets the whim to burn it down around everyone's ears, they will do it and be damned to the hindermost. That includes you, btw. They don't care what you think either.

As for your other claim, I have never claimed neutrality. Far from it. I will continue to speak the truth regarding both my experiences in GW2, and my experiences as a customer who had her online home burned to the ground by NCStupid, and then sown with salt.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Feycat on December 11, 2012, 06:22:39 PM
GuildWars2 did NOT have server load issues at launch, and the game did NOT become unavailable as a download for a time due to players overloading the servers? Really? Ok then.

I am tempted to ask wh you think the download ability was really pulled, then, but I'm not going to continue to argue about this; it is at best academic. You seem unable to admit the veracity of anything except the aforementioned shining praise when it comes to this issue, so I will leave you in whatever version of MMO reality that you inhabit. Just don't get too attached, because when NCSilly gets the whim to burn it down around everyone's ears, they will do it and be damned to the hindermost. That includes you, btw. They don't care what you think either.

As for your other claim, I have never claimed neutrality. Far from it. I will continue to speak the truth regarding both my experiences in GW2, and my experiences as a customer who had her online home burned to the ground by NCStupid, and then sown with salt.

Again, you are wrong and mischaracterizing me. I in no way think the game deserves nothing but praise. I will, however, defend it from misinformation and slander.

And no. The infrastructure DID have crowding issues, and the game DID stop sales. And as I've said in other posts, ARENANET cut off the sales. Not NCsoft. And not because they're stupid for "not selling hotcakes while they're flying out of the kitchen" - because they're smart enough to care about the playing experience of the people who already paid their money. It was Anet's decision, and I fully support it. I had friends who were late into the game and had to wait to buy it - it was sad they had to wait, but I agree with Anet that keeping the customers you HAVE happy is more important than selling a game that needs to be stabilized to a bunch of new people. Then you ruin everyone's experience and are more likely to lose repeat customers.

Those are the facts of the matter. It wasn't "NCstupid" to pull the digital downloads - it was good sense and good customer service, and it originated with Anet.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on December 11, 2012, 06:31:04 PM
Perpetrating a smear campaign and spreading the truth about company's questionable business practices are two different things. The former will not win us many friends and will only further damage our position. Think of what happens if Disney - or any other company we are hoping to take CoH over - sees how we are handling the game closure. Then imagine what they would think would happen if they stepped on our toes, which in business world sometimes happens. Do you think they would race to purchase the game with a buzzing wasp nest that our community is degrading into attached?

I'd say that given the severity of what NCStupid did to us, that most people have been remarkably RESTRAINED in their comments and actions. And that the game's population is a lot kinder than that of many others. Imagine what WoW players would do if that game shut down! They would probably detonate a suitcase nuke at Blizzard's main headquarters! I exaggerate, but only slightly.

And I'd say NCSoft would be stupid to actually expect that they will escape the consequences of their actions unscathed. Hence: NCStupid.

As far as a "smear campaign," its a little more subtle than that. Its called poisoning the well, and it takes time. We here in the US just watched MONTHS of well-poisoning go on, in the name of a presidential election. Well-poisoning can be very, very effective. Or it can fail miserably.... hello, Mittens Romney I am looking at you. But regardless, this is a well-known political tactic and one I itend to employ to the fullest on this issue. In the nicest possible way, I will make certain that everyone knows exactly how NCSilly treats their customers. I just cannot sign on to continued deference to a company that has treated us like this; I just can't.

Every time I passed the magic store in Talos, some Freak NPC nearby would say: "Why be nice? What has it gotten you?" Maybe he was just a little bit right. I will miss CoX NPC chat a lot, but I digress.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Golden Girl on December 11, 2012, 07:21:07 PM
All NCsoft titles are legitimate targets.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Feycat on December 11, 2012, 07:24:09 PM
All NCsoft titles are legitimate targets.

Like this.

Targets for WHAT? What is your goal?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Golden Girl on December 11, 2012, 07:26:39 PM
Like this.

Targets for WHAT? What is your goal?

Victory ;)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on December 11, 2012, 07:26:49 PM
All NCsoft titles are legitimate targets.

Would you like dedicated players of other NCsoft games to lose access to their games just like we did lose access to City of Heroes because, well, we don't have access to City of Heroes anymore? Or am I missing a nuance here?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Golden Girl on December 11, 2012, 07:28:05 PM
Would you like dedicated players of other NCsoft games to lose access to their games just like we did lose access to City of Heroes because, well, we don't have access to City of Heroes anymore? Or am I missing a nuance here?

They can help us out.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on December 11, 2012, 07:29:49 PM
They can help us out.

After we spoil their fun? Hardly likely. Of course if I'm reading what you're saying right, because frankly it's really hard to communicate this way.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on December 11, 2012, 07:34:56 PM
Going back to Sekoia's comment, is "sock puppet' another substitution? I'm thinking of compiling them for a drinking game.

(Also, I hope it's not rhyming slang, cuz, DA-YUM! I know tempers run a little high, but I've never seen anyone so moved as to use that word!)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Feycat on December 11, 2012, 07:36:03 PM
They can help us out.

They can help you how? In what way? Before or after you "target" their game?

I mean, do you realize what you're representing here? You've gone total Crusader.

What constitutes "victory" for you that involves targetting other MMOs?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Sekoia on December 11, 2012, 07:42:27 PM
Going back to Sekoia's comment, is "sock puppet' another substitution?

Nope: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sockpuppet_(Internet) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sockpuppet_(Internet))
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on December 11, 2012, 07:43:33 PM
Nope: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sockpuppet_(Internet) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sockpuppet_(Internet))

WAY less fun! ;)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on December 11, 2012, 08:14:05 PM
i wouldnt want any of the other games shut down either, but under ncsoft its only a matter of time until they find the new "shiny" and decide to cut their other slack and pull out of the NA/EU market entirely (which means aion will prolly be their next target)

i want ncsoft to release coh,  and if they go down before that happens, i think that would be due entirely to ncsofts bad business decision making

most of what we are doing is trying to inform poeple whats going on, and get them to ask the same questions we are (specifically WHY the game was shut down when it was still profitable and stable)

ncsoft is coming under media scrutiny and they have barely responded to any of it, and its not cause they dont care, its cause they are under immense pressure and saying the wrong  thing could hurt them worse than what they already done

basically they already shot themselves in the foot, but are they gonna let it get infected and have to amputate or patch it up so it heals
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on December 11, 2012, 08:19:57 PM
Guys, while we've been talking, NCsoft has risen back to 157k won (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=036570.KS).  over the weekend between Dec. 7th and Dec. 10th, they somehow rose from 145k to 152k.

I'm not happy about this development.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: chasearcanum on December 11, 2012, 08:27:55 PM
After we spoil their fun? Hardly likely. Of course if I'm reading what you're saying right, because frankly it's really hard to communicate this way.

Frog,  I don't think any of us are looking to totally "shut down" ncsoft, but:

1) The business process that led to the CoH closure already puts every player at every NCSoft MMO at risk. NCSoft lacks the stability and customer-centric posture that is necessary to reliably deliver a service, and hosting the game is essentially a service.  NCSoft shut down a game that reliably made 24-26% of their NA/European sales-- one that made 40% of the sales in those regions in the quarter immediately preceding the announcement.  In that light, there is NO certainty or stability for any of their products.

2) We want this behavior to change.  Becoming more customer-centric means that when THEIR interests in a product have diminished, they seek a resolution that meets the USERS' best interests.  For us, that means finding a new home for CoH.  For those that come after us, it could mean spinning off titles to independents self-sufficient entities, selling titles, or publicly putting games into a very gradual "sunsetting" where the servers remain operational, but new content development becomes minimal until the community organically departs. 

3) To influence this change, though, we have carrots and sticks... and at this stage we're left with more sticks. NCSoft  apparently thinks that people don't care about these things, they won't do anything.  They'll "weather the storm," stick to their old ways, and continue to be a risk to players of their still-existing titles.  If NCSoft's sales falters, they may see that CUSTOMERS DO CARE about this, and realize that a big public reversal in policy may be to their strategic advantage.  If their investors become uncertain, then they'll realize that their investors may care and likewise seek to make changes.  The bigger and broader our impact the more likely they'll have to reconsider their processes. 

4) We still have a few carrots left, though.  The Disney initiative is one of them.  What better way for NCSoft to realize the folly of shutting down and destroying a revenue stream than Disney giving them a lump of cash for something they were ready to turn off forever?  What better way to make them reconsider other shutdown efforts?

Our goal isn't to hurt them.  Our goal is to bring about a change that benefits all gamers- CoH'ers, players of other NCSoft titles, and even other publishers' titles.  Developers learn from one another, and many will be looking at the practices, policies, and fallout put on display here.

So, please don't think that most of us just want to 'hurt NCSoft any way we can."  There's a purpose to the pain, and it does intend to benefit everyone.

However, PLEASE KEEP US HONEST here.  Many of us are hurting after the shutdown. Hurt people sometimes lash out irrationally, and I'm sure most of us have fallen into that mindset at one time or another. Some people here do focus only on the pain and lose sight of the bigger goal.  We need voices of moderation to keep that in check.




Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on December 11, 2012, 08:28:23 PM
After we spoil their fun? Hardly likely. Of course if I'm reading what you're saying right, because frankly it's really hard to communicate this way.

As if we players could somehow spoil the fun for people playing other NCStupid games. Why would we even have to? NC will eventually do that for us; you can bet the farm on it. Aion and Lineage players beware.

That is actually the crux of what's being discussed.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kistulot on December 11, 2012, 08:28:33 PM
Dividing amongst ourselves, and hurting other gamers/games, will not help us "against" NCSoft, or for City of Heroes.

It's easy to be against something.

It's a lot harder to be FOR something.

In the same vein as not labeling eachothers as sock puppets, sell outs, sparkling pegacorns, etc, let's also try not to reach out for something to attack. Yes, NCSoft wronged us. Yes, I'd be happy for them to crash too. But we arent watching their stock prices because we all got together to watch the company die. "This is a Save Paragon City!" board, not a "Destroy NCSoft!" board, and its important to remember that. Yes, NCSoft having financial leverage against them helps us. Yes, them being in a less than advantageous position helps us.

But I think the more we start encouraging, accepting, going down the route of collateral damage, the less we look like something worth supporting - and this isn't really just about us.

CoH being shut down like it was represents a blow against gamers and -consumers- globally. It shows possible international bias causing harm to consumers who were in good faith supporting a product, and a company, only for everything to go away because someone wanted it to - not because it was harming shareholders or a company at large.

CoH being shut down when older games are still going, some not even in maintenance mode, is a blow against old-but-proffitable. Tripple A titles are not all that the gaming industry wants, or needs right now. They look shiny and pretty, but the smaller scene, indy games, lower budget titles, MMORPGs still making money but-not-WoW-levels, these all still have value.

This is a GAMER cause. This is a GAMER issue.

If someone came in here and said they were an Aion subscriber, as much as that game annoys me for its possible connections to the closing of CoH... if they were throwing their load in with us, I would happily accept them.

Because they could get hurt like us.

Because we were one internet, one gaming community, and one people who enjoy having fun by pressing buttons and having a character do stuff on screen.

Remembering this can only make us stronger :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Terwyn on December 11, 2012, 08:37:14 PM
Guys, while we've been talking, NCsoft has risen back to 157k won (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=036570.KS).  over the weekend between Dec. 7th and Dec. 10th, they somehow rose from 145k to 152k.

I'm not happy about this development.

It is to be expected, sadly. I note that although a certain article was released and caused the sudden drop to a new 52-week low, it hasn't penetrated into the minds of investors. If they characterize it as a western issue, caused by western minds not comprehending and thus complaining about Korean business practises, why should the investors in Korea care?

Our best bet would be to take it up with those responsible for international trade, showing them that the gulf in conceptual understanding caused by the cultural differences may well have further consequences on both sides of the border.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Twisted Toon on December 11, 2012, 08:38:25 PM
I think the least amount of time I've gone between new systems was about two years, but I have three systems running.

I just upgrade components in my gaming PC until the motherboard isn't able to support it anymore (recently replaced it due to the fact that I just couldn't get new AGP graphics cards anymore), but my last file server had been up and running since 1998 (and still on Windows 98) when I finally replaced it a couple of years ago.  My laptop is still doing just fine after a memory upgrade or two over the years and I think I've had it since '05 or '06.

Aside from the laptop, I've been buying components and building my own systems since about 2000.  Since they don't track new PC sales by looking at components, I've spent a whole lot of money they aren't taking into account.
Every computer I've had since 1997 was built from parts. Usually, I will swap the Hard Drive from the old one to the new one so I don't have to go through the whole re-installation of everything every time. This last computer I built I didn't do that.

But yeah, they haven't been counting my money spent on computers for over a decade.

a PC requires: 1 upgrade ~5 +/- 2 years to keep up with the current games (or if parts die) which runs ~$1500-2000 for high end components (assuming brand new full upgrade, individual parts vary and can be less), can play pretty much any game regardless of generation so your games dont become "obsolete" after 2 generations, and can get games MUCH cheaper (IE through steam very easy to buy most games <$20 with how often they do sales, even on new $60 games)
To quote a line from Independence Day, "Uh... Mr. President. That's not entirely accurate. "  I have a few PC games that just will not play on Operating Systems that are newer than Win98. It has to do with how they access memory and the changes in how the newer Operating Systems allow programs to access memory. I tend to not upgrade my OS until I'm forced to. In fact, I won't be able to play X-Com: Enemy Unknown (http://www.xcom.com/enemyunknown/ (http://www.xcom.com/enemyunknown/)) unless I get Vista or Windows 7

For the most part, though, you are correct.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: okami on December 11, 2012, 08:39:51 PM
If someone came in here and said they were an Aion subscriber, as much as that game annoys me for its possible connections to the closing of CoH... if they were throwing their load in with us, I would happily accept them.

IMHO Aion is probably next in line to feel the executioner's axe and not the GW games so it'd be in their self-interest to throw in with #SaveCoH before there needs to be a #SaveAion.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: chasearcanum on December 11, 2012, 08:43:06 PM
Guys, while we've been talking, NCsoft has risen back to 157k won (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=036570.KS).  over the weekend between Dec. 7th and Dec. 10th, they somehow rose from 145k to 152k.

I'm not happy about this development.

Don't worry too much.  Rallies are common enough.   

The fact is still that the day the news article came out, there was a substantial dip in NCSoft shares that took several days to rebound, even after normal stock-bolstering practices like layoff announcements were made.

We're getting hits that they've had to respond to... hits that came AFTER the game's shutdown, when they should be thinking that the worst was behind them... probably a lot bigger of a hit than they'd expect for a game that was less than 1% of their overall sales (and ~25% of their NA/European sales).  That will keep them on their toes and thinking about us... and as long as that's the case, then there's still the potential they'll take action.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Feycat on December 11, 2012, 08:46:03 PM
Frog,  I don't think any of us are looking to totally "shut down" ncsoft, but:

GG is. She's said as much, she includes directly targetting their other MMOs, and she's the leader of one of the Plan Z projects the whole site is associated with. That's part of the problem. There's a sizable and vocal contingent here who are totally willing to burn the witch and take the whole village with her.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on December 11, 2012, 08:51:30 PM
Frankly want NCStupid gone, so that the inevitable CoX emulator can remain unchallenged.

If Arenanet has a suicide buy-back option, all the better. GW2 will remain untouched, NC can burn right down to the ground for all of me. And I'm absolutely serious. NC does not care about us.

Why would I care about such a bunch of killswitch-throwers, in return?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Feycat on December 11, 2012, 08:53:45 PM
Frankly want NCStupid gone, so that the inevitable CoX emulator can remain unchallenged.

If Arenanet has a suicide buy-back option, all the better. GW2 will remain untouched, NC can burn right down to the ground for all of me. And I'm absolutely serious. NC does not care about us.

Why would I care about such a bunch of killswitch-throwers, in return?

No one is suggested you should care about NCsoft.

What's being suggested is that we campaign with dignity, rather than acting like terrorist toddlers, and trying not to go out of our way to inflict the same pain we're facing on other games. It's not cool, and it's not the community we should be representing.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: chasearcanum on December 11, 2012, 08:54:14 PM
GG is. She's said as much, she includes directly targetting their other MMOs, and she's the leader of one of the Plan Z projects the whole site is associated with. That's part of the problem. There's a sizable and vocal contingent here who are totally willing to burn the witch and take the whole village with her.

I should change that "any" to "many."   

I'm too used to taking some peoples' rhetoric with a grain of salt (or just ignoring them) but they are here and do add an unstable element that needs countered now and again.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: chasearcanum on December 11, 2012, 09:00:32 PM
Frankly want NCStupid gone, so that the inevitable CoX emulator can remain unchallenged.


That's not how it would work, though.

If NCSoft disintegrated overnight, its assets would be sold off, and we could certianly put in a bid for the CoH IP at that point.  If we got it, there'd be no need for a CoX emulator.   If we were outbid, though, we'd probably see a rather aggressive new owner pursuing the CoX emulator so their investment was protected, regardless of what they decided to do with it.

On top of that, the whole "disintegration/ sell off" process would be slow, resource intensive, and likely freeze any other effort to recover the city.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on December 11, 2012, 09:03:12 PM
Frog,  I don't think any of us are looking to totally "shut down" ncsoft, but:

I was replying specifically to Golden Girl's vague comments that hinted at nuclear-like behavior. This kind of mindset concerns me because while currently it fuels the efforts to save City, in the end it will turn the whole IP into hot potato no sane company would be willing to handle. But I know what's what and I do agree more or less with all the points you make.

3) To influence this change, though, we have carrots and sticks... and at this stage we're left with more sticks. NCSoft  apparently thinks that people don't care about these things, they won't do anything.  They'll "weather the storm," stick to their old ways, and continue to be a risk to players of their still-existing titles.  If NCSoft's sales falters, they may see that CUSTOMERS DO CARE about this, and realize that a big public reversal in policy may be to their strategic advantage.  If their investors become uncertain, then they'll realize that their investors may care and likewise seek to make changes.  The bigger and broader our impact the more likely they'll have to reconsider their processes. 

With a small exception to this one. But before I begin, let me put things into perspective by reminding you that I started the thread where I pondered possible legal action against NCsoft. Not my proudest moment, but I am hurt too and thus am just as prone to have my judgement clouded as the next person on these boards.

But that being said, going all nuclear is not our best option not because it is not effective, but because it may actually be just a little bit too much. Running an MMO is a business and companies that want to stay on the market need to have a very pragmatical outlook. Currently I would imagine that CoH may be quite a prize being an already developed game with such a dedicated following. That sounds like a great business opportunity: just acquire the code base and the IP rights and there, instant profit. But imagine that the bloodlust takes a permanent hold and CoH story will actually spill to the wider audience with all the negativity and hate. What would a sane business person do after seeing all the bagagge they would inherit with the game? They would stop in their tracks and think what will happen if circumstances change and they will be unwilling or unable to keep the game alive themselves. They will quickly realize they will find themselves on the other end of the bat and become the new "NCstupid". That is very bad for business. So what are they going to do? They will back away. NCsoft will be hurt, but we will be left with nothing.

The important thing is to realize that while we all love CoH, it is not a goose that is laying golden eggs. No company will be willing to do everything just to get a hold of the IP. And because of that we need to be smart about what we do with our efforts. Currently some of us are, but some of us are not. That's a problem.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 11, 2012, 09:09:12 PM
Dividing amongst ourselves, and hurting other gamers/games, will not help us "against" NCSoft, or for City of Heroes.

It's easy to be against something.

It's a lot harder to be FOR something.

In the same vein as not labeling eachothers as sock puppets, sell outs, sparkling pegacorns, etc, let's also try not to reach out for something to attack. Yes, NCSoft wronged us. Yes, I'd be happy for them to crash too. But we arent watching their stock prices because we all got together to watch the company die. "This is a Save Paragon City!" board, not a "Destroy NCSoft!" board, and its important to remember that. Yes, NCSoft having financial leverage against them helps us. Yes, them being in a less than advantageous position helps us.

But I think the more we start encouraging, accepting, going down the route of collateral damage, the less we look like something worth supporting - and this isn't really just about us.

CoH being shut down like it was represents a blow against gamers and -consumers- globally. It shows possible international bias causing harm to consumers who were in good faith supporting a product, and a company, only for everything to go away because someone wanted it to - not because it was harming shareholders or a company at large.

CoH being shut down when older games are still going, some not even in maintenance mode, is a blow against old-but-proffitable. Tripple A titles are not all that the gaming industry wants, or needs right now. They look shiny and pretty, but the smaller scene, indy games, lower budget titles, MMORPGs still making money but-not-WoW-levels, these all still have value.

This is a GAMER cause. This is a GAMER issue.

If someone came in here and said they were an Aion subscriber, as much as that game annoys me for its possible connections to the closing of CoH... if they were throwing their load in with us, I would happily accept them.

Because they could get hurt like us.

Because we were one internet, one gaming community, and one people who enjoy having fun by pressing buttons and having a character do stuff on screen.

Remembering this can only make us stronger :)
Well said.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kistulot on December 11, 2012, 09:14:22 PM
Well said.

Thank you :)

I know I'm saying something a lot of people have already said, but sometimes saying it just so can help :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Megajoule on December 11, 2012, 09:21:41 PM
I, for one, am seeing a lot of anger here.  Anger which is certainly understandable, given the circumstances... but anger is much like fire.  If not carefully tended and watched, fire can burn out of control, indiscriminately, including those who started it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: srmalloy on December 11, 2012, 09:43:45 PM
IMHO Aion is probably next in line to feel the executioner's axe and not the GW games so it'd be in their self-interest to throw in with #SaveCoH before there needs to be a #SaveAion.

At least Aion in the Western market; I don't have the link available here at work, but while researching the history of Korean MMOs I ran across a statement that NCSoft had paid for computer upgrades at many cyber cafes in Korea so that they would have the specs to be able to run Aion, otherwise the game would have fallen flatter there than "City of Hero" did, from sheer lack of ability to play it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 11, 2012, 10:47:29 PM
At least Aion in the Western market; I don't have the link available here at work, but while researching the history of Korean MMOs I ran across a statement that NCSoft had paid for computer upgrades at many cyber cafes in Korea so that they would have the specs to be able to run Aion, otherwise the game would have fallen flatter there than "City of Hero" did, from sheer lack of ability to play it.
Which is why the "hey lets build an MMO on FPS engine XYZ, it'll look awesome" is normally a bad idea.  Back on the old forums someone was asking for a new CoH done on the CryEngine 3 engine.  There's a good reason it's called "Cry"Engine other than the name of the company.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Aggelakis on December 11, 2012, 11:15:30 PM
(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=imageshack.us%2Fa%2Fimg7%2F4703%2Fmodhat2.jpg) Mod Hat!

Howdy guys. Some folks here are getting a little heated so I would like everyone to stop posting about anything other than watching stocks for a while. Don't talk about bashing NCsoft or another one of their games (past, present, or future), don't talk about supporting NCsoft or another one of their games (past, present, or future), don't talk about race or culture or anything else. This is a stockwatch thread, so let's have a stockwatch thread for a little while. Once we all calm down a bit, maybe the thread can tangent again.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on December 12, 2012, 12:14:39 AM
http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS)

Stabilized at 156. I still don't like that.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on December 12, 2012, 12:31:29 AM
as long as its not going up then im fine with that, of course drops will give them more prompts to sell
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: ukaserex on December 12, 2012, 01:39:50 AM
I'm by no means an expert - but I am very interested in the fluctuation of the stock price. There are so very many variables that come into play, it's enough to drive a sane man mad! As for this crazy blaster, I can't get much worse, so I can look and ponder all I like. One factor that seems to be a telling one is the value of the US dollar. I wish I had powerpoint on my computer; I'd make an overlay of the last years comparison of the Won compared to the US Dollar and NCSoft's stock price. I think, and of course, I could very well be wrong, that NCSoft was not keen to pursue our US dollars because they're just weak. I know my dollar doesn't buy what it used to. As I mentioned before, there's a zillion variables and nobody can nail all the variables down. (at least I don't think so) But, it is food for thought.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on December 12, 2012, 01:46:32 AM
what you bring up is a possible point, i doubt its the only point, but it could be a possible reason why ncsoft is trying to pull out of the western market (although it would only account for the US, not the EU)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: ukaserex on December 12, 2012, 01:49:38 AM
Heh, well, given (I am Greek, so I can say this!) how the Euro is doing, I'm not sure I would want my business there either!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 12, 2012, 02:35:39 AM
*cough*
Rumor hath it that Carbine is only getting "axe delayed" notifications in 2 month increments now.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TonyV on December 12, 2012, 02:39:06 AM
It sure would be nice if some people could Save COH without continually bashing GW2.

Well, a few things are going on here that make the issue complex.

I have no ill will towards Arena.Net, Carbine, or other studios that NCsoft acquired.  As far as I'm concerned, they're a lot of like Paragon Studios.  They have developers, artists, writers, managers, marketers, etc. that all work hard, and as far as I know, they have their dedicated communities just like we have ours.

To be honest, I fear for Arena.Net.  If what I think is happening is actually happening--NCsoft looking to shed all third-party studios and do all development basically run out of Seoul--then anyone that works there (or Carbine) should either 1) be in imminent fear for their job, or 2) be prepared for a massive change in (micro)management that will not bode well for their happiness and artistic integrity.

Which brings me to my first important point: If we are successful, there's a pretty good chance that we might actually be helping Arena.Net.  How's that?  Because if we are able to get NCsoft to free up the IP to City of Heroes, it is a template for how companies like NCsoft should ideally operate: When they're done with a game and want to move on to something else, instead of just kicking communities to the side, they can open up the possibility for other companies to acquire it.  I have no idea who runs Arena.Net, but whoever it is, wouldn't it be nice if when they get to the point where we are, instead of having to go through all of this heartache and strife and layoffs and such, their management can negotiate with NCsoft and, once NCsoft sees that it won't destroy their company, acquire the rights to Guild Wars so that that community can continue on?  Wouldn't it have been nice if Richard Garriott had been able to get the rights to Tabula Rasa so that the Paragon Studios management team and investors could have had a much easier time in negotiations to keep City of Heroes from shutting down?

There is also the issue that people are angry at NCsoft, and that anger is naturally going to seep out into all aspects of the company.  The sad fact is that if I go buy Guild Wars 2, that's going to put money into NCsoft's pocket, and I don't want that to happen.  Too many people in my humble opinion are seeing this as some sort of deliberate lash-out against Arena.Net, but it's not--not any more than buying a nice steak dinner (or whatever food you happen to like) at your favorite restaurant is deliberately spiting poor people because you could have eaten rice and beans instead and given the difference in cost to a feed the homeless.

There is also the matter of trying to do a greater good.  NCsoft shut down Paragon Studios and City of Heroes with virtually no warning and for no reason that's discernible to most people.  If we pitch such a fit that it hurts NCsoft--really hurts them financially and PR-wise--then isn't it plausible that other movers and shakers in the industry, many of them larger than NCsoft, will take notice?  If Sony, Blizzard, Perfect World, CCP or whoever sees NCsoft take a major hit because of this, how eager will they be to simply shut down a game like NCsoft did?  Not very, I'm wagering.  Someone had mentioned how mean we're being to Beastyle, who still (as far as I know) works at NCsoft in Seattle.  Look, I like the guy.  But as long as we're talking about hypothetical damage to his career, why aren't we taking into account the hypothetical damage to, say, Sean McCann's career if we don't do all we can to send the industry a message?  Or to Black Pebble?  Or to Zwillinger?  Or anyone else who is at another company now?

Also, one thing that you have to consider is that a lot of people--myself included--are really sore because they are convinced that money that was earned on City of Heroes was funneled into at least the development of Blade and Soul, and quite possibly Guild Wars 2 as well.  I know that some people dispute this, but I have my reasons (more than just "I feel this way...") for believing that in spite of their reasons, it's true.  Now don't get me wrong, I don't begrudge Guild Wars 2 players their game, and really, I don't even care very much one way or the other about Blade and Soul.  But to turn around and shut down our game and our studio after we played a role in helping to build NCsoft is extremely betraying, and I certainly understand why some people might have ill will towards those game even not necessarily through any fault of their own.

My point is, you're going to have to learn to accept that most people here are going to be anti-NCsoft and, by extension, some (not all) are going to take some of that anger out on other NCsoft titles.  You also need to recognize the difference between bashing NCsoft and bashing Guild Wars 2.  The two are not the same, any more than if I said, "NCsoft was incompetent" (which they were) by extension means, "Paragon Studios was incompetent" (which is DEFINITELY not true).

You don't have to like it, you don't have to agree with it, you're not going to get banned or anything for being the oddball out, and a small minority of people might even agree with you.  And there are plenty of topics and discussions that have little or nothing to do with NCsoft if you don't want to get into it.  But I'm going to warn you up front that if you post messages that are pro-Guild Wars or pro-NCsoft or pro-Blade and Soul, there's a really good chance that you're going to get a moderate to strong negative response.  You can go there if you want, but I suggest that you have a thick skin and stay far away from anything that could be considered trollish.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JWBullfrog on December 12, 2012, 02:39:46 AM
*cough*

I have certain inside information that Carbine is only getting "axe delayed" notifications in 2 month increments now.

In other words, the axe is being held over their heads in a threatening manner, followed by "well you get another two months" when the two month deadline runs out.

I feel very sorry for them. Carbine doesn't deserve this.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 12, 2012, 02:55:42 AM
Nor does ArenaNet and I truly, deeply and sincerely hope they can get shut of NCSoft before NCSoft threatens them with "monetize EVERYTHING" or we shut you down too."
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on December 12, 2012, 04:01:55 AM
GG, I know we're all working for the same goal here - saving CoH - but as with any battle, while there are often several ways to win, there are countless ways to lose.

We cannot afford to lose the moral high ground. We can't afford to treat collateral damage frivolously and I would very much appreciate if you and everyone else tried to shoot around those who are uninvolved, but in the way, rather than through them.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on December 12, 2012, 04:04:17 AM
Anyway, back on topic, looks like someone spent their "buy our stock back up" budget again.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Greg Lloyd on December 12, 2012, 04:55:45 AM
*cough*

I have certain inside information that Carbine is only getting "axe delayed" notifications in 2 month increments now.

In other words, the axe is being held over their heads in a threatening manner, followed by "well you get another two months" when the two month deadline runs out.

"Good night, Wesley, I'll most likely kill you tomorrow."
---- Dread Pirate Roberts VI
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: V-Mink on December 12, 2012, 06:39:36 AM
*cough*

I have certain inside information that Carbine is only getting "axe delayed" notifications in 2 month increments now.

In other words, the axe is being held over their heads in a threatening manner, followed by "well you get another two months" when the two month deadline runs out.
Is there the possibility that, should NCsoftcore decide to "recoup" its "losses" and drop said axe on Carbine, that they will spin it as the fault of the once-and-future COHmmunity?  Or would that be too blatantly Sirrocco-level chutzpah?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Terwyn on December 12, 2012, 06:42:14 AM
If they do that, we have them.

Evidence is not their friend. It is ours.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on December 12, 2012, 06:47:15 AM
agreed, theres a lot more evidence supporting our cause so if they try to turn it around they would not look good on their part
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Megajoule on December 12, 2012, 07:46:23 AM
Poor Carbine.  I was really looking forward to Wildstar.
That's pretty much the cherry on top of this sundae of suck.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on December 12, 2012, 07:51:05 AM
Is there the possibility that, should NCsoftcore decide to "recoup" its "losses" and drop said axe on Carbine, that they will spin it as the fault of the once-and-future COHmmunity?  Or would that be too blatantly Sirrocco-level chutzpah?

EA at some point, blamed the failure of SWTOR on 4chan...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Clave Dark 5 on December 12, 2012, 09:47:31 AM
EA at some point, blamed the failure of SWTOR on 4chan...

4chan is responsible for everything wrong with the internet, everyone knows that.   /sarcasm
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 12, 2012, 10:06:16 AM
4chan is responsible for everything wrong with the internet, everyone knows that.   /sarcasm

....OMG....4chan is Lord Nemesis!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: mikoroshi on December 12, 2012, 10:07:15 AM
4chan is responsible for everything wrong with the internet, everyone knows that.   /sarcasm

Yes, I just saw a thread there about how they were going to hack Titan network and unbold the "g" in your post.

OMG they did it! 0_o
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on December 12, 2012, 03:10:25 PM
Is there the possibility that, should NCsoftcore decide to "recoup" its "losses" and drop said axe on Carbine, that they will spin it as the fault of the once-and-future COHmmunity?  Or would that be too blatantly Sirrocco-level chutzpah?

How on earth would that even be possible? No one playing CoX is making management-level decisions at NCSoftheaded. It would be hilarious if they tried though, because if anything said "Keystone Cops - level stupidity," that right there would be it.

The sad thing is that hash they are going to make out of thousands of people's lives, all really for nothing. I say thousands, because everyone who will be affected comes with a family affected by the job loss, too.

Everyone at Carbine now: run for the freaking hills.

ArenaNet: watch your backs.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Clave Dark 5 on December 12, 2012, 04:52:08 PM
Yes, I just saw a thread there about how they were going to hack Titan network and unbold the "g" in your post.

OMG they did it! 0_o

Will no one save us from those monsters?!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on December 12, 2012, 04:59:57 PM
Maybe it's the same bot that's
influencing the MMOSite votes.



(God, that looks obnoxious...)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kistulot on December 12, 2012, 05:06:19 PM
....OMG....4chan is Lord Nemesis!

THE PRUSSIAN PRINCE OF LULZ!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Clave Dark 5 on December 12, 2012, 06:00:30 PM
THE PRUSSIAN PRINCE OF LULZ!

That actually kind of works, in the final confrontation, he could have shouted out "I DID IT FOR TEH LULZ!"
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Perfidus on December 13, 2012, 04:54:14 AM
Stock seems to be climbing since the announcement earlier.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 13, 2012, 05:49:31 AM
Stock seems to be climbing since the announcement earlier.

Either NCSoft is buying back its own stock at what they hope will be the bottom rate, or the market is reacting like lemmings to what they think is a positive move.  The market reacts like lemmings to what it perceives as any sort of "movement" with a company, short of declaring bankruptcy.  I have never understood this.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Electric-Knight on December 13, 2012, 06:50:21 AM
...I have never understood this.
I think that is best.
It has been my findings that efforts to understand insanity only lead to further insanity.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on December 13, 2012, 07:44:49 AM
Removing my post. I don't really want to step into this one.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: healix on December 13, 2012, 08:27:54 AM
when it comes to understanding those stock graphs, this is me....

(https://i.imgur.com/tLgf0.gif)

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Opilion on December 13, 2012, 10:54:57 AM
I have never understood this.

Tickle Me Elmo, Beanie Babies, and iPhones.  Same herd mentality, just more money involved.  ;D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JWBullfrog on December 13, 2012, 02:51:46 PM
The average stock investor is the twitchiest, most reactionary beast on the planet. They make rabbits look calm and serene in the face of danger.
The bet definition I have ever heard about stock trading comes from the film 'Trading Places'. In that film they basically equate stock trading to gambling. A quick look here;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI4fVgVVpiw (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI4fVgVVpiw)
 
Something like this may be happening with the NCSoft stock. In fact, I would be willing to bet that it is..
 
Say, one dollar? ...  ;)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on December 13, 2012, 03:55:02 PM
Crud... they're slowly digging out of the hole.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on December 13, 2012, 03:57:07 PM
Sounds like we need another community call-to-action to keep up the pressure.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: HarvesterOfEyes on December 13, 2012, 06:27:55 PM
Markets Fluctuate.

Market reporters trade in the false concept that the explanation for each day's change is clear and knowable.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on December 13, 2012, 06:33:50 PM
Markets Fluctuate.

Market reporters trade in the false concept that the explanation for each day's change is clear and knowable.

Like panel 5 of this comic. (http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2017#comic) Something tiny and stupid affects things, and everybody tries to connect to something important instead.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DJMoose on December 13, 2012, 11:02:23 PM
....OMG....4chan is Lord Nemesis!
This makes perfect sense.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 14, 2012, 02:05:09 AM
For what it is worth, a few words were dropped in the shell-like ear of the Korean Times journalist.  We made some observations and suggested he might look into a couple things.  One, if he merely raises questions about it, is going to make things very uncomfortable for NCSoft.  The other, while mere speculation, if by some possibility is true....would be a bombshell.

And while your minds are spinning, I will offer the following observation.

When Paragon Points or GW Gems or other in-game currency that requires hard cash are purchased in the marketplaces, the money goes straight to NCSoft via their third-party store.  That money remains with NCSoft until the points are cashed in at the game.  Only then does the game studio get credit for that influx of money and have it go on their side of the ledger.

So if a large number of F2P accounts would purchase points or gems, NOT cash them in, and cancel the accounts, NCSoft would get a large influx of money...that would never be credited as income to the game studio.

And one might speculate why someone would do something like that.  Why on earth would someone want to transfer money to another entity and get nothing from it?  (Hint:  Two words.  First word: rhymes with honey.  Second word: rhymes with maundering)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DrakeGrimm on December 14, 2012, 02:17:22 AM
For what it is worth, a few words were dropped in the shell-like ear of the Korean Times journalist.  We made some observations and suggested he might look into a couple things.  One, if he merely raises questions about it, is going to make things very uncomfortable for NCSoft.  The other, while mere speculation, if by some possibility is true....would be a bombshell.

And while your minds are spinning, I will offer the following observation.

When Paragon Points or GW Gems or other in-game currency that requires hard cash are purchased in the marketplaces, the money goes straight to NCSoft via their third-party store.  That money remains with NCSoft until the points are cashed in at the game.  Only then does the game studio get credit for that influx of money and have it go on their side of the ledger.

So if a large number of F2P accounts would purchase points or gems, NOT cash them in, and cancel the accounts, NCSoft would get a large influx of money...that would never be credited as income to the game studio.

And one might speculate why someone would do something like that.  Why on earth would someone want to transfer money to another entity and get nothing from it?  (Hint:  Two words.  First word: rhymes with honey.  Second word: rhymes with maundering)

/me growls, eyes going red.

They had best pray to whatever gods they worship that this speculation leads nowhere, or so help me...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on December 14, 2012, 02:18:25 AM
Dia-frickin-bolical!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 14, 2012, 02:25:47 AM
*shrug*

This is why churches have been a consistent spot for the same sort of operation.  Lots of money comes in on Sunday, with no questions asked, no trace on it, and nothing is received in return.  Just buy a bunch of prepaid debit cards with cash, create an F2P account, and run your script.  As I said, it is NOTHING but speculation, but the mechanism is right there in plain sight.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on December 14, 2012, 04:00:47 AM
"The other, while mere speculation, if by some possibility is true....would be a bombshell. Hint:  Two words.  First word: rhymes with honey.  Second word: rhymes with maundering."

:: Gapes! ::

...wow. Just wow. Wouldn't that be sumthin'!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kistulot on December 14, 2012, 04:03:08 AM
This makes me feel really glad that the extra points left over in my account were freebies :(
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Arkasas on December 14, 2012, 04:04:46 AM
I believe the moral of this story is to never, ever anger VV.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: mikoroshi on December 14, 2012, 04:08:13 AM
I believe the moral of this story is to never, ever anger VV.

Or come to her when you need an elaborate plan to launder money you've... obtained.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Electric-Knight on December 14, 2012, 04:35:19 AM
Hmmm...
But... but... isn't bunny sauntering illegal in most countries??
*scratches head*
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: MoltenSlowa on December 14, 2012, 04:52:48 AM
Hmmm...
But... but... isn't bunny sauntering illegal in most countries??
*scratches head*

No no no, you're thinking of funny bludgeoning.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on December 14, 2012, 05:07:32 AM
OK, this just made an association that, for me, ruined the humor of the thread. Fortunately, if you haven't seen the Ken Burns special on the Dust Bowl, you're safe. Also, if you didn't read EK's post as "bunny sundering."  :D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DrakeGrimm on December 14, 2012, 05:10:28 AM
I don't know what's worse. That VV put this idea forward...or that the more I look through things, the more this speculative theory suddenly makes all their actions make perfect sense.

We need to find someone to seriously dig into this, paranoid delusions of a disheartened and broken community or not.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kistulot on December 14, 2012, 05:14:14 AM
OK, this just made an association that, for me, ruined the humor of the thread. Fortunately, if you haven't seen the Ken Burns special on the Dust Bowl, you're safe. Also, if you didn't read EK's post as "bunny sundering."  :D

I must now take the feat Improved Bunny Sundering.

It lets you sunder bunnies without an attack of opportunity being provoked.

>.>
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DJMoose on December 14, 2012, 05:20:02 AM
I must now take the feat Improved Bunny Sundering.
It lets you sunder bunnies without an attack of opportunity being provoked.
>.>
Because they are no ordinary rabbits...
I don't know what's worse. That VV put this idea forward...or that the more I look through things, the more this speculative theory suddenly makes all their actions make perfect sense.
Wow...We totally need to look into this.  It makes too much sense.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 14, 2012, 10:11:05 AM
Sorry VV, you and the legal system have very different definitions of Bunny Saundering.  NCSoft handling of the proxy game currency is totally legal and makes sense back when they introduced NCCoin, which was suppose to be a multigame currency.  Same could apply to gaming time sold in Korea and other Asian countries for their "native" MMOs or the NCSoft generic time cards sold here.  Of course it adds another layer of accounting, tracking how much proxy currency that was spent that wasn't rewarded either ingame or part of a subscription, and then credit it as income from the game.

Plus they aren't getting all the money if the proxy currency is bought in a store front.  Retailers get a cut and here in the US a fair chunk of those cards are handled by one company and they get their cut before the publisher sees any of it.  This is why BestBuy still sells CoH Game Cards.  Until the card company tells them it's OK to pull them and will provide the retailer with credit (or cards for other games still in business) they are contractually obligated to display them.

Actually if you want to extend your explanation, all box sales first go in NCSoft's coffers and then credited to each game.

Listen I get it.  What NCSoft did to Paragon and us out of the blue was wrong at the very least a PR perspective.  However you can't imply malfeasance in any legal business practice that you find objectionable.  Attempting to drive down the stock price of NCSoft doesn't hurt them.  It hurts the people that own the stock but NCSoft got their money way back when the stock first went public.  A stock price is a reflection what investors think of a company, but as long as the company is profitable the stock price is immaterial to it's operations.  At best it's a source of pride.  NCSoft doesn't hire talent with attractive stock options.  They aren't Google.

The only time when the stock went down because someone here did something was VV's comments for The Korea Times piece, and that's loss has been erased with this restructuring of the western subsidiaries.  The Unity rally was great for us and generated a lot of western press but zero in Korea where most of their investors are.  Any drop in the stock between them and the 3Q numbers release is entirely due to NCSoft repeatedly missing their sales targets combined with a downturn in the industry as well as the worldwide economy.  I also imagine that those with their ears to the ground got a strong hint about the direction the 3Q numbers were heading, likely from their PC Bang game rankings of all their games and got out before the pancake hit the fan.  Those who didn't, had only a partial picture (B&S hits #1 in PC Bangs but ignored the Lineage and Aion rankings) and/or believed NCSoft was about ready to skyrocket again saw these drops as buying opportunities which is why the stock rebounded several times on the way down.

I'm not raining on your parade but simply trying to put some perspective into this.  All that driving the stock price down is only going to make them into a easier target for someone to take them over and that's it.  But as long as their sales are growing and profits are comparable to other online gaming companies, then the stock will never be driven below book value or below the range what the industry's P/E ratio says it should be.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 14, 2012, 11:26:53 AM
I never said it wasn't legal.  It's perfectly legal.  It's also wide open to Honey Maundering.  That's why Honey Maundering is so widespread, it uses legal ways to clean illicit cash.

And if you were trying to put another level of obfuscation between you and the company (NCSoft Interactive) that you had been using to Maunder Honey, wouldn't you close that company and resell its assets to another shell company?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: healix on December 14, 2012, 12:46:34 PM
I must now take the feat Improved Bunny Sundering.

It lets you sunder bunnies without an attack of opportunity being provoked.

Here is the walkthrough:



>.>


(https://i.imgur.com/arTcB.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Copper Cockroach on December 14, 2012, 01:30:46 PM
They must have rumor-mongering in Korea. Every other society on Earth does. Haven't they heard that in the total absence of official explanation, rumors, wild speculation, and tinfoil-hat theories will fill the void?

If these lines of thinking make NCsoft uncomfortable, if they take offense at the implications, there's a simple solution:

Grow a set. Step up.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on December 14, 2012, 02:17:41 PM
Even leaving our all-caps Hispanic friend who's name translates to "rich" out of this, if there were significant numbers of people who bought Paragon Points and never spent them, that's a sign that Paragon Studios may have been even more profitable than otherwise indicated.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Codewalker on December 14, 2012, 02:20:02 PM
I know I had several thousand points at the end on each of my accounts, that I had bought to get that last rewards tier and was hoarding to use for new powersets / costume sets as they came out.

After the shutdown announcement I didn't see much of a point in spending them, but now I'm kind of wishing that I had.

That's also the kind of creative accounting I was thinking of when I suggested that the quarterly revenue numbers may not tell the whole story in regards to microtransactions. The real question is what trick that NCSoft uses to recognize that as "revenue" on the corporate level since no actual service was delivered.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: WildFire15 on December 14, 2012, 02:22:49 PM
I know I had several thousand at the end on each of my accounts, that I had been gotten to get that last rewards tier and was hoarding to use for new powersets / costume sets as they came out.

After the shutdown announcement I didn't see much of a point in spending them, but now I'm kind of wishing that I had.

I'd done pretty much the same thing, but I did use a load after the shut down announcement for stuff I wasn't originally planning on getting. Still had about a thousand left over.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on December 14, 2012, 02:24:36 PM
Well, post-shutdown, who knows if the updating mechanism still credited the spent points to Paragon, since it was no longer extant?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 14, 2012, 02:30:35 PM
Well, post-shutdown, who knows if the updating mechanism still credited the spent points to Paragon, since it was no longer extant?

Unspent points go into the Never-Never.  They are never credited to anything.  Only the real money wings its way to NCSoft.

One of the reasons my spidey-sense started slowly tingling on this is that I definitely remember Dark Watcher having to deal with shoving the store in sideways, and him wondering why it just couldn't be dealt with account-side with direct payments to NCSoft as the old options were--why they suddenly, desperately needed this third party.

Just sayin'. 
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: johnrobey on December 14, 2012, 03:08:30 PM
Sorry VV, you and the legal system have very different definitions of Bunny Saundering.  NCSoft handling of the proxy game currency is totally legal and makes sense back when they introduced NCCoin, which was suppose to be a multigame currency.  Same could apply to gaming time sold in Korea and other Asian countries for their "native" MMOs or the NCSoft generic time cards sold here.  Of course it adds another layer of accounting, tracking how much proxy currency that was spent that wasn't rewarded either ingame or part of a subscription, and then credit it as income from the game.

Plus they aren't getting all the money if the proxy currency is bought in a store front.  Retailers get a cut and here in the US a fair chunk of those cards are handled by one company and they get their cut before the publisher sees any of it.  This is why BestBuy still sells CoH Game Cards.  Until the card company tells them it's OK to pull them and will provide the retailer with credit (or cards for other games still in business) they are contractually obligated to display them.

Actually if you want to extend your explanation, all box sales first go in NCSoft's coffers and then credited to each game.

Listen I get it.  What NCSoft did to Paragon and us out of the blue was wrong at the very least a PR perspective.  However you can't imply malfeasance in any legal business practice that you find objectionable.  Attempting to drive down the stock price of NCSoft doesn't hurt them.  It hurts the people that own the stock but NCSoft got their money way back when the stock first went public.  A stock price is a reflection what investors think of a company, but as long as the company is profitable the stock price is immaterial to it's operations.  At best it's a source of pride.  NCSoft doesn't hire talent with attractive stock options.  They aren't Google.

The only time when the stock went down because someone here did something was VV's comments for The Korea Times piece, and that's loss has been erased with this restructuring of the western subsidiaries.  The Unity rally was great for us and generated a lot of western press but zero in Korea where most of their investors are.  Any drop in the stock between them and the 3Q numbers release is entirely due to NCSoft repeatedly missing their sales targets combined with a downturn in the industry as well as the worldwide economy.  I also imagine that those with their ears to the ground got a strong hint about the direction the 3Q numbers were heading, likely from their PC Bang game rankings of all their games and got out before the pancake hit the fan.  Those who didn't, had only a partial picture (B&S hits #1 in PC Bangs but ignored the Lineage and Aion rankings) and/or believed NCSoft was about ready to skyrocket again saw these drops as buying opportunities which is why the stock rebounded several times on the way down.

I'm not raining on your parade but simply trying to put some perspective into this.  All that driving the stock price down is only going to make them into a easier target for someone to take them over and that's it.  But as long as their sales are growing and profits are comparable to other online gaming companies, then the stock will never be driven below book value or below the range what the industry's P/E ratio says it should be.

Simply noting that I appreciate your perspective and your taking time to post this.  Thank you, Father Xmas.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: General Idiot on December 14, 2012, 04:08:17 PM
I know I had several thousand points at the end on each of my accounts, that I had bought to get that last rewards tier and was hoarding to use for new powersets / costume sets as they came out.

I had four or five thousand on my account, as well. I was saving them for the all the costume packs and powersets that were in the I24 beta. And for the second round of super packs.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DJMoose on December 14, 2012, 04:37:43 PM
I had four or five thousand on my account, as well. I was saving them for the all the costume packs and powersets that were in the I24 beta. And for the second round of super packs.
THIS.  I stocked up on Paragon Points to purchase all the new stuff coming out with I24 and then Black Friday happened. :'(
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on December 14, 2012, 04:58:50 PM
the last time i bought points was for nature affinity, granted i still had about 2500 pts leftover by the time the shutdown happened because i was still accruing VIP stipend until the end (i checked my account history and it said i got a stipend for sept, oct, and nov)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: SkyStreak on December 14, 2012, 05:09:54 PM
I had over 10,000 points between my two accounts.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Triplash on December 14, 2012, 05:31:23 PM
I was in a similar boat, I had a little over 9600 points still there. I was expecting the second super packs to go live sooner rather than later and bought up the $100 deal sometime in June or July to be ready for it. If it's true that only spent points got credited to Paragon, then I'm glad I spent them before the end.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: eabrace on December 14, 2012, 05:45:56 PM
I had a little over 9600 points still there.
(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=images3.wikia.nocookie.net%2F__cb20091225205919%2Fmeme%2Fimages%2Fthumb%2F2%2F20%2FOver9000S.jpg%2F180px-Over9000S.jpg)
:)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 14, 2012, 05:47:38 PM
Beat me to it! :D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Triplash on December 14, 2012, 06:34:48 PM
At least it wasn't 9000 of these:

(https://i813.photobucket.com/albums/zz55/KansasCrawford/Funny%20Pics/Over9000bucks.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 14, 2012, 06:51:47 PM
I never said it wasn't legal.  It's perfectly legal.  It's also wide open to Honey Maundering.  That's why Honey Maundering is so widespread, it uses legal ways to clean illicit cash.

And if you were trying to put another level of obfuscation between you and the company (NCSoft Interactive) that you had been using to Maunder Honey, wouldn't you close that company and resell its assets to another shell company?
I'm sorry, I know you are a wordsmith by profession but illicit includes illegal in it's default definition.  It's not a word one chooses by accident when discussing the activities of a company when you didn't mean to imply malfeasance.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Megajoule on December 14, 2012, 07:08:02 PM
I understand that a lot of people are very angry with NCsoft for killing our game, for no reason that is apparent or adequate to us, and are thus willing to ascribe all sorts of evil motives and/or conspiracy theories to the decision... but I would like to again call for some restraint and/or application of Hanlon's razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor).

We want someone to blame, a villain to fight.  But sometimes it really is as simple, stupid and/or petty as a business decision, which may seem unwise, short-sighted, and/or uncaring to us who invested so much of ourselves emotionally.

NCsoft is not Crey.  It's not a Nemesis front company.  It's a business with an eye on the bottom line, troubled stocks, and internal politics, separated from most of us by an ocean and a very different culture (business and otherwise).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 14, 2012, 07:17:15 PM
I'm sorry, I know you are a wordsmith by profession but illicit includes illegal in it's default definition.  It's not a word one chooses by accident when discussing the activities of a company when you didn't mean to imply malfeasance.

Where, in this statement, did I use the word "illicit?"  It does not exist in this statement.

Quote
When Paragon Points or GW Gems or other in-game currency that requires hard cash are purchased in the marketplaces, the money goes straight to NCSoft via their third-party store.  That money remains with NCSoft until the points are cashed in at the game.  Only then does the game studio get credit for that influx of money and have it go on their side of the ledger.

So if a large number of F2P accounts would purchase points or gems, NOT cash them in, and cancel the accounts, NCSoft would get a large influx of money...that would never be credited as income to the game studio.

And one might speculate why someone would do something like that.  Why on earth would someone want to transfer money to another entity and get nothing from it?  (Hint:  Two words.  First word: rhymes with honey.  Second word: rhymes with maundering)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kistulot on December 14, 2012, 08:24:20 PM
At least it wasn't 9000 of these:

(https://i813.photobucket.com/albums/zz55/KansasCrawford/Funny%20Pics/Over9000bucks.jpg)

Each of those will be worth five Korean Wons.

That is the exchange rate the bank of Korea will set... AFTER I'VE KIDNAPPED THEIR QUEEN.

They have one of those right?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Triplash on December 14, 2012, 08:34:05 PM
They have one of those right?

I think they have OVER NINE THOU - oh wait, we already used that one.

*shrugs* Dunno.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 14, 2012, 08:47:32 PM
Hmm, there isn't a delete post here.  Sorry edited the wrong post reply.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 14, 2012, 08:49:32 PM
Where, in this statement, did I use the word "illicit?"  It does not exist in this statement.
Obviously not there.  However between this

And one might speculate why someone would do something like that.  Why on earth would someone want to transfer money to another entity and get nothing from it?  (Hint:  Two words.  First word: rhymes with honey.  Second word: rhymes with maundering)

and this

I never said it wasn't legal.  It's perfectly legal.  It's also wide open to Honey Maundering.  That's why Honey Maundering is so widespread, it uses legal ways to clean illicit cash.

And if you were trying to put another level of obfuscation between you and the company (NCSoft Interactive) that you had been using to Maunder Honey, wouldn't you close that company and resell its assets to another shell company?
You are certainly suggesting something not on the up and up.

Also again it shows that you don't understand business terminology.  A shell company is nothing like a holding company.  Shell companies do not have assets, they are simply entities that money passes through.  This new NCSoft subsidiary now owns NC Interactive and have both Carbine and ArenaNet at least reporting to them.

All businesses are not run by Mr Burns.  Every business decision you (the general you not you VV in particular) disagree with is a result of a personal vendetta, a punishment to noisy customers or setting an example to keep the rest of their employees in line.  The echo chamber here makes every off the wall suggestion into yet another conspiracy theory to screw us, their current and former employees or a way to line their pockets with the profits of their nefarious deeds.  I know that as comic fans and players of the best hero MMO that has ever come along means that we are use to the idea of shadowy groups or corrupt businessmen or influential people abusing their power but that rarely happens in real life (rarely as in compared to the whole, we do hear about such examples but my point is that we don't hear the 99.999% where it doesn't happen).  Most of the time it's simple stupidity, group think or unfortunate series of events.

Again, NC Interactive didn't get dissolved and reformed as this new entity.  Only it's ownership changed hands and that's only on paper.  Now if this new holding company is really meant to be a firewall between the parent companies capricious mandates or provide some local empowerment for handling the western markets, according to some of the info at glassdoor are problems with the previous running of things, then this is good news for those still remaining at NCSoft's western properties.  I know good news for any part of NCSoft is anathema for some here, the hate is strong with us but don't let the hate and rage blind you all to the greater goal.  You can't expect them to sit down with a group that thinks of them as every worse stereotype of a greedy businessman in the book.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 14, 2012, 09:02:22 PM
Each of those will be worth five Korean Wons.

That is the exchange rate the bank of Korea will set... AFTER I'VE KIDNAPPED THEIR QUEEN.

They have one of those right?
And you are now my favorite person of the day. Anyone who paraphrases Raul Julia's hilariously over the top M. Bison is tops in my book.

Also, this!

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.corvusonline.net%2Fforum_images%2FDidntSeeThatDidYouBISON.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on December 14, 2012, 09:05:17 PM
(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.corvusonline.net%2Fforum_images%2FDidntSeeThatDidYouBISON.jpg)

Who was he talking about there, Sagat or NCsoft? I can't remember.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 14, 2012, 09:07:48 PM
Probably both. I think Sagat actually runs NCSoft from behind the scenes.

*removes tongue from cheek*

That said, it could indeed make a good NCSoft mockery image :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kistulot on December 14, 2012, 09:18:34 PM
And you are now my favorite person of the day. Anyone who paraphrases Raul Julia's hilariously over the top M. Bison is tops in my book.

Aw, thanks! :)

Raul Julia's M. Bison may be one of the best things to happen to film ever. If I could somehow edit a movie together to combine Reb Brown clips (Space Mutiny, Captain America, etc) with Street Fighter to make them nemesi, I think it would make the best thing ever.

But as for Sagat running NCSoft?

(https://dl.dropbox.com/u/6654183/Share/BisonOfCourse.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 14, 2012, 09:22:54 PM
Raul Julia's M. Bison may be one of the best things to happen to film ever.

Agreed! He's the reason why "Street Fighter" is one of my not-so-guilty pleasures. Its one of those classic films that's so bad, it wraps right back around to "good" again. Raul was awesome.

If I could somehow edit a movie together to combine Reb Brown clips (Space Mutiny, Captain America, etc) with Street Fighter to make them nemesi, I think it would make the best thing ever.

Dear, sweet ju-ju bees, that would be so hilariously awesome, it might crack the internets in twain! :D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Triplash on December 14, 2012, 09:44:02 PM
Raul Julia's hilariously over the top M. Bison

Gahhh! I can't believe I missed that one :o

-5 Geek Cred for me :-[
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Perfidus on December 14, 2012, 10:17:16 PM
Raul Julia's M. Bison is the work of a dying man who just doesn't give a damn. He's hamming it up, chewing scenery whenever possible, and generally just trying to have fun. And due to Julia's raw talent, the resulting work is nothing less than glorious. It really is a genuinely good performance, just not for the reasons most people consider when talking about a good performance in a film.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 14, 2012, 10:25:36 PM
Raul took that part for his kids, and it looks like the man had a blast. As such, I love that performance.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 14, 2012, 10:28:43 PM
I remember the SF movie coming out the one time I made it to SDCC.  I think I had a choice of waiting in line for the SF movie panel or the Babylon 5 panel (or maybe the Rumiko Takahashi panel, it was nearly 20 years ago).  I do remember them trying to drum up more interest for the SF movie panel, trying to pull people from the other lines. 

I think I picked up some SF movie swag there.  I also played blackjack at the same table as Larry Niven (it was a charity casino event out on the patio).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on December 14, 2012, 10:44:27 PM
Best damn quote of the movie - and possibly one of the top 5 villain quotes of all time:

Chun Li: You and your bullies were driven back by farmers with pitchforks! My father saved his village at the cost of his own life. You had him shot as you ran away! A hero... at a thousand paces.
Bison: I'm sorry. I don't remember any of it.
Chun Li: You don't remember?
Bison: For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday.

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 14, 2012, 10:46:39 PM
No argument there Atlantea. Bison had a lot of great lines, but that one? Aces  8)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Palladiamors on December 14, 2012, 10:57:51 PM
Best damn quote of the movie - and possibly one of the top 5 villain quotes of all time:

Chun Li: You and your bullies were driven back by farmers with pitchforks! My father saved his village at the cost of his own life. You had him shot as you ran away! A hero... at a thousand paces.
Bison: I'm sorry. I don't remember any of it.
Chun Li: You don't remember?
Bison: For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday.

That is absolutely in the top list for villain lines,  especially that delivery.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kheprera on December 14, 2012, 11:05:29 PM
That line is what I think of when running villains. :D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mister Bison on December 15, 2012, 12:10:41 AM
(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=25.media.tumblr.com%2Ftumblr_ly0ff9P5y11qaa8d1o1_500.png)
I hoped to meet NCSoft face-to-face on the battlefield, where we could engage each other in unarmed combat. Then I would snap their monopoly. But why? Why do they still call me an emo? And mad? All I want to do is to create the perfect casual MMORPG. Not for power, not for evil, but for good. The Phoenix Project shall be the first of many who shall march out of my studio and crush every adversary, every creed, every nation! Until the world is in the loving grip of the Pax Bisonica. And peace will reign and all humanity shall bow to me in humble gratitude.

Best minion boss-monologue follow-up: Zangief "That vas beautiful boss!" :D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 15, 2012, 12:32:23 AM
Mister Bison,

I have already named my favorite person of the day, so you just earned a spot in the running for tomorrow :D

I should really create an award image for that, shouldn't I?

Anywhoozle, anyone thinking M. Bison vs NCSoft deserves a thread of its own?  8)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on December 15, 2012, 01:44:29 AM
you poeple make me sad, whenever i see m. bison (written or pic) the first thing that comes to my mind is reichsman and all the time i enjoyed beating on him in barracuda sf
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 15, 2012, 01:47:27 AM
Pft! Reichman WISHES he were as awesome as M. Bison :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on December 15, 2012, 01:48:20 AM
ive honestly seen more of reichsman than m. bison, was never big into the street fighter stuff lol
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 15, 2012, 01:52:07 AM
Well, when I say that, I'm referencing the Raul Julia incarnation only *lol* ;)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Triplash on December 15, 2012, 01:54:28 AM
M. Bison vs NCSoft

(https://i813.photobucket.com/albums/zz55/KansasCrawford/Funny%20Pics/AvDV.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 15, 2012, 02:02:35 AM
I have no idea what any of you are talking about.

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 15, 2012, 02:04:11 AM
Sorry VV. We're kooky that way :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Tubbius on December 15, 2012, 02:06:03 AM
So. . . we have always complained that City never got any advertising.  What is it I see on Fandango's site when I go to order tickets for The Hobbit?

An ad for Guild Wars 2.  :|
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on December 15, 2012, 02:06:29 AM
you poeple make me sad, whenever i see m. bison (written or pic) the first thing that comes to my mind is reichsman and all the time i enjoyed beating on him in barracuda sf
I noticed that. Perhaps Reichsman's getup was a shout-out to Bison?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 15, 2012, 02:08:21 AM
No, I'm just old.

I remember when Paul McCartney didn't look like Angela Lansbury.

I remember when Keith Richards...no, wait, he's always looked like that.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 15, 2012, 02:19:28 AM
I remember when Keith Richards...no, wait, he's always looked like that.

HAH! *snerks* Nicely done :D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: healix on December 15, 2012, 02:31:11 AM
No, I'm just old.

I remember when Paul McCartney didn't look like Angela Lansbury.

I remember when Keith Richards...no, wait, he's always looked like that.

(https://i.imgur.com/yvLXu.gif)




Actually, before all the booze/drugs mage his face look like a bas-relief map of Outer Mongolia, he wasn't bad looking...


(https://i.imgur.com/Yi37A.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 15, 2012, 02:44:26 AM
Actually, before all the booze/drugs mage his face look like a bas-relief map of Outer Mongolia, he wasn't bad looking...
(https://i.imgur.com/Yi37A.jpg)

Yep.  That was a fantastic month for him.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Electric-Knight on December 15, 2012, 04:09:04 AM
LMAO
 ;D
Thank you, again, COH peeps!  :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on December 15, 2012, 04:44:06 AM
(https://i.imgur.com/55GZoHD.png)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: healix on December 15, 2012, 05:10:21 AM
Well, the word mummy comes to mind.....................

And then there is Carmen Dell'orefice. 80 years old, fashion model. Go figure

(https://i.imgur.com/uK96s.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Morvani on December 15, 2012, 05:25:23 AM
I remember when Paul McCartney didn't look like Angela Lansbury.

Somebody's been watching Craig Ferguson? >.>
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Golden Girl on December 15, 2012, 06:10:40 AM
It's not a Nemesis front company.

Sure it isn't.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Xieveral on December 15, 2012, 08:13:09 AM
So. . . we have always complained that City never got any advertising.  What is it I see on Fandango's site when I go to order tickets for The Hobbit?

An ad for Guild Wars 2.  :|

And another in the previews. Way to tarnish an otherwise decent and much-needed night out for me, NCsoft  >:(
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mister Bison on December 15, 2012, 09:00:50 AM
I have no idea what any of you are talking about.
No problem, you just want to see one of the biggest chunky movies of all time (that's "me" on the floating appartus)
(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=24.media.tumblr.com%2Ftumblr_lw490oiala1qigigxo1_500.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Frostyfrozen on December 15, 2012, 09:11:36 AM
I can say at less the Dead or Alive movie D.O.A was better then Van Dam's Street Fighter.
But really how hard is it to make a video game in to a movie Hollywood?!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mister Bison on December 15, 2012, 09:24:06 AM
I can say at less the Dead or Alive movie D.O.A was better then Van Dam's Street Fighter.
But really how hard is it to make a video game in to a movie Hollywood?!
Yes, D.O.A was better. That's what makes Van Damme's film So Bad It's Good :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The Fifth Horseman on December 15, 2012, 12:17:55 PM
I can say at less the Dead or Alive movie D.O.A was better then Van Dam's Street Fighter.
But really how hard is it to make a video game in to a movie Hollywood?!
With or without executive meddling turning the plot and characters inside out?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on December 15, 2012, 03:51:10 PM
And another in the previews. Way to tarnish an otherwise decent and much-needed night out for me, NCsoft  >:(

Well then you'll be happy to hear about this posting at the Save City of Heroes FB page:

Quote
Sitting in movie theater and saw a guild wars 2 commercial.

Someone said out loud "Don't play it! They closed City of Heroes and treated the fans horribly!"

Applause erupted.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on December 15, 2012, 03:53:12 PM
Well then you'll be happy to hear about this posting at the Save City of Heroes FB page:

Seriously?

Seriously?

Please tell me seriously. It's almost too awesome too believe.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on December 15, 2012, 04:24:12 PM
Seriously?

Seriously?

Please tell me seriously. It's almost too awesome too believe.

Well I wasn't the one there. But I assume the guy was telling the truth. Bunch of geeks in the audience apparently knew what was going on with the gaming world etc.

I wouldn't assume we've gone mainstream to non-geeks. But if we're that well-known in geek/gaming circles and if NCSoft has become that universally reviled.

Well then...

BTW - the guy clarified that Arenanet wasn't even mentioned or referenced in the advertisement, which to me seemed rather curious. I don't know if that's normal. But at minimum, it means that people were reacting to the NCSoft logo and not to Arenanet. That's good. Try not to hate on Anet. Just focus on NCSoft.

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lucretia MacEvil on December 15, 2012, 04:36:28 PM
Seriously?

Seriously?

Please tell me seriously. It's almost too awesome too believe.

I know!

Made my day!

BTW - the guy clarified that Arenanet wasn't even mentioned or referenced in the advertisement, which to me seemed rather curious. I don't know if that's normal. But at minimum, it means that people were reacting to the NCSoft logo and not to Arenanet. That's good. Try not to hate on Anet. Just focus on NCSoft.

*starwars* Stay on target... stay on target. */starwars*
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Phaetan on December 15, 2012, 06:24:00 PM
Best damn quote of the movie - and possibly one of the top 5 villain quotes of all time:

Chun Li: You and your bullies were driven back by farmers with pitchforks! My father saved his village at the cost of his own life. You had him shot as you ran away! A hero... at a thousand paces.
Bison: I'm sorry. I don't remember any of it.
Chun Li: You don't remember?
Bison: For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday.
Good times.  When Mako invaded Pinnacle, it was on a Tuesday, so yeah, we yelled a paraphrase of that at him.
Zwill seemed amused by that and our swimwear...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 15, 2012, 06:38:21 PM
Well then you'll be happy to hear about this posting at the Save City of Heroes FB page:

Oooooh, superb burn! I hope its true. Nice :D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: srmalloy on December 15, 2012, 09:48:42 PM
Bison: For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday.

Rewrite it a little and it becomes more trenchantly appropriate:

Taek Jin Kim: For you, the day NCSoft shuttered your game was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Friday.

I'm also reminded of Thulsa Doom's line from Conan the Barbarian:

Quote
For who now is your father if it is not me? I am the well spring, from which you flow. When I am gone, you will have never been. What would your world be, without me?

NCSoft, by its actions, has made all of us its enemies. And while we may be willing to cease actively working to ensure that it regrets its actions, there is no way to avoid the fact that this is something that NCSoft have brought upon itself; we would not be dragging its face in the muck had it not chosen to stand aloof and treat the CoH playerbase like a fungible commodity.

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kistulot on December 16, 2012, 03:24:15 AM
fungible commodity.

I would not like to be made into fungi.

Otherwise, agreed?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Perfidus on December 16, 2012, 03:38:12 AM
I tweeted the Kim line, smralloy. Don't worry, if anyone asks, I won't take credit. Good stuff. :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on December 16, 2012, 11:12:29 PM
NCsoft is not Crey.  It's not a Nemesis front company.  It's a business with an eye on the bottom line, troubled stocks, and internal politics, separated from most of us by an ocean and a very different culture (business and otherwise).

They should have thought of that waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay before making tens of thousands of new enemies, all on a whim.

I feel zero sympathy.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: srmalloy on December 16, 2012, 11:53:41 PM
I would not like to be made into fungi.

Different origin -- 'fungible' comes from the same root as 'function'. What it means is something that is indistinguishably interchangeable. Money is fungible -- if I lend you a $10 bill, it doesn't matter whether you replay me with the same $10 bill, a different $10 bill, two $5 bills, a $5 bill and five $1 bills, or ten $1 bills -- it's all the same value. NCSoft treating us like a fungible commodity means that they see us as, in effect, faceless peons, a subset of an effectively endless supply. Why should they care about individual players? They lose one -- or ten, or ten thousand -- and there are plenty more where those came from who will step up give them money.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kistulot on December 17, 2012, 12:26:53 AM
Different origin -- 'fungible' comes from the same root as 'function'. What it means . . .

Its called a puuuuun  :'(

There it goes, all my funniness is used up. Time to go on youtube and start making comedy videos, or start pitching my jokes to square enix for their localizations.  :gonk:
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Triplash on December 17, 2012, 02:15:18 AM
Its called a puuuuun  :'(

There it goes, all my funniness is used up. Time to go on youtube and start making comedy videos, or start pitching my jokes to square enix for their localizations.  :gonk:

Hey, I thought it was funny. I was gonna be all like "I don't know, I'm told I can be a pretty fungi" :D

...but then I got distracted and forgot :-\
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 17, 2012, 02:15:56 AM
Now I want pizza with Mushrooms on it. Thanks a lot! ;)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DJMoose on December 17, 2012, 03:04:02 AM
They should have thought of that waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay before making tens of thousands of new enemies, all on a whim.

I feel zero sympathy.
THIS
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Xieveral on December 17, 2012, 07:28:22 AM
So... it looks like last week's boost was just a rock they hit on the way down.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 17, 2012, 03:37:31 PM
Their stock tanking again, is it?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on December 17, 2012, 03:48:42 PM
yup, its -4% right now, -7000 won putting their shares back to about 158,000 won
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: HarvesterOfEyes on December 17, 2012, 06:24:06 PM
If the company's finances are structurally unsound the price will "tank" that is drop and stay relatively low for the long term. [ie Facebook]

Everything else is short-term fluctuation.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: srmalloy on December 17, 2012, 06:28:32 PM
Its called a puuuuun  :'(

There it goes, all my funniness is used up. Time to go on youtube and start making comedy videos, or start pitching my jokes to square enix for their localizations.  :gonk:

Wall, shoot... If'n Ah'd thought you was funnin' me, Ah'd of dug out mah stiletto-heel hobnail boots to dance all over yer humor, steada' jest kickin' it into a corner...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on December 17, 2012, 08:13:44 PM
So... it looks like last week's boost was just a rock they hit on the way down.

SWEET!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 17, 2012, 08:36:52 PM
If the company's finances are structurally unsound the price will "tank" that is drop and stay relatively low for the long term. [ie Facebook]

Everything else is short-term fluctuation.
While I agree that their stock is overvalued (I think 90,000-100,000 is a good price) they are far from having their finances structurally unsound.  However as long as most of the firms following NCSoft keep saying it's a buy opportunity and that the price will go to 300,000 within the year the 150,000-160,000 price seems to be it's new support level.

They just had a record profit for a quarter.  They have about $100 million in cash in the bank and another $300 million in short term investments.  Perhaps you could indicate what about their finances you find structurally unsound or did you think that just sounded good?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on December 17, 2012, 09:14:38 PM
I always said we weren't going to hurt them immediately. And what with their shady juggling of finances and stocks and "creative accounting Enron style" they'll look good for even longer.

I thought the same thing about Bioware at the beginning of the year when the Mass Effect 3 ending fiasco happened. SO MANY people had pre-ordered that there was no way they were going to take ANY financial damage in the short run. By any "pure numbers" standings, Mass Effect 3 was a runaway smash hit.

But between the Ending controversy and the flop of SW:TOR (partially fueled, I believe, by many gamers abandoning both titles in disgust) I figured the place to look and see whether Bioware (and by extension, EA) would be hurt would be to see how good the pre-orders would be for their NEXT title. Let's see what happens when Dragon Age 3 comes out.

Similarly, NCSoft MADE their main profits on GW2 before the announcement of the closing of COH because of pre-orders and almost a weeks worth of sales beforehand.

We can't affect their actual profits right now. By any pure numbers standings, despite their stock tanking, they are in a good position.

By any pure numbers standards.

But what about reputation? What about intangibles? And how will that affect their NEXT game release? Will we have an affect on Boobs and Shame?

And what about NCSoft and Arenanet's bone-headed move as of the Lost Shores patch of completely doing a 180 and going back on their word that there would never be a gear grind in GW2? (Mind you - you can still play the game in totally casual mode while leveling up. But the end game now has gear grind.) I've been looking around on the review sites and holy CRAP there are a lot of pissed off Guild Wars fans! Generally the line being used most often is that GW2 was supposed to be different from other MMOs in it's genre, but now it's no different at all.

That's going to affect the future as well, I think.

And the steady posting of FACTS about NCSoft everywhere we can reach I believe will have an effect.

Just don't get discouraged because NCSoft is rolling in the dough NOW. It's all short term gain and they are STILL doing stupid things to jeopardize their bottom line.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 17, 2012, 10:14:27 PM
And what with their shady juggling of finances and stocks and "creative accounting Enron style" they'll look good for even longer.
Any proof of that statement, at all.  I doubt it.

And it doesn't matter if their reputation in the west has suffered because the bulk of their sales and their growth in in Asia, China specifically.  GW2 still has quite the positive spin here in the west and I suspect their sales will still be going strong when NCSoft reports their 4Q numbers in February.

Do I think Blade & Soul will falter here and in Europe.  Yes, but not because of any fallout caused by CoH's closure but from it being yet another PvP/Korean grind fest style of an MMO that simply don't do well over here.  Period.  There may be an initial surge among teenage boys due to the character creator.  They may not actually play their female characters but I'm sure they'll have a collection of "hot babes" to ogle over without the worry that their parents will find the porn sites they've been frequenting.  But in the long term it will burn out even quicker than Aion did over here.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Samuraiko on December 17, 2012, 10:20:58 PM
When I went to see THE HOBBIT, it had not one... not two... but FIVE separate game ads before it.

Bioshock Infinite
GW 2
WoW: Kung Fu Panda
Something console-based
And an FPS, I think (both were Sony games)

Oh, *AND* an ad for Emerald City Comic-Con (because I live near Seattle).

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on December 17, 2012, 11:23:12 PM
when i went to movie theater last (to see wreck it ralph) i didnt see any game previews, only movie previews lol

if i had seen any for GW2 i sure as heck would have booed it
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DrakeGrimm on December 17, 2012, 11:45:59 PM
If COH had gotten any of the ad elements GW2 has enjoyed, it would have positively FLOURISHED.


/me grumbles.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: eabrace on December 18, 2012, 12:12:31 AM
Oddly enough, I don't recall seeing any game ads before the Hobbit when I went to see it on Friday afternoon.

I definitely would have remembered seeing a GW2 ad.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blondeshell on December 18, 2012, 12:24:16 AM
A GW2 ad played before the 3D showing at the NCG theater I went to.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: HarvesterOfEyes on December 18, 2012, 01:30:42 AM
While I agree that their stock is overvalued (I think 90,000-100,000 is a good price) they are far from having their finances structurally unsound.  However as long as most of the firms following NCSoft keep saying it's a buy opportunity and that the price will go to 300,000 within the year the 150,000-160,000 price seems to be it's new support level.

They just had a record profit for a quarter.  They have about $100 million in cash in the bank and another $300 million in short term investments.  Perhaps you could indicate what about their finances you find structurally unsound or did you think that just sounded good?
Key word is "if". I make no such assessment.

Down one session versus up the previous session is not "tanking".

I want to see NCSoft feel pain that makes them re-think their "strategy" as much as the next person here. My goal in this thread is to persuade people to disbelieve that day-to-day fluctuations indicate any such thing.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 18, 2012, 01:42:18 AM
Stock-prices are like butterflies: they fly kind of crooked ;)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 18, 2012, 01:47:39 AM
Key word is "if". I make no such assessment.

Down one session versus up the previous session is not "tanking".

I want to see NCSoft feel pain that makes them re-think their "strategy" as much as the next person here. My goal in this thread is to persuade people to disbelieve that day-to-day fluctuations indicate any such thing.
Except a plummeting stock price doesn't hurt them.  Not one bit. 

Stock prices are simply a reflection of what others think a company is worth, not what it's actually worth.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kitsudragon on December 18, 2012, 02:13:44 AM
The ugly part is when they spin off NCSoft West to make the division into its own company.

Currently, NCSoft West is a department inside the NCSoft machine. After they pull off this restructuring they're talking about, NCSW will be a separate company, but wholly owned by NCSoft.

The company is trumpeting to anyone who'll listen that this move will allow them to "sell" about 78 billion Korean Won in related assets, which sounds really good on paper. The company sells a massive amount of unneeded infrastructure to another company, and makes a ton of profit doing it.

But since NCSW is going to be a wholly-owned subsidiary of the parent company, all they're really doing is restructuring one of their departments, and transferring assets around within the company. No money actually changes hands, except on paper. All the assets and money actually stay within the overall NCSoft corporation. But it looks good on the balance sheet.

So I expect the stock price will shoot up when they make that announcement, even though it doesn't actually *mean* anything...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 18, 2012, 03:22:53 AM
The ugly part is when they spin off NCSoft West to make the division into its own company.

Currently, NCSoft West is a department inside the NCSoft machine. After they pull off this restructuring they're talking about, NCSW will be a separate company, but wholly owned by NCSoft.

The company is trumpeting to anyone who'll listen that this move will allow them to "sell" about 78 billion Korean Won in related assets, which sounds really good on paper. The company sells a massive amount of unneeded infrastructure to another company, and makes a ton of profit doing it.

But since NCSW is going to be a wholly-owned subsidiary of the parent company, all they're really doing is restructuring one of their departments, and transferring assets around within the company. No money actually changes hands, except on paper. All the assets and money actually stay within the overall NCSoft corporation. But it looks good on the balance sheet.

So I expect the stock price will shoot up when they make that announcement, even though it doesn't actually *mean* anything...
Yes but the 78 billion KrW being paid for those assets, plus the 50 billion in initial start up money, is coming from somewhere and that's the stock this new subsidiary is selling to NCSoft proper so it will show up on the balance sheet still and the result is a wash.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: HarvesterOfEyes on December 18, 2012, 04:22:29 AM
Except a plummeting stock price doesn't hurt them.  Not one bit. 

Stock prices are simply a reflection of what others think a company is worth, not what it's actually worth.
Again, addressing a claim I don't make.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TonyV on December 18, 2012, 04:58:09 AM
While I agree that their stock is overvalued (I think 90,000-100,000 is a good price) they are far from having their finances structurally unsound.

I don't necessarily agree with you; I think that at some point we're going to hear about some dirty laundry coming out about NCsoft.  But nevertheless, I'm glad you're here keeping the conversation honest.  Is that weird?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 18, 2012, 05:56:56 AM
While I agree that their stock is overvalued (I think 90,000-100,000 is a good price) they are far from having their finances structurally unsound.  However as long as most of the firms following NCSoft keep saying it's a buy opportunity and that the price will go to 300,000 within the year the 150,000-160,000 price seems to be it's new support level.

"Joe," the Korean Times reporter, told me that the suspicion around the paper is that the three firms following NCSoft are being bribed to inflate the value of the stock, but that there is not as yet any proof.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on December 18, 2012, 05:58:06 AM
"Joe," the Korean Times reporter, told me that the suspicion around the paper is that the three firms following NCSoft are being bribed to inflate the value of the stock, but that there is not as yet any proof.

interesting, hopefully that reporter will continue to investigate, if they find something scandelous happening this could tank ncsoft faster than them constantly shooting themselves in the foot
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JanessaVR on December 18, 2012, 06:08:36 AM
I don't necessarily agree with you; I think that at some point we're going to hear about some dirty laundry coming out about NCsoft.  But nevertheless, I'm glad you're here keeping the conversation honest.  Is that weird?
Nope.  This is war, and we should always try to be honest with ourselves how well it's going.  Keeping it real - a good thing.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on December 18, 2012, 08:16:58 AM
if they find something scandelous happening this could tank ncsoft faster than them constantly shooting themselves in the foot
Not to be pedantic, but that would be NCsoft shooting themselves in the foot.  Well, the leg, anyway.  They've kinda blown both feet completely off by now.

Sometimes, honesty is the best policy; something NCsoft could really stand to learn.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 18, 2012, 10:28:43 AM
"Joe," the Korean Times reporter, told me that the suspicion around the paper is that the three firms following NCSoft are being bribed to inflate the value of the stock, but that there is not as yet any proof.
Sadly those three aren't the only ones.  I present the summary of analysts tracking NCSoft page (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/analyst?symbol=036570.KS) from Reuters.

39 are tracking NCSoft.  13 are recommending Buy, 25 predict it'll outperform  (which conventional investment wisdom means hold if you have it, think of buying if you don't) and only 1 is recommending sell (which actually means "fly you fools").  And the only change in the last three months is one outperform changed to buy.  Collectively the mean growth in sales is predicted to be around 24% between 2012 and 2013 with earnings nearly doubling.  In the last four weeks only 2 analysts lowered their sales and earnings estimate for FY2012 and 2013 but they don't say from what to what.

Collectively 38 of the 39 still like NCSoft a lot and are predicting better savings and earnings in 2013.  They must be using something stronger than fluoride in the investment district's water supply.  Or they do know what they are talking about and if the stock price continues to go down I would expect more analysts changing from outperform to buy recommendations, as long as the scuttlebutt doesn't indicate a complete collapse in sales of their current MMO portfolio.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 18, 2012, 10:56:09 AM
It's possible they are banking on Bits and Tits becoming as enormous in China as Lineage and Guild Wars are.  And it might, but only if the current Chinese government reverses its stance on things it considers pornographic--or at least, looks (or is bribed to look) the other way when the game is released.  The Chinese government has historically been perfectly willing to ban things with milder content than B&T.

They might pull their fat out of the fire and go on to win, despite a bucketload of negative karma.

Or, something "Joe" suggested to me could break loose and we'll be watching from a distance as NCSoft finds itself with a much bigger problem on its hands than a hundred thousand angry gamers.

I'm not going to make a guess on that one, we'll just have to wait and see.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: General Idiot on December 18, 2012, 03:19:54 PM
Quote
Or, something "Joe" suggested to me could break loose and we'll be watching from a distance as NCSoft finds itself with a much bigger problem on its hands than a hundred thousand angry gamers.

And on that day, I'll quite probably get properly drunk for the first time in my life. Both in celebration of NCSoft as a company finally getting what they deserve, and in sympathy for all the little guys that event is going to put out of a job.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on December 18, 2012, 03:30:32 PM
Now, the question is, is there anything (legal and above-board) that 100,000 angry (ex)fans can do to make it more likely this much bigger problem gets exposed?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: HarvesterOfEyes on December 18, 2012, 06:04:23 PM
Daniel: What do you expect me to do?
Miyagi: Focus.
Daniel: Great, and what are you gonna do?
Miyagi: Pray.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on December 18, 2012, 07:08:09 PM
From the Jackie Chan/Jeden Smith version:

"Your focus needs more focus."
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blackbird71 on December 18, 2012, 08:04:35 PM
From the Jackie Chan/Jeden Smith version:

"Your focus needs more focus."

I'm sorry, I know not of what you speak; Pat Morita is the only Mr. Miyagi to have existed.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mentalshock on December 18, 2012, 08:08:31 PM
Except that Jackie Chan's character was not called Miyagi.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 18, 2012, 08:26:53 PM
It's possible they are banking on Bits and Tits becoming as enormous in China as Lineage and Guild Wars are.  And it might, but only if the current Chinese government reverses its stance on things it considers pornographic--or at least, looks (or is bribed to look) the other way when the game is released.  The Chinese government has historically been perfectly willing to ban things with milder content than B&T.

They might pull their fat out of the fire and go on to win, despite a bucketload of negative karma.

Or, something "Joe" suggested to me could break loose and we'll be watching from a distance as NCSoft finds itself with a much bigger problem on its hands than a hundred thousand angry gamers.

I'm not going to make a guess on that one, we'll just have to wait and see.
Well the question then is if they look at B&S and see pornography or not.  I admit that some of the female dance emotes can be ... suggestive, but no more so than what you would see in a club.  The character designer can feel creepy to some but it's not like you have sliders for, pardon me, areola size, nipple size or ... em ... carpet hair styles.

Personally I don't think they will have a problem with B&S.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on December 18, 2012, 08:38:25 PM
I'm sorry, I know not of what you speak; Pat Morita is the only Mr. Miyagi to have existed.

Except that Jackie Chan's character was not called Miyagi.

So, it's still true! ;D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JanessaVR on December 18, 2012, 08:47:24 PM
Well the question then is if they look at B&S and see pornography or not.  I admit that some of the female dance emotes can be ... suggestive, but no more so than what you would see in a club.  The character designer can feel creepy to some but it's not like you have sliders for, pardon me, areola size, nipple size or ... em ... carpet hair styles.
I find this sufficiently amusing to ask - do we know that for sure?   :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kistulot on December 18, 2012, 09:15:31 PM
China is also shown to be very amenable to having custom versions released.

If all they have to do is tone it down a bit, they will.

I've also heard more than once about China being convinced something isn't so bad with cash. Can't prove it, but I've heard it. So I wouldn't go laughing to the bank on the thought that Blade and Soul will be not even released there.

What is more likely is that it will, and has a chance of doing fairly decently. CoH will not be regained because B&S failed to see a release in China, and likely not because said game fails to engender money from MMO-goers.

Just to keep things appropriately realistic  :-\
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on December 18, 2012, 09:22:23 PM
Well the question then is if they look at B&S and see pornography or not.  I admit that some of the female dance emotes can be ... suggestive, but no more so than what you would see in a club.  The character designer can feel creepy to some but it's not like you have sliders for, pardon me, areola size, nipple size or ... em ... carpet hair styles.

Personally I don't think they will have a problem with B&S.

Besides the more detailed graphics, I havent seen anything fro mthe photos that I havent seen already in COX (lot of toons wearing the Eden top especially), CO, and other games i.e scantly cladded females with the tit slider slid to the max. Even seen a few "naked" ones in COX where, even in their bio it stated that they are naked (victory server) *white skin to match the bikini bottom and eden top*, another one was same except this one was a light blue peacebringer with blended clothing to give illusion of wearing nothing. 

When B&S come out I'll go check it out to see how deep the rabbit hole it really go in that regards but so far, it's nothing unusual and nothing not seen in COX many times. 
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 18, 2012, 10:11:28 PM
Besides the more detailed graphics, I havent seen anything fro mthe photos that I havent seen already in COX (lot of toons wearing the Eden top especially), CO, and other games i.e scantly cladded females with the tit slider slid to the max. Even seen a few "naked" ones in COX where, even in their bio it stated that they are naked (victory server) *white skin to match the bikini bottom and eden top*, another one was same except this one was a light blue peacebringer with blended clothing to give illusion of wearing nothing. 

When B&S come out I'll go check it out to see how deep the rabbit hole it really go in that regards but so far, it's nothing unusual and nothing not seen in COX many times.
I had a pale white peacebringer in white mesh and bikini bottom to give the illusion of nudity.  But she also had wings, a halo and glowed rather brightly in that form.  It was used as a transition as she changed from her teen pop raver identity to her armored winged Valkyrie outfit.

While B&S's costume editor does have more than one adjustment for breasts and videos isolating a single female character dancing could be considered provocative, but I've also seen videos in game of characters simply hanging around between missions dancing and it didn't look provocative at all.  Pretty standard MMO behavior IMO.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kistulot on December 19, 2012, 12:02:01 AM
I had a pale white peacebringer in white mesh and bikini bottom to give the illusion of nudity.

My main character was silver-gray skinned. While I never did this (okay, during the shut down period, I did it ONCE just to do it because hey why not, but I only wore it for the minimal amount of time) it was very easy to make her a naked outfit.

Pop dance could look pretty naughty in the right outfit.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on December 19, 2012, 01:09:30 AM
I had a few characters that had a costume slot that was probably not suitable for children that were pretty much just for dropping into a crowd and either disco or pop dancing. One, a Power Girl clone, was particularly popular when she did the monkey dance.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Xieveral on December 19, 2012, 03:35:54 AM
Sorry to derail the derail of proper ERP dresscode and conduct...

I just checked up to see how stocks were doing today (whether or not a dip matters in the long run... its some small entertainment in this otherwise boring life of mine) apparently its done for the day. It certainly can't be the end of the trading day in Korea...

Are they trading stateside now? That's the only reason I could think of, but wouldn't KR and US be separate?

Back off topic...seeing that a friend "wore" peach-colored briefs under his kilt will haunt me forever :gonk:
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 19, 2012, 04:10:20 AM
Sorry to derail the derail of proper ERP dresscode and conduct...

I just checked up to see how stocks were doing today (whether or not a dip matters in the long run... its some small entertainment in this otherwise boring life of mine) apparently its done for the day. It certainly can't be the end of the trading day in Korea...

Are they trading stateside now? That's the only reason I could think of, but wouldn't KR and US be separate?

Back off topic...seeing that a friend "wore" peach-colored briefs under his kilt will haunt me forever :gonk:
No the stock is traded in Korea but you can track it here.  They are open from 9a to 3p in Korea which would be from 7pm to 1am EST.  Their ID is 036570:KS.  Currently they are down 1000 to 157,000.  The opened higher and had a trading range from 162,500 to 154,000.  This (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=036570.KS) is the link to Reuter's stock page on them.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Xieveral on December 19, 2012, 10:14:01 AM
No the stock is traded in Korea but you can track it here.  They are open from 9a to 3p in Korea which would be from 7pm to 1am EST.  Their ID is 036570:KS.  Currently they are down 1000 to 157,000.  The opened higher and had a trading range from 162,500 to 154,000.  This (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=036570.KS) is the link to Reuter's stock page on them.

Incoming slowpoke reply...

I know the usual trading hours (4-10PM for me). I checked Reuter's, Bloomberg and Yahoo shortly before my previous post and they all showed it as closed for the day which seemed odd. Correct me if I'm wrong but, they have/had a presidential election this month so maybe that made for an early close just as college entry exams made for a late start last month.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 19, 2012, 10:37:26 AM
My bad.  The one day chart page at Reuters mentions the exchanged closed on the 19th for a national holiday.  Didn't notice that before and yes, it's because of election day (http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2012/12/18/56/0301000000AEN20121218001200315F.HTML).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Artillerie on December 19, 2012, 01:50:13 PM
Came across this on a Facebook page. Thought i'd post it here as it may have some effect on NC stock ( not completely certain about that but hey ).

http://www.mmoculture.com/2012/12/lineage-ii-new-europe-server-suffers-mass-account-bans/

Seems quite a lot of accounts on a new Lineage II server have been randomly banned for apparently no reason and that is never good for business.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DJMoose on December 19, 2012, 05:07:32 PM
Came across this on a Facebook page. Thought i'd post it here as it may have some effect on NC stock ( not completely certain about that but hey ).

http://www.mmoculture.com/2012/12/lineage-ii-new-europe-server-suffers-mass-account-bans/

Seems quite a lot of accounts on a new Lineage II server have been randomly banned for apparently no reason and that is never good for business.
Oh NCSoft/Nexon...when will you learn to stop screwing over your playerbase?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The Fifth Horseman on December 19, 2012, 05:35:39 PM
Hopefully not until they declare bankrupcy. :p
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kistulot on December 19, 2012, 06:09:15 PM
Hopefully not until they declare bankrupcy. :p

They already appear morally bankrupt.

Does that count?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lucretia MacEvil on December 19, 2012, 06:12:54 PM
They already appear morally bankrupt.

Does that count?

Unfortunately, no.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 19, 2012, 06:21:55 PM
Came across this on a Facebook page. Thought i'd post it here as it may have some effect on NC stock ( not completely certain about that but hey ).

http://www.mmoculture.com/2012/12/lineage-ii-new-europe-server-suffers-mass-account-bans/

Seems quite a lot of accounts on a new Lineage II server have been randomly banned for apparently no reason and that is never good for business.
Which appears on the surface a automated script that ran amuck.  Reminds me of the great AE ban or before mARTY was fine tuned.

Looking around in their forums I found this (http://boards.lineage2.com/showthread.php?p=3293070#post3293070) post from their CM.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: General Idiot on December 19, 2012, 09:12:11 PM
I like how after that post there's not a single post saying thanks, it's fixed now. Every last one is either saying the CM is flat wrong and they're still banned when they presumably shouldn't be, or people complaining about bots. :p
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on December 19, 2012, 09:16:31 PM
Totally off-topic tangent, but the comment about people complaining about 'bots made my brain jump to this:

An MMO that uses the Transformers IP and reports hundreds of thousands of player characters, each actually controlled by a 'bot.

"Robots in Disguise."
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kistulot on December 20, 2012, 12:28:30 AM
Totally off-topic tangent, but the comment about people complaining about 'bots made my brain jump to this:

An MMO that uses the Transformers IP and reports hundreds of thousands of player characters, each actually controlled by a 'bot.

"Robots in Disguise."

A friend of mine has a status message indicating they got an A in a class for programming a robotic car.

If these bots can do that too (the car bit, not the programming bit) then I am behind you 500%.

Transform, and roll out!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 20, 2012, 01:40:46 AM
http://guildwars2pc.com/2012/guild-wars-2-daily-news-34000-bot-accounts-banished-in-november-purge/?utm_source=zergnet.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=zergnet_39659 (http://guildwars2pc.com/2012/guild-wars-2-daily-news-34000-bot-accounts-banished-in-november-purge/?utm_source=zergnet.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=zergnet_39659)


Quote
Larry: Well that is the thing; my money laundering theory depends upon bots like that. You create bots to go buy stuff then delete the account. The items and money are not refunded, they are erased, leaving NCsoft ultimately with stacks of untracable money.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Terwyn on December 20, 2012, 01:46:06 AM
[Spock]
Fascinating.
[/Spock]
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on December 20, 2012, 07:29:41 AM
looks like ncsofts stock took another nosedive really recently, its down about 6% at 147,500 won, which is only about 6500 won above their 52 week low
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JanessaVR on December 20, 2012, 07:36:23 AM
looks like ncsofts stock took another nosedive really recently, its down about 6% at 147,500 won, which is only about 6500 won above their 52 week low
I'm starting to wonder if we need an NCLimp stock price drinking game at this rate... ;)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: mikoroshi on December 20, 2012, 07:37:55 AM
I'm starting to wonder if we need an NCLimp stock price drinking game at this rate... ;)

Do you *want* alcohol poisoning??
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Xieveral on December 20, 2012, 08:37:58 AM
Do you *want* alcohol poisoning??

This. You can kiss your liver goodbye within the first hour.

DROP up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, DROP, down, down, down, SUDDEN RISE,up, down, up, down, up, down, up...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 20, 2012, 10:44:40 AM
I'm starting to wonder if we need an NCLimp stock price drinking game at this rate... ;)

I need to be sober to work....
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: mikoroshi on December 20, 2012, 11:16:45 AM
I need to be sober to work....

But... you're a writer!

<clings to whiskey bottle lovingly>

Remember the Hemingway tradition! *hic*
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on December 20, 2012, 12:38:50 PM
The latest  stock pricing (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=036570.KS) has me cackling maniacally.  They're almost back to Dec 6th levels of stock price suckitude.  Right now, they're as bad off as they were on Apr 20, 2010.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The Fifth Horseman on December 20, 2012, 01:57:44 PM
*presses button labeled "Canned Mad Scientist Laughter #0172"*
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: chasearcanum on December 20, 2012, 02:11:55 PM
*presses button labeled "Canned Mad Scientist Laughter #0172"*

Wow, you've got 172 different canned mad scientists laughs?  Mine ran out of oxygen somewhere around 12.  Beyond that, it was just whimpering and wheezing and an occasional hammering as he tried to get out. 

What's your secret? 
Should I be drilling air holes in the can?
...Or are you using multiple mad scientists in multiple cans?
...or multiple mad scientists in the same can, I guess.... they do say they're recyclable, after all.
... the cans, not the scientists....
... although....

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Dr Shadow on December 20, 2012, 02:22:45 PM
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on December 20, 2012, 02:23:11 PM
No, no, he's using "canned" in the business sense. He hires a string of scientists, then cans them just before their work would achieve its breakthrough. After they finish swearing their revenge, he records the laughter part! (As for how he is sure they're mad? Wouldn't YOU be if you were canned days before your magnum opus was complete?)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lily Barclay on December 20, 2012, 02:29:48 PM
snip

Pity they decided to stop concentrating on the western market where we have no such regulations, huh?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DarkCurrent on December 20, 2012, 02:42:14 PM
Don't forget about their faithful sidekick:

http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/3659:JP/chart/ (http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/3659:JP/chart/)

I wonder if NCSoft is returning their phone calls.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Triplash on December 20, 2012, 02:50:27 PM
*presses button labeled "Canned Mad Scientist Laughter #0172"*

(https://i813.photobucket.com/albums/zz55/KansasCrawford/Funny%20Pics/216951_3141817764579_1917099602_n.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Minotaur on December 20, 2012, 02:53:12 PM
Don't forget about their faithful sidekick:

http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/3659:JP/chart/ (http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/3659:JP/chart/)

I wonder if NCSoft is returning their phone calls.

Just discovered that Nexon are one of the sponsors of English premiership football club Queen's Park Rangers. Not sure if there's anything we can do with this info.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mister Bison on December 20, 2012, 02:57:03 PM
Just discovered that Nexon are one of the sponsors of English premiership football club Queen's Park Rangers. Not sure if there's anything we can do with this info.
And me that the 7th floor toilets were clogged.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on December 20, 2012, 04:48:21 PM
Wow, you've got 172 different canned mad scientists laughs?  Mine ran out of oxygen somewhere around 12.  Beyond that, it was just whimpering and wheezing and an occasional hammering as he tried to get out. 

What's your secret? 
Should I be drilling air holes in the can?
...Or are you using multiple mad scientists in multiple cans?
...or multiple mad scientists in the same can, I guess.... they do say they're recyclable, after all.
... the cans, not the scientists....
... although....

It's more sinister than that. All of his math is done in base 8 for security. It's actually only 122.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: V-Mink on December 20, 2012, 04:59:11 PM
It's more sinister than that. All of his math is done in base 8 for security. It's actually only 122.
Diabolical!

Nobody should have to do base-8 conversions in their heads!

... though we've got a Mad Science wetware patch for that....
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on December 20, 2012, 05:04:49 PM
DROP up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, DROP, down, down, down, SUDDEN RISE,up, down, up, down, up, down, up...

What is this, a drinking game or the morning aerobics workout?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on December 20, 2012, 05:22:50 PM
What is this, a drinking game or the morning aerobics workout?
It's actually NCSoft's attempt to crack the Konami Code.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TonyV on December 20, 2012, 05:56:42 PM
Pity they decided to stop concentrating on the western market where we have no such regulations, huh?

Heh, keen observation.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The Fifth Horseman on December 20, 2012, 06:18:06 PM
Quote
Nobody should have to do base-8 conversions in their heads!
Programmers find base-16 far more useful. ;)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on December 20, 2012, 07:05:55 PM
Programmers find base-16 far more useful. ;)
Oh, great, next you'll be handing out our secret decoder rings!  :roll:
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: SARobb on December 20, 2012, 07:09:42 PM
Oh, great, next you'll be handing out our secret decoder rings!  :roll:

*hides his decoder ring*
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 20, 2012, 11:09:47 PM
*presses button labeled "Canned Mad Scientist Laughter #0172"*

I sure hope Dr. Horrible's laugh is in there! Both in its practice and final-form phases ;)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Electric-Knight on December 21, 2012, 01:00:18 AM
You all lead me on a search for mad scientist soundboards... and I am displeased to say that I did not find anything to my liking!!  >:(

Closest I found was this, but it's really not very good at all (not great selections, poor audio quality, too much delay from when you start a clip):
Professor Farnsworth Soundboard (http://www.soundboard.com/sb/Professor_Farnsworth_clip)
 :roll:
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Xieveral on December 21, 2012, 01:34:06 AM
You all lead me on a search for mad scientist soundboards... and I am displeased to say that I did not find anything to my liking!!  >:(

Closest I found was this, but it's really not very good at all (not great selections, poor audio quality, too much delay from when you start a clip):
Professor Farnsworth Soundboard (http://www.soundboard.com/sb/Professor_Farnsworth_clip)
 :roll:

I'm highly disappointed that "Good news. everybody!" is not on there.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on December 21, 2012, 02:08:20 AM
I'm highly disappointed that "Good news. everybody!" is not on there.

i agree, thats like his catchphrase
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on December 21, 2012, 02:11:50 AM
It's actually NCSoft's attempt to crack the Konami Code.

Is that the one that gives you $999,999,999,999 for no effort and gives you infinite lives so that your mistakes bring no penalties?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kistulot on December 21, 2012, 02:21:55 AM
Is that the one that gives you $999,999,999,999 for no effort and gives you infinite lives so that your mistakes bring no penalties?

30 lives.

Infinite shame.

RED FALCON will not die to cowards!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on December 21, 2012, 02:30:11 AM
this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami_code) might help more lol
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Triplash on December 21, 2012, 04:21:37 AM
30 lives.

Infinite shame.

*has a giggle fit* ;D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on December 21, 2012, 06:59:21 AM
Engage! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G5mquojOm0)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blue Pulsar on December 24, 2012, 07:18:03 AM
Does anyone know when the stock market opens back up in Korea?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Xieveral on December 24, 2012, 08:50:01 AM
Does anyone know when the stock market opens back up in Korea?

I'm west coast United States so for me the market is open 4pm-10pm PST Sunday-Thursday
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on December 24, 2012, 10:41:12 AM
Ahhh, they're back below 150,000 (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=036570.KS), and closer to where they belong.  My overwhelming desire for schadenfreude derived from NCsoft is momentarily massaged.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Perfidus on December 24, 2012, 11:00:30 AM
See my siggy!

So glad I didn't change it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The Fifth Horseman on December 24, 2012, 02:21:43 PM
Somehow it brings to mind that weird rendition of "Row, row, row my boat" from "Hackers".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbcxf8PWg_U#t=4967s
 ;D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: bigdog1111 on December 24, 2012, 05:01:15 PM
Kaiser Tarantula, thanks for the NCSoft stock link. It's more dramatic when you click the ytd or 1 yr, you'll find their stock dropping is readily apparent since the COH closure announcement,

http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS

If I were an NCSoft stockholder I'd be VERY WORRIED.

As COH fan I'm very happy to see this. I really hope NCSoft goes under and is forced to sell off COH to satisfy investors!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kistulot on December 24, 2012, 06:22:05 PM
As COH fan I'm very happy to see this. I really hope NCSoft goes under and is forced to sell off COH to satisfy investors!

Call me too blueside, but I'm hoping they just see it in their best interest to sell off their old IP they aren't using. If they did that, I know I'd be happy to say they've learned to show more respect to their playerbase and other people would too. They'd make a big chunk of profit, and be ready to turn towards a new golden age. Would CoH players be their customers again? Unlikely. But I know I might wince at their name then say "at least they learned from the experience."

Here's to hoping.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: WildFire15 on December 24, 2012, 06:35:08 PM
Call me too blueside, but I'm hoping they just see it in their best interest to sell off their old IP they aren't using

I agree with that. If they go under they'll drag as many studios unfortunate enough to work for them down with them and cost plenty of jobs, so I'd rather they realize selling CoH is in their best interests and leave them to do what they fancy after selling.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lucretia MacEvil on December 24, 2012, 06:58:23 PM
I wouldn't want to see anyone else out of work, but right now I'm selfish enough to want CoX back any way I can get it.
(so, I guess I have a more Rogue/Vigilante opinion? or Praetorian Loyalist maybe {"as long as it helps me, I could care less what else happens"}?)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: srmalloy on December 25, 2012, 06:22:07 AM
Kaiser Tarantula, thanks for the NCSoft stock link. It's more dramatic when you click the ytd or 1 yr, you'll find their stock dropping is readily apparent since the COH closure announcement,

http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS

If I were an NCSoft stockholder I'd be VERY WORRIED.

Actually, the best view is the six-month view, where you have the color change under the line between August and September, which makes it easy to see when the closure announcement went out. And their stock goes up until the 7th, then we held the Unity rally and their stock started its nosedive.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 25, 2012, 06:50:08 AM
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 25, 2012, 07:18:32 AM
Bearing in mind this is only one reporter talking to me, so who knows...but "Joe," the reporter that interviewed me for the Korean times, indicated at the feeling at the paper is that NCSoft is giving at least some of those analysts kickbacks for their glowing recommendations.  He also indicated that this is by no means out of the ordinary over there.  If I were to hazard a pure guess, it is that most stockholders are aware of this and not listening to the analysts.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on December 25, 2012, 10:18:55 AM
It still raises the question, even if all those analysts are recommending buy - why isn't anyone doing that?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mister Bison on December 25, 2012, 12:52:04 PM
It still raises the question, even if all those analysts are recommending buy - why isn't anyone doing that?
If there is a price on the stock that's fluctuating, it's because some people are buying it. Don't worry. Just not enough to make the price rise.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Aggelakis on December 25, 2012, 05:25:09 PM
Yeah. In order for a stock to move at all, it means someone is buying something. It just means that someone is buying the low-price stuff hoping for a spike back up later.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on December 25, 2012, 06:02:21 PM
Bearing in mind this is only one reporter talking to me, so who knows...but "Joe," the reporter that interviewed me for the Korean times, indicated at the feeling at the paper is that NCSoft is giving at least some of those analysts kickbacks for their glowing recommendations.  He also indicated that this is by no means out of the ordinary over there.  If I were to hazard a pure guess, it is that most stockholders are aware of this and not listening to the analysts.

Actually, this is a very serious accusation, comparable to the rumor of money laundering. If Mr "Joe's" theories are reasonably close to the truth, there is something very wrong going on with NCsoft. On the other hand there is little evidence to support these claims. For example would Nexon buy NCsoft shares if they had any reason to suspect them of such shady business practices? Because in both cases we're talking not just lack of ethics, but criminal behaviour. Things that make people go to jail. Surely if a newspaper could come up with these claims, then Nexon's analysts could do so too. I think I may personally start to question Mr "Joe's" motives. What is his angle in revealing all this?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: mikoroshi on December 25, 2012, 07:14:03 PM
My neighbor, who is a recent transplant from Korea, has told me he has heard lots of shady things about NCSoft in the last few years and openly wondered why anyone is surprised this happened: he says they have shut down dozens of games and studios in the East in the past... and its perplexing him why it took so long to happen here.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: HarvesterOfEyes on December 25, 2012, 07:20:17 PM
Actually, this is a very serious accusation, comparable to the rumor of money laundering. If Mr "Joe's" theories are reasonably close to the truth, there is something very wrong going on with NCsoft. On the other hand there is little evidence to support these claims. For example would Nexon buy NCsoft shares if they had any reason to suspect them of such shady business practices? Because in both cases we're talking not just lack of ethics, but criminal behaviour. Things that make people go to jail. Surely if a newspaper could come up with these claims, then Nexon's analysts could do so too. I think I may personally start to question Mr "Joe's" motives. What is his angle in revealing all this?
In most countries of the world, what we'd call "corrupt" business practices seldom land anyone in jail unless they are opposition politicians.

...and even here in the US, the level of official corruption that is considered "normal" today is an offense to pretty much every moral standard ever devised.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on December 25, 2012, 07:28:36 PM
In my country it does. Plus we're also talking about money laundering, which is another of Mr "Joe's" revelations. I think that counts as a big no-no in US?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: HarvesterOfEyes on December 25, 2012, 09:01:05 PM
In my country it does.
Count your blessings.
Quote
Plus we're also talking about money laundering, which is another of Mr "Joe's" revelations. I think that counts as a big no-no in US?
I can't tell whether what's being described violates any written law, and I submit that it's irrelevant.

EDIT: spelling
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on December 25, 2012, 09:02:41 PM
My neighbor, who is a recent transplant from Korea, has told me he has heard lots of shady things about NCSoft in the last few years and openly wondered why anyone is surprised this happened: he says they have shut down dozens of games and studios in the East in the past... and its perplexing him why it took so long to happen here.

"The Day Mitt Romney Came To Town: The Videogame Edition?"
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blue Pulsar on December 25, 2012, 11:26:12 PM
"The Day Mitt Romney Came To Town: The Videogame Edition?"

I don't get it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on December 26, 2012, 12:09:51 AM
I don't get it.

In reference to Mitt Romney's predicted presidency in the event that he won the 2012 election, at least according to liberals and moderates (including myself). No more reference to Romney should be made from here on in, in the interest of evading pyromania.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blue Pulsar on December 26, 2012, 12:23:19 AM
In reference to Mitt Romney's predicted presidency in the event that he won the 2012 election, at least according to liberals and moderates (including myself). No more reference to Romney should be made from here on in, in the interest of evading pyromania.

Nice "Tag, no tag backs" you did there. lol
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 26, 2012, 12:41:17 AM
Actually, this is a very serious accusation, comparable to the rumor of money laundering. If Mr "Joe's" theories are reasonably close to the truth, there is something very wrong going on with NCsoft. On the other hand there is little evidence to support these claims. For example would Nexon buy NCsoft shares if they had any reason to suspect them of such shady business practices? Because in both cases we're talking not just lack of ethics, but criminal behaviour. Things that make people go to jail. Surely if a newspaper could come up with these claims, then Nexon's analysts could do so too. I think I may personally start to question Mr "Joe's" motives. What is his angle in revealing all this?

What is your angle in questioning and cross-examining every statement I make, and coming just short of repeatedly calling me a liar?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Perfidus on December 26, 2012, 12:49:42 AM
I assume playing Devil's Advocate. He wants the game back just as much as we do.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on December 26, 2012, 12:56:27 AM
What is your angle in questioning and cross-examining every statement I make, and coming just short of repeatedly calling me a liar?

Whoa, there! I did not mean to step on anyone's toes. However, you are very active in the movement (I am very grateful for that as I stated previously in other posts and I think you are doing great job, honest!), while I am by nature distrustful and have difficulty believing in anything remotely resembling a free lunch. So it's inevitable that sometimes I will debate something that you will see in a very different light. Now please observe that I am giving a look to Mr "Joe", not to you. I am doing that because I see him feeding us with pretty wild stuff, while not providing any kind of proof. They're just guesses. On the other many people in our community are pretty bitter and/or desperate, so they are likely to cling to anything that would hurt NCsoft. It doesn't take much to ignite a wild goose chase in such circumstances. Why would he do that? Well, for the story would be my first guess. But it's a guess - I have nothing to back it up. So with that I'll just go and sit quietly in the corner. I do not want to stir any negative emotions and I am sorry that my mistrust has angered you. I apologize.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on December 26, 2012, 12:57:01 AM
I assume playing Devil's Advocate. He wants the game back just as much as we do.

Thank you for your kind words.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 26, 2012, 01:16:40 AM
Whoa, there! I did not mean to step on anyone's toes. However, you are very active in the movement (I am very grateful for that as I stated previously in other posts and I think you are doing great job, honest!), while I am by nature distrustful and have difficulty believing in anything remotely resembling a free lunch. So it's inevitable that sometimes I will debate something that you will see in a very different light. Now please observe that I am giving a look to Mr "Joe", not to you. I am doing that because I see him feeding us with pretty wild stuff, while not providing any kind of proof. They're just guesses. On the other many people in our community are pretty bitter and/or desperate, so they are likely to cling to anything that would hurt NCsoft. It doesn't take much to ignite a wild goose chase in such circumstances. Why would he do that? Well, for the story would be my first guess. But it's a guess - I have nothing to back it up. So with that I'll just go and sit quietly in the corner. I do not want to stir any negative emotions and I am sorry that my mistrust has angered you. I apologize.

Accepted.

Now, look at it from my perspective.  I am not a stock market analyst, I in no way am going to be able to influence stock prices, I am virtually unknown in Korea and no one in the US is going to pay any attention to an elderly fantasy writer when it comes to "real news."  I mean, seriously, when is the last time you heard of anyone going to Stephen King for financial analysis?  And he's exponentially "bigger" than I am.  No one in Korea is going to be operating under some bizarre illusion that I am the Great and Powerful Oz and can topple corporations with a breath.

I'm assuming the logical.  "Joe" told me this, merely to confirm my suspicions, and maybe with an eye to the idea that someone sufficiently motivated in the US could at least report those suspicions to the authorities.  Which, I did.  He also told me that this (money laundering and bribery) has turned up with other gaming companies in Korea, so it is by no means unheard of.   How common it is, I can't say, since I don't live in Korea.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 26, 2012, 03:38:05 AM
Or "Joe" has an axe to grind and through you and by extension us, a group of disgruntled former NCSoft customers, could be persuaded to pick up a torch and pitchfork and needle NCSoft because his Korean readers/editors have written him off already?  But it's nice to believe that there are hard hitting investigating journalists who can't quite gather enough evidence to break the story wide open alive and well in the world.

And don't undersell yourself VV.  You comment in The Korea Times did trigger a short term sell off as the locals heard of what happen to us for likely the first time, since CoH never really succeeded there.  NCSoft is in the KOSPI 100 and KOSPI 200 indexes and is still one of the top 60 companies in those indexes based on Market Cap so people do follow NCSoft other than on MMO blogs.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on December 26, 2012, 03:47:06 AM
Nice "Tag, no tag backs" you did there. lol

While I will not deny that, flame wars must be averted. And is there any chance, VV, that we could get in touch with "Joe" or his sources?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on December 26, 2012, 03:50:56 AM
In reference to Mitt Romney's predicted presidency in the event that he won the 2012 election, at least according to liberals and moderates (including myself). No more reference to Romney should be made from here on in, in the interest of evading pyromania.

Not quite, it was a propaganda video highlighting the darkest aspects (would that actually make it lowlighting?) of his business career. No opinion on his potential as a president is intended or should be inferred.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 26, 2012, 06:57:04 AM
Or "Joe" has an axe to grind and through you and by extension us, a group of disgruntled former NCSoft customers, could be persuaded to pick up a torch and pitchfork and needle NCSoft because his Korean readers/editors have written him off already?  But it's nice to believe that there are hard hitting investigating journalists who can't quite gather enough evidence to break the story wide open alive and well in the world.

And don't undersell yourself VV.  You comment in The Korea Times did trigger a short term sell off as the locals heard of what happen to us for likely the first time, since CoH never really succeeded there.  NCSoft is in the KOSPI 100 and KOSPI 200 indexes and is still one of the top 60 companies in those indexes based on Market Cap so people do follow NCSoft other than on MMO blogs.

I'm not all that sold on the idea of an axe to grind.  I'm pretty good at spotting leading questions, and I didn't get any in that interview...about half of which was cut because I gave long and detailed answers, figuring the Korean tolerance for tl;dr is higher than in the US.  And I am not sold on the idea anything I said had much influence, except that this was the first time Koreans heard the disconnect between the "we are expanding in the west" and the "we are concentrating on the east" messages.  As long as they got that from any source, the result would have been the same.

While I will not deny that, flame wars must be averted. And is there any chance, VV, that we could get in touch with "Joe" or his sources?

Same way Rae did.  Email to him at the Korean Times.  Contact info should be on that article.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 26, 2012, 11:44:37 AM
Okay "ax to grind" is a little strong.  Lets say a true believer that NCSoft is up to no good.  Sort of like guests and callers on Coast to Coast AM who truly believe in aliens, ghosts, angels, the Mayan Doomsday, etc. and is looking for an audience who shares in their beliefs, or who are at least open to the possibility. 

You've (general you, from the POV of the investigating journalist) heard rumors, stories from a friend of a friend or on the DL from some low level official or employee or ex-employee about a potential investigation, wrong doings, etc.  Not enough proof to break a story on but enough to lead you to believe that something is up but you're at a dead end.  How do you proceed?  Well you put it out there through groups who may be sympathetic to your misgivings and see if any of them heard something new.  The worst case you generate a low level buzz that something may be up and then just maybe a new lead will emerge.

Or you could believe that what "Joe" has is an open secret there, that it's SOP for such companies in Korea and that the local agencies simply turn a blind eye in the name of the national economy and he is now looking for someone to start an outside investigation that would shed more light on it.

But if you believe that 38 of the 39 analysts, or even just the 13 who has NCSoft as a Buy are all on the take, that's a little too cynical for me.  It's too easy for me to believe our current feelings about NCSoft will color our judgement when to comes to accepting such rumors and accusations at face value.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kurukaze on December 26, 2012, 01:03:23 PM
Different view:

"We are heroes. This is what we do."

One thing happening to heroes often is being framed. So:
 - Nexon did buy a large part of NC stock this year - as I understood that part was owned by Mr. CEO himself before.
 - NC is tanking, widely believed due to very bad public standing, analysts have them on "buy" - they still have the Lineage stuff that works pretty well on their hometurf, GW and GW2 - and is still tanking despite christmas sales.
 - Someone is buying, even enough to have NC rise a lil from time to time.

So, what if that "someone" is actually Nexon trying to get NC for "very cheap", having Mr. CEO play their cards, making bad "strategic decisison" to create bad publicity - picking us as we were the most probable group of (now ex-)customers to deliver?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: kierthos on December 26, 2012, 01:30:17 PM
Down 2000 when I last checked. They're within spitting distance of their 52 week low.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on December 26, 2012, 02:29:59 PM
Down 2000 when I last checked. They're within spitting distance of their 52 week low.

Spitting is a disgusting habit!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JWBullfrog on December 26, 2012, 02:36:32 PM
Different view:

"We are heroes. This is what we do."

One thing happening to heroes often is being framed. So:
 - Nexon did buy a large part of NC stock this year - as I understood that part was owned by Mr. CEO himself before.
 - NC is tanking, widely believed due to very bad public standing, analysts have them on "buy" - they still have the Lineage stuff that works pretty well on their hometurf, GW and GW2 - and is still tanking despite christmas sales.
 - Someone is buying, even enough to have NC rise a lil from time to time.

So, what if that "someone" is actually Nexon trying to get NC for "very cheap", having Mr. CEO play their cards, making bad "strategic decisison" to create bad publicity - picking us as we were the most probable group of (now ex-)customers to deliver?

Interesting idea but far too complicated. The old idea of Occam's razor might be a better way of looking at things.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: HarvesterOfEyes on December 26, 2012, 04:25:03 PM

Interesting idea but far too complicated. The old idea of Occam's razor might be a better way of looking at things.
Agreed. Stupidity is a far more likely cause of general corporate woes. Where it comes to stock prices, the market is quite capable of being irrational over the short-term.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on December 26, 2012, 06:34:48 PM

Interesting idea but far too complicated. The old idea of Occam's razor might be a better way of looking at things.

Yeah, but more specifically Hanlon's Razor (http://tvtrope.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HanlonsRazor) (Do not assume malice when stupidity is just as likely).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 26, 2012, 08:14:09 PM
Different view:

"We are heroes. This is what we do."

One thing happening to heroes often is being framed. So:
 - Nexon did buy a large part of NC stock this year - as I understood that part was owned by Mr. CEO himself before.
 - NC is tanking, widely believed due to very bad public standing, analysts have them on "buy" - they still have the Lineage stuff that works pretty well on their hometurf, GW and GW2 - and is still tanking despite christmas sales.
 - Someone is buying, even enough to have NC rise a lil from time to time.

So, what if that "someone" is actually Nexon trying to get NC for "very cheap", having Mr. CEO play their cards, making bad "strategic decisison" to create bad publicity - picking us as we were the most probable group of (now ex-)customers to deliver?
It's not Nexon because if it was, as a 5% or greater stockholder, any further accumulation needs to be reported publicly because you can really cause havoc to the price when you control that much stock in a company.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Sajaana on December 26, 2012, 09:01:28 PM
The Korean Exchange may operate by a different set of rules.

Here's what I'm thinking.

There's a lot of uncertainty with regard to NCSoft's earnings next quarter, let alone next year.  A lot is riding on how well GW2 did in the West--not just in terms of box sales--but, more importantly, with gem sales.  It did well in box sales, but did it underperform?  Some sources said it did.  Also, what about retention?  They are in a position only now to gague this.

There's also uncertainly when it comes to NCSoft's appeal in the West.  On the one hand, they seem to be baking away.  But if they are backing away, why all the "to do" with the restructuring?  This will not impact GW2 or Aion now, but what about a year from now?  A year is shorter than you think, and a lot can change, a lot remains uncertain.

Also, there's the whole reception of Blade and Soul in Asia.  I've heard that the title wasn't as well received as was hoped when it launched in China.  And if it can't do well in China, the odds of it doing well here or in Europe are...well...not as good.

Aion, Lineage and Lineage 2 are the big money makers here.  But interest in all three is fading.  As far as anything else coming downthe pipe, you have Wildstar, which is a very under-the-radar niche project still a year or more away.  It isn't predicted to net serious numbers.  It's also a high-risk tile.

Which means NCSoft's entire future rests on its collaboration with Nexon: Mabinogi 2.  It's about the only title in development with the potential to win a mass international audience.  And it isn't even NCSoft's.  It's Nexon's.

Now NCSoft's fundamentals are strong, but in the tech world, strength isn't where you are at, but where you are going.  And where is NCSoft going right now?  Their major titles are old, they have less of them, and they've placed a lot of eggs in relatively few baskets.

All of this seems to correspond to why their stock price is down.  It's a mature company that looks set in its ways; the odds are that it won't get much bigger than it already is, and the odds are greater that they'll lose market share in the coming years to the other heavyweights (SOE, Blizzard/Vivendi, Square/Enix, EA) and soon-to-be heavyweights from China (NetDragon, Giant Interactive).  This, combined with competition from newer, more innovative startups that have the potential to grow larger, and NCSoft is looking like US Steel in the 80's.

Again, that's the long view.  The short view is, as I said, uncertainty.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on December 26, 2012, 10:55:15 PM
I just have this really funny feeling that Wildstar will never see the light of day. Its not an Asian-themed game, nor to my knowledge will it be oriented to the type of gameplay Asians prefer.

So I doubt we will be looking at that. This also worries me a bit regarding GW2 [that it pretty much ignores preferred Asian playstyles], although your character there shares the VERY annoying Asian trait of appearing not to be a day over 15, especially the female ones. Maybe some of the male choices might appear to be 18; its a matter of how you look at it, I guess.

I miss my Bane Spider, who was a middle-aged guy who had been a soldier most of his life. He had the scars and greying hair to prove it. Ha, you ain't getting ~nothing~ like that in anything NCSoftheaded is putting out now. You're 15 or you're not even.

I miss you, Arbiter Blaylock.  :(
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 26, 2012, 11:54:56 PM
I just have this really funny feeling that Wildstar will never see the light of day. Its not an Asian-themed game, nor to my knowledge will it be oriented to the type of gameplay Asians prefer.

So I doubt we will be looking at that. This also worries me a bit regarding GW2 [that it pretty much ignores preferred Asian playstyles], although your character there shares the VERY annoying Asian trait of appearing not to be a day over 15, especially the female ones. Maybe some of the male choices might appear to be 18; its a matter of how you look at it, I guess.

I miss my Bane Spider, who was a middle-aged guy who had been a soldier most of his life. He had the scars and greying hair to prove it. Ha, you ain't getting ~nothing~ like that in anything NCSoftheaded is putting out now. You're 15 or you're not even.

I miss you, Arbiter Blaylock.  :(
Wildstar is being developed by members of the original WoW team.  I think that game is doing well in Asia or am I misremembering?  ;)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on December 27, 2012, 12:51:05 AM
I think the salient thing to carry away from any conversation regarding this company is, what is logical/expected from where we sit has no bearing whatsoever on their decisions.

Therefore I will be very surprised to see Wildstar released into the wild, as it were.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blitzwing on December 27, 2012, 12:55:06 AM
I think the salient thing to carry away from any conversation regarding this company is, what is logical/expected from where we sit has no bearing whatsoever on their decisions.

Therefore I will be very surprised to see Wildstar released into the wild, as it were.

That's what I've been thinking...Wildstar's effectively dead on arrival, if it ever gets THAT far...things are about to get very interesting, I believe....
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 27, 2012, 01:39:56 AM
At this point, with all the money NCSoft has poured into the company, not trying to recoup any of it will look bad to it's investors, not to mention everyone at corporate who kept green lighting the project through the various development review panels. 

They've promo the game at both E3 and Pax this year.  They have their dev blog hyping parts of the game to build up buzz every few weeks.   It's been named by several MMO sites as most anticipated MMO for 2013.   And looking at their new job postings from two weeks ago, it's obvious that they are approaching the final crunch (lots of QA positions).  So I'm guessing six months until release, three to four months until closed Beta.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 27, 2012, 02:03:17 AM
The Korean Exchange may operate by a different set of rules.

Here's what I'm thinking.

There's a lot of uncertainty with regard to NCSoft's earnings next quarter, let alone next year.  A lot is riding on how well GW2 did in the West--not just in terms of box sales--but, more importantly, with gem sales.  It did well in box sales, but did it underperform?  Some sources said it did.  Also, what about retention?  They are in a position only now to gague this.

There's also uncertainly when it comes to NCSoft's appeal in the West.  On the one hand, they seem to be baking away.  But if they are backing away, why all the "to do" with the restructuring?  This will not impact GW2 or Aion now, but what about a year from now?  A year is shorter than you think, and a lot can change, a lot remains uncertain.

Also, there's the whole reception of Blade and Soul in Asia.  I've heard that the title wasn't as well received as was hoped when it launched in China.  And if it can't do well in China, the odds of it doing well here or in Europe are...well...not as good.

Aion, Lineage and Lineage 2 are the big money makers here.  But interest in all three is fading.  As far as anything else coming downthe pipe, you have Wildstar, which is a very under-the-radar niche project still a year or more away.  It isn't predicted to net serious numbers.  It's also a high-risk tile.

Which means NCSoft's entire future rests on its collaboration with Nexon: Mabinogi 2.  It's about the only title in development with the potential to win a mass international audience.  And it isn't even NCSoft's.  It's Nexon's.

Now NCSoft's fundamentals are strong, but in the tech world, strength isn't where you are at, but where you are going.  And where is NCSoft going right now?  Their major titles are old, they have less of them, and they've placed a lot of eggs in relatively few baskets.

All of this seems to correspond to why their stock price is down.  It's a mature company that looks set in its ways; the odds are that it won't get much bigger than it already is, and the odds are greater that they'll lose market share in the coming years to the other heavyweights (SOE, Blizzard/Vivendi, Square/Enix, EA) and soon-to-be heavyweights from China (NetDragon, Giant Interactive).  This, combined with competition from newer, more innovative startups that have the potential to grow larger, and NCSoft is looking like US Steel in the 80's.

Again, that's the long view.  The short view is, as I said, uncertainty.
Well B&S hasn't launched in China yet.  It entered the 2nd 40 day round of beta just three weeks ago (http://www.mmoculture.com/2012/11/blade-soul-awesome-new-trailer-and-record-prices-for-keys/) and a beta key to it was going for $320 on the "black market". 

Watching the two Chinese trailers at that link I would say that they cranked down the blood, the breast physics and perhaps eliminated the female outfits that had a lot of exposed skin or translucency (well added leggings, linings and full body stockings to cover up the skin bits).  The second video still sort of shows the "sexuality" of the game by showing off all the pretty people busting a move to a K-pop song.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on December 27, 2012, 02:06:58 AM
At this point, with all the money NCSoft has poured into the company, not trying to recoup any of it will look bad to it's investors, not to mention everyone at corporate who kept green lighting the project through the various development review panels.

Like I said, it looks logical to release it.

That's why I'll be very surprised to see it actually released. The last thing that bunch is about is "making sense," nor do they give a flying whatever about what looks good to their stockholders.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on December 27, 2012, 06:28:14 AM
Like I said, it looks logical to release it.

That's why I'll be very surprised to see it actually released. The last thing that bunch is about is "making sense," nor do they give a flying whatever about what looks good to their stockholders.

I think one way to look at it is - 

Us being hyper-cynical and just thinking that the opposite of good sense is automatically what NCsoftcore will do is not going to work all the time. Sometimes they'll do something that validates that POV. But sometimes they may not.

I think the main thing - the missing piece - is that we're still not sure under what rules they are operating. If it's some form of business logic, it's certainly not western style business.

We've tried figuring out the cultural end of it a couple of months back with the whole "kibun" thread and observations of Asian face-saving culture. I think we might've been on to something there. But I don't think that's 100% it either.

If this were an entirely Western business, this would be much easier. Executives at Activision/Blizzard or SOE aren't that difficult to figure out. We start from the ground floor with mostly the same cultural background and only have to account for the "corporate" culture and what we can find in the background of the corporate officers that shapes their individual personalities and we can predict with a fair amount of reasonable accuracy what they're likely to do given the right set of circumstances.

With NCSoft it's much more difficult figuring them out. We thought we understood them until they announced the cancellation. The other game closures (Auto Assault, Tabula Rasa etc) appeared to be motivated by standard profit/loss.

City of Heroes closure does NOT make sense. So we've been trying to figure out the reasoning behind it. But we're hampered now at least in part by the cultural divide.

But again - I don't think we can generalize too much. An individual or set of individuals made this decision. And culture/kibun/face-saving might be PART of the influence, but there has to be something more there. It might be as simple as someone trying to cover their ass over bad decisions elsewhere. It might be "creative accounting". It might be collateral damage over the Garriots.

My point is - don't get too locked into one way of looking at it and always try to apply both Occams and Hanlan's Razor.

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: CG on December 27, 2012, 12:20:21 PM
At this point, with all the money NCSoft has poured into the company, not trying to recoup any of it will look bad to it's investors, not to mention everyone at corporate who kept green lighting the project through the various development review panels. 
Originally, I thought you were talking about City of Heroes...  :(
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: HarvesterOfEyes on December 27, 2012, 12:30:03 PM
Originally, I thought you were talking about City of Heroes...  :(
I always shake my head when people argue the "NCSoft will do what logically makes business sense" angle.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on December 27, 2012, 12:53:39 PM
I always shake my head when people argue the "NCSoft will do what logically makes business sense" angle.

Why? Decision making involves a lot of factors of which the general public is rarely aware. That is why certain outcomes may appear random, but they seldom are.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: HarvesterOfEyes on December 27, 2012, 01:07:34 PM
Why? Decision making involves a lot of factors of which the general public is rarely aware. That is why certain outcomes may appear random, but they seldom are.
Because to do so requires a number of suppositions not supported by evidence.

It does not make business sense to shut down a profiting enterprise, yet the evidence we actually have says NCSoft did just that.

It does not make business sense to shut down a property and sit on the IP while it still has value, yet the evidence we actually have says that's what they intended to do. This is the hardest one to run away from. The CoH IP is not going to increase in time. No one's going to make a movie out of it. There won't be another comic book series from it, and if NCSoft ever thought they were going to profit from developing a CoH 2, they've just destroyed that opportunity.

Destroying opportunities to expand the profitability of existing IP does not make business sense, yet the evidence we have says that NCSoft did just that.

So to now argue from a premise that NCSoft will, in the near future do what logically makes business sense requires you to suppose that they are imminently going to start behaving differently. You can suppose that if you like, but please at least own the fact that you are making an unsupported supposition.

There are a lot of pieces of the puzzle we don't have. Perhaps when we have the rest of it their decisions will make more sense.

You are among the posters here who demand high standards of evidence from others. Don't then argue from your own suppositions without owning them.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on December 27, 2012, 01:24:52 PM
Well, you make some unfounded assumptions in your post, one of them being that I am arguing something that I am not. However, I do strongly agree with the following part:

There are a lot of pieces of the puzzle we don't have. Perhaps when we have the rest of it their decisions will make more sense.

So I'll just QFT.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 27, 2012, 01:58:39 PM
I always shake my head when people argue the "NCSoft will do what logically makes business sense" angle.
They will, to them, to their logic.

Why is it illogical to only want to sell products that do well in your native markets and hopefully as well overseas?  Why support a niche product that does okay but not fantastic in a region outside of your core market?  Why sell it's IP when you've never sold off any IP of any product in an industry where few IPs are sold after cancellation?

Lets look at a different example.  You are one of the major automakers in the world.  You own a plant in a former iron curtain country that makes a car model that only has a loyal following, but not a major one, in that country.  Attempts to broaden it's market have failed.  It uses few if any parts that are common to your other model lines in Europe.  Now due to other market forces you are looking to streamline your operations throughout Europe.  Do you keep making that model?  Do you even keep the plant open?

It's not a perfect analogy, few are, but it's similar enough.  Asian based MMO companies have not done well cracking the NA MMO market by localizing their core products.  However western MMOs they own may do better than their adapted Asian MMOs in NA, still not fantastic, but have no appeal in their core Asian markets.  They are looking for another WoW style MMO that has worldwide appeal.  They don't care if it's developed in the east or the west, just that it could do well everywhere.

Do I think NCSoft hung onto CoH until GW2 was ready to be released, yes.  I think they were willing to put up with CoH anomaly until they had another western revenue stream, a much superior one, ready to take over.  The loss of $2.5-3 million a quarter in sales from closing our game isn't missed when the new kid on the block brings in 15x that much in a third of the time.  And while you are tapping that stream you have another studio getting ready with it's new product that you think/hope will be a big winner as well in the west.

Now in the west the F2P model is taking hold big time.  The only way to make money is by having a start up fee and/or attractive item store.  So NCSoft teams up with Nexon whose sole source of income is item stores.  However Nexon isn't stupid and isn't willing to share their secret sauce recipe with NCSoft without some kind of leverage and that leverage is 15% of NCSoft stock and becoming its largest single shareholder even above it's CEO/founder.  NCSoft also provides Nexon with their 3D development expertise and both of them are trying to make it big in the mobile/tablet market that neither have been able to significantly cash in on so both have been buying startups that have.

That's NCSoft's concern right now, evolving with the marketplace.  Global expansion is a nice secondary goal but they don't want to end up the Microsoft of Korea and relegated to statements like; "X is the NCSoft of the 2010s".
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on December 27, 2012, 02:31:53 PM
Why? Decision making involves a lot of factors of which the general public is rarely aware. That is why certain outcomes may appear random, but they seldom are.

This premise, however, can be flawed on the assumption that even if full, accurate knowledge of those factors is available to the decision-makers, they utilize it to its fullest extent, or even consider it at all. This kind of "business knows best" philosophy is flawed because it generalizes the entire company - it ignores the possibility that regardless of how many people it employs, the person or persons on whose decisions the entire company pivots around made a wrong decision. Whether it's because of misinterpretation of data, or insistence on "trusting their gut", there is no position in a business hierarchy that confers on its holder immunity to mistakes.

So in short, yes, there may be factors we don't know of that recast all the evidence we have available in a different light, and NCsoft's insistence that CoH stays dead and buried somehow works in their favor. But it's often a good idea to use a razor {Occam's or Hanlan's, take your pick} and go with the possibility that involves the least number of unknowns - that NCsoft's management made a mistake.

It's not a perfect analogy, few are, but it's similar enough.

I... don't think so. CoH had been performing rather well in both North America and Europe, especially given its near-total lack of marketing support. The analogy is more reminiscent of the model having a loyal following, but not a major one, in a number of other countries, but neither the loyalty or relevance in the only country you feel should matter.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: HarvesterOfEyes on December 27, 2012, 02:53:07 PM
They will, to them, to their logic.
When you say such a thing you do violence to the word. They may well have a different assessment of the facts that leads them to a different conclusion, but logic is a pretty solid concept.

I maintain that it's fairly normal in business to have to act in the absence of enough facts to make a logical decision. For that reason alone I'm not shocked when a company makes a poor or seemingly-irrational decision. Likewise I marvel at the faith people have that corporate decision-makers are something approaching omniscient.

If the evidence supports the idea that they acted foolishly then don't reflexively rule out the possibility. I remember people telling me "New Coke" was a great business decision at the time. "Look how much they make, they can't do that and make foolish decisions."

Um actually, yes they can.
Quote

Why is it illogical to only want to sell products that do well in your native markets and hopefully as well overseas?  Why support a niche product that does okay but not fantastic in a region outside of your core market?  Why sell it's IP when you've never sold off any IP of any product in an industry where few IPs are sold after cancellation?

Lets look at a different example.  You are one of the major automakers in the world.  You own a plant in a former iron curtain country that makes a car model that only has a loyal following, but not a major one, in that country.  Attempts to broaden it's market have failed.  It uses few if any parts that are common to your other model lines in Europe.  Now due to other market forces you are looking to streamline your operations throughout Europe.  Do you keep making that model?  Do you even keep the plant open?
Is it logical refuse to sell the plant and thus recoup none of the investment? Or to be more precise, to set your sale price so high you can be assured that no one will buy and you will lose 100% of your existing investment rather than losing 90% or 80% or some other number? In what business model is a bigger loss preferable to a smaller one?

Is this logical business behavior?

Quote
It's not a perfect analogy, few are, but it's similar enough.  Asian based MMO companies have not done well cracking the NA MMO market by localizing their core products.  However western MMOs they own may do better than their adapted Asian MMOs in NA, still not fantastic, but have no appeal in their core Asian markets.  They are looking for another WoW style MMO that has worldwide appeal.  They don't care if it's developed in the east or the west, just that it could do well everywhere.

Do I think NCSoft hung onto CoH until GW2 was ready to be released, yes.  I think they were willing to put up with CoH anomaly until they had another western revenue stream, a much superior one, ready to take over.  The loss of $2.5-3 million a quarter in sales from closing our game isn't missed when the new kid on the block brings in 15x that much in a third of the time.  And while you are tapping that stream you have another studio getting ready with it's new product that you think/hope will be a big winner as well in the west.
If shutting down Paragon Studios was in their longer-term plan why did they not phase out the developers sooner and save more money? If I have to go on just what we know then the dog didn't bark here.

Is there any other piece of evidence of which you are aware that supports the idea that this was a long-term decision or are you relying on the supposition that whatever they did it must have been rational?

Quote
Now in the west the F2P model is taking hold big time.  The only way to make money is by having a start up fee and/or attractive item store.  So NCSoft teams up with Nexon whose sole source of income is item stores.  However Nexon isn't stupid and isn't willing to share their secret sauce recipe with NCSoft without some kind of leverage and that leverage is 15% of NCSoft stock and becoming its largest single shareholder even above it's CEO/founder.  NCSoft also provides Nexon with their 3D development expertise and both of them are trying to make it big in the mobile/tablet market that neither have been able to significantly cash in on so both have been buying startups that have.

That's NCSoft's concern right now, evolving with the marketplace.  Global expansion is a nice secondary goal but they don't want to end up the Microsoft of Korea and relegated to statements like; "X is the NCSoft of the 2010s".
I can't speak to their corporate strategy because they consistently obfuscate about what that is. It is to be expected. I can speak to what they've done recently and suggest that we not assume that they are going to suddenly start behaving differently.

I see evidence of foolishness and impulse. These are normal in human behavior. NCSoft is not run by robots. [At least, not as far as we know.] I'm not ready to ignore some of the evidence on faith that NCSoft's corporate decision-makers are deeply-wise people.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on December 27, 2012, 03:06:43 PM
Continued general decline in stock prices. They're below 150, though not comfortably yet. They show absolutely no signs at all of recovering to where they were before the CEO selloff/Unity rally. Indeed, their stock has been in general decline since October of last year. Looking at their five-month chart... if this trend continues as-is, the stock will be worth nothing at all by June.

However, NCSoft proved its ability to survive at 50-100 from 2003 to 2008. Will they retain that resilience?

Anyone have experience with companies that're sinking? What sort of behavior can we expect from NCSoft if their stock continues to decline so precipitously? What happens as their stock value continues to sink? Should we expect some sort of hostile takeover? Radical changes in corporate leadership? Any educated guesses?

"If shutting down Paragon Studios was in their longer-term plan why did they not phase out the developers sooner and save more money? I see evidence of foolishness and impulse."

I'm forced to concur, though frame it differently. Evidently, some grave structural problem exists within NCSoft, something that we as outsiders cannot see. They somehow foresaw the decline.

It is a fact of psychology that people will not risk so much to make new gains, but will gamble boldly, even desperately, to prevent or regain losses. Las Vegas is founded upon that quirk of human behavior. The abrupt cancellation of CoH feels like that, a kind of corporate spasm of pain rather than a planned action. Certainly, having cancelled several games before CoH, no one there anticipated the PR wound they inflicted upon themselves.

So rather than caprice or malice, I see them flailing about uselessly while on fire. Not quite in their death-throes yet, though.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on December 27, 2012, 03:36:18 PM
This premise, however, can be flawed on the assumption that even if full, accurate knowledge of those factors is available to the decision-makers, they utilize it to its fullest extent, or even consider it at all. This kind of "business knows best" philosophy is flawed because it generalizes the entire company - it ignores the possibility that regardless of how many people it employs, the person or persons on whose decisions the entire company pivots around made a wrong decision. Whether it's because of misinterpretation of data, or insistence on "trusting their gut", there is no position in a business hierarchy that confers on its holder immunity to mistakes.

The premise is not flawed, because it does not assume anything else than that certain factors existed. Not that they were objectively beneficial to company's market standing. Also not that they were objectively harmful. Only that they most likely existed. It has nothing to do with "business knows best", but it also doesn't explicitly say "lol their dumb", because we really don't have enough data to support either claim. And as long as we don't obtain more data, certain NCsoft actions may look more or less random. FatherXmas makes a few good points about company's actions that prove NCsoft may not be very considerate, but it is operating like a similar institution would in their position.

But it's often a good idea to use a razor {Occam's or Hanlan's, take your pick}

Occam's razor is a very useful tool in making assumptions for example where there is insuffient amount of data available, while Hanlon's razor is a humorous remark, not unlike Murphy's law. It's not a great idea to use either of those to draw serious conclusions about the surrounding world. Well, not exclusively at least.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Nafaustu on December 27, 2012, 03:38:00 PM
<snip>
So rather than caprice or malice, I see them flailing about uselessly while on fire. Not quite in their death-throes yet, though.

I'm a terrible person.   I laughed.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 27, 2012, 03:38:56 PM
This premise, however, can be flawed on the assumption that even if full, accurate knowledge of those factors is available to the decision-makers, they utilize it to its fullest extent, or even consider it at all. This kind of "business knows best" philosophy is flawed because it generalizes the entire company - it ignores the possibility that regardless of how many people it employs, the person or persons on whose decisions the entire company pivots around made a wrong decision. Whether it's because of misinterpretation of data, or insistence on "trusting their gut", there is no position in a business hierarchy that confers on its holder immunity to mistakes.

So in short, yes, there may be factors we don't know of that recast all the evidence we have available in a different light, and NCsoft's insistence that CoH stays dead and buried somehow works in their favor. But it's often a good idea to use a razor {Occam's or Hanlan's, take your pick} and go with the possibility that involves the least number of unknowns - that NCsoft's management made a mistake.

I... don't think so. CoH had been performing rather well in both North America and Europe, especially given its near-total lack of marketing support. The analogy is more reminiscent of the model having a loyal following, but not a major one, in a number of other countries, but neither the loyalty or relevance in the only country you feel should matter.
$12 million a year isn't rather well, not when NCSoft's other MMOs are doing 8-18x that each.  If you limit it to NA and Europe, well those markets have been shrinking, considerably, to almost the point of irrelevancy until GW2 came out.
2011 NA sales declined 43% and Europe 47% over 2010.  For the 1st half of 2012, NA sales declined 9.5% from the 1st half of 2011 while Europe declined a whopping 61.9%.  With GW2's release NA sales for 3Q is more than all of 2011 by nearly 8% and Europe's by 16%.  One month of GW2's sales (yes I know it's not scalable or sustainable) was more than the last 12 reported quarters, three years, of CoH sales. 

Size of a market matters.  A TV show's overwhelming popularity in the 50th largest ad market means very little if it's ratings are bad in the the top 20, it's going to get canceled.  Being the big fish in an ever shrinking pond means very little in the long run.  Lets say CoH wasn't canceled.  GW2 comes out and now we're a very tiny fish in a big pond.  This still doesn't bode well in the long term.  Companies routinely eliminate under performing products, projects, employees, however they may go about defining "under performing", periodically.  Not to mention what happens when you have a major reorganization, shift in global strategy or the dreaded "realignment of company focus". 

Tiny sales and tiny profits were not enough of a reason to survive this shift.  It doesn't mean that the company is insane, illogical, or malicious, just they were willing to sacrifice our game for what they saw as better long term strategy for the company.  It may be as simple as "a game must do well in Asian markets especially Korea or if not, have similar sized sales numbers outside of Asia".  CoH in 2012 was neither.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TonyV on December 27, 2012, 03:42:48 PM
Why is it illogical to only want to sell products that do well in your native markets and hopefully as well overseas?

Because most successful major multinational corporations have figured out that you adjust for foreign markets, not try to shoehorn your principles on them (or at the very least, in addition to trying to shoehorn your principles on them).  It's why McDonald's sells burgers made of lamb in India (and a lot of other stuff (http://foodnetworkhumor.com/2009/07/mcdonalds-menu-items-from-around-the-world-40-pics/) in other places).  It's why Coca-Cola sells that nasty-ass stuff (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverly_(drink)) they sell in Italy but not here (in the U.S.).  Or for that matter, have you ever heard of Qoo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qoo)?  Actually, aren't you German?  If so, you may very well have since it was sold there for a few years, but about 99.99% of the people in the United States haven't.  It's a niche brand of non-carbonated fruit drinks sold by Coca-Cola primarily in Asian markets.  Why does a multi-billion dollar multinational behemoth like Coca-Cola sell Qoo?

Why support a niche product that does okay but not fantastic in a region outside of your core market?

Because that's what the people there want.  I'm not saying that you can't try to push your own stuff there, but if you want to be a multinational company like NCsoft says it wants to, you have to have a keen sense of what sells and where.

I'm not disputing that the thought process you're engaging in is probably the exact thought process that NCsoft is going through.  I'm just saying that for a company to "take it to the next level," so to speak, it has to factor in local markets; to not do so poses a serious risk of disinterest and, depending on the circumstances, backlash against the company that tries to come in and impose their culture on others.

What's kind of weird about this specific circumstance is that NCsoft actually used to have a good strategy in this arena.  After all, it did fund City of Heroes and it did buy out Cryptic's interest in the IP way back when.  That's why I think that sometime within the last few years, there has been some kind of fundamental management shift within the company.  Not at the CEO level, but slightly lower.  I honestly believe that someone who either is grossly incompetent or who doesn't have the best interest of NCsoft at heart has Taek-Jin Kim's ear right now--like a corporate Wormtongue (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr%C3%ADma_Wormtongue).

Why sell it's IP when you've never sold off any IP of any product in an industry where few IPs are sold after cancellation?

Because smart people make mistakes just like stupid people do.  The difference between smart people and stupid people, though, is that smart people learn from their mistakes and try to make right by them when possible, whereas stupid people double down on their mistakes, adamantly refusing to change course, hoping the problem magically goes away.

That is the position that NCsoft is in currently.  At one time, they were a smart company with a diverse game portfolio and profit-making enterprises in multiple international markets.  Now, they're an insular Asian publisher that churns out games that only appeal predominantly to an Asian market, who has basically put all of their eggs into one basket: the success of Blade and Soul in China, which will either make or break them as a company.  Killing off City of Heroes is obviously backfiring on them and has done quite a bit of harm in a market that would have been an AWESOME hedge against something like, for example, the Chinese economy tanking, which at this point would kill NCsoft.

So what would a smart person do?  Try to make right by it.  I honestly think it's too late for them to rescue City of Heroes themselves, to try to go back to the way things were.  However, if they want to get at least some measure of goodwill here, they're going to have to let it go and work to shed their image as a game-killer.  Will it solve all of their problems?  No, but at least it's a start, and to do otherwise would basically be conceding the North American and European markets to other companies, admitting that NCsoft will likely not be a major multinational corporation anytime in the near future.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 27, 2012, 03:46:17 PM
Um actually, yes they can.Is it logical refuse to sell the plant and thus recoup none of the investment? Or to be more precise, to set your sale price so high you can be assured that no one will buy and you will lose 100% of your existing investment rather than losing 90% or 80% or some other number? In what business model is a bigger loss preferable to a smaller one?
If that was the case then why are their so many abandoned factories or retail properties?  Sellers need buyers but sellers aren't simply going to take any offer, not when there are alternatives such tax right offs, that puts a bottom limit on what would be an acceptable price.  Of course it also assumes that the investment in an asset isn't already paid off, multiple times over or fully depreciated.  In that case they don't NEED to sell it.

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If shutting down Paragon Studios was in their longer-term plan why did they not phase out the developers sooner and save more money? If I have to go on just what we know then the dog didn't bark here.
The phrase "realignment in focus" implies an overall company shift in priorities.  If it didn't happen or if the "realignment" had different goals then you might not want to phase out anyone.

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Is there any other piece of evidence of which you are aware that supports the idea that this was a long-term decision or are you relying on the supposition that whatever they did it must have been rational?
I can't speak to their corporate strategy because they consistently obfuscate about what that is. It is to be expected. I can speak to what they've done recently and suggest that we not assume that they are going to suddenly start behaving differently.

I see evidence of foolishness and impulse. These are normal in human behavior. NCSoft is not run by robots. [At least, not as far as we know.] I'm not ready to ignore some of the evidence on faith that NCSoft's corporate decision-makers are deeply-wise people.
Corporations don't do irrational things.  The decisions seem rational at the time by those making them.  They may end up being short sighted, they may be based on incomplete or even false assumptions about where the market is going.  You could have an entire class on HP's missteps over the last two years.  AMD eliminated their low power CPU group just six months before demand exploded world wide.  I company I was at took a big loss back in 2000 when they hedge the exchange rate for the Euro the wrong way and we took a bath, twice, on our European sales.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on December 27, 2012, 03:55:03 PM
Because that's what the people there want.

But what if the company does not want that? What if it does not feel like it has to do anything? There's a lot of affection in your words, but just because you feel strongly about the subject, it doesn't necessarily make your point of view to be in line with surrounding reality. I wish NCsoft saw things your way. Unfortunately they don't.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TonyV on December 27, 2012, 04:08:50 PM
But what if the company does not want that?

Well, that's entirely a possibility.  It's possible (and at this point, I think rather likely) that NCsoft would rather micromanage everything out of Seoul than to establish themselves as a viable multinational company, at least in non-Asian countries.  I don't think that's always been true, and has been a relatively recent (within the past few years) shift in strategy.  And you know, I don't really even have a problem with that.  I'm not interested in making them get into markets they don't want to be in.

However, to not sell the IP so that the people who you strung along still have their jobs and the customers who were loyal to you for almost a decade is unconscionable to me.  Is it legal?  Yes, I never disputed that.  But as I've said on multiple occasions, because so many people have spent so much money on this product, I believe that NCsoft has an ethical obligation to do what they reasonably can to see that the game continues.  That means that they need to sell the IP for whatever it would cost to transfer it, and I don't even mind an amount that results in a bit of profit to line their pockets.  I believe that NCsoft has not made a genuine effort to do so.  And when a company acts in a manner I think is unethical, I think it's incumbent upon its customers to make life uncomfortable for them, to do their best to ensure that the company pays a public relations price for their actions.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Nafaustu on December 27, 2012, 04:11:33 PM
Company's don't want a lot of things.   Like to pay taxes and child labor laws.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Codewalker on December 27, 2012, 04:18:56 PM
Corporations don't do irrational things.  ...  You could have an entire class on HP's missteps over the last two years.

Sure they do.  HP and Oracle used to be strategic partners, until an ousted HP president got a senior (co-president) position at Oracle. Thus began a blood feud that has done nothing but harm customers of both companies, to the point where many now actively avoid the two whenever possible.

Since then there have been several disgruntled execs from both companies hired by the other, but Hurd was the one that started the ball rolling. The court documents from their various lawsuits since read almost like divorce papers.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: HarvesterOfEyes on December 27, 2012, 04:54:07 PM
If that was the case then why are their so many abandoned factories or retail properties?  Sellers need buyers but sellers aren't simply going to take any offer, not when there are alternatives such tax right offs, that puts a bottom limit on what would be an acceptable price.  Of course it also assumes that the investment in an asset isn't already paid off, multiple times over or fully depreciated.  In that case they don't NEED to sell it.
If there's a loss they can write off we'll see that in a corporate report.

If it's fully-depreciated there isn't, but then it's a much larger opportunity cost to sit on the property while it's market value decays.

There's a lot more than needs to be known before shutting down something profitable they were investing in up to the last moment looks like a rational decision.

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The phrase "realignment in focus" implies an overall company shift in priorities.  If it didn't happen or if the "realignment" had different goals then you might not want to phase out anyone.


Help me understand your view. Here you seem to be saying that there was a sudden shift in their long-term strategy and that's why they didn't do a phase-out at PS to save money.

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Do I think NCSoft hung onto CoH until GW2 was ready to be released, yes.  I think they were willing to put up with CoH anomaly until they had another western revenue stream, a much superior one, ready to take over.

...but here you seem to be saying that getting rid of CoH was a strategy going back at least a year or two. So I'm confused about what you think the explanation is.

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Corporations don't do irrational things.
Hogwash. Utter, unmitigated nonsense.  So patently false a thesis that academicians actually study and attempt to explain the negation of it.
http://blogs.sas.com/content/cokins/2011/01/18/why-are-there-irrational-business-decisions/
http://www.sba.oakland.edu/Faculty/york/Readings434/Readings/On%20the%20folly.pdf
http://chronicle.com/page/Good-Research-on-Bad-Business/462/
https://www.repository.utl.pt/handle/10400.5/2257

Never mind New Coke.
Quote
The decisions seem rational at the time by those making them.  They may end up being short sighted, they may be based on incomplete or even false assumptions about where the market is going.  You could have an entire class on HP's missteps over the last two years.  AMD eliminated their low power CPU group just six months before demand exploded world wide.  I company I was at took a big loss back in 2000 when they hedge the exchange rate for the Euro the wrong way and we took a bath, twice, on our European sales.
The point of the market is not that companies or corporations are flawless decision-makers. The fact that the market will punish you for making the wrong decisions is supposed to induce prudent behavior. The more detached the decision-makers become from the consequences of their stupidity, the more likely they are to display it.

Time again for the poster. Here's the biggest problem with corporate decision-making:
(https://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg194/Crusader_Rabbit/meetingsdemotivator.jpg)


...and another I dedicate especially to NCSoft's CEO:
(https://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg194/Crusader_Rabbit/mistakesdemotivator.jpg)


EDIT: spelling.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 27, 2012, 05:28:27 PM
Because most successful major multinational corporations have figured out that you adjust for foreign markets, not try to shoehorn your principles on them (or at the very least, in addition to trying to shoehorn your principles on them).  It's why McDonald's sells burgers made of lamb in India (and a lot of other stuff (http://foodnetworkhumor.com/2009/07/mcdonalds-menu-items-from-around-the-world-40-pics/) in other places).  It's why Coca-Cola sells that nasty-ass stuff (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverly_(drink)) they sell in Italy but not here (in the U.S.).  Or for that matter, have you ever heard of Qoo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qoo)?  Actually, aren't you German?  If so, you may very well have since it was sold there for a few years, but about 99.99% of the people in the United States haven't.  It's a niche brand of non-carbonated fruit drinks sold by Coca-Cola primarily in Asian markets.  Why does a multi-billion dollar multinational behemoth like Coca-Cola sell Qoo?
It took those companies decades to expand into those markets.  It takes time and patience to learn what sells there as well as how to do business there.  There has to be a willingness to listen to the locals.  It's easy to waltz in and buy an existing product and then try to control it as if was like any other product in your company.  Many expansions into new markets that way ultimately fail.  NCSoft did exactly that.  They came over here and invested in or bought up products under development and while they were somewhat successful over the short term, they tried to micromanage to improve both sales and new project success.

NCSoft invested in NetDevil, ArenaNet and Cryptic, buying ArenaNet outright but on terms that allowed ArenaNet to manage themselves reasonably independently from Seoul. 

NetDevil created Auto Assault and it wasn't that successful, lasted 16 months.  NetDevil tried to buy back the IP in 2007 and NCSoft wasn't interested in selling.  So right there it shouldn't have been a surprise that they would sit on CoH's IP since they weren't even willing to sell the IP of a failed MMO back to it's independent studio.

Both Cryptic and ArenaNet had relatively successful titles but neither were raking in Lineage numbers forget about WoW numbers.  And when Cryptic looked to be ignoring the game NCSoft stepped in to form Paragon and own the IP outright.

So NCSoft buys Destination Games run by the legendary Richard Garriott, the reported creator of the acronym MMORPG as well as the popular Ultima series and the successful Origin Systems.  Who wouldn't want to get in on the ground floor of his new venture.  But now all indications that there were simply too many cooks for Tabula Rasa and it too failed but after a huge investment on NCSoft's part.  What did NCSoft learn from that debacle?  To exert even more control.  They let the locals run the project into the ground.

So they went ahead and bought Carbine Studios, with a developer pedigree that includes several original staff from WoW.  Until this reorg, they reported directly to NCSoft corporate.  I would imagine that Wildstar has the most closely monitored development of any of their previously western titles.

Now during all this ArenaNet was able to develop their new MMO and it appears to be a big hit in the west while Paragon couldn't get a concept passed the approval process in three tries and was left supporting a game with declining sales.

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Because that's what the people there want.  I'm not saying that you can't try to push your own stuff there, but if you want to be a multinational company like NCsoft says it wants to, you have to have a keen sense of what sells and where.

I'm not disputing that the thought process you're engaging in is probably the exact thought process that NCsoft is going through.  I'm just saying that for a company to "take it to the next level," so to speak, it has to factor in local markets; to not do so poses a serious risk of disinterest and, depending on the circumstances, backlash against the company that tries to come in and impose their culture on others.

What's kind of weird about this specific circumstance is that NCsoft actually used to have a good strategy in this arena.  After all, it did fund City of Heroes and it did buy out Cryptic's interest in the IP way back when.  That's why I think that sometime within the last few years, there has been some kind of fundamental management shift within the company.  Not at the CEO level, but slightly lower.  I honestly believe that someone who either is grossly incompetent or who doesn't have the best interest of NCsoft at heart has Taek-Jin Kim's ear right now--like a corporate Wormtongue (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr%C3%ADma_Wormtongue).
It's a possibility that there was a white knight for CoH at NCSoft but no longer or at least as influential.  And you don't need a Wormtongue like villain, just a persuasive presentation referencing well funded industry studies trying to predict the future of the industry.  "Always in motion is the future."

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Because smart people make mistakes just like stupid people do.  The difference between smart people and stupid people, though, is that smart people learn from their mistakes and try to make right by them when possible, whereas stupid people double down on their mistakes, adamantly refusing to change course, hoping the problem magically goes away.

That is the position that NCsoft is in currently.  At one time, they were a smart company with a diverse game portfolio and profit-making enterprises in multiple international markets.  Now, they're an insular Asian publisher that churns out games that only appeal predominantly to an Asian market, who has basically put all of their eggs into one basket: the success of Blade and Soul in China, which will either make or break them as a company.  Killing off City of Heroes is obviously backfiring on them and has done quite a bit of harm in a market that would have been an AWESOME hedge against something like, for example, the Chinese economy tanking, which at this point would kill NCsoft.

So what would a smart person do?  Try to make right by it.  I honestly think it's too late for them to rescue City of Heroes themselves, to try to go back to the way things were.  However, if they want to get at least some measure of goodwill here, they're going to have to let it go and work to shed their image as a game-killer.  Will it solve all of their problems?  No, but at least it's a start, and to do otherwise would basically be conceding the North American and European markets to other companies, admitting that NCsoft will likely not be a major multinational corporation anytime in the near future.
Again, you are assigning a level of impact that canceling our game had that's wildly disproportionate to it's following.  When they canceled our game we were 2% of their sales and virtually unheard of in their native and nearby regional markets which accounts for 95% of their sales.  Their original MMOs are already doing poorly here and in Europe, there isn't a lot of down left for them.  I doubt the "boycott all NCSoft products" will affect GW2's sales numbers in any statistically significant way.  The success of B&S will be based on play style, is it just another PvP grindfest or something more accessible to casual players, and the degree of sex and violence that makes it by regional censors.  Europe may object to the violence and gun play while we prudes would object to the beef and cheese cake in "a video game".

Most gamers simply won't care about what happened to us.  What will matter most is if the games get good or great reviews and their friends go out and get it.  Trying to tell someone not to buy something on grounds that have nothing to do with that something isn't all that successful. Chick-fil-A or Papa John's hasn't been driven out of business or have even been significantly affected by their bad press simply because people care more if the food tastes good than what the profits are spent on.  Businesses close, favorite dishes vanish off of menus, books/dvds/games cease publication, it's the way things are.  Trying to warn people that it can happen will just get you of funny look and a "but of course they can".

I'm not suggesting that people should stop warning others, just that don't be surprised if it's not as effective as you think it might be.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 27, 2012, 06:16:01 PM
Corporations don't do irrational things. 
This is patently false. One of the hallmarks of today's corporate climate is short-term profits tend to trump long-term thinking, and they tend to act as if resources are infinite. This thinking is not just irrational, its deranged. And its just one example of irrational corporate group-think.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 27, 2012, 06:37:03 PM
If there's a loss they can write off we'll see that in a corporate report.

If it's fully-depreciated there isn't, but then it's a much larger opportunity cost to sit on the property while it's market value decays.

There's a lot more than needs to be known before shutting down something profitable they were investing in up to the last moment looks like a rational decision.
Companies rarely line item D&A in their quarterly or annual reports.  However glancing at their 3Q report D&A is up 47% over last year.  We'll see what 4Q brings in February.
 
Quote
Help me understand your view. Here you seem to be saying that there was a sudden shift in their long-term strategy and that's why they didn't do a phase-out at PS to save money.
\
There were likely more than one restructuring plan under consideration.  Not all of them may have had the demise of Paragon as a feature.  However once a plan was picked it was swiftly implemented to get most of the costs associated to the changes applied before the start of fiscal 2013.

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...but here you seem to be saying that getting rid of CoH was a strategy going back at least a year or two. So I'm confused about what you think the explanation is.
No, just suggesting what could have been a factor during previous discussions as to why they should keep CoH around for another quarter/year.  NC Interactive, which handles all sales in the NA region as well as being Paragon Studio's boss in the corporate org chart, was gushing money, at least according to the quarterly subsidiary profit/loss statements.  Not removing a significant part of that subsidiary's sales before another source is available seems obvious.

Quote
Hogwash. Utter, unmitigated nonsense.  So patently false a thesis that academicians actually study and attempt to explain the negation of it.
http://blogs.sas.com/content/cokins/2011/01/18/why-are-there-irrational-business-decisions/
http://www.sba.oakland.edu/Faculty/york/Readings434/Readings/On%20the%20folly.pdf
http://chronicle.com/page/Good-Research-on-Bad-Business/462/
https://www.repository.utl.pt/handle/10400.5/2257

Never mind New Coke.
Didn't mean to imply that all decisions of companies are not irrational, just that they are usually avoided.  Those articles highlight gut decisions; unintended consequences of reward systems (I'm gonna to write me a new minivan this afternoon - Wally, Dilbert); erring on the side of caution when you suspect you don't have enough information.  I grant you the sunk cost fallacy as irrational.  I think NCSoft did that one with Destination Games.

Quote
The point of the market is not that companies or corporations are flawless decision-makers. The fact that the market will punish you for making the wrong decisions is supposed to induce prudent behavior. The more detached the decision-makers become from the consequences of their stupidity, the more likely they are to display it.

Time again for the poster. Here's the biggest problem with corporate decision-making:
(https://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg194/Crusader_Rabbit/meetingsdemotivator.jpg)


...and another I dedicate especially to NCSoft's CEO:
(https://i248.photobucket.com/albums/gg194/Crusader_Rabbit/mistakesdemotivator.jpg)
Those are two of my favorite Demotivator posters.  Yes, often meetings and committees are simply done to prevent blame from being assigned in the future.  Just like how compromise is having a solution that nobody likes.

However that said lets look at the Instagram debacle.  For the market to punish them, there can't be a similar competing service where their disgruntled customers can flock to as an alternative.  It doesn't need to be a 100% just like Instagram but good enough to keep those that switch to switch back in a month.

As for CoH, if we were the only MMO in this genre I can see a larger impact.  But CO and DCUO have already depleted out ranks before the closure were announced and they do provide an alternative to playing nothing.  Yes they don't have the same collection of features that made CoH popular to us but nothing else will again.  It's easy to knockoff a Maplestory style grind fest, however capturing lightning in a jar is a rare event and to us, CoH was that right mix.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Valjean on December 27, 2012, 06:56:09 PM
A bit of a tangent, but from what I've heard, while CO did hurt COH, DCUO didn't have much of an impact on COH due to its widly different playstyle.

But in the end, superhero MMO's generally end up feeding from the same pool. Unlike fantasy MMO's, the size of the playerbase never expanded past COH's original numbers.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Thunder Glove on December 27, 2012, 06:58:52 PM
The reason I can't see the logic behind NCSoft's decision to close CoH is simple:

CoH may have been only 2% of their overall revenue but it was 30-50% of their revenue in the Western market.

They've also said that they want to expand more into the Western market.

So you'll excuse me if I can't understand the logic behind beginning their expansion into the Western market by shutting down their most popular and most profitable product in that market (in the process also shutting down two other in-development projects also targeted specifically at that market).

Frankly, "they closed it to hide money-laundering" makes more logical sense than "They closed their most popular Western MMO in order to increase their influence in the West".
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 27, 2012, 07:03:16 PM
This is patently false. One of the hallmarks of today's corporate climate is short-term profits tend to trump long-term thinking, and they tend to act as if resources are infinite. This thinking is not just irrational, its deranged. And its just one example of irrational corporate group-think.
Working toward short-term profits over long-term planning isn't irrational to you if that's what you are being rewarded on.  Was it irrational to turn off XP in CoH?  To those where leveling quickly was the most important thing about the game, it sure was but to others who wanted to play their characters through all the content it's not.

As the game of publicly traded big business is now played, short term gains are rewarded.  Growth is rewarded over stability or customer satisfaction.  They have learned that while we for instance hate bad service and lousy food, we really aren't willing to pay the cost for better, at least regularly.  While Five-Guys and Chipotle Grill have very clean establishments and better quality food than McD and Taco Bell, the price is too high for regular patronage for many.  You don't get caring, competent and polite employees at minimum wage.  We aren't willing to pay for locally made products.  When was the last time you bought clothing with "Made in the USA" on them?  It's okay, they're cheap.  And because they're cheap we expect them to have a short life expectancy.  But it's CHEAP. 

A case can be made that we are all irrational if you step back far enough to see the whole picture but within our little world we don't make irrational choices, our choices seem perfectly rational to us, it only seems irrational to an outside observer.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blue Pulsar on December 27, 2012, 07:04:11 PM
QFT. This is what I have been thinking for a while.

The reason I can't see the logic behind NCSoft's decision to close CoH is simple:

CoH may have been only 2% of their overall revenue but it was 30-50% of their revenue in the Western market.

They've also said that they want to expand more into the Western market.

So you'll excuse me if I can't understand the logic behind beginning their expansion into the Western market by shutting down their most popular and most profitable product in that market (in the process also shutting down two other in-development projects also targeted specifically at that market).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ironwolf on December 27, 2012, 07:07:16 PM
I see this whole thing in a different light:

The Paragon Studio representative twitched nervously holding his hat in sweating palms and once again patted the case carrying his recommendations to expand City of Heroes further after Issue 24 by leveraging some of the new profits into a new advertising campaign. He looked again at the doors leading to the CEO's office and saw the 2 shrew faced accountants standing guard were staring at him. Quickly he looked down and away, he had heard these guys were the MMO killers and had left many gamers shreiking into the darkness of a silent server.

He took heart though that with all the blaster changes and other wonders planned with Issue 24 and the prospectus he himself had written that Korea would see the wisdom of growing the game and its influence. Another quick glance at the door showed him one of the accountants was still staring at him. He shuddered once more and glanced away if he wanted to kill a game he would imagine that accountant would be who he would use. Tight and pinched face, receding hair and a snarl that shows he never had energy punched a minion in his life.

Suddenly the door opens!

"Enter," says the pinchfaced accountant. "Mr. Kim will see you now."

The Paragon rep walks in on knees that seem a bit weak. He does however take heart when he sees that Mr. Kim is wearing a Positron tee shirt! Now his stride is more sure and he reaches out a hand greet Mr. Kim.

"It is a pleasure to see a Paragon rep here in my halls again," Mr. Kim speaks and seems not to see the offered hand.
"I have looked at your ideas and they seem in good order. However, a local custom dictates I consult our Chief Finance Officer prior to signing to go along with this venture, I am sure you understand."

The rep smiles and starts to speak and Mr. Kim holds out his hand in a silencing motion and summons a man more pinchfaced and heartless than the one at the door. In one hand he holds a shallow bowl and in the other a live chicken. He hands the chicken to Mr. Kim who abruptly rips the throat out of the bird and drains the blood into the bowl spattering the Positron shirt with blood.

The CFO looks into the blood for a moment and shakes his head slightly.

Mr. Kim turns around ripping off the Positron shirt and underneath is a black lace bra and garters embossed with Blade and Soul written in gold. "The omens do not bode well for Paragon Studios," he quips.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blue Pulsar on December 27, 2012, 07:28:51 PM
Working toward short-term profits over long-term planning isn't irrational to you if that's what you are being rewarded on.  Was it irrational to turn off XP in CoH?  To those where leveling quickly was the most important thing about the game, it sure was but to others who wanted to play their characters through all the content it's not.

Unfortunately, your comparing an apple to a bag of mixed fruit. There were several reasons to turn off XP and at least one good reason not to. I turned off XP to I could get recipe drops at a specific level. Some did it in the beginning so they could be perma-bridges at level 46. Some did it for content. There are lots of reasons and they all depend on what your goal is.

However, most here would say that the final goal of a company is earning an income. And if a company does something that is to the contrary, well, you get the idea... I hope.

Quote
As the game of publicly traded big business is now played, short term gains are rewarded.  Growth is rewarded over stability or customer satisfaction.

So, can you give a solid explanation as to how eliminating a product that nets you 30-50% of your income in a market that you want to push into counts as any gain at all? And, please, keep the hypothetical to a minimum.

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A case can be made that we are all irrational if you step back far enough to see the whole picture but within our little world we don't make irrational choices, our choices seem perfectly rational to us, it only seems irrational to an outside observer.

Point taken.



-edited for spelling-
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 27, 2012, 07:41:38 PM
The reason I can't see the logic behind NCSoft's decision to close CoH is simple:

CoH may have been only 2% of their overall revenue but it was 30-50% of their revenue in the Western market.

They've also said that they want to expand more into the Western market.

So you'll excuse me if I can't understand the logic behind beginning their expansion into the Western market by shutting down their most popular and most profitable product in that market (in the process also shutting down two other in-development projects also targeted specifically at that market).

Frankly, "they closed it to hide money-laundering" makes more logical sense than "They closed their most popular Western MMO in order to increase their influence in the West".
CO came out in 2009 (so did Aion BTW).  In 2008 CoH had over $22 million in sales.  In 2009 CoH had less than $18 million.  2009 was the start of a significant downturn in sales.  Maybe it was CO, maybe it was simply burnout, maybe it was I13 PvP changes coming home to roost or the influx of AE babies but something drove away 20% of sales that year with the dip starting with the 3Q numbers.  2Q 2009 the game had sales over $5 million and in 1Q 2010 it was hovering at around $3 million.  That's a 40% drop in 9 months.  Something happened then.

If you accept the premise that CoH only had sales in NA and Europe then in 2010 CoH was 19% of those regions total sales, 27% in 2011, 28% in 1Q 2012 and only 44% in 2Q 2012.  Percentages are great for hiding facts.  The only reason our game was 44% in 2Q was that our decline in sales were simply less than the decline in overall regional sales.  Europe utterly collapsed in 2Q, down 86.9% YoY.  NA down only 21.1% but CoH was only down 3.5%.  It's not that we grew but everything else fell more.  But we still fell.  The numbers do sort of showed our community's commitment toward our game versus say Lineage or Aion.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: tigerbaby on December 27, 2012, 08:20:37 PM
An alternate theory:

If a business had made a 'deal with the devil' that went horribly awry, and were being drawn into ever-deeper entanglement of ethical and legal misconduct, with their continued cooperation and complete silence guaranteed under threat...

...deliberately pissing off a bunch of fiendishly loyal would-be heroes in a tiny subsector of the company's holdings on another continent on the pretext of a 'marketing realignment' -particularly if you'd noticed the demographics of this group favoured a range with a bit more experience and connections than average- would be an ideal last-ditch 'message in a bottle'...
<_<
>_>
It would make a good story arc in CoH, ne?  It would even 'flip' well for red-side.
::tigerbaby escorts cowering businessman NPC out of burning office building.  You know the map I mean...;P::

Like my tinfoil hat?  I made it to look like a fez...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 27, 2012, 09:03:29 PM
Unfortunately, your comparing an apple to a bag of mixed fruit. There were several reasons to turn off XP and at least one good reason not to. I turned off XP to I could get recipe drops at a specific level. Some did it in the beginning so they could be perma-bridges at level 46. Some did it for content. There are lots of reasons and they all depend on what your goal is.

However, most here would say that the final goal of a company is earning an income. And if a company does something that is to the contrary, well, you get the idea... I hope.

Sorry for not enumerating all the reasons one would turn off XP.

And what if sacrificing short term income to be in a better position for long term growth was their play?

Quote
So, can you give a solid explanation as to how eliminating a product that nets you 30-50% of your income in a market that you want to push into counts as any gain at all? And, please, keep the hypothetical to a minimum.

Because it simplifies your life.  It's simpler to localize one product across all markets than to support a niche product that only sells in one shrinking market.  That the only reason it currently nets 30-50% is because your other products have taken a significant downturn in sales (note that this is 2Q 2012 sales, two months before the announcement).  It doesn't hurt either if you know that any lost sales is easily offset by a new locally developed product.  Or that your latest game conversion will include play style changes (http://us.bladeandsoul.com/en/news/blade_soul_state_of_the_game.php) this time around.

Quote
Point taken.

Yeah, takes me a while to get any traction, I'll give you that ...  when it comes to making a concise point.  :P
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blue Pulsar on December 27, 2012, 09:07:27 PM
Like my tinfoil hat?  I made it to look like a fez...

Very cute. I want one.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blue Pulsar on December 27, 2012, 09:26:02 PM
And what if sacrificing short term income to be in a better position for long term growth was their play?
Quote
It's simpler to localize one product across all markets than to support a niche product that only sells in one shrinking market.

And my question, along with others here, is: How is closing down something you have little to do with (since PA was a stand-alone organization that generated money with little or no input from NCsoft) good?

Quote
It doesn't hurt either if you know that any lost sales is easily offset by a new locally developed product.

So, if you have a 100 dollar bill, a 50, and a 5 in your wallet, and are planning on getting a 10, are you going to put that 5 in a box in your basement never to be seen again simply because it's a small percentage of what you have? Because the loss of the 5 will be offset by the 10? How about put out their "new venture" AND they keep their old ones?

You can't tell me that having Paragon Studios open and running here was any real burden to them over there. That 10 mil profit is above and beyond taxes, bills, payroll, etc.

Streamlining makes sense when you are actually cutting expenses, not cutting profits. Even if those profits are pennies on the dollar.

I don't personally think that they closed CoX because of money laundering or spite. I think they just made a dumb decision. I believe that it was a hair brained idea from someone in the company that thought it would make their other games do better. So, There is no defense of their actions unless there is something that we don't know (which is extremely possible, if not probable.)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: ukaserex on December 28, 2012, 01:07:59 AM
Here's the thing about stocks. Some go up, some go down and some stay the same.

NCSoft shut down CoH, even though it was making money.

Why? We may never know the specifics. It's probably the single largest reason why the closure has felt so negative to many CoH players.
My hunch is that it was a combination of factors.

First, CoH was easily considered a "western" game. In the "west", the economy was(and still is) in decline. Even though the game was a measly 15 bucks a month, when times are hard, something has to give. If memory serves, the dollar was and still is weaker that it used to be.
When a foreign company gets 100 US dollars converted to the Korean Won, the strength of the dollar is a significant detail to consider. That 2% of total revenue that NCSoft got was worth less than it was previously. (It was 2%, wasn't it?)

Secondly, although from my seat, keeping a functioning, profitable company going makes sense to me, that doesn't mean I have all the information to make the fiscally responsible decision. It's possible that NCSoft simply isn't concerned with niche marketing. And that's what a super-hero MMO is - a niche. Why? because as delightful as the costume creator and the rest of CoH was, it didn't have as broad an appeal as WoW and other games. Given the market for MMO players, CoH never did have a super-robust playerbase number wise. I suspect if the PvP changes in issue 13 were addressed in grand fashion, perhaps CoH could have kept a lot of players that left, and possibly attract more once they went F2P. Still, there were a host of expenses and costs that went into running CoH. Without all that information at my fingertips, I honestly can't say that NCSoft did the wrong thing, from a fiscal perspective.
What I can say is that if I had been the decision maker, even if the game were losing a small amount of money per year, if I were aware of how tremendous the impact CoH had on the lives of many of its players, I'd have kept the game going and used the losses to offset the income from the other games to lower my tax liability.
 But, I'm in the US and have no idea if Korea even has a tax code, let alone what it is regarding losses. And there again, that's the rub. Many of us don't know the business climate in Korea, so most of us really can't know if NCSoft acted responsibly or not. My guess is that they aren't in the business of losing money. They probably closed the game down to make things simpler(cheaper) for them in some vague, nebulous way.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Xieveral on December 28, 2012, 02:08:13 AM
Mr. Kim turns around ripping off the Positron shirt and underneath is a black lace bra and garters embossed with Blade and Soul written in gold. "The omens do not bode well for Paragon Studios," he quips.

I've seen enough global mistells to know where this is going...  :o

[And with that post... I have attained level 100 boss status.  :gonk: ]
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on December 28, 2012, 02:12:56 AM
What I can say is that if I had been the decision maker, even if the game were losing a small amount of money per year, if I were aware of how tremendous the impact CoH had on the lives of many of its players, I'd have kept the game going and used the losses to offset the income from the other games to lower my tax liability.

I subscribe to the philosophy that corporations are psychopaths (http://www.naturalnews.com/032814_corporations_psychopath.html). Expecting them to be considerate is usually a setup for disappointment.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on December 28, 2012, 02:18:14 AM
I've seen enough global mistells to know where this is going...  :o

[And with that post... I have attained level 100 boss status.  :gonk: ]

Rocky Horror Picture Show?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Xieveral on December 28, 2012, 02:28:39 AM
Rocky Horror Picture Show?

...Why yes

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=i48.tinypic.com%2Fvg4yaa.png)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: houtex on December 28, 2012, 05:02:47 AM
He's a wild and an untamed thing... a bee with a deadly sting....

/Man, I need to go to another showing of that, so fun...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on December 28, 2012, 05:21:51 AM
...Why yes

Excuse me while I go edit my mental images.

With a fork...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: srmalloy on December 28, 2012, 06:02:27 AM
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on December 28, 2012, 02:53:04 PM
Quote
Corporations don't do irrational things.

Ok, I had to snicker when I saw that one. I'll see that and raise you ENRON. And Freddie Mac. And Sallie Mae. And a bunch of airlines. And deep-sea drilling corporations doing the most astoundingly stupid things, because the safety protocols would cost them the only god they hold dear: money. And the list is night endless.

Corporations are not infallible, sorry. They are often comprised of downright stupid people, too close to the forest to see the trees of common sense. NCSoftheaded is no different. The corporation seems schizophrenic to me.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Triplash on December 28, 2012, 04:44:18 PM
Excuse me while I go edit my mental images.

With a fork...

You might need something a little stronger than a fork for that one... :o

(https://i813.photobucket.com/albums/zz55/KansasCrawford/Funny%20Pics/ZombieResearchSociety-favoriteweapon.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: corvus1970 on December 28, 2012, 07:32:56 PM
I subscribe to the philosophy that corporations are psychopaths (http://www.naturalnews.com/032814_corporations_psychopath.html). Expecting them to be considerate is usually a setup for disappointment.
I have never agreed more strongly with anything you have said here than this. There aren't enough "INDEED" images in existence.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on December 29, 2012, 10:41:01 AM
Looking at NCsoft's stock graph today (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=036570.KS), I see they made a whopping 5,000 won rise... just to get back above 150,000 won/share.

Normally, such a rise would have me mildly annoyed, but the fact that they need those kinds of numbers just to stay above 150k is something I find amusing.

Doing a little math, I took the mean average of their last seven days' stock prices.  I came up with an average of 149,571 won.

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 29, 2012, 03:47:08 PM
The stock was as low as 27,000 (10/28/2008) back when CoH was still pulling in big sales numbers.  That's down from 107,000 in Oct 2004.

Again, extreme fluctuations in stock price have little effect on a company itself.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on December 29, 2012, 04:31:17 PM
Again, extreme fluctuations in stock price have little effect on a company itself.
Doesn't stop me from enjoying the schadenfreude with each won their investors lose.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on December 30, 2012, 04:18:33 AM
Hmm... I've watched the documentary that compares corporations to sociopaths, yes. It has points, but to be honest, it doesn't jibe with my admittedly limited experience.

I believe that corporations are made of people, people in all their diversity and fallibility. However... the personality of the person or people with decision-making powers permeates the organization. This is inevitable, and why I so disapprove of laws that make a corporation a "fictional person," and allow those in charge to evade personal responsibility for their actions.

I think we can assess the personality of Kim and his inner circle by the actions of NCSoft, as I've stated before.

As for the stock, I see its devaluation as making the replacement of the current decision-makers more probable, and with that, a re-evaluation of the old guard's actions regarding CoH. A new team stands to reverse the PR nightmare NCSoft finds itself in. Simply by selling off the IP to a better caretaker, and a kind word to the CoH community, new management would win NCSoft's good name back. As we've mentioned before, this event could also benefit the entire MMO gaming community by forcing providers to re-examine the contract they offer to their customers.

So, that is why I check NCSoft's stock, and feel so heartened by its precipitous and ongoing decline.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on December 30, 2012, 04:46:29 AM
As for the stock, I see its devaluation as making the replacement of the current decision-makers more probable, and with that, a re-evaluation of the old guard's actions regarding CoH. A new team stands to reverse the PR nightmare NCSoft finds itself in. Simply by selling off the IP to a better caretaker, and a kind word to the CoH community, new management would win NCSoft's good name back. As we've mentioned before, this event could also benefit the entire MMO gaming community by forcing providers to re-examine the contract they offer to their customers.

So, that is why I check NCSoft's stock, and feel so heartened by its precipitous and ongoing decline.

There is virtually no chance whatsoever that Kim et al will be forced out. He still owns 10% of the stock (the 2nd largest block) and Nexon (which has the largest stock block) is owned by a holding corp run by a close friend of his. Given the reliable backing of other large stockholders close to him the rest would have to be around 80-20 against him. That's just not going to happen, even if you could get it to a stockholder vote, which isn't going to happen in the first place.

Remember, this is a young company that is still basically run by the people who started it. And they're a pretty close knit group. Until they decide to start other ventures, this is who will be running NCsoftcore. And as long as NCsoftcore has the new baseball team (another project likely to lose millions in the short term) for Kim to play with, he's not about to step down on his own. The current leadership of NCsoftcore is unlikely to change anytime soon.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on December 30, 2012, 05:31:11 AM
if the decline continues then management will be changed, however, not something i expect to see anytime soon

i think they would end up selling coh before a change in management, since that is the more obviously easy decision (although based on what we have seen, ncsoft may be looking to take the hard and shameful road to failure than the easy proposal of just selling the IP and saving their reputation)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Aggelakis on December 30, 2012, 05:34:25 AM
if the decline continues then management will be changed, however, not something i expect to see anytime soon
It would have to continue really, really low since they were down below 50k for a decent while and nobody took a walk.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TonyV on December 30, 2012, 07:32:23 AM
Still, there's a difference between being low and falling dramatically.

It's a little like if you walked into a casino with $10 in your pocket, just happy to play a few games, maybe get a free drink and to snag a few chicken fingers off the buffet.  You play some quarter slots and win $100.  Then you go to the blackjack table and turn it in to $500.  You take that to the roulette table and hit, so now you're up to $2,000.  You take that to the craps table and next thing you know, you're swimming in $50,000.  From there, you decide to enter a high-stakes Texas Hold'em game which requires the whole $50,000, and on your first hand, you draw pocket aces, and another ace comes out on the flop.  Feeling pretty good, you go all in when it looks like one of the guys across from you is trying a slow play on you.  He goes all in also, and flips over two low hearts.  One of the flop cards is a heart and the dealer then proceeds to flip over hearts on the turn and river.

Now what are you going to be thinking at this point?  A: Meh, so I'm out $10, at least I got some chicken fingers and had fun.  B: Son of a bitch, I just lost $50,000 because the most stupid, rotten luck I've ever had in my life!

If NCsoft drops anywhere near 50k, they're not going to be thinking about how that's around where it was a few years ago.  Heads will roll.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on December 30, 2012, 08:51:47 AM
That's great info, Kosmos. Sources?

Despite my complete ignorance of casino terms ("flop cards?") I agree with Tony. As I wrote before, people will gamble much more to regain something they've lost than to gain something new.

And as I wrote before, at the current rate of decline, they'll be at 50 within a few months.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 30, 2012, 09:58:12 AM
Still, there's a difference between being low and falling dramatically.

It's a little like if you walked into a casino with $10 in your pocket, just happy to play a few games, maybe get a free drink and to snag a few chicken fingers off the buffet.  You play some quarter slots and win $100.  Then you go to the blackjack table and turn it in to $500.  You take that to the roulette table and hit, so now you're up to $2,000.  You take that to the craps table and next thing you know, you're swimming in $50,000.  From there, you decide to enter a high-stakes Texas Hold'em game which requires the whole $50,000, and on your first hand, you draw pocket aces, and another ace comes out on the flop.  Feeling pretty good, you go all in when it looks like one of the guys across from you is trying a slow play on you.  He goes all in also, and flips over two low hearts.  One of the flop cards is a heart and the dealer then proceeds to flip over hearts on the turn and river.

Now what are you going to be thinking at this point?  A: Meh, so I'm out $10, at least I got some chicken fingers and had fun.  B: Son of a bitch, I just lost $50,000 because the most stupid, rotten luck I've ever had in my life!

If NCsoft drops anywhere near 50k, they're not going to be thinking about how that's around where it was a few years ago.  Heads will roll.

That runs under the assumption that most investors are emotional creatures.  Most investors are equally soulless/egoless beings who move in and out of positions like Hollywood style man eating shark patrolling a popular resort beach looking for its next meal.  Only 13% of NCSoft stock are owned by individual investors.  The rest, outside of the 25% that is owned by Nexon and the CEO, are large institutions.  They've been taking their profits on the way up and looking to expand their holdings on the way down, as long as NCSoft is generally doing better in their sector than their competitors.  Relying on high speed trading to eek out microprofits from their positions at times of relative price stability.

Why blame the BoD over the stock price if the company fundamentals are still sound?  See big investors know that a stock's price doesn't reflect the actual worth of the company in the short term, it's mainly driven by the "gut" opinion of a few dozen market "analysts", the people who worship them and a lot of group think.  None of those analysts want to be "wrong" as an individual but it's okay to be "wrong" as a group.  That's why there's usually a lot of consensus among them.  Now there are usually one or two with a contrary position because if the others end up wrong, you look like a friggin genius and more people will start paying to follow you.

In the movie Trading Places, Eddie Murphy's character referred to brokers as just bookies.  To extend that analogy then market analysts are just astrologers.  The take their charts and forecasts, looking for signs and portents of what the future will hold.  And then they pronounce if the omens are good or bad.  If their wrong then they find some reason why their prognostications were in error this time around.  They make their money by being right more often then wrong and seek individuals who would pay them for private consultations or early peeks of their pronouncements.

Over the long term, as in over 3 to 5 years minimum, fundamentals win out.  But daily, monthly, quarterly?  It's all driven more by the feelings of just a hand full of people who are paid for their guesses and supercomputers built of graphic cards trying to one up each other at the microsecond level.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Hotaru on December 30, 2012, 11:03:06 AM
The stock was as low as 27,000 (10/28/2008) back when CoH was still pulling in big sales numbers.  That's down from 107,000 in Oct 2004.

Again, extreme fluctuations in stock price have little effect on a company itself.

Nexon wasn't in the picture in 2004. They didn't own the stock at 27k, so they're not going to be thinking, "Oh, we've seen it worse." It looked like they were getting a deal when they got their stock from Kim, and now that's not quite turning out to be the case. And unlike Joe Shmoe investor, they know a thing or two about the business, being as it's also the business they're in.

I've talked to someone who used to work for NCsoft, and who still has friends there. Nexon scares the crap out of those people. They're not sure how much longer they're going to have jobs. Maybe the situation is different in NCsoft Korea, but to this person I spoke to, Nexon coming in was the game-changer.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The Fifth Horseman on December 30, 2012, 12:47:28 PM
Hmm... I've watched the documentary that compares corporations to sociopaths, yes. It has points, but to be honest, it doesn't jibe with my admittedly limited experience.

I believe that corporations are made of people, people in all their diversity and fallibility. However... the personality of the person or people with decision-making powers permeates the organization. This is inevitable, and why I so disapprove of laws that make a corporation a "fictional person," and allow those in charge to evade personal responsibility for their actions.
Corporations may be made of individual people, but they operate on a larger scale where "individual" equals "insignificant".
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on December 30, 2012, 01:14:13 PM
That really depends on where said individual is situated.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 31, 2012, 02:14:38 AM
I wonder how much it would cost me to get a Korean shaman to come publicly cast a curse on NCSoft in front of their building?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blue Pulsar on December 31, 2012, 05:33:29 AM
I wonder how much it would cost me to get a Korean shaman to come publicly cast a curse on NCSoft in front of their building?

I'll pitch in.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on December 31, 2012, 06:02:39 AM
I wonder how much it would cost me to get a Korean shaman to come publicly cast a curse on NCSoft in front of their building?

Miracle Max: "THAT is a noble cause. Give me the sixty-five, I'm on the job!"

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on December 31, 2012, 06:22:30 AM
I'm actually going to look into this.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on December 31, 2012, 07:28:29 AM
If NCsoft drops anywhere near 50k, they're not going to be thinking about how that's around where it was a few years ago.  Heads will roll.

And who do you imagine will do the chopping?

This isn't like an old mega-corporation where the CEO is just another (overpaid) employee serving an impersonal Board of Directors. NCsoftcore's Board consists of 5 people. CEO Kim and his friend Lee as COO are two. If you look at the other 3 you'll note lots of ties to Kim and his current wife. In the case of the latter: Park at SK Telecom, Oh at KAIST and Seo at Ewha Woman's University. Seo and Park are also part of the Texas connection with NCsoftcore; Seo went to UT and Park is TPG Capital's (formerly Texas Pacific Group) man on the board. These people have all moved in the same circles and are all friends of the Kims. Kim answers to the stockholders in principal, but to the representatives of those stockholders in practice. And those representatives happen to be Kim and his friends.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Nafaustu on December 31, 2012, 06:19:18 PM
Miracle Max: "THAT is a noble cause. Give me the sixty-five, I'm on the job!"

Is that...a shadowrun reference? D:

Edit:  Nope, that's the Princess Bride.   Took me a minute, lol!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on December 31, 2012, 06:29:53 PM
Plan Ź: Buy the company for a nickel and do with its IP as you please.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on December 31, 2012, 07:18:17 PM
If Korea is the kind of place where cops would potentially beat-down a torch rally at NCsoft, I don't think a "Witch" casting curses in public would fare much better.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blue Pulsar on December 31, 2012, 10:09:51 PM
If Korea is the kind of place where cops would potentially beat-down a torch rally at NCsoft, I don't think a "Witch" casting curses in public would fare much better.

Though, if they have such a shaman, he might be similar to a Barakumin in Japan, and thus untouchable. I mean, if you see an old man who is believed to be able to curse people, would you want to mess with him?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on December 31, 2012, 10:50:27 PM
Though, if they have such a shaman, he might be similar to a Barakumin in Japan, and thus untouchable. I mean, if you see an old man who is believed to be able to curse people, would you want to mess with him?

Heh, true. I guess NCsoft's only recourse then would be to hire another shaman. And wouldn't that be an epic headline?

CoH Shutdown Incites IRL Wizard Duel

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Tubbius on December 31, 2012, 11:13:33 PM
Why is this reminding me of the scene in Conan the Destroyer where the two wizards are fighting to open and close a door?  :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on January 01, 2013, 01:53:19 AM
Though, if they have such a shaman, he might be similar to a Barakumin in Japan, and thus untouchable. I mean, if you see an old man who is believed to be able to curse people, would you want to mess with him?

Would you want to mess with this?

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=livedoor.blogimg.jp%2Ftonchamon%2Fimgs%2Fd%2F6%2Fd692dd9d.jpg)

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on January 01, 2013, 01:56:19 AM
Would you want to mess with this?

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=livedoor.blogimg.jp%2Ftonchamon%2Fimgs%2Fd%2F6%2Fd692dd9d.jpg)
I dont mind some good pork ribs, a bag of pork rinds and maybe a few pork chops.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Golden Girl on January 01, 2013, 02:52:28 AM
I'm actually going to look into this.

Kickstarter?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on January 01, 2013, 02:57:30 AM
Kickstarter?

Wait until I find out from Ken if it is possible, and how much.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on January 01, 2013, 03:04:22 AM
The ancient and noble art of unicorning corporations.

As a natural born greenskin I like where this is going.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on January 01, 2013, 03:20:22 AM
Basically if this can be done, it's merely bringing the wrath of the base to the source in a language that they cannot pretend they do not understand.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on January 01, 2013, 04:07:29 AM
Basically if this can be done, it's merely bringing the wrath of the base to the source in a language that they cannot pretend they do not understand.
Y'know what?  This is glorious.  There is nothing about this whole concept that is not righteous.

It's the culture-conscious mystical equivalent of a kick in the nuts.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on January 01, 2013, 04:17:20 AM
Just ensure that korean media are aware of the event.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Madadh on January 01, 2013, 04:48:14 AM
Because you're cool; Tubbs, because you're cool...   (and old enough to recall that movie, obviously)

Why is this reminding me of the scene in Conan the Destroyer where the two wizards are fighting to open and close a door?  :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Xieveral on January 01, 2013, 05:05:14 AM
Basically if this can be done, it's merely bringing the wrath of the base to the source in a language that they cannot pretend they do not understand.

I'm the last person anyone would think to be preachy about this sort of thing but if you're serious you really need to think about the "hidden cost" of curses. As much as you and many others hate NCsoft, its not worth the risk.

Just give it time, it might not be in the manner you want but they will get what they deserve eventually.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Madadh on January 01, 2013, 05:21:39 AM
The ancient and noble art of unicorning corporations.

As a natural born greenskin I like where this is going.

OK, I have to ask?  Other than a magic horse with a horn on it's forehead, WTF if a unicorn?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: mikoroshi on January 01, 2013, 05:35:41 AM
OK, I have to ask?  Other than a magic horse with a horn on it's forehead, WTF if a unicorn?

It's a forum text autocorrect for the term that refers to a mythical monster that lives under a bridge and eats goats.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: mikoroshi on January 01, 2013, 05:36:23 AM
(I have a SG-mate who, if she ever used her toon name here, it'd show up as Katja Unicornbane)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Madadh on January 01, 2013, 08:50:44 AM
It's a forum text autocorrect for the term that refers to a mythical monster that lives under a bridge and eats goats.

Um...  Not sure I even still follow that, but is it a synonym for..  Um..  The things that regen like mad in D&D?  Or, um....  What ya set on fire or douse with acid?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Golden Girl on January 01, 2013, 08:54:04 AM
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/unicorns

EDIT: Ok, so it even edits Paragonwiki links to the green-skinned Hollows/Skyway City faction :P
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on January 01, 2013, 09:03:27 AM
I wish there was a way to look up just how much total time has been spent typing out explanations to all the instances of the "What's a unicorn" question.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Madadh on January 01, 2013, 09:09:26 AM
Hope you'te not getting on me about that.  If you change your code thrice daily, you can't whine about some out of date codes..  Back when I was in mostly daily contact, I was totally up to date with the latest lingo.  Not so much now...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Xieveral on January 01, 2013, 09:13:41 AM
There really ought to be a sticky explaining the correlation between magical horned horses and internet troublemakers that live beneath bridges.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on January 01, 2013, 09:35:28 AM
Hope you'te not getting on me about that.  If you change your code thrice daily, you can't whine about some out of date codes..  Back when I was in mostly daily contact, I was totally up to date with the latest lingo.  Not so much now...

Not at all. It's specific to this forum and there's really no way you could know beforehand. The idea was to prevent flame wars from happening... I think.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on January 01, 2013, 03:08:41 PM
OK, I have to ask?  Other than a magic horse with a horn on it's forehead, WTF if a unicorn?

Everything you know about unicorns is a lie. In truth they are

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=i3.minus.com%2FiYz0eGOIsG6WV.png)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: c-0 on January 01, 2013, 04:33:27 PM
That... That is beautiful.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on January 01, 2013, 04:37:18 PM
Everything you know about unicorns is a lie. In truth they are

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=i3.minus.com%2FiYz0eGOIsG6WV.png)

Alicorns?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mister Bison on January 01, 2013, 05:24:45 PM
My little unicorn, griefing is delicious.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blue Pulsar on January 01, 2013, 07:13:10 PM
OK, I have to ask?  Other than a magic horse with a horn on it's forehead, WTF if a unicorn?

The word spelled t-r-o-l-l on this forum is automatically changed to unicorn. I never realized why. I guess they don't want people calling other people by such a name. Which makes it difficult sometimes talking about a specific low-level enemy group in City of Heroes that is found readily the Hollows. No, not the hellions.

Edit: sorry, didn't see that the question was already answered.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on January 01, 2013, 07:17:09 PM
The word spelled t-r-o-l-l on this forum is automatically changed to unicorn. I never realized why. I guess they don't want people calling other people by such a name. Which makes it difficult sometimes talking about a specific low-level enemy group in City of Heroes that is found readily the Hollows. No, not the hellions.

As if getting rid of the word will get rid of the thing it names.

You can call it a t-r-o-l-l, you can call it a unicorn or a Higg's Boson or a UFO or a puppy or an annoying person or whatever other word you can dream up: concept still exists. Nuking the word does not remove it from existance, therefore I don't understand all this tiptoeing around the WORD. If it were a racial slur or something, that would be one thing; but what this is supposed to accomplish, I truly do not know.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on January 01, 2013, 07:17:33 PM
Duplicate, sorry.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blue Pulsar on January 01, 2013, 07:19:22 PM
As if getting rid of the word will get rid of the thing it names.

You can call it a t-r-o-l-l, you can call it a unicorn or a Higg's Boson or a UFO or a puppy or an annoying person or whatever other word you can dream up: concept still exists. Nuking the word does not remove it from existance, therefore I don't understand all this tiptoeing around the WORD. If it were a racial slur or something, that would be one thing; but what this is supposed to accomplish, I truly do not know.

My sentiments exactly.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: eabrace on January 01, 2013, 08:03:17 PM
As if getting rid of the word will get rid of the thing it names.
It definitely doesn't eliminate the source of the annoyance, but sure does slow them down when they try to figure out what's going on.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blue Pulsar on January 01, 2013, 08:20:31 PM
It definitely doesn't eliminate the source of the annoyance, but sure does slow them down when they try to figure out what's going on.

lol, Seeds of confusion?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TonyV on January 01, 2013, 09:37:59 PM
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Triplash on January 01, 2013, 11:51:32 PM
I have to be honest, the unicorn has become kind of a legend around here now (pun enjoyed, but not intended :D ), and I for one would hate to lose it. At this point it's become something uniquely us; not just CoH, not just Titan, but this time, this experience. The decline of the official forums, migrating to our new home here, and building walls to keep the ugliness out while we expand this place from what it was to what it suddenly needed, and generously offered, to become. Those who were here during this time of upheaval and struggle have formed a community of our own, an enclave within the former CoH and Titan communities. With the word 'unicorn' we are starting to form our own in-jokes, our own set of community-only references that outsiders and newcomers won't get. Every time we have to explain the full story of it we reinforce the strength and maturity our little enclave has shown, reminding ourselves and informing others that we're not here just to foster bitterness and live in the past, we're here to do something good and to be adults about it.

I say, long live the Legend of the Unicorn!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on January 02, 2013, 12:11:14 AM
This just got launched a couple days ago...  :P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbF9nLhOqLU
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TargetOne on January 02, 2013, 12:23:35 AM
This just got launched a couple days ago...  :P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbF9nLhOqLU

Strangely, I couldn't stop watching.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on January 02, 2013, 12:44:43 AM
OK.  THIS is just wrong on so many levels I cannot even begin to count them.

According to a very reliable friend of mine, Guild Wars 2 is banning the handicapped.

This is how it breaks down.  Arenanet recently started purging GW2 of bots.  Except that the definition of a "bot" includes people that contact them to protest being banned because they are using handicapped-assists.

Here is my conversation with him:

Quote
wolfwings_backup: Not to mention that they are *STILL* auto-banning anyone running any program that ties into the keyboard or mouse devices.
wolfwings_backup: So Logitech G-16? Auto-ban on login if the systray app is running since it's detected as a 'macro/botting' program. Still.
Misty: facepalm
wolfwings_backup: AutoHotkey? I kinda need that running due to work, I'm not gonna quit that every time I load the damn game. So ban for me most likely at some point.
wolfwings_backup: And don't get me started on all the disabled-assistance programs, since most of those *ARE* macro/automation tools. Those are EXPLICITLY banned, a couple folks are considering bringing ADA lawsuits against them over that.
Misty: I think they SHOULD bring ADA lawsuits against them
wolfwings_backup: It's mostly a matter of those that could, would rather go play something else than waste the time, nobody hard-headed enough has hit that wall yet. XD
wolfwings_backup: In many cases going back to GW1.

He's on his way to visit (should be here in 3 days) and I am going to sit down with him, verify this, get some actual names of handicapped people that are banned and verify they can't get any redress, then turn this loose on the game journalists.  What I REALLY want to know is, is this ArenaNet?  Or is this an edict from NCSoft that ArenaNet is helpless to do anything about?  But that is what I will let the journalists try and figure out.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Terwyn on January 02, 2013, 01:22:45 AM
I was evaluating my feelings regarding NCSoft over the past few days.

It is curious that I do not hold any moral revulsion towards NCSoft and its questionable activities.

Rather, I hold the same kind of response that I more typically associate with extremely poor engineering and quality.

It is somewhat difficult to determine the difference between the two, but opposition on the grounds of obvious inefficiency and incautious error as opposed to the grounds of maliciousness seems to be the most probable root of my attitudes towards the company.

One obviously leads to the other, of course.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ironwolf on January 02, 2013, 02:20:53 AM
NCSoft has complete ignorance of fun.

This is what NCSoft is:

One day a fox looked at a wide creek and was considering trying to swim across. As he pondered a scorpion crawled near, "If you cross I would like to go withthththth you," the scorpion hissed.

The fox stepped back alarmed at the nearness of the scorpion. "You will sting me," the fox said. 

"No, for I want acrossssssssss the creek and would drown on my own."

The fox considered this and picked up the scorpion and put him on his back. As he started swimming the scorpion suddenly without warning stung the fox repeatedly. "Why have you done this? With you stinging me now we both shall surely die!" The fox declared.

The scorpion as he calmly started to drown smiled and hissed, "It issss my nature to ssssting. I cannot help myssselff."

NCSoft has one goal and that is to make money. They do not have the joy of creation nor the innocence of clean fun that warms their souls. Ask yourself a question, one I believe I know the answer to - did Paragon Studios devs make the community powerful or did the nature of the game itself draw those of heroic bent to form a community and help forge Paragon into what we wanted?

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: ukaserex on January 02, 2013, 02:25:53 AM
OK.  THIS is just wrong on so many levels I cannot even begin to count them.

According to a very reliable friend of mine, Guild Wars 2 is banning the handicapped.

This is how it breaks down.  Arenanet recently started purging GW2 of bots.  Except that the definition of a "bot" includes people that contact them to protest being banned because they are using handicapped-assists.

Here is my conversation with him:

He's on his way to visit (should be here in 3 days) and I am going to sit down with him, verify this, get some actual names of handicapped people that are banned and verify they can't get any redress, then turn this loose on the game journalists.  What I REALLY want to know is, is this ArenaNet?  Or is this an edict from NCSoft that ArenaNet is helpless to do anything about?  But that is what I will let the journalists try and figure out.
wowWOW! I'm finding this tidbit very interesting. I am still stunned at some of the anecdotal stories about those with types of autism and other types of learning issues being able to play CoH, and for some to be temporarily liberated in a sense. I keep imagining an episode of Oprah where an adorable little girl or boy was able to play CoH with one or both of their parents and be so-called "normal" for a time..and then Oprah finds out the game was closed...however, I don't think Oprah does her show anymore. Maybe Dr. Phil?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on January 02, 2013, 02:38:48 AM
What kind of a "handicap assist" would resemble a 3rd party macro to a video game client?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on January 02, 2013, 02:39:59 AM
What kind of a "handicap assist" would resemble a 3rd party macro to a video game client?

Damn good question, innit?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kaiser Tarantula on January 02, 2013, 04:31:42 AM
OK.  THIS is just wrong on so many levels I cannot even begin to count them.

According to a very reliable friend of mine, Guild Wars 2 is banning the handicapped.

This is how it breaks down.  Arenanet recently started purging GW2 of bots.  Except that the definition of a "bot" includes people that contact them to protest being banned because they are using handicapped-assists.
Please excuse my language, but...

What the genuine crispy shit is this.

Yeah, I can understand wanting to remove bots from your game.  That's fine and dandy.  But there are two kinds of bots.

1). Bots that are wholly autonomous grindmachines.  They either interface with the client, or load up instead of the client.

2). Bots that follow commands given by a live player.  This is less a 'botting' and more 'multiboxing' - there's still an actual player present, but he's using macros to control several logged-in characters at once.

Bot type #1 is a problem.  They can grind 24-7 without rest, inflating the supply of whatever they intend to farm, be it money (creating inflation), or items (crashing item prices).  Getting rid of those is something I wholly support.

Bot type #2 isn't so much an issue.  Macro teams are often more limited than a equivalent team of actual players.  All of the macro'd characters have to be doing roughly the same thing as the primary character, they're elaborate to set up, they're vulnerable to lag and desynchronization, and you can't run each character to their optimum performance (there are some things an automated character just can't do).  In addition, since a living, breathing person has to be there to manage them, the macro team has to log off from time to time for rest and recuperation; they don't have as pervasive and constant an effect on the economy as a perpetually-active bot.

Further, #2 is stupidly easy to detect and thwart via game design and enforcement.  Simply force teams to split up occasionally to deal with multiple threats, and arrange dynamic team content that's more than just tank-and-spank.  Further, if you see someone with a heavily-geared main tank, followed around hot on his heels by a healer and a gaggle of barely-equipped ranged DPS classes that all seem to follow his movements near exactly and never use more than a couple of their skills at a time, then you've probably spotted a macro team.

Short summary? There's no reason to ban people for disabled-assist software.  Simple enforcement will get rid of macro teams.  The only programs you need to ban are those that allow for fully-autonomous bots, and those tend to be very specific to the game they're botting for.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: houtex on January 02, 2013, 05:02:25 AM
I had a reply to this handicapped thing here:
http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,7586.msg98259.html#msg98259

But I didn't know it was being discussed here.  After reading Kaiser's message... meh, I probably shoulda stayed outta this.

Ham handed at best, the way they're doing it.  One can only hope they didn't plan on needing to do this (what?!  They FARM STUFF?!  Inconceivable!) and this is their kludge until they can get a MARTy in or whatever.

Or... yep, they're jerks.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on January 02, 2013, 06:02:31 AM
It might be possible to get the Institute for Justice (http://www.ij.org/) involved. It's a bit like the ACLU. Regardless, enough players contacting some sort of organization like that whose sole existence is being the the big group of lawyers who stand up for little guys might get some attention.

Also, thanks to Tony, I must now figure out how to work the Infinity Unicorn into my D&D campaign...  :o
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: LadyWizard on January 02, 2013, 06:44:11 AM
Unfortunately that's gameguard for you... most korean grindfests actually do have a "bot detect" program you're forced to install and it will disable your game until all "bots" are uninstalled even if it's just a gaming mouse program that COULD macro key.  I heard that's what happened in shaiya and a few others
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Xieveral on January 02, 2013, 06:47:03 AM
They wouldn't be the first gaming company to be discrimatory, Blizzard has banned players for using third party applications and Funcom pretty much told hearing impaired players "That's too bad" when they complained about missions in TSW requiring you to listen for clues in order to progress. They can get away with it too because they can hide behind their TOS and say "Well you agreed to such and such which vaguely states you can't do that and have no right to complain"

I'm guessing companies aren't obligated to make their games handicap-friendly. A handful of people from one game might not get attention but if you can get enough people from various games bringing this to attention it might put the heat on the industry to bring about change.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: mikoroshi on January 02, 2013, 08:01:00 AM
... Funcom pretty much told hearing impaired players "That's too bad" when they complained about missions in TSW requiring you to listen for clues in order to progress.

As someone with an immediate family history of--and now myself developing--hearing impairment, this ticks me off to no end.  I was going to buy TSW this week after getting paid but I think I may have changed my mind now.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The Fifth Horseman on January 02, 2013, 09:33:33 AM
There was this one - apparently handicapped - guy who sued Blizzard for character movement speeds in WoW. IDK how that case turned out, though.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 02, 2013, 02:03:26 PM
I replied a bit in VV's thread over on the other games board but I'll chime in here as well.

Scanning the various "hey I was wrongly banned threads" started on the GW2 forums they fall into several categories, some we are familiar with.

There's the "you locked my character for having a name violation but the game filter let it through during character creation".  Those can be humorous and the arguments familiar.

There's the "I've been (temp) banned for using profanity/racially charged language, why do you have a profanity filter if profanity isn't allowed?"  We've seen these as well in CoH.

There was the ban for using an exploit, excessively, to make money.  Argument there was "you created the bug, why should we pay the price because we found it and abused it?".

Just recently, going along with the Christmas Holidays, a number of people were flagged and banned for e-mailing gifts of either large amounts of in game money or rare items to newly joined friends/relatives.  The RMT detection script flagged these transfers and bands of the sender were issued.

Note that there is a process in place to appeal, the problem is it requires the player to ask for one rather than just rant on how unfair it all is or why the reversal isn't instantaneous but can take days.

And then there's the massive bot ban that started about two-three weeks ago.  And like a massive roll out of automated photo speed enforcement rigs, a number of people who were only using macros in a very minor infraction of the rules were suddenly surprised to find that ANet isn't kidding when they said no means no.  To my knowledge they don't look for macro software or hardware, too easy for professionals to spoof, on the client machine but claim to look at the speed and repetitive nature of commands, movement and powers, as well as repetitive actions and use that information to "guess" if the person on the other end is real or is using automated assistance.  Now since this bot detection tool is new, bans aren't automatic but like traffic tickets from automated cameras, they are looked at by real humans.  However it seems that the large volume has led to apparent rubber stamping in most cases (since we don't know how many false positives are filtered at this stage, for argument sake I'm saying none are) and with the attitude that if they were wrong it'll be sorted it out on appeal (traffic court), sorry for the inconvenience.

Note it's also being suggested that long hours of gameplay without breaks or repeating the same series of event content repeatedly during a game session could also get you on the watch list.  So you could argue that farming content in an area is discouraged.

ANet has made it clear in multiple forum posts that they don't mind gaming mice and keyboards and they don't autodetect them.  What they do say is any macro should consist of one and only one command.  If you are doing more than one, you are juggling nitro so just don't.  Yes this means that it's difficult to multibox the game effectively.

Could someone with a handicap, who is using macro/automation just to be able to play PC games, get caught up in the sweep?   I can easily believe that.  Is ANet targeting them specifically, no.

So which headline is more truthful "Handicapped players caught in ArenaNet's bot sweep" or "ArenaNet is banning handicapped players"?  The second one has a wee bit more negative spin to it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Valjean on January 02, 2013, 02:11:08 PM
Could someone with a handicap, who is using macro/automation just to be able to play PC games, get caught up in the sweep?   I can easily believe that.  Is ANet targeting them specifically, no.

That's what I'm inclined to believe as well. I don't think ANet, or even NCsoft is so callous (or ignorant) as to willfully target the handicapped. But I can believe that folks got swept up during a mass purge. And from what I've heard, they're caught, proving their innocence is harder than it ought to be, no matter how valid the situation. They're probably going to be a fair number of folks who have to deal with wave after wave of CSR's who don't know what they're doing until it's finally resolved.

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 02, 2013, 02:17:08 PM
Well it's not like they can send ANet a doctor's note or that there is an online agency that issues virtual handicap placards that game companies can check.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Nafaustu on January 02, 2013, 10:25:07 PM
Well it's not like they can send ANet a doctor's note or that there is an online agency that issues virtual handicap placards that game companies can check.

I'm actually not sure if this is sarcasm or not.  :D

As one of those CSR-type folks listed above I'd actually be sort of surprised if they didnt accept (or consider) some kind of credentialed exception.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Beltor on January 02, 2013, 11:16:40 PM
I have a severe disability that affects my hands. I have trouble using a mouse. Most of that trouble has been remedied when i got a touch screen monitor recently. But before that i'd try to use a program that allowed me to use a flight stick to operate the mouse. It helped a lot but many MMO's would kick me, ban me, or prevent me from logging in if it was running, notably those run by Perfect World Entertainment. One of the reasons i stayed with COH was because the keybind and macro system helped me keep up with other players. GW2 has a good keybind system but no macro system. This isn't a problem for me thanks to my touch screen but without it, i'd have a lot of trouble. The program i use to manipulate the mouse with a flight stick called Joystick2Mouse, looks like it was made for RMT spammers, although i've never used it that way. It's a tricky situation due to spammers and botters. I hate RMTers and botters but also know the trouble of trying to play an MMO that isn't made for some disabilities.

Ask me anything about this and i'd be happy to answer and discuss.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 03, 2013, 01:47:08 AM
I'm actually not sure if this is sarcasm or not.  :D

As one of those CSR-type folks listed above I'd actually be sort of surprised if they didnt accept (or consider) some kind of credentialed exception.
Not sarcasm, just how would a game company go about to verify medical credentials?  Internationally?  That's why I pointed out that their might be need of a centralize service that all game companies that face this kind of dilemma could use.  Plus it could allow gamers to get certified ahead of time and have it noted on their account.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on January 03, 2013, 01:52:40 AM
They wouldn't be the first gaming company to be discrimatory, Blizzard has banned players for using third party applications and Funcom pretty much told hearing impaired players "That's too bad" when they complained about missions in TSW requiring you to listen for clues in order to progress.

That's pretty pathetic... converting aural cues to visual ones in a video game would be pathetically easy.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Xieveral on January 03, 2013, 02:42:57 AM
That's pretty pathetic... converting aural cues to visual ones in a video game would be pathetically easy.

They added subtitles for one of the earlier investigation missions involving talking ravens but that mission had complaints from many sides because the birds would speak all at once in most cases so it probably wasn't a fix to accommodate the hearing impaired.

They won't budge on other missions because it "gives things away" or some other nonsense.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Beltor on January 03, 2013, 09:06:12 AM
In the US, it's law to make things handicap accessible. GW2 is very adaptable for me specifically and i don't play TSW. I wouldn't say anything anyway. I prefer to adjust things on my end so as not to interfere with others gaming experience. But they'd better be careful. Others would make a 'big' deal out of a "That sux. Sorry" attitude from the management and developers. And NCSoft is finding out what bad PR can do.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: mikenovember on January 03, 2013, 07:14:10 PM
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Beltor on January 03, 2013, 11:19:25 PM
Thanks for the info Mike. It sounds like the controls for TSW may not be flexible enough for me to work with, and $30 is a lot of money for me to waste to find out i can't play it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on January 04, 2013, 12:17:31 AM
Thanks for the info Mike. It sounds like the controls for TSW may not be flexible enough for me to work with, and $30 is a lot of money for me to waste to find out i can't play it.

I'm not sure if this still holds true, but they used to give you a three day worth of gaming time for free upon registering an account. Can't find it anywhere on their website now, but it may be worth a try.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: houtex on January 04, 2013, 02:12:52 AM
TSW is free to play. Kinda sorta just happened a couple weeks or so ago. Just FYI.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on January 04, 2013, 02:19:32 AM
TSW is free to play. Kinda sorta just happened a couple weeks or so ago. Just FYI.

It's not. You don't pay subscription fee, but you still need to buy a copy of the game. Just like Guild Wars.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: eabrace on January 04, 2013, 02:26:57 AM
Hmm.  Stock seems to be climbing again.  Maybe if we stare at it for a while it will cower back into submission.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Beltor on January 04, 2013, 02:54:34 AM
I don't think TSW has a trial anymore.

Back to the main subject. Think their stock will be higher or lower by Monday? I'm gonna say lower. It's about time for it to reverse again :D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Triplash on January 04, 2013, 03:19:08 AM
Hmm.  Stock seems to be climbing again.  Maybe if we stare at it for a while it will cower back into submission.

Roger that, sir! Commencing Operation Intimidation. Stage One activate!

(https://i813.photobucket.com/albums/zz55/KansasCrawford/Funny%20Pics/imagesCAMKYBA0.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on January 04, 2013, 05:53:25 AM
(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=images.wikia.com%2Funcyclopedia%2Fimages%2Fa%2Fa4%2FHypnotoad.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on January 04, 2013, 05:59:56 AM
(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.animals-zone.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F09%2FHawk-Intimidating-stare.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: eabrace on January 04, 2013, 06:08:21 AM
At least for the moment, it's gone back down from 161.5k to 159.0k, but still a gain for the day.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on January 04, 2013, 06:11:57 AM
I clearly need a bigger hawk.

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=cdn2-b.examiner.com%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fstyles%2Flarge_lightbox%2Fhash%2Ff9%2F65%2Ff9656d15dc09fa9757247cb1e30905f8.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Knight Light on January 04, 2013, 05:26:14 PM
Well I'm all for staring a stock down but I really had my heart set on watching the paint dry today.

My question is how do we, as non-investors, people who are unlikely to further invest in NCSoft products and "regular folk", drive the stock down and is it possible to do so in an ethical manner?

Hilarious as I find the clip, I don't wish for the SaveCoH movement to amount to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2RKmVqnNdw
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on January 04, 2013, 07:39:05 PM
Hilarious as I find the clip, I don't wish for the SaveCoH movement to amount to this:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2RKmVqnNdw

... Chick-fil-a?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Knight Light on January 04, 2013, 08:38:41 PM
No, it's spelled N C S o f t.

Even with all their money and their luxury fortress of an office building, they hide like cowards and come out only to prey on unsuspecting gamers. That's bad chicken, man. Mess you up. They've certainly ruined my year and we're only 4 days in.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on January 04, 2013, 10:47:50 PM
(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=images.wikia.com%2Funcyclopedia%2Fimages%2Fa%2Fa4%2FHypnotoad.jpg)

Now that is one nice looking lady! Her eyes are mesmerizing!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on January 04, 2013, 11:22:03 PM
I tried several that had the eyes moving, but none of them would link correctly. I did have you in mind when the inspiration hit, though.  ;D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: healix on January 05, 2013, 12:36:25 AM
here you go, dw
(https://i.imgur.com/YMRMe.gif)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on January 05, 2013, 01:44:47 AM
here you go, dw
(https://i.imgur.com/YMRMe.gif)

I see hidden mickeys.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on January 05, 2013, 01:47:24 AM
All glory to the Hypnotoad...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lucretia MacEvil on January 05, 2013, 05:26:37 PM
*monotone* All glory to the Hypnotoad.  The Hypnotoad is my hero.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: houtex on January 06, 2013, 03:07:19 AM
TSW is free to play. Kinda sorta just happened a couple weeks or so ago. Just FYI.
It's not. You don't pay subscription fee, but you still need to buy a copy of the game. Just like Guild Wars.

No, I'm still right, it's *free to play.*  That whole buy the game part is just not what I said or meant.  Duh.  :P

/Gah.  I'm wrong, and I know it, so... my bad. 
//But *technically*.... Oh, ok, yeah, I'm still wrong. :(
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Merseine on January 06, 2013, 03:24:34 AM
//But *technically*.... Oh, ok, yeah, I'm still wrong. :(

http://youtu.be/hou0lU8WMgo (http://youtu.be/hou0lU8WMgo)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 07, 2013, 05:50:27 PM
And I missed this earlier.  One of the analysts following NCSoft put out another prediction (http://www.kdbdw.com/bbs/board/message/view.do?messageId=182267&messageNumber=25&messageCategoryId=0&startId=zzzzz~&startPage=1&curPage=1&searchType=2&searchText=NCSoft&searchStartYear=2011&searchStartMonth=12&searchStartDay=30&searchEndYear=2012&searchEndMonth=12&searchEndDay=29&lastPageFlag=&categoryId=76) for 4Q and next year.

They are stating that Operational Profits, which just offsets the cost of running their games and not take into account development, marketing and other overhead costs, will be at an all time high for the company due to GW2 and Lineage I sales.  They don't expect Aion, L2 or B&S sales to grow from their 3Q numbers.  They expect quarterly sales overall of 275,000 million KrW and an OP of 101,000 million KrW.  They also mention that the baseball team is costing them 15,000 million KrW.

B&S will be rolled out in China 3Q 2013 and GW2 in 4Q 2013.  They expect B&S to earn 60,000 million KrW for 2013 from China but don't have an estimate for GW2 since they aren't sure how it will be packaged and sold there (unlikely just a disk).

They still says the stock is a buy but are lowing their 2013 stock price estimate to 280,000 KrW from 310,000 KrW due to increase marketing and  labor costs eating into the profits.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Terwyn on January 07, 2013, 08:21:47 PM
And I missed this earlier.  One of the analysts following NCSoft put out another prediction (http://www.kdbdw.com/bbs/board/message/view.do?messageId=182267&messageNumber=25&messageCategoryId=0&startId=zzzzz~&startPage=1&curPage=1&searchType=2&searchText=NCSoft&searchStartYear=2011&searchStartMonth=12&searchStartDay=30&searchEndYear=2012&searchEndMonth=12&searchEndDay=29&lastPageFlag=&categoryId=76) for 4Q and next year.

They are stating that Operational Profits, which just offsets the cost of running their games and not take into account development, marketing and other overhead costs, will be at an all time high for the company due to GW2 and Lineage I sales.  They don't expect Aion, L2 or B&S sales to grow from their 3Q numbers.  They expect quarterly sales overall of 275,000 million KrW and an OP of 101,000 million KrW.  They also mention that the baseball team is costing them 15,000 million KrW.

B&S will be rolled out in China 3Q 2013 and GW2 in 4Q 2013.  They expect B&S to earn 60,000 million KrW for 2013 from China but don't have an estimate for GW2 since they aren't sure how it will be packaged and sold there (unlikely just a disk).

They still says the stock is a buy but are lowing their 2013 stock price estimate to 280,000 KrW from 310,000 KrW due to increase marketing and  labor costs eating into the profits.

Isn't it currently close to half that value?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 07, 2013, 08:27:13 PM
Yes as the stock is in the 150,000-160,000 range.  Might be the point of labeling the stock as a BUY if it is predicted to nearly double by the end of the year.

Of course last year many analysts thought the stock was going to hit 450,000 so what do they know.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on January 07, 2013, 09:17:17 PM
Yes as the stock is in the 150,000-160,000 range.  Might be the point of labeling the stock as a BUY if it is predicted to nearly double by the end of the year.


hmmmm.
buy now and it might go up soon in the mid-run. Buy now it might sink lower and never go up. risk risk risk. Buy now or get even better price tomorrow. Always risk. I'll mull it over a glass of Dalmore 15, and then decide again and this time ensuring no delays.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on January 07, 2013, 11:09:23 PM
And, three years ago, CNBC said Bear Stearns was a sound and safe investment. :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on January 08, 2013, 03:50:59 AM
Yes as the stock is in the 150,000-160,000 range.  Might be the point of labeling the stock as a BUY if it is predicted to nearly double by the end of the year.

Of course last year many analysts thought the stock was going to hit 450,000 so what do they know.

So far, if I recall correctly, FatherXmas (you have been paying better attention to this than me, the stock market makes my head hurt) these Korean analysts have pretty much been wrong on the predictions of where the stock was going?  The only time they were right was the big bump following the release of GW2, then the fall when it sold 2 million boxes instead of the predicted 6 million (a fall the analysts did not predict).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on January 08, 2013, 03:52:47 AM

hmmmm.
buy now and it might go up soon in the mid-run. Buy now it might sink lower and never go up. risk risk risk. Buy now or get even better price tomorrow. Always risk. I'll mull it over a glass of Dalmore 15, and then decide again and this time ensuring no delays.

Stork Market = Lottery, with research having a slightly better chance of improving your odds.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on January 08, 2013, 03:55:15 AM
Stork Market = Lottery, with research having a slightly better chance of improving your odds.

basically.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 08, 2013, 06:00:10 AM
So far, if I recall correctly, FatherXmas (you have been paying better attention to this than me, the stock market makes my head hurt) these Korean analysts have pretty much been wrong on the predictions of where the stock was going?  The only time they were right was the big bump following the release of GW2, then the fall when it sold 2 million boxes instead of the predicted 6 million (a fall the analysts did not predict).
GW sold around 7 million copies, split between the original game and the various expansions (and combo editions), world wide including Asia.  This is why I can't believe anybody would have suggested that GW2 would sell 6 million just in NA and Europe in it's first month.  Therefore the market couldn't have been disappointed by it's 46,000 million KrW sales numbers for that 1 month in 3Q.

Of course that said I took a walk down memory lane at KDB Daewoo Securities and found this (http://www.kdbdw.com/bbs/board/message/view.do?categoryId=76&messageId=177792&messageNumber=8228&searchType=2&searchText=NCSoft&searchStartYear=2011&searchStartMonth=12&searchStartDay=30&searchEndYear=2012&searchEndMonth=12&searchEndDay=29&messageCategoryId=0&startId=zzzzz~&curPage=1&startPage=1&recommendPoint=1&listType=1&popupFlag=) release from Sept 3rd 2012 where it's mentioned a prediction of 5-6 million units sold in 2012 (I think they meant to say 2013).  However in the very next paragraph they specifically state that they expect the game to sell 3.12 million units in 2012 with another 1.54 million in 2013 with roughly 10% of the owners spending $15 USD a month in the store.

Going back even further these guys had the stock hitting 510,000 (:o) before they started to lower estimates almost with every release relating to NCSoft. 

Going back even further to July (http://www.kdbdw.com/bbs/board/message/view.do?categoryId=76&messageId=174799&messageNumber=7918&searchType=2&searchText=NCSoft&searchStartYear=2011&searchStartMonth=12&searchStartDay=30&searchEndYear=2012&searchEndMonth=12&searchEndDay=29&messageCategoryId=0&startId=zzzzz~&curPage=1&startPage=1&recommendPoint=1&listType=1&popupFlag=), they had an interesting tidbit about Blade & Soul in Korea.  31% of the accounts were to women.  They also stated that the population distribution relating to age was 39% in their 20s, 29% in their 30s and 24% in their 40s.  That's 92% there with over 50% age 30 or older.  Why am I more crept out now that I know this?  :-\
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on January 08, 2013, 06:09:41 AM
GW sold around 7 million copies, split between the original game and the various expansions (and combo editions), world wide including Asia.  This is why I can't believe anybody would have suggested that GW2 would sell 6 million just in NA and Europe in it's first month.  Therefore the market couldn't have been disappointed by it's 46,000 million KrW sales numbers for that 1 month in 3Q.

Of course that said I took a walk down memory lane at KDB Daewoo Securities and found this (http://www.kdbdw.com/bbs/board/message/view.do?categoryId=76&messageId=177792&messageNumber=8228&searchType=2&searchText=NCSoft&searchStartYear=2011&searchStartMonth=12&searchStartDay=30&searchEndYear=2012&searchEndMonth=12&searchEndDay=29&messageCategoryId=0&startId=zzzzz~&curPage=1&startPage=1&recommendPoint=1&listType=1&popupFlag=) release from Sept 3rd 2012 where it's mentioned a prediction of 5-6 million units sold in 2012 (I think they meant to say 2013).  However in the very next paragraph they specifically state that they expect the game to sell 3.12 million units in 2012 with another 1.54 million in 2013 with roughly 10% of the owners spending $15 USD a month in the store.

Yes, that is the article I remember.  If people were skimming and saw the expectation of 6 million units sold in 2012, sales of 2 million would certainly disappoint.

Quote
Going back even further these guys had the stock hitting 510,000 (:o) before they started to lower estimates almost with every release relating to NCSoft. 

I want what these guys are smoking.  I wouldn't need the game or even a computer, I could just lie there with a smile on my face and play in my head.

Quote
Going back even further to July (http://www.kdbdw.com/bbs/board/message/view.do?categoryId=76&messageId=174799&messageNumber=7918&searchType=2&searchText=NCSoft&searchStartYear=2011&searchStartMonth=12&searchStartDay=30&searchEndYear=2012&searchEndMonth=12&searchEndDay=29&messageCategoryId=0&startId=zzzzz~&curPage=1&startPage=1&recommendPoint=1&listType=1&popupFlag=), they had an interesting tidbit about Blade & Soul in Korea.  31% of the accounts were to women.  They also stated that the population distribution relating to age was 39% in their 20s, 29% in their 30s and 24% in their 40s.  That's 92% there with over 50% age 30 or older.  Why am I more crept out now that I know this?  :-\

Creeps me out too. 
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on January 08, 2013, 06:10:58 AM
31% of the accounts were to women.  They also stated that the population distribution relating to age was 39% in their 20s, 29% in their 30s and 24% in their 40s.  That's 92% there with over 50% age 30 or older.  Why am I more crept out now that I know this?  :-\

Hmm... does Korea share Japan's unexpected taste for perverse animation? A lot of the "Hentai" culture, and even a lot of the more innocent Anime owes its popularity not to hormonally-insane teenagers, but mature, responsible, successful adults, who live in a world so cutthroat, that there is literally no time to bother with personal relationships. We're talking about people who will hire prostitutes, literally just to have a friendly ear and a shoulder to cry on.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 08, 2013, 06:30:33 AM
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on January 08, 2013, 07:06:11 AM
Of course that said I took a walk down memory lane at KDB Daewoo Securities and found this (http://www.kdbdw.com/bbs/board/message/view.do?categoryId=76&messageId=177792&messageNumber=8228&searchType=2&searchText=NCSoft&searchStartYear=2011&searchStartMonth=12&searchStartDay=30&searchEndYear=2012&searchEndMonth=12&searchEndDay=29&messageCategoryId=0&startId=zzzzz~&curPage=1&startPage=1&recommendPoint=1&listType=1&popupFlag=) release from Sept 3rd 2012 where it's mentioned a prediction of 5-6 million units sold in 2012 (I think they meant to say 2013).  However in the very next paragraph they specifically state that they expect the game to sell 3.12 million units in 2012 with another 1.54 million in 2013 with roughly 10% of the owners spending $15 USD a month in the store.

Going back even further these guys had the stock hitting 510,000 (:o) before they started to lower estimates almost with every release relating to NCSoft. 

When I read the Daewoo reports a month or so ago I thought they must be either incompetent or crooked. And the projections are just so far out there that I had a hard time giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming the former.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 08, 2013, 07:41:24 AM
When I read the Daewoo reports a month or so ago I thought they must be either incompetent or crooked. And the projections are just so far out there that I had a hard time giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming the former.

Except they do jive with many other analysts (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/analyst?symbol=036570.KS).  Of course their collective track record makes chemical engineering look like an exact science (friends who were ChemE majors in college had shirts made up with "2+2=5 for very large values of 2" due to the difference between theoretical and actual results during labs).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on January 08, 2013, 02:29:25 PM
Except they do jive with many other analysts (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/analyst?symbol=036570.KS).  Of course their collective track record makes chemical engineering look like an exact science (friends who were ChemE majors in college had shirts made up with "2+2=5 for very large values of 2" due to the difference between theoretical and actual results during labs).

They were all high (however you want to read that), but Daewoo was an outlier nevertheless. In the period, and for the analysts I looked at, they were consistently the highest estimate and often by a wide margin.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: srmalloy on January 08, 2013, 09:53:14 PM
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: HarvesterOfEyes on January 08, 2013, 11:03:43 PM
A friend of mine I commented to about Blade & Soul referred to him as 'Hyung-Tits Kim'; apparently his character design predilections are well-known...
Having seen the video linked in another thread I'd say his style was developed without ever actually seeing a real girl.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: saipaman on January 09, 2013, 12:17:58 AM
With all the .... 'reference material'... available on the Internet, you'd expect something more realistic.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on January 09, 2013, 12:21:49 AM
Obviously, you're not familiar with the "depths" of variety available in said reference material. (No, I'm not linking!)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on January 09, 2013, 12:45:44 AM
Obviously, you're not familiar with the "depths" of variety available in said reference material. (No, I'm not linking!)

"Clearly you've never been to Singapore."
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on January 09, 2013, 12:52:32 AM
Summer, '97. I won't say, here, where our "lady friends" drew the line.  8)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lily Barclay on January 09, 2013, 12:53:30 AM
So I see the stock took a dive again today.  Think there's a reason for it, or is it just going back down to where it should be?  ;)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: WildFire15 on January 09, 2013, 12:57:03 AM
It seems to be steady-ish around about that 145k to 158k area at the moment. Must be some sort of discussion going on behind closed doors
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: houtex on January 09, 2013, 02:42:46 AM
People who can buy it can likely also read the latest... misdirection, let's call it... that NCSoft tried to pull... and so down they go...

/At least, that's what I would feverently hope.  I'm probably wrong.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on January 09, 2013, 02:55:09 AM
Well, it depends on whether they're willing to take Davis' statement at face value. If they check the comments and/or facts themselves, it would more likely backfire.

Personally, I'm really hoping Joe picks up the story as well.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 09, 2013, 03:28:34 AM
Well nothing obvious as to why the sudden sell off.  Nothing off of the Korean news feeds.  Nothing about NCsoft or the gaming industry in general.  Scuttlebutt that 4Q isn't as good as some analysts suggested?  We're about 4 weeks away from the official 4Q/2012 annual numbers.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on January 09, 2013, 03:38:23 AM
I certainly wouldn't mind another cliff jump the kind of that last quarter report preceded, but I don't want to jinx it either.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on January 09, 2013, 03:40:42 AM
Scuttlebutt that 4Q isn't as good as some analysts suggested? 

From your mouth to the deity of your choice's ear.

Or it might be because, despite sinking stock numbers, disappointment with GW2's retention rate (it's not good, if what I am hearing is true), panic downsizing of NCSoft's staffing, they are still building a bigger HQ in Seoul. 

None of these things would make me want to buy their stock.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: ukaserex on January 09, 2013, 04:22:21 AM
The thing about stock analysts is that we can never be sure that they aren't biased for or against. Perhaps they are fans of NCSoft's baseball team? And, even if they are credible, certainly most people that invest in the market buy a stock and just leave it. Investing is typically a long term deal.

However, given the cheaper prices for trades, the long term may not be as viable as it once was. I tend to view stock analysts like I do reporters. Sure, they report facts, but they all place their own spin on them.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 09, 2013, 04:37:11 AM
From your mouth to the deity of your choice's ear.

Or it might be because, despite sinking stock numbers, disappointment with GW2's retention rate (it's not good, if what I am hearing is true), panic downsizing of NCSoft's staffing, they are still building a bigger HQ in Seoul. 

None of these things would make me want to buy their stock.

They started to ball rolling on the new HQ in 2010.  New exclusive high tech oriented industrial park emphasis on park, lots of green space, lots of big name neighbors.

I've not seen any news on GW2 retention rate problems, other than their periodic bans.  Latest was another exploit that let you on average double a very rare and high price crafting ingredient.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on January 09, 2013, 04:50:26 AM
They started to ball rolling on the new HQ in 2010.  New exclusive high tech oriented industrial park emphasis on park, lots of green space, lots of big name neighbors.

I've not seen any news on GW2 retention rate problems, other than their periodic bans.  Latest was another exploit that let you on average double a very rare and high price crafting ingredient.

My information on GW2's retention rate is all anecdotal, but friends of mine who USED to play stopped playing because everyone burned through the content in about 2 months, leaving only end-game mass PvP battles, mass events, and other things that most of us would call "grindy."  And while many of them would keep playing, all of their friends left because they had burned through the content in 2-3 months, and there was nothing new to explore.

I will grant you, that is a common problem with a new game.  However, boxes no longer seem to be flying out the door, and since it's F2P and there are lots of other anecdotal problems (handicapped being banned for using kb helps, getting reinstated, only to be banned again, lather rinse repeat; mass banning because of using an exploit that cropped up due to bad coding, poor customer service) not retaining your base could prove very problematic.  Another friend, Owen K.C. Stevens (yes THAT Owen Stevens) told me the other day that friends of his who work at ArenaNet told him the bans are due to a zero tolerance edict handed down by NCSoft that permits no exclusions.  Yes, I know that is 3rd hand, but I think the sources are reliable.  Read into that what you will.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on January 09, 2013, 06:55:36 AM
The thing about stock analysts is that we can never be sure that they aren't biased for or against. Perhaps they are fans of NCSoft's baseball team?

Yes, there appears to be much truth to what you said. I've heard someone say condescendingly that if you as an economist are too incompetent to hold a job in a financial institution or academia, you go working as an analyst. Publicly available analysis is often based on outdated or inaccurate data. And analysts seldom have in-depth perspective of what is really going on with companies that are under their scrutiny.

And, even if they are credible, certainly most people that invest in the market buy a stock and just leave it. Investing is typically a long term deal.

For individuals yes, this is often true. But individuals do not shape the market. Big players like banks, funds or speculators do. They may opt for short them stock acquisition, then sell it quickly just as the price goes up a few points. And by short term I mean really short. Situations when someone buys, then sells large quantities of stock in a matter of minutes are pretty normal.

It's a wonderfully complicated and chaotic system.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on January 09, 2013, 07:06:24 AM
VV, to me its still continuing to sound like ncsoft is the main problem, and their poor business sense may end up killing arenanet as well
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on January 09, 2013, 03:40:41 PM
In happier news, looks like the stock dipped below 150K again. They're just a little bit short of their three-year worst.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on January 09, 2013, 07:16:30 PM
In happier news, looks like the stock dipped below 150K again. They're just a little bit short of their three-year worst.
watching very closely waiting for the time to strike.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Tubbius on January 10, 2013, 01:29:07 AM
Up and down and up and down go the stock reports?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DarkCurrent on January 10, 2013, 01:31:40 AM
watching very closely waiting for the time to strike.

Ooh... someone has a nefarious plan in the works.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: eabrace on January 10, 2013, 03:13:08 AM
Up and down and up and down go the stock reports?
Stock is sitting at 141.5k at the moment, but apparently dropped as low as 139.0 earlier (52-week low.)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 10, 2013, 04:37:47 AM
Stock is sitting at 141.5k at the moment, but apparently dropped as low as 139.0 earlier (52-week low.)
Okay I think I'm seeing why.  The national government is currently looking at multiple bills that affect the gaming industry in a negative way.  One is an up to 1% levy of sales to be put into a fund to help gaming addiction.  Another reduces national subsidies for the gaming industry.  A third will move the ban young players from midnight to 6am from 16 and under to 10pm to 7am for 19 and under.

On a more familiar note, NCsoft shut down a number of smaller games, refunding N Coin purchases in them.  In up news for them they've kicked off a new mobile game group with it's first game sounding a bit like Nintendogs.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blue Pulsar on January 10, 2013, 05:36:00 AM
Okay I think I'm seeing why.  The national government is currently looking at multiple bills that affect the gaming industry in a negative way.  One is an up to 1% levy of sales to be put into a fund to help gaming addiction.  Another reduces national subsidies for the gaming industry.  A third will move the ban young players from midnight to 6am from 16 and under to 10pm to 7am for 19 and under.

So, you're still not thinking that it is because of the bad press they are getting for closing games like CoX down?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 10, 2013, 05:42:31 AM
So, you're still not thinking that it is because of the bad press they are getting for closing games like CoX down?

I never thought that.  The KT article that quoted VV might have been the first time it was brought to the attention of Korean investors and gamers and that was only a few weeks ago.

Anyways I was looking for why there are sudden sharp drops over the past two days.  That wouldn't be for us.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on January 10, 2013, 07:37:28 AM
hmm interesting, could it have been possible that due to these things being thrown around in the government that ncsoft may have shut down coh due that?

while the shutting down was still a bad move for them instead of trying to sell, i think this might have been what prompted the sudden shutdown notice

so thinking about it a minute:

1. ncsoft sees that stuff against the gaming industry is up in government
2. ncsoft predicts that this will cause a loss for all games so it wants to chop off "dead weight"
3. ncsoft knee jerkingly chooses coh to shut down
4. coh shutdown prompts massive public backlash
5. ncsoft continually responds to community questioning with lies and incompetence

this could eventually lead to ncsoft selling off the IP to get us off their back while they try to fight this stuff in their government and not lose any more face than they already have, especially with the continual stock drops they have been having

since this is all speculation, still having "wait and see" attitude for the time being
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on January 10, 2013, 07:54:42 AM
Okay I think I'm seeing why.

I also woudln't rule out the possibility that someone is speculating over their stock
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 10, 2013, 02:14:27 PM
I also woudln't rule out the possibility that someone is speculating over their stock

Somehow I edited out the part where I said Nexon also took a sharp downturn as well.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on January 10, 2013, 02:59:44 PM
Which other games did NCsoft drop now, by the way?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on January 10, 2013, 03:11:52 PM
Ooh... someone has a nefarious plan in the works.

nope. not nefarious. Just business and opportunity. Nothing against nor for NCSoft. Just something I would be still doing even if COH was alive and well.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 10, 2013, 04:29:58 PM
Which other games did NCsoft drop now, by the way?

From what I can make out from the Google Translate, the two Go-Stop and Golden Poker games of their online "board game" series.  All three are card games.

The reason given is to refocus their efforts on their core MMORPG games and the release of Blade & Soul into China and other Asian markets.  I'll also note that they take their sweet time between closure and refund details in Korea as well since this article came out the 9th and they say that the refund info will be disclosed around the 25th.

News Article (http://news.mt.co.kr/mtview.php?no=2013010916193763530&type=2&sec=tech)
NCSoft Board Game series (http://kr.ncsoft.com/korean/gamenservice/playncgames.aspx?category=BOARD) - the three rightmost games.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Randomvector on January 10, 2013, 04:41:58 PM
Somehow I edited out the part where I said Nexon also took a sharp downturn as well.

Nexon seems up today though.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 10, 2013, 05:07:20 PM
Nexon seems up today though.

Yes but they have a much smaller exposure to the Korean market than NCsoft.  Nexon makes almost half of their sales revenue in China since the start of 2012 while Korean sales shrank 20% in 3Q YoY.  A special "tax" on in country games sales would impact NCsoft more than Nexon.  You are also talking the Japan exchange for Nexon versus the Korean exchange for NCsoft.  I imagine the debate on the new "for the children" game laws being discussed is a major news piece in Korea where in Japan it was just factored in once since it's "overseas" news.

And it only made up half it's losses from the day before.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Artillerie on January 10, 2013, 05:38:51 PM
This is interesting stuff. Does anyone have any information on other Korean games companies and whether the new legislation is affecting them as well? Could be useful for comparison.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: RandomUnicorn on January 10, 2013, 06:12:19 PM
hmm interesting, could it have been possible that due to these things being thrown around in the government that ncsoft may have shut down coh due that?

while the shutting down was still a bad move for them instead of trying to sell, i think this might have been what prompted the sudden shutdown notice

so thinking about it a minute:

1. ncsoft sees that stuff against the gaming industry is up in government
2. ncsoft predicts that this will cause a loss for all games so it wants to chop off "dead weight"
3. ncsoft knee jerkingly chooses coh to shut down
4. coh shutdown prompts massive public backlash
5. ncsoft continually responds to community questioning with lies and incompetence

this could eventually lead to ncsoft selling off the IP to get us off their back while they try to fight this stuff in their government and not lose any more face than they already have, especially with the continual stock drops they have been having

since this is all speculation, still having "wait and see" attitude for the time being


The Korean government is the one imposing the bans and curfews, thus out of all of NCSoft's games CoH would be the least effected since it is not sold in Korea and all available information suggests there were no plans to do so.

1. ncsoft sees that stuff against the gaming industry is up in THE KOREAN government
2. ncsoft predicts that this will cause a loss for all games EXCEPT COH.

2a. NCSOFT EXECS PANIC AND GO ON A MASSIVE DRINKING AND DRUG BINGE. This leads them to make bad decisions the following morning when...

3. ncsoft knee jerkingly chooses coh to shut down
4. coh shutdown prompts massive public backlash
5. ncsoft continually responds to community questioning with lies and incompetence
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 10, 2013, 06:38:05 PM
Well this current round of legislation is due to the new President that was elected in Korea a few weeks ago.  He was very aligned with the whole video game addiction climate that has been growing in Korea.  Maybe nationwide test scores are slipping because I haven't heard of any recent players dieing or allowing a family member to die due to gaming (http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/10/16/south-korea-s-video-game-addiction.html) but it's a problem that's been in the public eye for a decade now.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Artillerie on January 10, 2013, 10:26:31 PM
Just saw this in a post on Save City of Heroes FB, don't think it's been mentioned here yet so...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/09/markets-korea-stocks-idUSL4N0AE2UK20130109

Some very interesting comments about NCSoft.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on January 10, 2013, 10:36:03 PM
Quote
"We advise cutting losses on NCsoft - we see continued cannibalization of existing games and at best moderate success for new games in China," Morgan Stanley analyst Sam Min wrote in a research note on Wednesday.

THAT - right there - that needs to go viral.

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: mikenovember on January 10, 2013, 11:23:24 PM
THAT - right there - that needs to go viral.

That... already is.  Morgan Stanley advises you cut your losses and all the Korean market advisors in the world will no stave you. 

They gave a bleak picture of NC's current holdings, and closed of prospects for their largest market.  The run on NCSoft stock will be a bleading death by 1,000 cuts. 
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 10, 2013, 11:52:22 PM
As I said in the other thread, that explains today's drop.

So is MS taking the contrarian position going from outperform to underperform since the vast majority of analysts are still bullish on the stock, even though they've been quietly lowering sales and profit estimates.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TonyV on January 11, 2013, 12:58:48 AM
So is MS taking the contrarian position going from outperform to underperform since the vast majority of analysts are still bullish on the stock, even though they've been quietly lowering sales and profit estimates.

What the hell does Steve Ballmer have to do with the...

Oh, right.

Personally, I think the financial analysts are finally catching up to what we've known for a few months now.  To which I can only say, booyah.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on January 11, 2013, 03:54:04 AM
Just saw this in a post on Save City of Heroes FB, don't think it's been mentioned here yet so...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/09/markets-korea-stocks-idUSL4N0AE2UK20130109

Some very interesting comments about NCSoft.

Nope.... luckily I am not inclined to get to attached to GW2 anyways, but even if I was I'd rethink that in light of these comments at the link.

This company is seriously in trouble, and I can scarcely contain my delight.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lily Barclay on January 11, 2013, 04:03:01 AM
THAT - right there - that needs to go viral.

Tweeted it, linked the article.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: houtex on January 11, 2013, 06:57:53 AM
Wow... that's... well, heck, that's astounding.  I don't think NCSoft will die, truly, but.. this can't be good for them.

But now I have a new question.  What happens if, somehow, NCSoft goes kaput?  What happens to the IPs?  Do they all just... disappear?  Or would anything and everything be up for auction?  What's the situation that would likely happen?  I am a little worried that a dead NCSoft = IP buried forever...

Surely I'm just paranoid...

/Did this be covered?  Me+search=not winning, and besides, I'm le tired...
//oh well, have a nap, THEN FIRE ZE MISSILES!
///No, I don't mean "is houtex paranoid", that's well known and covered by now, yeah?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TonyV on January 11, 2013, 07:52:39 AM
But now I have a new question.  What happens if, somehow, NCSoft goes kaput?  What happens to the IPs?

Worst case scenario (for NCsoft, not for us) is that they liquidate all of the assets of the corporation, including the IP rights to City of Heroes.  At that point, they'll likely be up for grabs to whomever offers the most money for them.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Grot 6 on January 11, 2013, 04:22:45 PM
What were the offers on the table that NC Soft turned down?

Food for thought, but if the compnay tanks, they may have to reestablish the game for survivals sake. If not, if they sell, do we have a strategy here to put a foot in the door, or aquire funding to buy it.

How far are we willing to go here? Is there a serious enough presnece here to step up, if the opportunity presents itself?

I don't really do anything setrious without a plan, what is the plan here in the event that the IP becomes available?

What do we need to do here to get a strategic plan for aquisition of the IP if and when it becomes available?

Is there contact with the old team, and if given the opportunity would they return to this IP?



Tick Tock, Tick Tock, folks...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: V-Mink on January 11, 2013, 04:42:39 PM
What were the offers on the table that NC Soft turned down?

Food for thought, but if the compnay tanks, they may have to reestablish the game for survivals sake. If not, if they sell, do we have a strategy here to put a foot in the door, or aquire funding to buy it.

How far are we willing to go here? Is there a serious enough presnece here to step up, if the opportunity presents itself?

I don't really do anything setrious without a plan, what is the plan here in the event that the IP becomes available?

What do we need to do here to get a strategic plan for aquisition of the IP if and when it becomes available?

Is there contact with the old team, and if given the opportunity would they return to this IP?



Tick Tock, Tick Tock, folks...

I think it's safe to say that NCsoft is not going to restart City of Heroes.  If the City comes back, it will not have an NCsoft logo on it.  However, if NCsoft declares bankruptcy, they may have to sell their various IPs.  At that point, if it isn't part of some sort of 'package deal' then the various corporate assets will be sold off.  I'm not sure exactly how that will work in Korea.

My redside disgruntlement is that the people who made these boneheaded decisions will leap from the crashing plane with golden parachutes.  My blueside disgruntlement is that the employees are going to get royally shafted.

Sudden odd thought: What if this is being set up for, or is going to be used as, a takeover of NCsoft by Nexon?

ETA: It is vanishingly unlikely that the CoX community will be able to purchase the IP.  The amount needed will be in the millions of dollars; even in a bankruptcy sale, there's a lot of money involved.  This is why TF Hail Mary has been trying to sell the idea of purchasing the IP to other corps, rather than trying to get us to raise the money ourselves.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blue Pulsar on January 11, 2013, 05:03:15 PM
I never thought that.  The KT article that quoted VV might have been the first time it was brought to the attention of Korean investors and gamers and that was only a few weeks ago.

Anyways I was looking for why there are sudden sharp drops over the past two days.  That wouldn't be for us.

I am not saying what you are insinuating isn't possible. I'm not even saying it's not probable. I actually think that it is more likely. But I think that it is also likely that their stocks are going down because of bad press. Smart investors investigate companies. They watch what they are doing and they look for information on them. When they decided to close down CoX, it did send a bit of a backlash through the internet medias. It would have been very easy for even the most novice of internet sleuth to pick up the information. Couple that with the stocks already starting to decline and I would not have any doubt if it were told to me that this community here has had a rather large role in the stocks being as low as they are.

In the words of Billy Joel: We didn't start the fire (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFTLKWw542g)

But unlike him, we aren't trying to fight it, we are trying to fuel it. I'm laying down my burn patch wherever I can.

Edit: spelling
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on January 11, 2013, 05:16:29 PM
What were the offers on the table that NC Soft turned down?

Food for thought, but if the compnay tanks, they may have to reestablish the game for survivals sake. If not, if they sell, do we have a strategy here to put a foot in the door, or aquire funding to buy it.

How far are we willing to go here? Is there a serious enough presnece here to step up, if the opportunity presents itself?

I don't really do anything setrious without a plan, what is the plan here in the event that the IP becomes available?

What do we need to do here to get a strategic plan for aquisition of the IP if and when it becomes available?

Is there contact with the old team, and if given the opportunity would they return to this IP?



Tick Tock, Tick Tock, folks...


If it comes down to having to purchase the IP ourselves, I'm willing to put in, as I stated a couple times earlier when I first got here. But yea, it will be millions that will be needed even at bottom line wholesale price. I havea couple of more people I know that would be willing to throw money in too, and one that I will have to sell the idea to.

But with the many as they stated well off people we have here, we can do it I believe if we wanted to.

Also with getting the money together it's not as simple as gathering money from various people here as when buying property like that in that manner a lot of legal stuff come into play, not saying legal stuff is bad and or cant be overcome, just saying there will be some beyond the collect money and go buy it.

Even if worse case in bankruptcy, which something really really bad need to happen as it is said that NCSoft have a very low debt compared to the amount of cash they have laying around. Bankruptcy is usually to liquidate assets to pay off creditors. If things really hit the fan, more than likely they will pay off the little debt they have with the cash and just go defunct or just small enough where they are still a company that just hold on the IPs. I think before they hit banruptcy, Nexon probably will buy the stuff in an inside deal first  or just upsurp it and still we will be in the same boat now except not with NCSoft but with Nexon.

For the stocks to be going down, one thing that is unusual is it seems that NCSoft is not worried so much, not to mention so soon after the CEO sold off his stock, and relatively soon after Nexon joined the fray.  I cant pin point it, but seems like something is going on between Nexon and NCSoft that would be rather frowned upon Stateside but still commonly happens in the corporate world even in the US. As much as many people wish it, I doubt NCSoft is going anywhere anytime soon. Although they make bonehead moves, I do not believe they are complete idiots or green when it comes to corporate buisness. Seen many "Lower the stock prices, "outside" company buys a bunch of them for the low price, stock prices in a "miracle" fashion, rises" scenarios.

Something fishy seems to be going, I can smell it but I dont see the fish yet.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: mikenovember on January 11, 2013, 05:35:31 PM
Something fishy seems to be going, I can smell it but I dont see the fish yet.

I asked a few friends in the Korean business community what they thought of all this - not that I don't think your knowledge isn't really impressive, (our many props to you my friend :)  ) and they laughed a bit.  Not one or two people - but all of them, which kind of surprised me like there's some kind of 'inside joke' about the Korean Corporate business model or something when it comes to game companies.   

They did indicate that this last comment - from Morgan was very damaging.  More for the indication that they would not be successful in China than anything else.  Apparently that's the golden calf everyone is betting on over there to help their businesses.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 11, 2013, 06:03:50 PM
Well NCsoft has been hyping China as the new untapped market for them.  Only Lineage I and II currently have an official presence there but it's very small.  Blade & Soul is trying to tap the Kung Fu movie genre tropes with their action gameplay and martial art super powers.  Beef and Cheese cake doesn't hurt since most MMO players tend to make idealized versions of themselves.  What guy doesn't want to be 8 ft tall with rippling abs?  What woman doesn't want the body idealized in the media and ads?  That's the mentality here.  NCsoft is betting the bank on B&S or GW2 becoming a greater success in China than either of their old, old Lineage games.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: chasearcanum on January 11, 2013, 06:08:49 PM
I asked a few friends in the Korean business community what they thought of all this - not that I don't think your knowledge isn't really impressive, (our many props to you my friend :)  ) and they laughed a bit.  Not one or two people - but all of them, which kind of surprised me like there's some kind of 'inside joke' about the Korean Corporate business model or something when it comes to game companies.   

They did indicate that this last comment - from Morgan was very damaging.  More for the indication that they would not be successful in China than anything else.  Apparently that's the golden calf everyone is betting on over there to help their businesses.

Correct.  The Chinese market is an oft-misunderstood, but frequently used as the solution when growth stagnates, and this is particularly true for some Korean businesses.   Its the key part of the Asian market's business variant of the "emperor's new clothes" tale.

People use rosy projections based on the "China" promised land to boost up their stock valuation, and they usually find plenty of self-deluded investors determined enough to be "early" on some big deal that they ignore all the warning signs.

Even when the warnings signs are quite clear- when they see that the emperor really is quite naked- they're wary to act.  Maybe they're missing something, maybe there's too much to lose by pointing it out, maybe its safer to play along and propagate the myth.  They may murmur to themselves, but never loud enough to raise alarm.

... for a while, at least.

Sooner or later, though, someone says the obvious, though.  Whether Morgan Stanley's statement is treated as a murmur or as a wake up call remains to be seen, though.


Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: chasearcanum on January 11, 2013, 06:34:03 PM
What guy doesn't want to be 8 ft tall with rippling abs? 

8 feet tall?  I'll opt out.  I already almost lose my head to ceiling fans ithe coal miners that built the homes in my area seem to have liked low ceilings)  :P

Given the reaction of many of the women I know, B&S seems particularly bad for women- not really an "idealized" in their view, at all.  True, some women may like to be the center of attention like that, but I'm surprised it would be very many.

I do recall a few years back there was a study about the cultural differences among MMO gamers in different cultures, and it noted that Koreans were more self-projecting-- create a single avatar representing oneself to represent you throughout the game (less alting, less gender-switching, more opposition to others' gender-switching) than other markets.  For comparison, the Japanese did less self-projecting and more gender-switching- more often, they treated their avatars more like "dolls" to project personalities into, rather than extensions of themselves.  Some of this was attributed to the younger age in those demos (younger people are more likely to be seeking romantic attachment online and off, so representing oneself in your avatar correctly (at least in these critical ways) and expecting others to do the same is rather important.

This was an old study-- plenty of time for things to have changed, but it still strikes me as funny, as most of the B&S females seem to be made expressly FOR people wanting the "dolls" to play, pose, and.. umm... fantasize over, rather than project themselves into...



Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 11, 2013, 11:10:06 PM
8 feet tall?  I'll opt out.  I already almost lose my head to ceiling fans ithe coal miners that built the homes in my area seem to have liked low ceilings)  :P

Given the reaction of many of the women I know, B&S seems particularly bad for women- not really an "idealized" in their view, at all.  True, some women may like to be the center of attention like that, but I'm surprised it would be very many.

I do recall a few years back there was a study about the cultural differences among MMO gamers in different cultures, and it noted that Koreans were more self-projecting-- create a single avatar representing oneself to represent you throughout the game (less alting, less gender-switching, more opposition to others' gender-switching) than other markets.  For comparison, the Japanese did less self-projecting and more gender-switching- more often, they treated their avatars more like "dolls" to project personalities into, rather than extensions of themselves.  Some of this was attributed to the younger age in those demos (younger people are more likely to be seeking romantic attachment online and off, so representing oneself in your avatar correctly (at least in these critical ways) and expecting others to do the same is rather important.

This was an old study-- plenty of time for things to have changed, but it still strikes me as funny, as most of the B&S females seem to be made expressly FOR people wanting the "dolls" to play, pose, and.. umm... fantasize over, rather than project themselves into...

Well one report said B&S player demographic is 31% women.  A little bit lower than Aion but not by a lot.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: ukaserex on January 12, 2013, 05:22:00 AM
I am not saying what you are insinuating isn't possible. I'm not even saying it's not probable. I actually think that it is more likely. But I think that it is also likely that their stocks are going down because of bad press. Smart investors investigate companies. They watch what they are doing and they look for information on them. When they decided to close down CoX, it did send a bit of a backlash through the internet medias. It would have been very easy for even the most novice of internet sleuth to pick up the information. Couple that with the stocks already starting to decline and I would not have any doubt if it were told to me that this community here has had a rather large role in the stocks being as low as they are.

In the words of Billy Joel: We didn't start the fire (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFTLKWw542g)

But unlike him, we aren't trying to fight it, we are trying to fuel it. I'm laying down my burn patch wherever I can.

Edit: spelling

Here's the thing about stocks. Regardless of stock price, a company is always worth the amount of money someone is willing to pay for the company's assets.

For example: Let's take the CoH IP and well, all the other MMO game IPs that NCSoft has. Let us, for the sake of argument assume that a buyer is found for each and every asset to be sold. All those assets have a value. Divide the sum of those values, and that's what each stock is actually worth, despite stock price.
So, who really gets hurt when the stock price goes down? Noone, really. Unless they were wanting to sell. The largest stockholders take a hit on paper, but these reductions in net worth are rarely worried about. Over time, stock prices generally go up. What we're likely seeing now is the result of curfews for the youth, a weak economy and the occasional anti-ncsoft protest.

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on January 12, 2013, 05:33:40 AM
Here's the thing about stocks. Regardless of stock price, a company is always worth the amount of money someone is willing to pay for the company's assets.

For example: Let's take the CoH IP and well, all the other MMO game IPs that NCSoft has. Let us, for the sake of argument assume that a buyer is found for each and every asset to be sold. All those assets have a value. Divide the sum of those values, and that's what each stock is actually worth, despite stock price.
So, who really gets hurt when the stock price goes down? Noone, really. Unless they were wanting to sell. The largest stockholders take a hit on paper, but these reductions in net worth are rarely worried about. Over time, stock prices generally go up. What we're likely seeing now is the result of curfews for the youth, a weak economy and the occasional anti-ncsoft protest.

basically.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 12, 2013, 06:46:30 AM
basically.

In the last reported quarter, the book value of the NCSoft is roughly $880 million while their market cap at their current stock price is roughly $2.9 billion.  That's US dollars BTW.  A ratio (Price/Book) of around 3.3.

In comparison Apple has a book value of $112.9 billion and a market cap of $490 billion or a ratio of 4.3.  Microsoft's is 3.2, EA is 2.0, Activision/Blizzard is 1.1.  BTW numbers near 1 aren't good as it indicates that investors don't believe the company is worth much more than it's physical assets.  Less than 1 means the company is worth more to it's stockholders if it was closed and it's assets liquidated than what the stock is worth.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blue Pulsar on January 12, 2013, 09:32:22 PM
In the last reported quarter, the book value of the NCSoft is roughly $880 million while their market cap at their current stock price is roughly $2.9 billion.  That's US dollars BTW.  A ratio (Price/Book) of around 3.3.

In comparison Apple has a book value of $112.9 billion and a market cap of $490 billion or a ratio of 4.3.  Microsoft's is 3.2, EA is 2.0, Activision/Blizzard is 1.1.  BTW numbers near 1 aren't good as it indicates that investors don't believe the company is worth much more than it's physical assets.  Less than 1 means the company is worth more to it's stockholders if it was closed and it's assets liquidated than what the stock is worth.

So, what you're saying is that Cap/Book means everything and stock price means nothing. Gotcha.

So, what does stock price mean and why do people follow and talk about it and not your ratio?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on January 12, 2013, 09:51:24 PM
So, what you're saying is that Cap/Book means everything and stock price means nothing. Gotcha.

So, what does stock price mean and why do people follow and talk about it and not your ratio?

The purpose of stock is:

As you may notice, I have emphasized that stock represents perceived value of a company. It does not reflect its real value and standing, although the price is based on them to varying extent. A company could, in theory, carry on just fine if its stock price dropped to 0, because what that means is that investors have literally no faith in it and also that the company in question is unable to acquire additional funds by selling its stock. Neither of those is terminal in of itself. In reality, though, a company with very low stock price (and low is relative) must have had earned it by being in a lot of trouble and that will kill it regardless of stock price.

Stock also regulates ownership of the company with person or institution that has the largest amount of stock being the owner.

edit: wording
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blue Pulsar on January 12, 2013, 11:57:29 PM
The purpose of stock is:
  • to indicate perceived value of a company and
  • to give companies transparent and accessible way to secure additional funding from investors.

Stock also regulates ownership of the company with person or institution that has the largest amount of stock being the owner.

edit: wording

I do understand and know this, but my question was more in reference to what the X-mas was saying. My point was that stocks do have a purpose and importance. (I'd guess even moreso than you and X-mas are insinuating.) I was hoping for him to explain his point of view as to where they fall in importance compared to his ratio and if they are as low of importance as he suggested, then why are they treated so important.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 13, 2013, 12:06:06 AM
It's perceived value in relation to the other companies in the exchange.  They are all chasing the same money of the investors.  Assuming investors are rational players, they are looking for companies that will give them the best return on their money.  This could be dividends (cuts of incoming sales) or stock price growth (by being more attractive than other companies due to fundamentals).

And Price/Book is just one of a number of measurements in an attempt to objectively judge if a stock is over or under valued in relation to a company's competitors in the same industry.  Then again investors aren't always rational players, sometimes there's a herd mentality.  A stock that's quickly climbing will attract more investors which will keep the upward momentum going until they start to take profits which then causes the price to fall.

That's how I read NCsoft.  Their stock bounced around between 50,000 to 100,000 KrW and then Aion came out and was an extreme hit.  That one game doubled profits and didn't really affect the sales generated from their other games.  Then they start hinting that this is just the start of things to come.  Look, we have this new game Blade & Soul and look Guild Wars 2 is more like a real MMO with 80 levels and a huge world.  And they will duplicate the what happened with Aion.  And once Aion goes world wide it's sales will also grow a lot.

So the stock rocketed up and up and up because you don't want to be the last one in.  From the start of 2009 when the stock was just 55,000 and ended up at 380,500 Oct 19th, 2011 when sanity returned.  That's a 100% growth rate per year over that span.  That's insane.  So some investors decided to take their profits and it starts to go down.  Every so often someone will decide that after a 20% price decline it's time to buy.  Price goes up and then others decide to take their profits and it goes down again.  Rinse and repeat.  But that's expected.  No stock just goes up.  However quarterly report after quarterly report showing that sales growth has slowed to a crawl and even reversed is going to convince more and more people to get out. 

Finally B&S comes out and is initially reported to be the number one game in Internet Gaming Cafes.  Guild Wars 2 has a million pre-sales and quickly sold two million within a month.  But when the quarterly report comes out in November it turns out that B&S looks to have cannibalized the sales income of NCsoft's other games.  And while GW2 does well it's limited to the difficult, from Korea's perspective, western MMO market and it's income is centered around game sales/item shop and not subscription.  That leaves a big question about continuing sales growth.

On top of the the CEO/founder sells the bulk of his personal stake in the company to a competitor.  Yes it did happen at the same time as a joint cooperation announcement but it presented doubts.  Investors hate doubts.

Now during this our dinky little game closes.  A game that's relatively unheard of by gamers in Korea.  As a matter of fact all the games NCsoft has closed were relatively unheard of in Korea.  So there they don't have the rep of a MMO closer.  Lineage has been going for over 14 years, Lineage II for over 9 and Aion for over 4.

Since the west isn't interested in those titles they are focusing on the one big untapped market that they haven't had a large presence in and that's mainland China.  Now they think that China will love Blade & Soul.  That they will even like Guild Wars 2.  So that's where their placing most of their chips.  If China isn't a big new source of income it's not the end of NCsoft.  It's just the end of the company's growth hysteria.  The price will stabilize, probably near were it is right now and it will just linger as long as sales stay where they are.

Look at Microsoft.  Their stock price shot up at a similar annual rate until late 1999.  Then it dropped to a little below half of it's peak price since.  Unless NCsoft suddenly becomes a big player in China or in the smartphone/tablet game market, they don't seem to have another major MMO under development beyond Wildstar and the joint Nexon project.

Hey, that's my opinion.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Beltor on January 13, 2013, 02:44:17 AM
China has recently had a change of policy concerning MMO's. They are now stricter on allowable female imaging.  This may not matter on GW2 but from what i've heard about B&S, it might not be allowed in China without a major overhaul. However, i don't know the specifics on China's new MMO policies and i haven't seen B&S yet, except for the underwhelming images on their US website.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Aggelakis on January 13, 2013, 03:07:44 AM
China has recently had a change of policy concerning MMO's. They are now stricter on allowable female imaging.  This may not matter on GW2 but from what i've heard about B&S, it might not be allowed in China without a major overhaul. However, i don't know the specifics on China's new MMO policies and i haven't seen B&S yet, except for the underwhelming images on their US website.
B&S has already been overhauled for China. Much more tame.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 13, 2013, 03:31:51 AM
China has recently had a change of policy concerning MMO's. They are now stricter on allowable female imaging.  This may not matter on GW2 but from what i've heard about B&S, it might not be allowed in China without a major overhaul. However, i don't know the specifics on China's new MMO policies and i haven't seen B&S yet, except for the underwhelming images on their US website.

B&S has already been overhauled for China. Much more tame.

They are in their 2nd 40 day test phase in China (close to finishing) and it appears that they've toned down the blood spray, eliminated the jiggle physics and covered up 90% of the exposed flesh in their costumes (well gave most of the outfits that were material impaired a full spandex unitard from neck to ankle).  Just before it started the black market price for an beta key into this test was in the $240 to $320 USD range.  That's a lot of money in China.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on January 13, 2013, 04:06:29 AM
I do understand and know this, but my question was more in reference to what the X-mas was saying. My point was that stocks do have a purpose and importance. (I'd guess even moreso than you and X-mas are insinuating.) I was hoping for him to explain his point of view as to where they fall in importance compared to his ratio and if they are as low of importance as he suggested, then why are they treated so important.

Stock does have importance, however, as stated, it represents something that is perceived, while cap/book is about the real condition of a company. Stock price is prone to caprice and knee-jerk reactions from investors and may severely overestimate or underestimate company's ability to grow. Books, unless cooked, will tell you how things really are. That's why they are better than stock when it comes to making assumptions about company's health. There's no emotion there, just pure data.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on January 13, 2013, 04:17:41 AM
I've always considered stock price to be an indicator of how well a company is expected to do, rather than how it's doing now. Investors looking to make a profit from the dividends, to be specific, would likely jump at low stock prices if they expected the company to do well, driving the price back up. This is apparently not happening, indicating that the overall confidence in growth is... lacking, possibly given NCsoft's track record in inability to meaningfully expand.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: srmalloy on January 14, 2013, 04:41:43 AM
My redside disgruntlement is that the people who made these boneheaded decisions will leap from the crashing plane with golden parachutes.  My blueside disgruntlement is that the employees are going to get royally shafted.

Although you do have to wonder what "CEO of NCSoft during its nose-dive into the ground" would do to your face, and hence your employability, within the mores of Korean culture... Unless this is some carefully-orchestrated move to make NCSoft auger in with the goal of being able to grab its IPs at bargain-basement prices without assuming any of its debts, and whoever is responsible for pushing the stick forward already has their exit to whichever corp picks up the pieces laid in place...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Codewalker on January 14, 2013, 05:25:15 AM
Although you do have to wonder what "CEO of NCSoft during its nose-dive into the ground" would do to your face, and hence your employability, within the mores of Korean culture...

At least within US business culture, it's rare for those kinds of things to have a negative impact. CEO types tend to all be buddy buddy with each other. I've seen several leap from company to company after they collapse and are hired on without anyone batting an eye, sometimes even given bonuses for leaving their previous failing company before running it completely into the ground.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on January 14, 2013, 07:26:47 AM
At least within US business culture, it's rare for those kinds of things to have a negative impact. CEO types tend to all be buddy buddy with each other. I've seen several leap from company to company after they collapse and are hired on without anyone batting an eye, sometimes even given bonuses for leaving their previous failing company before running it completely into the ground.

yep happens all the time here.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mister Bison on January 14, 2013, 07:38:55 AM
At least within US business culture, it's rare for those kinds of things to have a negative impact. CEO types tend to all be buddy buddy with each other. I've seen several leap from company to company after they collapse and are hired on without anyone batting an eye, sometimes even given bonuses for leaving their previous failing company before running it completely into the ground.
Conversation between two CEOs:
"Hey buddy, how have you been ? How is your wife ?
- well well, and yours ?
- too. How's is your company going ?
- Oh we've killed a game and some. And you ?
- well I'm working on my next big coup. It'll be difficult after what I did to Goldman Sachs !
- Yeah that one really put you on top ! You're such a genius."
(no character was sarcastic)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: srmalloy on January 14, 2013, 05:15:14 PM
At least within US business culture, it's rare for those kinds of things to have a negative impact. CEO types tend to all be buddy buddy with each other. I've seen several leap from company to company after they collapse and are hired on without anyone batting an eye, sometimes even given bonuses for leaving their previous failing company before running it completely into the ground.

That's why I specified 'within the mores of Korean culture'; I don't know how much the cultural precepts extend into the 'all us upper-management' group -- whether the group elitism overshadows culture or vice versa. There are too many unknowns to be able to project, although it would be poetic justice for Kim to ride NCSoft into the ground and then find himself unemployable because he's a failure. We can dream.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on January 17, 2013, 08:09:33 AM
the ncsoft stock seems like it is remaining steady atm, but solidly lower than it was a month ago
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: General Idiot on January 17, 2013, 01:49:22 PM
Out of curiosity, what happened in or around October 2011 that was relevent to NCSoft? Cause looking at the really far back data (Admittedly with only my highly untrained eye) it seems like they've been in an overall downward trend ever since then.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on January 17, 2013, 05:43:07 PM
if you look a bit further back, the significant downward trend has been continuing since the first unity rally, they have had minimal upswings since (iirc that was around sept 7)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 17, 2013, 09:38:30 PM
if you look a bit further back, the significant downward trend has been continuing since the first unity rally, they have had minimal upswings since (iirc that was around sept 7)

Which IMO is simply coincidence.  I can't be sure but I think that was around the time nearly everyone of the bullish analysts started to reduce their earnings estimates and target prices.  Compared to the previous two steep sell offs followed by rallies in mid April and early July, the early September sell off was both longer and more gradual.

The Sept pull back IMO is due to investors accepting that in the short term the stock price wasn't going to recover to it's 350,000 all time high, as each previous rallies ended up with a lower high than the one before, and decided to take some of their profits now.  The price went down to around 200,000-220,000 which was it's "support" level,  it's low during the previous two sell offs, until the 3Q numbers came out in early November.   The 3Q numbers were disappointing partially due to all the build up and then because it showed 1) B&S not getting Aion level sales in it's first full quarter (compared to Aion's first full quarter in 2009) and 2) the appearance that B&S's sales (it's only in Korea) came at the expense of their other three big NCsoft titles.  That pushed the stock off the ledge.  Not even the influx of GW2 sales helped.

So now it's at around 140,000.  It's my contention that the stock should have never reached 350,000 in the first place.  Talk about irrational exuberance with 100% price growth for nearly 3 years with little correlation in actual sales beyond Aion's first year.  The price now is close to where the company's sales and profits would justify it.  Maybe another 10-15% pull back because I don't think 4Q is going to be close to many analyst's predictions on GW2 sales.  ArenaNet just announced they hit 3 million units sold in total which is a little bit short compared to what some analysts predicted (pi million in sales).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on January 17, 2013, 10:08:06 PM
i do agree that it is unlikely that only our actions could have caused the stock to tumble that much, but it definitely was a wakeup call to ncsoft that they were shutting down a still active community and possibly some of their investors

because ncsoft did what they did in shutting the game down and pretty much consistently lying to everyone why they did it, it pleases me when i see anything negative about ncsoft
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on January 17, 2013, 10:18:43 PM
i do agree that it is unlikely that only our actions could have caused the stock to tumble that much, but it definitely was a wakeup call to ncsoft that they were shutting down a still active community and possibly some of their investors

because ncsoft did what they did in shutting the game down and pretty much consistently lying to everyone why they did it, it pleases me when i see anything negative about ncsoft

Considering the amount of fear this has put into the MMO communities, I think they've done far more than just hurt themselves. Confidence in the MMO genre must be taking a horrid nosedive. People are starting to realize that they're being asked for commitment by businesses who may just be looking for a one night stand.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on January 17, 2013, 10:26:30 PM
many mmos want customer retention though so that they get that continual sub fee

its the f2p ones that seem to want that "one night stand" type of thing

the hybrid ones like coh and CO i think did it best (especially coh) because it gives more power to subscribers but still caters to the poeple who play for free

as was mentioned in that one article where the insider source said the retention rate for coh was 95-98%, most other games companies would kill to have that much, cause just looking up some basic statistics on other games show they are only in the 75-85% range.  if coh had some actual advertising and wasnt trying to be strangled by ncsoft constantly it would prolly be much higher playerbase

i think that would be a key factor to actually getting someone interested in buying it, is the very high customer retention rate


i agree that when ncosft finally rung coh's neck and killed it, that definitely put fear out there, cause when a company is willing to kill a game with that high of a retention rate, who knows what other companies might do
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 17, 2013, 11:08:36 PM
many mmos want customer retention though so that they get that continual sub fee

its the f2p ones that seem to want that "one night stand" type of thing

the hybrid ones like coh and CO i think did it best (especially coh) because it gives more power to subscribers but still caters to the poeple who play for free

as was mentioned in that one article where the insider source said the retention rate for coh was 95-98%, most other games companies would kill to have that much, cause just looking up some basic statistics on other games show they are only in the 75-85% range.  if coh had some actual advertising and wasnt trying to be strangled by ncsoft constantly it would prolly be much higher playerbase

i think that would be a key factor to actually getting someone interested in buying it, is the very high customer retention rate


i agree that when ncosft finally rung coh's neck and killed it, that definitely put fear out there, cause when a company is willing to kill a game with that high of a retention rate, who knows what other companies might do

At the end it was 95+%.  Obviously a game whose annual sales went from $35 million to $11 in 8 years doesn't have a 95% retention rate.  However looking at the last two years sales were flat to a slight decline so 95% sounds right, at the end.

And going back to your first comment, I hadn't seen them change their story about why.  "Changing focus" can encompass a lot of actual specific reasons.  When push came to shove they said it was because Paragon Studio wasn't profitable.  Choosing not to support a small development group in the red anymore certainly falls under "changing focus" just as much as "we don't get superheroes" or "we only want to invest in games that will also do well in Korea and Asia, our primary markets".

Let's say they publicly declared the last reason in a PR, would you be happier with a concrete reason.  Of course not the game would still be shutting down.  But you would have a reason to hang your hat on.  You may not like it but it would be a legitimate reason.

My first year in college, 1980, we had a Jack in the Box in town.  It closed and not just in town but in all the adjacent towns and cities as well as all the adjacent states.  I thought they went out of business nationwide but they simply pulled back to the southwest.  Focusing on your primary markets is an acceptable reason.

I use to go to TGI Friday's just for their Peperoni Pizzadilla appetizer, a quesadilla made with peperoni, cheese and pizza sauce.  At some point they simply dropped it and all their other alternative quesadillas.  Likely it wasn't selling well so they chose to drop them.  Ticked me off since I found the rest of their fair rather generic but I can understand it.  I'm willing to bet the item itself was profitable, just wasn't in high enough demand to warrant keeping it.

Both of these are rather mediocre analogies but they are examples of legitimate corporate decisions to improve the overall profits of their company which is the whole goal.  I haven't been to Friday's since and I haven't had a Jack in the Box burger in over 30 years but the loss of me haven't impacted either company in the long term.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: WildFire15 on January 17, 2013, 11:18:22 PM
At the end it was 95+%.  Obviously a game whose annual sales went from $35 million to $11 in 8 years doesn't have a 95% retention rate.  However looking at the last two years sales were flat to a slight decline so 95% sounds right, at the end.

And going back to your first comment, I hadn't seen them change their story about why.  "Changing focus" can encompass a lot of actual specific reasons.  When push came to shove they said it was because Paragon Studio wasn't profitable.  Choosing not to support a small development group in the red anymore certainly falls under "changing focus" just as much as "we don't get superheroes" or "we only want to invest in games that will also do well in Korea and Asia, our primary markets".

Let's say they publicly declared the last reason in a PR, would you be happier with a concrete reason.  Of course not the game would still be shutting down.  But you would have a reason to hang your hat on.  You may not like it but it would be a legitimate reason.

My first year in college, 1980, we had a Jack in the Box in town.  It closed and not just in town but in all the adjacent towns and cities as well as all the adjacent states.  I thought they went out of business nationwide but they simply pulled back to the southwest.  Focusing on your primary markets is an acceptable reason.

I use to go to TGI Friday's just for their Peperoni Pizzadilla appetizer, a quesadilla made with peperoni, cheese and pizza sauce.  At some point they simply dropped it and all their other alternative quesadillas.  Likely it wasn't selling well so they chose to drop them.  Ticked me off since I found the rest of their fair rather generic but I can understand it.  I'm willing to bet the item itself was profitable, just wasn't in high enough demand to warrant keeping it.

Both of these are rather mediocre analogies but they are examples of legitimate corporate decisions to improve the overall profits of their company which is the whole goal.  I haven't been to Friday's since and I haven't had a Jack in the Box burger in over 30 years but the loss of me haven't impacted either company in the long term.

So why do you think they wouldn't be willing to sell it? Does it give them more stock options or something?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on January 17, 2013, 11:22:18 PM
Aside from allowing them to sit on it and see if they ever want to use it again, I think there is a bit of pride involved. It's theirs. Not in a "their baby" sort of way, but in a miserly sort of way. It's theirs, and you can't have it. No, especially because you want to try to make it succeed. We said it couldn't; therefore, it obviously can't. Shut up.

I think there is a lot of personal ego at the top of NCSoft involved in this whole thing, and they may well be simply trying to spite certain people. I can think of a few guesses, but since this whole malice-before-business thought of mine is mostly guesswork, I will leave that to others to imagine.

I will note that they may not be seeing it as malice nor spite, but simply as protecting their image. Which is why the first word I chose to describe this is "pride."
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: WildFire15 on January 17, 2013, 11:27:17 PM
Aside from allowing them to sit on it and see if they ever want to use it again, I think there is a bit of pride involved. It's theirs. Not in a "their baby" sort of way, but in a miserly sort of way. It's theirs, and you can't have it. No, especially because you want to try to make it succeed. We said it couldn't; therefore, it obviously can't. Shut up.

I think there is a lot of personal ego at the top of NCSoft involved in this whole thing, and they may well be simply trying to spite certain people. I can think of a few guesses, but since this whole malice-before-business thought of mine is mostly guesswork, I will leave that to others to imagine.

I will note that they may not be seeing it as malice nor spite, but simply as protecting their image. Which is why the first word I chose to describe this is "pride."

Wouldn't be surprised. EA probably feels extra special that they own Dungeon Keeper and the Theme series in as much the same way as Microsoft feel special that they own Rare but then again, Microsoft did release Asheron's Call to Turbine so it seems some companies aren't as concerned as others.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 17, 2013, 11:32:31 PM
So why do you think they wouldn't be willing to sell it? Does it give them more stock options or something?

Honestly, with the exception of EVE, game companies traditionally don't sell off an individual IP.  And with EVE it's owners, Simon & Schuster, were getting out of the software business so selling off their portfolio of software IP makes sense in this case.  Plus the game wasn't first announced as closing.

As for AC2, Turbine bought their rights back for both AC and AC2 in 2003 since Microsoft has a love/hate relationship with PC gaming.  It's not like they have an MMO division.  So it was Turbine who decided after this long hiatus to bring back AC2 as Microsoft had been out of the picture for years.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on January 18, 2013, 12:13:05 AM
well "sales" of an MMO that you could just download from the website and then sign up for a sub doesnt really account for a lot

usually sales are in terms of physical copies and this game was almost completely digital since it was rare to see it in stores but you could always download from the website or reinstall with a physical copy
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Taceus Jiwede on January 18, 2013, 12:22:19 AM
This is for FatherXmas, you clearly are very educated about the topic at hand so maybe you can answer this for me.  Your analogies about the two restaurants actually was pretty accurate I think, companies have the right to do what is best for the company.  The slight difference I see is at any point any other restaurant or you could of made this Peperoni Pizzadilla and sold it (with a different name of course) at any restaurant and while Jack in the Box moved you could still drive down to the south and get some Jack in the Box if you really wanted it.  COH is no longer anywhere in the world for anyone to use.  And when profit is the most important thing in a company you think they would make one last profit off something that is now profit-less  You already addressed why NCSoft wouldn't sell CoH that also made sense.  But why not lease it or "rent it" for example some one pays NCSoft to use the IP.  I understand this would still put us at the mercy of NCSoft but it doesn't even seem like they are willing to do that.   They would still make money on just owning the IP.  Because you seem to be the expert on it.  Why is this?  Is it because it simply would too much of hassle?  Or is just a really poor business decision to "rent" an IP from a company and therefore NCSoft knows no one would do it?

To clarify by "rent" I mean just pay the company royalties for the characters and stories or something along those lines.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: houtex on January 18, 2013, 02:07:39 AM
Renting it would likely be a wholly worse situation, because NCSoft can't really rent the accounts out without a lot of disclosure/EULA/Agreements/? between them and the renter, not to mention US.  Perhaps I don't WANT Sony, for example, to have access to anything of mine.  (and this is true, Sony and me do not have a good relationship on my end, so I don't support them.  I would have to not play CoH for that if Sony was involved with it.)

But the biggest reason I'd see is this:  If the game is going to run... then NCSoft would just run it.  The renter isn't going to get some discount on the product... they'll have to pay MORE than what NCSoft wanted to keep it running.  NCSoft would want a decent payment to rent it out, after all.

That alone means that, from a sub standpoint, the fees will go up.  As will the micro transactions.  And having a third or fourth layer on all that noise?  Yeah... we can't afford to play it alla sudden, in many cases.  I could, 15 vs 30 a month isn't a hardship on me... but for a lot of people, 15 a month is stretching it.  Then add the microtransactions...  Even some of the freemium people couldn't afford all the toys they wanted at once...

That's why it has to be brought back under NCSoft's wing, or sold outight, nothing else makes sense to do, because of the extra layers and administration and who do we call for tech support, server support, etc. ad nauseum, and we'd pay quite a bit more for all that.  And some of us won't or can't.  And it would be my guess the arrangement would not last long due to that alone.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 18, 2013, 05:21:28 AM
This is for FatherXmas, you clearly are very educated about the topic at hand so maybe you can answer this for me.  Your analogies about the two restaurants actually was pretty accurate I think, companies have the right to do what is best for the company.  The slight difference I see is at any point any other restaurant or you could of made this Peperoni Pizzadilla and sold it (with a different name of course) at any restaurant and while Jack in the Box moved you could still drive down to the south and get some Jack in the Box if you really wanted it.  COH is no longer anywhere in the world for anyone to use.

And City of Heroes players who want to get their hero on could play Champions Online or DC Universe Online.  And burger chains are a dime a dozen in the US.  It wasn't like Jack was the only burger chain in the tri-state area (/em  Doofenshmirtz).

Quote
And when profit is the most important thing in a company you think they would make one last profit off something that is now profit-less  You already addressed why NCSoft wouldn't sell CoH that also made sense.  But why not lease it or "rent it" for example some one pays NCSoft to use the IP.  I understand this would still put us at the mercy of NCSoft but it doesn't even seem like they are willing to do that.   They would still make money on just owning the IP.  Because you seem to be the expert on it.  Why is this?  Is it because it simply would too much of hassle?  Or is just a really poor business decision to "rent" an IP from a company and therefore NCSoft knows no one would do it?

To clarify by "rent" I mean just pay the company royalties for the characters and stories or something along those lines.

Well that's what they did with their titles in Europe, both Lineage II and Aion aren't directly run by NCsoft anymore there but by 4game and Gameforge respectively.  However the difference is that NCsoft is still handling the development.  That's not something either of those companies are responsible for.  All they are doing is localizing another company's product and selling it into their local market.

The difference here is while CoH may have been profitable from an operating cost point of view, it was the studio that NCsoft looked to eliminate.  And without a studio behind the title continuing development and fixing bugs the game itself didn't have a long shelf live no matter who ran the day to day operations (billing, servers, website, help desk) of the game proper.

Without some of that talented people at Paragon being available to a "new" studio that just maintained and extended the current game, selling went out the window the moment they gave everyone their walking papers.  At least when NCsoft bought out Cryptic's stake in the game, they were able to poach most of the current developers who were working on it.  No ugly learning curve by tossing the source code to an unfamiliar team of developers.  So that is an added cost to whomever buys the game now that Paragon is no more.

Also add into the equation that as soon as they announced the game's closure, those who weren't as passionate as most here on Titan simply made their peace and moved on and now after 4 1/2 months would they be willing to come back or are they now attached to their new MMO of choice?  So higher development cost, at least time wise and a likely shrunken playerbase.  It makes the game even less attractive now.  If NCsoft wanted to sell, they would have had to decided to do that and NOT announce the closure of the game simply to make the property worth more to an outsider.  Even if it's just to "rent".

Edit:  Repeat after me.  Possessive, not plual.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Taceus Jiwede on January 18, 2013, 08:39:15 AM
Well put FatherXmas and Houtex.  While I knew they weren't possibilities and were not the right way to go they were questions they popped in too my mind so thanks both of you for accurate and well thought out answers.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on January 18, 2013, 07:41:05 PM
And City of Heroes players who want to get their hero on could play Champions Online or DC Universe Online.  And burger chains are a dime a dozen in the US.  It wasn't like Jack was the only burger chain in the tri-state area (/em  Doofenshmirtz).

Well that's what they did with their titles in Europe, both Lineage II and Aion aren't directly run by NCsoft anymore there but by 4game and Gameforge respectively.  However the difference is that NCsoft is still handling the development.  That's not something either of those companies are responsible for.  All they are doing is localizing another company's product and selling it into their local market.

The difference here is while CoH may have been profitable from an operating cost point of view, it was the studio that NCsoft looked to eliminate.  And without a studio behind the title continuing development and fixing bugs the game itself didn't have a long shelf live no matter who ran the day to day operations (billing, servers, website, help desk) of the game proper.

Without some of that talented people at Paragon being available to a "new" studio that just maintained and extended the current game, selling went out the window the moment they gave everyone their walking papers.  At least when NCsoft bought out Cryptic's stake in the game, they were able to poach most of the current developers who were working on it.  No ugly learning curve by tossing the source code to an unfamiliar team of developers.  So that is an added cost to whomever buys the game now that Paragon is no more.

Also add into the equation that as soon as they announced the game's closure, those who weren't as passionate as most here on Titan simply made their peace and moved on and now after 4 1/2 months would they be willing to come back or are they now attached to their new MMO of choice?  So higher development cost, at least time wise and a likely shrunken playerbase.  It makes the game even less attractive now.  If NCsoft wanted to sell, they would have had to decided to do that and NOT announce the closure of the game simply to make the property worth more to an outsider.  Even if it's just to "rent".


Good stuff. Hell, is seemed that even some of the most talented, and as talented as they were, had trouble with certai naspect of the code. I can only imagine the chaos in trying to learn the code with a brand new team.

I found a game better than I liked the old gaming home to rent and probably wouldnt return myself. But COX was a game I played for a long time and didnt wish it to end like that nor see old friends/people I barely know/people I dont know/enemies to suffer from loss of something important to them. Thus is why I am here. Sure I could have stayed at the game I'm at now (stopped playing COX June 21 2011, last log in 25 July 2011) and looked down and merely say "Well sucks to be them. Oh well, not my problem." and keep it moving and not give a crap about if people suffer or not. But I have heart, probably too big of a heart, my gift and my curse, my rise and my downfall. But just like helping to save an old neighborhood, when it's done and goal accomplished, it doesnt mean I'm going to move back into the old neighborhood. Nope, I'm going back to the current home.

But yeah, I doubt it will come back in it's complete form aka NCSoft just reversing the decision. It wouldnt be the same either way even if they right now hit a switch and COX was up and running again. The huge amount of players that just moved on and may not come back because they either found a new game, or like some stated here, they dont trust NCSoft and or have deep hatred for NCSoft. So more than likely the playerbase will be even less than it was after the announcement was made.

Then of course the devs. I think just as WoW was just a wonder of perfect storms happening, the same with our dev team. Talented, open, commicative, and down to earth. As many have stated already, they havent found another game with devs like we had in COX. But if COX came back, there would have to be new devs as many of the old ones moved on, and or probably dont trust NCSoft anymore than many here do. Thus it's possible that the new ones are nothing like the old ones and might even have ideas that are way different than what we view COX is supposed to be and what direction to take. They might be another set of devs that believe doing things the WoW way is the only way to be successful and draw crowds and thus start implementing WoW like elements. Or they may be the type that dont like to talk to fans or view customers as mere peons *ahem* people that know nothing of what makes a game great and will be satisfied with what they think is good. Or they may be green as an unripe bannane and make greenhorn mistakes. Or they may simply just sit there fix a bug here and there and focus on ways to nickel and dime a player base to death instead of bringing out issue after issue of content and working on QoL issues. Or hell, they may try to turn it into a grind fest. Or turn it into a super hero skinned EverQuest and etc. Or they may be even more open than the old devs and take what ever suggestion that floats their way with no filter, which isnt good either to keep players besides the ones that are being catered to.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: HarvesterOfEyes on January 18, 2013, 08:22:38 PM
The difficulty of dealing with code someone else wrote is often overblown.

Here you have a big, complex system, but one that actually works and lots of people understand reasonably well what outcomes it produces.

Sounds like paradise compared to some of the projects I've worked on.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: pewlagon on January 18, 2013, 09:34:16 PM
A lot has been said here and I was hopeful NcSoft would see reason before the game shutdown, but since they went forward with the closure it has become clear, to me and my former YouTube team, that CoH is gone. NcSoft got what they wanted, they were shocked by the outpouring of frustration by the CoH community and their response was to make it as difficult as possible to get the game back online in a profitable form. Why? Well, if they wouldn't be making money off it they probably wanted it to fade so it wouldn't generate as much revenue for whoever they might sell it to.

Sadly, timing is everything here. The damage has been done and two spiritual successors have arisen which, to a prospected buyer of CoH, would showcase that the community has, indeed, moved on. This will make it very hard to find a buyer, if NcSoft is even willig to sell the IP, which I highly doubt. The more likely scenario is one of the two, or both, projects finding backers and being pushed full steam ahead. Inesting time and effort in getting an old MMO back online and coaxing the community back is simply not good business sense. Better to cultivate those here toward a new endeavor.

As to NcSoft. The lesson here is, to all of us, don't follow a slash and burn comapny. They used CoH, and its playerbase, to fund other projects and when those were ready they cut the cord. For me, I knew this was coming back in January 2012 when CoH timecard were recalled and replaced with NcSoft timecards which could not be used for CoH. That spoke volumes to me, but I was hoping it was merely a sign of rebarnding the gamecards to including CoH Bucks or some such thing. Sadly, I was wrong. No, my trust in NcSoft is gone and the campany can rot in the quagmire of bad PR they brought upon themselves. And if they ever launch a game here in the states again I will be the first on those forums educating people.

As for CoH I hope someone steps forward to put the game back online, but as more time passes that becomes less likely. The Dev team is shattered and the code for the game is a monster to work with, as many devs joked in the closing days. I have not given up hope in VV, hell she's one of the authors I idolize as far as work ethic is concerned, but I am finding myself more and more looking forward to the Phoenix Project and Heroes/Villains than I am a return to CoH.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on January 19, 2013, 05:19:33 AM
for me i still would go back to coh, because it was most enjoyable to me, now if i had to start from scratch and had to choose one of the brand new successors or old coh, idk i would have to try out the new ones first

if we were going to be getting all of our stuff back then yeah i definitely would go back to coh
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Twisted Toon on January 19, 2013, 05:42:23 AM
The difficulty of dealing with code someone else wrote is often overblown.

Here you have a big, complex system, but one that actually works and lots of people understand reasonably well what outcomes it produces.

Sounds like paradise compared to some of the projects I've worked on.

CoH's code is an 8 year patchwork of spaghetti code that I'm sure would be very difficult for a new person to decipher.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on January 19, 2013, 07:08:15 AM
I'll repeat what I've said before: we have here amassed a group of determined and skilled individuals with a common purpose. Do not underestimate what we can accomplish, given the opportunity.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: HarvesterOfEyes on January 19, 2013, 07:13:10 AM
CoH's code is an 8 year patchwork of spaghetti code that I'm sure would be very difficult for a new person to decipher.
I've had to deal with code-bases of greater complexity that didn't actually work.

CoH sounds like a playground.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mister Bison on January 19, 2013, 07:36:27 AM
CoH's code is an 8 year patchwork of spaghetti code that I'm sure would be very difficult for a new person to decipher.
As already posted before by TonyV:
Challenge Accepted
(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=i3.kym-cdn.com%2Fentries%2Ficons%2Foriginal%2F000%2F004%2F457%2Fchallenge.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Sajaana on January 19, 2013, 10:19:48 AM
In the way I see it, the whole "code monster" line fom Paragon always sounded a little too vested with self-interest to be believed.  Of course Paragon was going to say how impenetrable the code was...because it makes their case that they are the only ones who could run it or make it valuable.

Honestly, what does a shrewd employee say?  That he or she is dispensable?  Or that he or she has some unique knowledge that is irreplaceable?

If it runs--or even if it was known to have run--it can be deciphered.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Valjean on January 19, 2013, 11:58:56 AM
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: The Fifth Horseman on January 19, 2013, 12:45:04 PM
We're talking about an eight year old code base, where the original development team was no longer available for comment, and the owner was pushing the then-current developers into band-aid bugfixes rather than proper ones.
In a scenario like this, any code eventually mutates into Codethulhu, and it goes the faster the sloppier the original design and implementation were.
And yes, someone who is familiar enough with the monstrosity may be quite crucial. It all depends on how well the code is - or is not - documented, of course.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on January 19, 2013, 01:10:56 PM
In the way I see it, the whole "code monster" line fom Paragon always sounded a little too vested with self-interest to be believed.  Of course Paragon was going to say how impenetrable the code was...because it makes their case that they are the only ones who could run it or make it valuable.

Honestly, what does a shrewd employee say?  That he or she is dispensable?  Or that he or she has some unique knowledge that is irreplaceable?

If it runs--or even if it was known to have run--it can be deciphered.

I am wary to make assumptions without much knowledge about you and your work experience, but to me it does look like you may have never tried to work with legacy code in a corporate environment.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on January 19, 2013, 03:56:38 PM
I don't think he's coming from rose-colored optimism. I'm a pretty damned good mechanic, of the shade tree (amateur) variety, and I've only ever run into one problem on a car that I could not fix (the mid-eighties Volkswagen/Audi fuel injection system apparently uses phlebotinum in certain key components). That said, nothing on a car is ever as easy to work on as it looks. From what I am learning about programming and have seen out in the field, "legacy code" is as bad, if not worse.

I ran into it all the time on old Cisco network gear. Someone, somewhere along the line, found a piece of config code that did what they needed it to do and stuck it in. Then something else would break, and I had to go in and figure out why what should have fixed the problem wasn't doing what I expected it to. It was always the kludge, and, because it "looked right" the first few times reading through, and there was the pressure that comes with it always being a critical piece of gear that was halting business, it was never a smooth, easy fix.

In the wild, when time is critical, and you have to figure it out NOW, naturally things are going to be harder to figure out. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about a bunch of knowledgeable individuals whose hobby has been taken away from them. No one, however, is suggesting that it's going to be easy.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on January 19, 2013, 04:13:28 PM
The fact is the code is pretty crazy. The original developers were inexperienced and sloppy. They didn't document a lot. The folks we know inherited it without any training. I don't recall anyone ever saying that code was impossible, but that making significant changes was always a herculean task. But despite that, the very small dev team still did things to the game that Cryptic never thought could happen, from powers customization to incarnates and f2p.

It also bears mentioning that they worked under much tighter constraints than a deconstruction team - Paragon devs had less leeway for experimentation, as they couldn't afford diverting too many resources or - heaven forbid - pushing a patch that might end up breaking something major to live. A team without these limitations can freely go "okay, let's do this and see what happens".
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on January 19, 2013, 04:21:14 PM
In the wild, when time is critical, and you have to figure it out NOW, naturally things are going to be harder to figure out. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about a bunch of knowledgeable individuals whose hobby has been taken away from them. No one, however, is suggesting that it's going to be easy.

I think there may be some confusion here. Paragon Studios cited the state of their code base to be one of the reasons some stuff is difficult and/or slow to make for them. That has nothing to do with community driven projects, like server emu... Um, thing. Here the team trying to recreate certain functionality, like server software, wouldn't work with said legacy code left by Paragon Studios, as they - to my knowledge - have no access to it. It needs to be built from grounds up. (But the specs are given and are very precise.) The "spaghettiness" of Paragon Studio's legacy code does not affect them in any way.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Valjean on January 19, 2013, 04:45:01 PM
It also bears mentioning that they worked under much tighter constraints than a deconstruction team - Paragon devs had less leeway for experimentation, as they couldn't afford diverting too many resources or - heaven forbid - pushing a patch that might end up breaking something major to live. A team without these limitations can freely go "okay, let's do this and see what happens".

Yeah that's a good point. We, as a community, don't have to worry about getting the next issue out, or patching live servers. We can focus just on deconstructing the game. I'm sure if the Paragon folks had 6 months to do nothing but bigfxes and cleanup, they would have done a fantastic job.....but that would have meant no new development. And I think they only had a handful of programmers.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: pewlagon on January 19, 2013, 06:06:09 PM
And there's another problem with emulators... NcSoft has a track record of shutting them down. Anyone who says they won't find out, well... There is no guarantee on this front. I'm one of many that won't touch an emulation unless it has been given the blessing of the IP holder and I know for certain my time in the game won't be wasted due to a C&D letter, which doesn't cost much.

Again, for me it comes down to the real thing or nothing. I know there are others that don't see it this way, but I learned a bit ago that the characters in my mind need a home. If there is risk of imminent closure, I won't take it. Yes, the same can be said of any MMO, but I would at least then have time to say goodbye. And with the way developers are looking at Offline options now, I can firmly state that I may not have to say goodbye in my opens home, wherever that might be. I only hope that home is a fully functional True CoH or spiritual successor.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on January 19, 2013, 06:16:22 PM
Well, either way there's a silver lining - if they try cracking down on emulators, that's news-worthy, which is another PR impact NCsoft can ill-afford.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on January 19, 2013, 06:22:02 PM
Well, either way there's a silver lining - if they try cracking down on emulators, that's news-worthy, which is another PR impact NCsoft can ill-afford.

I wouldn't overestimate that impact. NCsoft can and will come after a community operated server. Anyone that is hoping to set such a thing up should better hide their tracks and carefully choose their hosting if they want the server to live longer than a few months.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Valjean on January 19, 2013, 07:47:41 PM
And there's another problem with emulators... NcSoft has a track record of shutting them down. .....


Actually has NCsoft ever done that? I don't know if any of their shut down games ever got unofficial servers .
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blue Pulsar on January 19, 2013, 08:33:35 PM
So why do you think they wouldn't be willing to sell it? Does it give them more stock options or something?
Honestly, with the exception of EVE, game companies traditionally don't sell off an individual IP.  And with EVE it's owners, Simon & Schuster, were getting out of the software business so selling off their portfolio of software IP makes sense in this case.  Plus the game wasn't first announced as closing.

Right, but the question was "why". An appropriate answer is not "Because they just don't." Not trying to be rude, but I am curious as to this myself. Why don't they sell? It may not be an easy to answer question. It may not even be possible to answer. But, I am tired of people actually responding to the question but saying nothing. If you don't know, then why answer?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: pewlagon on January 19, 2013, 08:36:34 PM
NcSoft has shut down emulators for Tabula Rasa, Lineage, and Dungeon Runners. To the point that they seek them out. Cease and Decist letters do not cost much and once server you must comply or face a lot of bad consequences.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on January 19, 2013, 09:08:57 PM
NcSoft has shut down emulators for Tabula Rasa, Lineage, and Dungeon Runners. To the point that they seek them out. Cease and Decist letters do not cost much and once server you must comply or face a lot of bad consequences.

Cease and desist letters are cheap, but they also easy to ignore. And if you are going to operate a private server, you'd better be prepared to do that or you should probably cease right now.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Valjean on January 19, 2013, 09:11:40 PM
Were there really player-created servers for Tablura Rasa and DR? I can see Lineage, especially in Korea, but those two games lasted so quickly, it's hard to imagine them having had the time to develop enough of a fanbase who'd care.

I mean Matrix Online lived longer.

I don't meant to go off track. The reason I bring it up is, and I am not a lawyer, but I just don't feel like NCsoft is worth fearing. That's not to say they won't ever crack down on fan programs, but their reach and resources just aren't in the same ballpark as a Blizzard, EA or Sony. I think that's one advantage the COH community's efforts have over some of the other communities.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: pewlagon on January 19, 2013, 10:15:49 PM
There were indeed TR and DR private versions out there. Both received quite a bit of attention from NcSoft. They are quite adamant about no one making money off their IPs or  showcasing them. It is bad for business to let your property roam unchecked unless you, yourself, acknowledge its continuation. They are definitely a company to worry about which brings me back to my point of not investing my time in something that could be yanked offline at a moment's notice. We're better served getting the game to someone with NcSoft's go ahead.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: ukaserex on January 20, 2013, 12:42:12 AM
The difficulty of dealing with code someone else wrote is often overblown.

Here you have a big, complex system, but one that actually works and lots of people understand reasonably well what outcomes it produces.

Sounds like paradise compared to some of the projects I've worked on.

Certainly no expert, but I recall from my days of entry level Java and C++, documentation was important. Variable names should be relevant, giving a clue as to what they would stand for. Perhaps some of the programmers were lazy and didn't explain what the code did, or what it was supposed to do. Again, by no means am I an expert. About all the programming I remember consists of "hello world".
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Codewalker on January 20, 2013, 12:53:52 AM
Actually has NCsoft ever done that? I don't know if any of their shut down games ever got unofficial servers .

AFAIK the TR server project got a cease and desist notice and folded out of fear, or possibly went deep enough underground that we don't hear about it.

They did, however go after an Aion server operator in Japan, and also the players. (http://amd-icbm.com/icbm/amd-icbm-ncsoft-crack-down-on-private-aion-server/) Now Aion is still around rather than shut down, and it was a fairly big server, but they do have a history of sending in the sharks.

So a CoH server might go unnoticed. Or it might not. It would be up to whoever was running one if they are willing to call or fold.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on January 20, 2013, 01:01:02 AM
What with all the talk about shutting down fan servers of games that have been closed and unavailable, is anyone else here reminded of the Prohibition?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: pewlagon on January 20, 2013, 01:53:17 AM
I'm not talking about them shutting it down per se, but the realization that they could. I won't invest time creating characters, and playing them, unless it's an official version of the game. To me, NcSoft killed the game and has no intention of releasing the IP because of all the negative press generated by the community toward them. They are being jerks and will continue to do so until there is change at the top of the corporate structure. Hopefully, when that happens, the new regime will find it in their wisdom to release the game. At that point it comes down to who will invest in an aged IP. Not many companies will. Valve might do it for the microtransations in the marketplace, but I'm not sure anyone else will. Again, I wish the SaveCoH movement all the luck, but I'm putting my hopes on a Spiritual Successor now. Until a buyout occurs, which is likely at this point, nothing will change at NcSoft.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lightslinger on January 20, 2013, 03:18:51 AM
Wouldn't hosting the private server in certain countries take care of most legal concerns? The private server team could also open source the code, effectively making it immortal.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on January 20, 2013, 08:52:06 AM
What with all the talk about shutting down fan servers of games that have been closed and unavailable, is anyone else here reminded of the Prohibition?

That's a littlle too far fetched, I think. They own the intellectual property, after all. It's similar to a situation where they acquired rights to publish a novel and went after people that are republishing it without their consent.

Wouldn't hosting the private server in certain countries take care of most legal concerns? The private server team could also open source the code, effectively making it immortal.

Yes and yes. Especially the latter part. Plus there are many, many more good things that can come up from open sourcing the project.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Taceus Jiwede on January 20, 2013, 09:13:48 AM
I am not sure if anyone here played Ultima Online but I am sure most people here have heard of it.  I started playing UO when I was about 11 years old and then when I was about 14 years old I was a GM on my friends server and the server failed horribly because it was being manned by two teenager's.  But if you Google search "UOX" or "Sphere UO" they are two programs that anyone at anytime with any experience can download, set to their IP, and begin hosting  their own Shard, or server.  Now of course the obvious answer is probably that EA or who ever is manning UO these days just doesn't care.  But I would be curious if anyone here knows for sure, I have played many MMO's in my life and the only one I have seen that with that many successful emulators is Ultima Online, I have played on private servers that were huge and had great GM's and great scripter's.  Almost as good as the official pre-trammel days.  (Also if you just wanna GM it up and be all powerful you can download for fun and play it offline)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kriiden on January 20, 2013, 09:17:03 AM
Hrm. Hypothetically speaking,

If someone were to figure out how to get a private server, and release the opensource, would NCsoft be THAT financially impacted? From something that isn't costing them anything, how could they lose money?

What's preventing them from releasing the source code to the community (Besides them being ungrateful tool bags) ?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on January 20, 2013, 09:57:28 AM
Hrm. Hypothetically speaking,

If someone were to figure out how to get a private server, and release the opensource, would NCsoft be THAT financially impacted? From something that isn't costing them anything, how could they lose money?

There is no simple answer to that question. NCsoft could make a case for the court where they would be able to argue that indeed there was quite an impact. Past 10 years or so witnessed several such cases where owners of IP went after people that shared said IP claiming astronomical damages and were awarded compensation.

I have never heard of similar case being conducted for anything related to an online game, but hey, there is first time for everything.

What's preventing them from releasing the source code to the community (Besides them being ungrateful tool bags) ?

No simple answer to that question either. It depends on which part of the game they would be willing to open source. For example they wouldn't be able to release the client code as they don't own the entirety of it. Cryptic does. NCsoft, and by extension Paragon Studios, were licensed to use it.

In case of server software, things could be simpler, unless Cryptic owns licensing rights to it as well. But even if they did open source it, we would get just the plumbing, without all the data that make it go. It would still be very useful to us, but arguably recreating the server engine is simple enough and we are good without it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lucretia MacEvil on January 20, 2013, 05:10:50 PM
Valve might do it for the microtransations in the marketplace, but I'm not sure anyone else will.

It only takes one.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Pinnacle Blue on January 21, 2013, 07:54:00 AM
I've been kind of gone for a bit (and kind of still am) but I did ask some legal lawyerin' types about a class-action suit to force NCSoft to sell the IP (and not for $80 million).  I will report back when I've gotten some answers.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 21, 2013, 08:24:45 AM
How pray tell can you force a company to sell it's asset, other than due to bankruptcy?  What's the legal logic?  And as a class action?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mister Bison on January 21, 2013, 08:39:50 AM
How pray tell can you force a company to sell it's asset, other than due to bankruptcy?  What's the legal logic?  And as a class action?
How about being personnally damaged by them stopping a service we don't have an equivalent to even pay for ?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on January 21, 2013, 11:44:08 AM
How pray tell can you force a company to sell it's asset, other than due to bankruptcy?  What's the legal logic?  And as a class action?

You can't directly force them to sell, but legally unicorning them so the IP becomes sort of a stinking egg could be possible with a creative and determined lawyer on it. Whether that would bring any positive result, like making them more willing to get rid of the IP, is debatable. And there is also the question of whether another company would be willing to acquire such a stinky egg after we're done. I would probably leave this as a sort of last resort thing, when all other options are exhausted.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on January 21, 2013, 03:00:48 PM
So a "Plan Y?" (I mean, clearly, our last resort is replacement that cuts NCSoft out entirely)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ironwolf on January 21, 2013, 03:13:18 PM
In my mind the only way this gets done is if you turn the entire thing over to the wild immediately after you get it working.

If 10,000 people can host a server it makes it far harder to do anything about it and then we turn all these very clever people loose on finding a country that won't stop the hosting. Then I would be happy to host a server as long as I live and even for 10 more years with a nice endowment in my will.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on January 21, 2013, 03:34:56 PM
So a "Plan Y?" (I mean, clearly, our last resort is replacement that cuts NCSoft out entirely)

Last resort for bringing CoH back. Plan Z is not about that; it is about making a game heavily influenced by the original. But as the saying goes, you cannot step into the same river twice.

In my mind the only way this gets done is if you turn the entire thing over to the wild immediately after you get it working.

If 10,000 people can host a server it makes it far harder to do anything about it and then we turn all these very clever people loose on finding a country that won't stop the hosting. Then I would be happy to host a server as long as I live and even for 10 more years with a nice endowment in my will.

Yes, this.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: houtex on January 21, 2013, 04:20:26 PM
How about being personnally damaged by them stopping a service we don't have an equivalent to even pay for ?

Yeah, well, about that...

There is a specific clause in the EULA that, in effect, absolves them from any responsibilty for your personal/mental well being.  You can't sue them because it makes you sad, angry, malicious, violent, murderous, or any other bad adjective you'd like, because you can't play the game.

So if you played knowing this (You did read the EULA, right?  ["Why won't it READ?!" - Steve Jobs]) then you can't sue for that specifically BECAUSE you agreed it would never be an issue.

You with have to do a Garriot type damages thing, a real world loss of monies/posessions type thing, for a suit to even work...

Well, on the face of it.  Stranger things have happened in the world of courts.

---

Besides that, we all agreed to Arbitration in Austin, Texas.  We agreed not to sue.  Anyone doing so is then liable to be sued back for... improper suing?  I dunno.  It's all so complicated....

But yeah, don't play the emotional/personal damage card, it's not a good avenue.  Business-suit is a better suit to sue with...

/my head hurts.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DarkCurrent on January 21, 2013, 04:28:08 PM
So if your RMT 'g0ld ph4rm' dried up you might have a case?

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: P51mus on January 21, 2013, 05:49:10 PM
So if you played knowing this (You did read the EULA, right?  ["Why won't it READ?!" - Steve Jobs]) then you can't sue for that specifically BECAUSE you agreed it would never be an issue.

Take everything I say with a grain of salt, I Am Not A Lawyer.

It's not quite so simple.  Eulas have been ruled invalid before, at least the kind where you open a box and "agree" to the eula. I haven't heard of any MMO Eulas being tested in court yet.  It'd probably depend a lot on the court in which it is tried.  It adds an extra barrier though, part of what tends to take lawsuits away from being useable by the average person.   Now, if we had someone who is wealthy and/or a retired lawyer with lots of time on their hands, they could still create a nightmare for NCSoft anyway. (Of course, if we had someone willing to fund a lawsuit like this and they really had enough to go through with it, they'd probably better spend their money paying NCsoft's 80 million extortion money for the game, assuming that's an actual number they'd sell at)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: chasearcanum on January 21, 2013, 07:36:42 PM
Take everything I say with a grain of salt, I Am Not A Lawyer.

It's not quite so simple.  Eulas have been ruled invalid before, at least the kind where you open a box and "agree" to the eula. I haven't heard of any MMO Eulas being tested in court yet.  It'd probably depend a lot on the court in which it is tried.  It adds an extra barrier though, part of what tends to take lawsuits away from being useable by the average person.   Now, if we had someone who is wealthy and/or a retired lawyer with lots of time on their hands, they could still create a nightmare for NCSoft anyway. (Of course, if we had someone willing to fund a lawsuit like this and they really had enough to go through with it, they'd probably better spend their money paying NCsoft's 80 million extortion money for the game, assuming that's an actual number they'd sell at)

IANAL, but you're correct.  Generally speaking, many/most states have legal consideration that puts a lot of scrutiny on the contract-preparer and gives some protection of the so-called "fine print".  In essence-- the contract-preparer has an overwhelming influence to exploit the agreement, so if its found that they abuse that privilege by establishing extremely unfair or biased agreements, the courts will invalidate either the whole agreement or those provisions.

Software EULAs- particularly ones that aren't readable until after you break the seal of the package-- or ones that are modified well after you purchase the product like online EULAs- have proven to be some of the least enforceable, with many rulings siding against the software companies that try to hide behind those agreements.  The companies continue these practices, though, because it does serve as a deterrent- for many people, the necessary court argument doesn't justify the cost.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Codewalker on January 21, 2013, 08:00:19 PM
I haven't heard of any MMO Eulas being tested in court yet.

The Lineage II User Agreement (http://gamepolitics.com/2010/09/03/eulas-inability-stop-lineage-ii-lawsuit) has.

Gist of it is, according to a California court's interpretation of Texas law (gotta love the legal system), that EULA is enforceable, however NCSoft cannot disclaim liability for gross negligence, therefore that part of it is invalid.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Codewalker on January 21, 2013, 08:03:09 PM
Another thing to consider -- it's been a while since I saw it examined, but IIRC one of the provisions in the City of Heroes user agreement states that the agreement terminates if the service is discontinued. So everything in there may be null and void going forward. I'd definitely consult a lawyer to find out if that applies and what the legal ramifications of it are.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Pinnacle Blue on January 21, 2013, 08:12:07 PM
IANAL, but you're correct.  Generally speaking, many/most states have legal consideration that puts a lot of scrutiny on the contract-preparer and gives some protection of the so-called "fine print".  In essence-- the contract-preparer has an overwhelming influence to exploit the agreement, so if its found that they abuse that privilege by establishing extremely unfair or biased agreements, the courts will invalidate either the whole agreement or those provisions.

Software EULAs- particularly ones that aren't readable until after you break the seal of the package-- or ones that are modified well after you purchase the product like online EULAs- have proven to be some of the least enforceable, with many rulings siding against the software companies that try to hide behind those agreements.  The companies continue these practices, though, because it does serve as a deterrent- for many people, the necessary court argument doesn't justify the cost.

Goes without saying, but IANAL also (hence the asking around).  The CoH EULA has definitely been modified after purchase.

The idea here is, I'll admit, partially to legally unicorn them.  It'd be awesome if a class-action suit forced them to sell the IP and then because of the bad publicity/court costs their stock tanked even harder, but without an actual lawyer's judgment as to whether or not we'd have a case, we don't know if even the first part of that could happen. 

However, as it stands right now they're making $0 from holding the IP.  If the IP suddenly becomes a hot potato, so to speak, what's their incentive to continue to hold it?  (I mean, beyond whatever incentive is causing them to act like massive donkey phalluses in the first place.)  Let's not forget what kind of pleasant experience NCSoft has already deservedly had with the US court system-- the threat of having to go through all that again might make them cry "Uncle" preemptively.

Regardless of what the EULA says, we had every right to continue to expect to be able to play the game.  The profitability of the game, the much-anticipated update that never arrived, and the selling of a new powerset nine days before the shutdown announcement are all strong arguments for that.  If they don't want to continue to maintain the game, that's fine, but killing a profitable game enjoyed by tens of thousands and with a strong community is not only unfair, it's just plain evil.  I will hold a grudge against them forever for it (as will most of us), and I'd like to see if there's not something daring, unpredictable, and frightening we could legally do to them.

And if it turns out they are in fact valuing the IP at $3 million for tax purposes?  Winning would be delicious, because that (and not the rumored $80 million figure) would likely what they'd have to sell it for.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on January 21, 2013, 09:48:03 PM
Goes without saying, but IANAL also (hence the asking around).  The CoH EULA has definitely been modified after purchase.

The idea here is, I'll admit, partially to legally unicorn them.  It'd be awesome if a class-action suit forced them to sell the IP and then because of the bad publicity/court costs their stock tanked even harder, but without an actual lawyer's judgment as to whether or not we'd have a case, we don't know if even the first part of that could happen. 

Just keep in mind that legal unicorning is a double-edged sword. It may and probably will also hurt the reputation of the unicorns - in this case our community. We may be successful at making their life a little more complicated, but at the same time we may scare away any potential buyer for the game. If you ran a business, would you want to invest into something knowing that if you screw things up, the fans will go straight for your throat?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on January 21, 2013, 10:08:36 PM
Just keep in mind that legal unicorning is a double-edged sword. It may and probably will also hurt the reputation of the unicorns - in this case our community. We may be successful at making their life a little more complicated, but at the same time we may scare away any potential buyer for the game. If you ran a business, would you want to invest into something knowing that if you screw things up, the fans will go straight for your throat?

well "screw things up" and "intentionally overloading a studio to close it out of spite" are 2 different things

i doubt any company would be able to top ncsoft in the douchebaggery factor
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on January 21, 2013, 10:22:11 PM
well "screw things up" and "intentionally overloading a studio to close it out of spite" are 2 different things

i doubt any company would be able to top ncsoft in the douchebaggery factor

Everyone keeps forgetting somehow that NCsoft is the same company that funded the development of the game in the first place and also saved it when Cryptic saw it fit to go work for Microsoft on Marvel MMO that eventually became Champions Online. They helped establish Paragon Studios and kept the game operational for the next full 5 years.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on January 21, 2013, 10:33:22 PM
Everyone keeps forgetting somehow that NCsoft is the same company that funded the development of the game in the first place and also saved it when Cryptic saw it fit to go work for Microsoft on Marvel MMO that eventually became Champions Online. They helped establish Paragon Studios and kept the game operational for the next full 5 years.

I havent forgot and that is the main reason I find it hard to just go from "Nooob, how dare you say anything bad about NCSoft" prior to Aug29th to "Nooob, how dare you anything positive about NCSoft."

I guess people forget and remember the negative stuff more easily. You (just general example not you personally) can be best friends with someone for ages and they trusted you with your life, but do one they dont like then those tens years is as if it never existed. They instead act like you was born their enemy. In hindsight, those ten years of friendship might have well never existed because people remember and like to hear the negative stuff is boring and not remembered. In human minds it seems, 1 negative thing can totally wipe out 1 million positive stuff off the face of the earth as if it never happened. People who played NCSoft game for nearly if not more than a decade and then one day, just in a single day, those positive feelings was nullified.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on January 21, 2013, 11:26:12 PM
oh im not saying that ncsoft was bad for doing that, but how they handled the shutdown was extremely poor and thus i dont care if they were the original makers of the game, the action of killing the game has tarnished their reputation in my eyes and thus i will never see them as a good company again, them actually selling coh will only release the grudge so i wont actively go around spreading my opinion of how bad they are


another good example of this is how the star rating system for AE was made, it took 7 5-star ratings to negate just 1 1-star rating, it takes a lot of good to see the good but all it takes is 1 negative rep to throw it in the toilet
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: houtex on January 22, 2013, 01:55:30 AM
I didn't forget that.  Did they forget we've paid to have the game continue?  And that it was profitable?

I can then selectively forget that NCSoft did what they did in the past.  I am thankful they did, but that doesn't make this right, Frog.  Don't try to make it any less than it is: Betrayal of their player base, and their employees.

For all the good they did in the beginning... all undone in a single day.
 
Perhaps this is a good parallel.  A person is a perfect driver, never hit anyone, never had an accident, always uses their turn signals, was courteous to other drivers, etc, whatever... they get drunk ONE time, they crash into another car that ONE time, and they hurt someone badly.
 
All that good they did is undone in that one unfortunate decision to get drunk.  That's NCSoft.  Except this wasn't their first time being drunk, Richard Garriott can comment upon that time if he wants.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DarkCurrent on January 22, 2013, 03:55:34 AM
Everyone keeps forgetting somehow that NCsoft is the same company that funded the development of the game in the first place and also saved it when Cryptic saw it fit to go work for Microsoft on Marvel MMO that eventually became Champions Online. They helped establish Paragon Studios and kept the game operational for the next full 5 years.

NCSoft could've made the CoX closure a thing of beauty.  A wicked awesome sendoff for a much beloved game that brought so much to so many for 8 years.  Instead they chose the path of 'fire em all and shut it down' with no explanation and no consolation prize for the players.

Those actions burned all credit they had with me.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on January 22, 2013, 08:06:43 AM
I didn't forget that.  Did they forget we've paid to have the game continue?  And that it was profitable?

I can then selectively forget that NCSoft did what they did in the past.  I am thankful they did, but that doesn't make this right, Frog.  Don't try to make it any less than it is: Betrayal of their player base, and their employees.

Don't make it any more than it is. Betrayal? Closure out of spite (that's referring to the post I was replying to)? But of course! Clearly, that is how companies make business decisions in the time of a raging financial crisis.

Don't get me wrong. I am not trying to argue that we are supposed to like them. But the fact remains that without their effort to keep the game afloat, it could've been shut down back in 2007 or at best entered maintenance mode. Instead the game bloomed like never before.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Taceus Jiwede on January 22, 2013, 08:23:51 AM

All that good they did is undone in that one unfortunate decision to get drunk.  That's NCSoft.  Except this wasn't their first time being drunk, Richard Garriott can comment upon that time if he wants.


I am still a little surprised that Richard Garriot isn't joining in on the cause but I am sure he has bigger fish to fry. 

Quote
Perhaps this is a good parallel.  A person is a perfect driver, never hit anyone, never had an accident, always uses their turn signals, was courteous to other drivers, etc, whatever... they get drunk ONE time, they crash into another car that ONE time, and they hurt someone badly.

NCSoft isn't like the person who got drunk the time though because this wasn't just a lapse in judgment or a mistake that was tragic.  They knew very well they would at least be putting 80 people out of work and they handled it in a way that made them come off almost as heartless (If you read the testimonies).

Still I agree with Frog we don't want to come off to possible buyers like a fan base that will act out if they decide to shut down the game in the future.  Clearly lots of people understand where we are coming from, but we don't want to get to the point where people forget that we are more upset how they handled the closure and negotiations then the actual closure it self.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on January 22, 2013, 01:47:54 PM
But the fact remains that without their effort to keep the game afloat, it could've been shut down back in 2007 or at best entered maintenance mode. Instead the game bloomed like never before.

Maybe, but it's a false dichotomy - it's also possible that the game would have been picked up by a third company, which might have handled it better than NCsoft. Or it could have gone down forever.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: houtex on January 22, 2013, 02:41:55 PM
Don't make it any more than it is. Betrayal? Closure out of spite (that's referring to the post I was replying to)? But of course! Clearly, that is how companies make business decisions in the time of a raging financial crisis.

Don't get me wrong. I am not trying to argue that we are supposed to like them. But the fact remains that without their effort to keep the game afloat, it could've been shut down back in 2007 or at best entered maintenance mode. Instead the game bloomed like never before.

Yep, and only with the Freem 15 at one point... due to NCSoft's amazing cash abilities...

I can't shake that this is betrayal.  It's not anything less in my mind.  NCSoft told Paragon "here's money, go make something.  No, really, we love you guys, go do this.  And keep CoH going."

And kept that up, with them, with us, until *BLAMMO!* Hatchet to the neck.  Knife in the back.  Whatever you decide to put there.

Is it the adjective you don't like?  Tell me the correct one then.  Disingenuous, turncoat... which adjective does apply then?

Not that I want an argument, really.  It's very nice that NCSoft saved the stuido and the game back when.  Really.  I said so when I emailed Mr. Kim, et al, and I even THANKED THEM.  I'm not about [Vengeance] (as I never took that power anyway, as it happens) but I am not about sugar coating the past to make the present look less heinous.

And I'm the guy who argued "It's just business."  It's just... this is my feeling, logic aside, about this... they did this on purpose.  And did it to the wrong folks if anything, because they had OTHER PROPERTIES that are better suited to the decision.  On paper, without accounting tricks and such.  According to what I can read... and is being thrown about... certainly not from NCSoft, as if that's the truth, then Paragon was the right decision.

But how can that be the truth, for sure, if they are not telling us the reasons, straight up?  We can take it, honest!  While again, that's Buisness for ya, being all sneaky and secretive and such, it is not fueling any less than deception and conspiracy to kill the stuidio and trick the playerbase to move to another of their products... that we don't like (most of us, apparently, or so I've read hereabouts.)  If it's true, and they want the PR problem to die, rather than wait it out, let's see the real deal(tm). 
 
But they can't, because it would reveal... interesting tactics, let's say.  Stuff the people/governments wouldn't like.  So they... can't.  And that isn't helpful at all to the equation.

And they COULD SELL.  Just because they have a history of not, doesn't mean this couldn't be let go.  They are hoarding it for whatever nefarious (at this time that's what it looks like) purposes.  Just... let it go be something somewhere else.  Excepting desiring to funnel potential CoH sales into something else they offer, there's no other reason not to, when you get down to it... but they don't.

There is SO MUCH they could do to make it less of a problem, but they simply refuse to for... what?

That's why, to me, it's a betrayal.  Nothing less.  They refuse to work with anyone for... no good reason except to do it.  Not even sell the product back to the studio, or just let it keep going and shut down the part of the studio that was doing the never gonna happen product, and start making money from it, or make some money and sell it...

Nope... Just BOOM.  Headshot!  Drop dead y'all, or hey, come play one of our grindfests, see?

Emotional?  Naw.  Just callin' it like I see it.  May sound like it, but it's not.

But that's business for ya... it doesn't make sense a lot of times to the consumer.  And it sucks.  And it's not honorable, if that would have mattered to them, to be disingenuous to the Studio, their investors, and us, in regards Paragon's situation, instead obfuscating it behind bean counter trickery.  If that's what happened.  I wouldn't know... they won't say.  :roll:

/Gotta love fancy ass accounting, yeah? :P
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on January 22, 2013, 04:21:44 PM
Everyone keeps forgetting somehow that NCsoft is the same company that funded the development of the game in the first place and also saved it when Cryptic saw it fit to go work for Microsoft on Marvel MMO that eventually became Champions Online. They helped establish Paragon Studios and kept the game operational for the next full 5 years.

If you think for one instant that I, or indeed most former players who want this game back, are going to decline to play an emulator because NCSoftheaded did this back in the day, then you are even more delusional than NCSoft is for thinking they can "BOOM! HEADSHOT! LOL" us without fear of consequences.

That's just adorable that they did that. Warms the cockles of my heart. And it tempers my present FURY with this company, NOT BY ONE IOTA!!

Quote
Houtex: And they COULD SELL.  Just because they have a history of not, doesn't mean this couldn't be let go.  They are hoarding it for whatever nefarious (at this time that's what it looks like) purposes.  Just... let it go be something somewhere else.  Excepting desiring to funnel potential CoH sales into something else they offer, there's no other reason not to, when you get down to it... but they don't.

There is SO MUCH they could do to make it less of a problem, but they simply refuse to for... what?

That's why, to me, it's a betrayal.  Nothing less.  They refuse to work with anyone for... no good reason except to do it.  Not even sell the product back to the studio, or just let it keep going and shut down the part of the studio that was doing the never gonna happen product, and start making money from it, or make some money and sell it...

Nope... Just BOOM.  Headshot!  Drop dead y'all, or hey, come play one of our grindfests, see?

Emotional?  Naw.  Just callin' it like I see it.  May sound like it, but it's not.

Yep. And I, myself am not this detached. I'm actually emotional. This entire situation is giving me bad dreams over it. No joke. But this right here is nothing but truth: they are doing this for no good reason, except that they CAN and might makes right.

NCSoftheaded can step off the damn curb. I will be on an emulator the instant I find out about one. What are they gonna do, sue? If some stupid company in Korea with tanking stock thinks its worth it to sue little me over here in the US, you know.... bring it. What are they gonna do? Do I have assets they would find worth taking?! LOL!

I think NCStupid has a few bigger fish to fry right now than worrying about suing American hobbyists on an emulator. If they dont look sharp, there will not be a corporation left TO file the suit! Which would suit ME JUST FINE.

p.s. GW2 is a grindfest - and a boring one at that - on a level I have never seen. This makes running BAF 5000 times look like nothing.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: HarvesterOfEyes on January 22, 2013, 04:37:31 PM
Clearly, that is how companies make business decisions in the time of a raging financial crisis.
I do hope you mean "in a mindless panic" just here.

The knots one has to twist oneself in to in order to argue that closing PS and CoH when and how they did was a rational business decision are more appropriate to a carnival sideshow than a semi-serious discussion meant to investigate and discover thruths.

Times of financial crisis are not those in which mindful people lop off profitable limbs.

It seems to be an article of faith with some that business people generally make rational decisions. I don't subscribe to that religion, and I suggest its tenets are terribly misleading.

Reason is something human beings have to work at.

EDIT: Spelling
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on January 22, 2013, 05:04:19 PM
Maybe, but it's a false dichotomy - it's also possible that the game would have been picked up by a third company, which might have handled it better than NCsoft. Or it could have gone down forever.

It wasn't really a dichotomy. I said could, not would. It is impossible to discern what would happen. However, NCsoft took over and the following 5 years were really successful for the game.

If you think for one instant that I, or indeed most former players who want this game back, are going to decline to play an emulator because NCSoftheaded did this back in the day, then you are even more delusional than NCSoft is for thinking they can "BOOM! HEADSHOT! LOL" us without fear of consequences.

Huh? Where did not playing an emulator (whatever that means) thing came from? How does your reply relate to what has been discussed?

That's just adorable that they did that. Warms the cockles of my heart. And it tempers my present FURY with this company, NOT BY ONE IOTA!!

I mean no disrespect to you, alas I don't know how to put it gently. It appears that your FURY impairs your reading comprehension. You are replying with anger to something that has not been said.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on January 22, 2013, 05:38:04 PM
Quote
Huh? Where did not playing an emulator (whatever that means) thing came from? How does your reply relate to what has been discussed?

You were stating [or so it seemed to me] that so far from being angry, or waiting for an emulator that we should instead be grateful to NCSoft for past development of the game; and by inference, that this gratitude should temper our anger at how we have been treated.

Overall your posts come off as very defensive of NCSoft, you never hesitate to remind us of how dangerous an emulator would be, how the lawsuits would fly right and left and DANGER WILL ROBINSON! I am speaking in general terms here. Any time someone posts about taking any action, no matter what it is seems like, there you are with "no, we better not do that" because of some perceived horrid danger to ourselves. I find it unlikely in the extreme that some overseas corporation who is even now literally fighting to survive is going to have time or $$$ to hunt down everyone on an emulator and drone-strike their houses.

People are gonna do what they are gonna do. And if NCStupid does not like that, they should have thought twice before the harebrained "strategy"  they adopted, which amounts to pretty much "BOOM, HEADSHOT! LOL!!!" Yeah.... nice. I feel all kinds of loyal. They betrayed us, and by extension damaged the entire MMO industry by introducing a lack of trust.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ironwolf on January 22, 2013, 06:19:34 PM
No, the existence of an Emulator or server code will not always cause lawsuits and panic.

I am spending some of my time starting today searching to see what countries do not have IP agreements with South Korea or the U.S. If we then get a Hero Exfoliator I will gladly host one. I hosted both a Dustbowl TFC server for 3 years and a Soldier of Fortune 2 server for 2 years (in fact I built my own SoF2 server and had a friend with ISP hosting ability install it for me) and so hosting a CoH server would not phase me in the least.

Give me the code and I will make it happen. I will also post the code on that hosting site and spread the wealth. Then I will host a website from the same site with players rating the various shards that appear and a forum for the top 10 - 20 shards so you know where your friends are playing.

That is how you make the game happen again - the community is restored, the game rolls on and instead of a company hosting all of the servers - players can. You can play on Virtue Restored, Champion Forever, True Freedom or any other server that shows what we are about.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on January 22, 2013, 07:05:15 PM
You were stating [or so it seemed to me] that so far from being angry, or waiting for an emulator that we should instead be grateful to NCSoft for past development of the game; and by inference, that this gratitude should temper our anger at how we have been treated.

There was no inference, nor conclusion to my statement. I simply stated a fact, without drawing any thesis from it. However I did so in response to yet another outburst of angry nonsense. I somewhat dislike angry nonsense.

Overall your posts come off as very defensive of NCSoft,

Like the one where I admitted to being a subscriber to the theory that corporations, and by extension NCsoft, are psychopaths?

you never hesitate to remind us of how dangerous an emulator would be,

Now that would be quite funny if I did that, given I am eagerly awaiting for a functional emulator to be finished. Moreover, I am trying to advocate open sourcing the code, so it spreads and becomes immune to potential NCsoft legal scare tactics. (Plus it would be fun to play with the code and submit patches.)

I am speaking in general terms here.

So general that they include opinions contrary to those I share it seems.

Any time someone posts about taking any action, no matter what it is seems like, there you are with "no, we better not do that" because of some perceived horrid danger to ourselves.

I only do that if I think their actions are pointless and wil end blowing in their faces, while leaving the target unscratched and possibly even unaware of the attempt. Plenty of that around, sadly. Although it's not surprising, given how emotional the subject is. Unfortunately strong emotions have a habit of clouding one's judgement.

I find it unlikely in the extreme that some overseas corporation who is even now literally fighting to survive is going to have time or $$$ to hunt down everyone on an emulator and drone-strike their houses.

People are gonna do what they are gonna do. And if NCStupid does not like that, they should have thought twice before the harebrained "strategy"  they adopted, which amounts to pretty much "BOOM, HEADSHOT! LOL!!!" Yeah.... nice. I feel all kinds of loyal. They betrayed us, and by extension damaged the entire MMO industry by introducing a lack of trust.

You appear to be arguing with yourself again. Or to be precise: your mental image of me, who shares my forum name and avatar, but not my opinions.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ironwolf on January 22, 2013, 07:44:32 PM
Looks like Paraguay is the future home of Paragon:

http://www.ustr.gov/sites/default/files/2012%20Special%20301%20Report_0.pdf

Page 51.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Twisted Toon on January 22, 2013, 08:56:39 PM
I havent forgot and that is the main reason I find it hard to just go from "Nooob, how dare you say anything bad about NCSoft" prior to Aug29th to "Nooob, how dare you anything positive about NCSoft."

I guess people forget and remember the negative stuff more easily. You (just general example not you personally) can be best friends with someone for ages and they trusted you with your life, but do one they dont like then those tens years is as if it never existed. They instead act like you was born their enemy. In hindsight, those ten years of friendship might have well never existed because people remember and like to hear the negative stuff is boring and not remembered. In human minds it seems, 1 negative thing can totally wipe out 1 million positive stuff off the face of the earth as if it never happened. People who played NCSoft game for nearly if not more than a decade and then one day, just in a single day, those positive feelings was nullified.
The problem is, NCSoft was never our "Best" Friend. They were just an acquaintance that helped out a couple of times.

Then, they tuned around and showed us what they really thought of us. Hence, the feelings of betrayal.

I have been "friends" (or so I though) with someone who turned around and betrayed that friendship.
It's one of the reasons that I have a lot of acquaintances and not a lot of friends.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on January 22, 2013, 09:50:37 PM
The problem is, NCSoft was never our "Best" Friend. They were just an acquaintance that helped out a couple of times.

Then, they tuned around and showed us what they really thought of us. Hence, the feelings of betrayal.

I have been "friends" (or so I though) with someone who turned around and betrayed that friendship.
It's one of the reasons that I have a lot of acquaintances and not a lot of friends.

this is exactly how i feel about ncsoft, they were in no way a friend just because they bought out the game from cryptic, but when they did a complete 180 and shut us down, theres definitely some ulterior motive going on that they wont tell us about

i dont care if they did technically save the game by buying it out almost 5 or so years ago, what i care about is what happened only the last few months, why did they backstab us exactly? what reason would they have to pull a 180? those are questions that only ncsoft knows the answers to and they sure as heck aint talking
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on January 22, 2013, 10:44:56 PM
Like the one where I admitted to being a subscriber to the theory that corporations, and by extension NCsoft, are psychopaths?

Nope, stuff like: "Just keep in mind that legal unicorning is a double-edged sword. It may and probably will also hurt the reputation of the unicorns - in this case our community. We may be successful at making their life a little more complicated, but at the same time we may scare away any potential buyer for the game. If you ran a business, would you want to invest into something knowing that if you screw things up, the fans will go straight for your throat?"

This above is a perfect example of what I am talking about. Let's tiptoe around NCSoft, because of something that might happen in some hypothetical situation somewhere, at some time in the future.

I'm tired of tiptoeing, sorry. Tiptoeing got us royally kicked in the teeth.

Quote
Now that would be quite funny if I did that, given I am eagerly awaiting for a functional emulator to be finished. Moreover, I am trying to advocate open sourcing the code, so it spreads and becomes immune to potential NCsoft legal scare tactics. (Plus it would be fun to play with the code and submit patches.)

Haven't seen you say that, but sure have seen a lot of stuff like the earlier quote.

Quote
I only do that if I think their actions are pointless and wil end blowing in their faces, while leaving the target unscratched and possibly even unaware of the attempt. Plenty of that around, sadly. Although it's not surprising, given how emotional the subject is. Unfortunately strong emotions have a habit of clouding one's judgement.

Ergo: do nothing.

That doesn't work for me. Nor does it work for a lot of people.

Quote
You appear to be arguing with yourself again. Or to be precise: your mental image of me, who shares my forum name and avatar, but not my opinions.


This isnt an argument, but a comment of how your statements appear to others. Its nice if your actual opinions dont match these posted attempts to get everyone to back down and be vewwy, vewwy quiet in case NCStupid gets their feelings hurt. Just saying.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Taceus Jiwede on January 22, 2013, 11:12:36 PM
I think NCStupid has a few bigger fish to fry right now than worrying about suing American hobbyists on an emulator.

I wouldn't be so sure about that.  I admire your passion I do.  But the mentality of riding down a steep hill with no brakes and assuming you will be fine has brought down many great men and women.  Don't put out that fire in your belly.  Just be cautious of what you will do with it. 

Personally I won't be playing an emulator unless it seems completely legit and free from legal recourse, I for one have had my share of legal run ins and let me tell you, they aren't even kind of fun.  Hell you don't even look back on them and go "Well at least I learned from it" it is nothing but a mental/emotional/finical ass whooping.

As for Frog I still agree about the double edge sword of legal unicorning.  If I were an investor or a buyer.  I already would not buy this game.  Sure I could be the knight in shining armor now but 5 years later when something may and could change all of sudden I am the villain, I have thousands of fans doing exactly what we are doing now.  Fans that are willing to make my company go bankrupt.  Lets say I was this company and I gave it a kind goodbye and a epic ending, whats to stop our group from acting out this way again.  How would I know I did it right?  We speak of how great of a community we are, which is true no arguments, but we don't want to become a community that publishers fear. I admire everyone's passion here I do.  But sometimes passion only gets you in trouble.  If COH gets brought back at some point it will be shut down again. Maybe in 5 years, maybe in 10 years, maybe 100 years.  But noting lasts forever and at some point it will shut down and who ever buys it doesn't wanna get the backlash we have given NCSoft.  The most important thing we can do here is show that we just want our IP in better hands not that we "Will do anything in hell or heaven to get back our game regardless of who owns it or who we have to screw."  Don't those actions sound kind of familiar?

Before everyone starts lashing out at me calling me a traitor or what ever here are the points that I think are the most important.

It is good to be passionate and fight for something you believe in.  But you don't want to fight so hard or get so passionate you scare others off from helping you.  We need companies to know we are mad at NCSoft for the decisions they made for this game.  Not that the game closed, and not that we feel the company doesn't have a right to close it.  We want a company to know that we are just looking for a fair publisher that will treat the game with respect.  WE DONT want to come off across "Buy our game and IF YOU EVER LET ANYTHING HAPPEN TO IT, well, just look at what we did to NCSoft"

That's my two cents.  Please read all of what I typed before replying to what I said though. I don't want people lashing out at me because they only read half of what I typed
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on January 22, 2013, 11:22:48 PM
This above is a perfect example of what I am talking about. Let's tiptoe around NCSoft, because of something that might happen in some hypothetical situation somewhere, at some time in the future.

I cannot force reading comprehension upon you. You read what you want to read.

Haven't seen you say that, but sure have seen a lot of stuff like the earlier quote.

You have lovely way of drawing conclusions.

Ergo: do nothing.

That reading comprehension of yours? I am really not a fan.

That doesn't work for me. Nor does it work for a lot of people.

Oh well. I told you that before, I will tell you again: unleash that FURY of yours. What stops you?
 
This isnt an argument, but a comment of how your statements appear to others.

Oh, okay.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: golemjoe on January 22, 2013, 11:24:43 PM
this is exactly how i feel about ncsoft, they were in no way a friend just because they bought out the game from cryptic, but when they did a complete 180 and shut us down, theres definitely some ulterior motive going on that they wont tell us about

i dont care if they did technically save the game by buying it out almost 5 or so years ago, what i care about is what happened only the last few months, why did they backstab us exactly? what reason would they have to pull a 180? those are questions that only ncsoft knows the answers to and they sure as heck aint talking

Right, I guess I don't care for the "saved the game" theme.  They did it for profit and it worked out well for them.  The fact that it worked out well for us too.. that was wonderful.  However I don't think I will ever have a sense of owing NCSoft, because I can't think of any valid examples where they weren't compensated financially for whatever product they helped support.  They didn't run the game at a loss.. or anything close to it.  It was profitable. 

The fact that they shut down a profitable, much loved game doesn't make me hate them.  But it does convince me that I'd be foolish to waste my time and money supporting any of their future products unless I'm convinced there's an exit plan for something that I and others enjoy but NCSoft no longer views as being part of their strategy.  If they can handle themselves better with CoH, that's a sign (to me) that if enough people care about a product then they'll do the right thing when it comes time to let it go. 

Unfortunately I'm not convinced their execs will ever make that leap, and therefore I can't trust them as a customer.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: golemjoe on January 22, 2013, 11:34:20 PM


As for Frog I still agree about the double edge sword of legal unicorning.  If I were an investor or a buyer.  I already would not buy this game.  Sure I could be the knight in shining armor now but 5 years later when something may and could change all of sudden I am the villain, I have thousands of fans doing exactly what we are doing now.  Fans that are willing to make my company go bankrupt.  Lets say I was this company and I gave it a kind goodbye and a epic ending, whats to stop our group from acting out this way again.  How would I know I did it right?  We speak of how great of a community we are, which is true no arguments, but we don't want to become a community that publishers fear. I admire everyone's passion here I do.  But sometimes passion only gets you in trouble.  If COH gets brought back at some point it will be shut down again. Maybe in 5 years, maybe in 10 years, maybe 100 years.  But noting lasts forever and at some point it will shut down and who ever buys it doesn't wanna get the backlash we have given NCSoft.  The most important thing we can do here is show that we just want our IP in better hands not that we "Will do anything in hell or heaven to get back our game regardless of who owns it or who we have to screw."  Don't those actions sound kind of familiar?

Before everyone starts lashing out at me calling me a traitor or what ever here are the points that I think are the most important.

It is good to be passionate and fight for something you believe in.  But you don't want to fight so hard or get so passionate you scare others off from helping you.  We need companies to know we are mad at NCSoft for the decisions they made for this game.  Not that the game closed, and not that we feel the company doesn't have a right to close it.  We want a company to know that we are just looking for a fair publisher that will treat the game with respect.  WE DONT want to come off across "Buy our game and IF YOU EVER LET ANYTHING HAPPEN TO IT, well, just look at what we did to NCSoft"

That's my two cents.  Please read all of what I typed before replying to what I said though. I don't want people lashing out at me because they only read half of what I typed

I disagree.. I think a better mindset would be "Oh these people are really into supporting this game.  I can make money off them by providing a good product.  And if it turns out I can't (or don't want to) provide that in the future, I can count on them not only being reasonable but possibly also helping to find someone who will buy it from me.  Why?  Because they love this game.  As long as I am honest and don't act like a complete tool, they're behind me all the way!"

Just my .02.  Yes I know that a lot of businesses want to assume they have complete control over something, I have to hope there are some that are just fine with treating their customer base with respect.  If that's not something you'd do as a large business owner, definitely your choice.  I just think you'd be making a mistake.


Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Taceus Jiwede on January 22, 2013, 11:38:38 PM
I disagree.. I think a better mindset would be "Oh these people are really into supporting this game.  I can make money off them by providing a good product.  And if it turns out I can't (or don't want to) provide that in the future, I can count on them not only being reasonable but possibly also helping to find someone who will buy it from me.  Why?  Because they love this game.  As long as I am honest and don't act like a complete tool, they're behind me all the way!"

Just my .02.  Yes I know that a lot of businesses want to assume they have complete control over something, I have to hope there are some that are just fine with treating their customer base with respect.  If that's not something you'd do as a large business owner, definitely your choice.  I just think you'd be making a mistake.

I really hope so Golemjoe, that would be ideal I just don't want to rule out the possibility that we are scaring off buyers.  But you make a valid point, and I truly do hope with all my heart that is the way possible buyers are looking at it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on January 22, 2013, 11:49:27 PM
I disagree.. I think a better mindset would be "Oh these people are really into supporting this game.  I can make money off them by providing a good product.  And if it turns out I can't (or don't want to) provide that in the future, I can count on them not only being reasonable but possibly also helping to find someone who will buy it from me.  Why?  Because they love this game.  As long as I am honest and don't act like a complete tool, they're behind me all the way!"

This is beautiful and very idealistic. I think you weren't around when VV declared that she is going to hire a shaman to ritualistically throw a curse upon NCsoft in front of their office? Or when the early ideas for the Alert The Colbert Nation initiative were flying around? Ah, those were good times.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: golemjoe on January 22, 2013, 11:58:20 PM
This is beautiful and very idealistic. I think you weren't around when VV declared that she is going to hire a shaman to ritualistically throw a curse upon NCsoft in front of their office? Or when the early ideas for the Alert The Colbert Nation initiative were flying around? Ah, those were good times.

LOL.  Yes, I am sure _that_ is what's on the mind of every potential buyer.  Being cursed by a shaman.  I also don't think I'd be particularly worried about anything seen on the Colbert show even though I'm sure it's all completely real! ;-)

I don't read every post here.. just haven't really seen anything that would worry me if I were a large company.  They know that some of their customers are less "grounded" than others.

And yes it's idealistic.. I actually work for a very large company but if you don't start off thinking that you're good enough to treat people fairly and honestly, it's highly unlikely that you're going to suddenly start doing it later.  So aim high, deal with reality as it happens.

And on that note.. I have this wonderful pot of warm water for you here, Mr Frog.  Why don't you sit back and relax for a few minutes..

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on January 23, 2013, 12:16:24 AM
LOL.  Yes, I am sure _that_ is what's on the mind of every potential buyer.  Being cursed by a shaman.

Forgive me. I forgot to add context. It was supposed to be a Korean shaman cursing them in front of their Seoul office. Here's an article about shamanism in modern Korean society for perspective:

http://busanhaps.com/article/feature-continuing-popularity-shamanism-south-korea

And a pretty quote:

Quote
However, because of their perceived spiritual power, many people fear them and, as a result, refrain from socializing with them. For the ordinary person, the musok-in is someone to be visited in times of trouble and avoided at other times. A writer or anthropologist planning to visit one is likely be warned by friends to be careful.

Still funny? If you are religious, imagine a holy man of your faith publicly throwing a curse upon your workplace.

I don't read every post here.. just haven't really seen anything that would worry me if I were a large company.

How about an accussation of money laundering? A denunciation to the FBI has been made, of course.

And on that note.. I have this wonderful pot of warm water for you here, Mr Frog.  Why don't you sit back and relax for a few minutes..

As much as it flatters me to be the main dish, I will hold on to my delicious legs for a little longer, if you don't mind. Thank you for the offer, though!

Edit: clarity.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on January 23, 2013, 01:14:31 AM
Just my .02.  Yes I know that a lot of businesses want to assume they have complete control over something, I have to hope there are some that are just fine with treating their customer base with respect.  If that's not something you'd do as a large business owner, definitely your choice.  I just think you'd be making a mistake.

Heh... is there any place left where haggling is still acceptable besides automotive sales and real estate?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blondeshell on January 23, 2013, 03:15:18 AM
Heh... is there any place left where haggling is still acceptable besides automotive sales and real estate?
In America? Probably at the local farmer's market.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Tanklet on January 23, 2013, 03:16:13 AM
In America? Probably at the local farmer's market.

Craigslist :)


Edited for spelling
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Terwyn on January 23, 2013, 03:30:28 AM
Actually, it is acceptable in most places. I have frequently gotten a lower price on items because of my negotiation skills.

Books with somewhat damaged covers can frequently be acquired for less than their stated price. It is how I acquired much of my library.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 23, 2013, 04:20:06 AM
Heh... is there any place left where haggling is still acceptable besides automotive sales and real estate?

Pawn Stars
Comic Book Men
American Pickers
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on January 23, 2013, 04:37:02 AM
it really depends on where you go, chain/franchise stores like most big name things (such as grocery stores, restaurants, theaters, ect) wont allow you to bargain for price, you pay what the label says, unless your part of their members thing where you get slight discount but theres no bartering involved

most bartering is in places mentioned by fatherxmas (pawn stores in general, small family owned businesses, ect)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on January 23, 2013, 04:48:26 AM
Definition of a "Concern Unicorn":

"...someone who is on one side of the discussion, but pretends to be a supporter of the other side with 'concerns.' The idea behind this is that your opponents will take your arguments more seriously if they think you're an ally.  [Such a person] posts on a blog thread, in the guise of 'concern,' to disrupt dialogue or undermine morale by pointing out that posters and/or the site may be getting themselves in trouble, usually with an authority or power. They point out problems that don't really exist. The intent is to derail, stifle, [and] control the dialogue."

"...a false flag pseudonym created by a user whose actual point of view is opposed to the one that the user claims to hold... posts in Web forums devoted to its declared point of view and attempts to sway the group's actions or opinions while claiming to share their goals, but with professed 'concerns.' The goal is to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt within the group."

"the message is: 'I have some concerns about your methods. If you did these things to make your message less effective, it would be more effective.' ...This preys on a willingness to debate critics and allow dissent; everyone wastes time discussing the matter and bending over backwards, so as not to appear intolerant of disagreement, all to the great amusement of the sender."

"Experienced participants in online forums know that the most effective way to discourage a unicorn is usually to ignore it."

Why am I posting this? Oh, no reason. Just a gentle reminder to everybody. Nothing to see here. Please carry on. :: Whistles innocently. ::
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on January 23, 2013, 05:58:24 AM
Definition of a "Concern Unicorn":

"...someone who is on one side of the discussion, but pretends to be a supporter of the other side with 'concerns.' The idea behind this is that your opponents will take your arguments more seriously if they think you're an ally.  [Such a person] posts on a blog thread, in the guise of 'concern,' to disrupt dialogue or undermine morale by pointing out that posters and/or the site may be getting themselves in trouble, usually with an authority or power. They point out problems that don't really exist. The intent is to derail, stifle, [and] control the dialogue."

"...a false flag pseudonym created by a user whose actual point of view is opposed to the one that the user claims to hold... posts in Web forums devoted to its declared point of view and attempts to sway the group's actions or opinions while claiming to share their goals, but with professed 'concerns.' The goal is to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt within the group."

"the message is: 'I have some concerns about your methods. If you did these things to make your message less effective, it would be more effective.' ...This preys on a willingness to debate critics and allow dissent; everyone wastes time discussing the matter and bending over backwards, so as not to appear intolerant of disagreement, all to the great amusement of the sender."

"Experienced participants in online forums know that the most effective way to discourage a unicorn is usually to ignore it."

Why am I posting this? Oh, no reason. Just a gentle reminder to everybody. Nothing to see here. Please carry on. :: Whistles innocently. ::

^
+1
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on January 23, 2013, 11:46:25 AM
Pawn Stars
Comic Book Men
American Pickers

LOL. Haggling is "history". Or what passes for "history" on cable TV.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on January 23, 2013, 12:02:15 PM
Heh... is there any place left where haggling is still acceptable besides automotive sales and real estate?

Auto dealers, real estate, eBay, craigslist and similar venues, many places selling used or locally produced items (e.g. farmer's markets, used book stores, stores selling the work of local artists, etc), some stores selling overstock or factory seconds type items, and many service providers in a variety of industries (e.g. computer service, housework, handy man jobs, gardening, etc). Basically everywhere but in stores, such as large chain retail outlets, where the employees aren't likely to be allowed that type of discretion. Heck, even my guy at Papa John's gave me a deal on my pizzas on New Year's.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on January 23, 2013, 04:18:42 PM
Definition of a "Concern Unicorn":

"...someone who is on one side of the discussion, but pretends to be a supporter of the other side with 'concerns.' The idea behind this is that your opponents will take your arguments more seriously if they think you're an ally.  [Such a person] posts on a blog thread, in the guise of 'concern,' to disrupt dialogue or undermine morale by pointing out that posters and/or the site may be getting themselves in trouble, usually with an authority or power. They point out problems that don't really exist. The intent is to derail, stifle, [and] control the dialogue."

"...a false flag pseudonym created by a user whose actual point of view is opposed to the one that the user claims to hold... posts in Web forums devoted to its declared point of view and attempts to sway the group's actions or opinions while claiming to share their goals, but with professed 'concerns.' The goal is to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt within the group."

"the message is: 'I have some concerns about your methods. If you did these things to make your message less effective, it would be more effective.' ...This preys on a willingness to debate critics and allow dissent; everyone wastes time discussing the matter and bending over backwards, so as not to appear intolerant of disagreement, all to the great amusement of the sender."

"Experienced participants in online forums know that the most effective way to discourage a unicorn is usually to ignore it."

Why am I posting this? Oh, no reason. Just a gentle reminder to everybody. Nothing to see here. Please carry on. :: Whistles innocently. ::

Well played. +1
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on January 23, 2013, 04:18:59 PM
Quote
Colette: Definition of a "Concern Unicorn": [...]

Point taken. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, probably way too much.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on January 23, 2013, 06:19:21 PM
Definition of a "Concern Unicorn" [...]

At the risk of sounding like one, it's very easy to throw this at someone who is making an honest attempt at moderation or playing Devil's Advocate. That doesn't invalidate the point, but it bears pointing out.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on January 23, 2013, 06:27:53 PM
Definition of a "Concern Unicorn":

Oh well, I've been exposed. There's no denying it now, I suppose, but hey, I almost made it! It bears emphasizing, however, that only someone with your insight could uncover my diabolical machinations.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Arctic Force. on January 23, 2013, 06:42:42 PM
Oh well, I've been exposed. There's no denying it now, I suppose

Admitting that you have a problem is the first step towards recovery ;P
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little Green Frog on January 23, 2013, 07:03:56 PM
Admitting that you have a problem is the first step towards recovery ;P

Regretfully that won't be possible. At least as long as Mr Taek Kim Jin is paying me a wage to sow discord and undermine morale of honest CoHers. In fact he is now furiously typing new corporate strategy to target select forum posters (they know who they are) with unicorning attempts. It's personal for him now, you see.

Edit: removing top secret corporate info that somehow leakead into my post.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Taceus Jiwede on January 23, 2013, 09:58:38 PM
Definition of a "Concern Unicorn":

"...someone who is on one side of the discussion, but pretends to be a supporter of the other side with 'concerns.' The idea behind this is that your opponents will take your arguments more seriously if they think you're an ally.  [Such a person] posts on a blog thread, in the guise of 'concern,' to disrupt dialogue or undermine morale by pointing out that posters and/or the site may be getting themselves in trouble, usually with an authority or power. They point out problems that don't really exist. The intent is to derail, stifle, [and] control the dialogue."

"...a false flag pseudonym created by a user whose actual point of view is opposed to the one that the user claims to hold... posts in Web forums devoted to its declared point of view and attempts to sway the group's actions or opinions while claiming to share their goals, but with professed 'concerns.' The goal is to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt within the group."

"the message is: 'I have some concerns about your methods. If you did these things to make your message less effective, it would be more effective.' ...This preys on a willingness to debate critics and allow dissent; everyone wastes time discussing the matter and bending over backwards, so as not to appear intolerant of disagreement, all to the great amusement of the sender."

"Experienced participants in online forums know that the most effective way to discourage a unicorn is usually to ignore it."

Why am I posting this? Oh, no reason. Just a gentle reminder to everybody. Nothing to see here. Please carry on. :: Whistles innocently. ::

I am sorry but I disagree I don't see Frog as one of these people at all.  He/She is simply expressing her opinion, one I actually agree with, just because you don't agree doesn't mean she is a unicorn.  He/She is expressing his/her concern that we may be coming off to strong, that is not trying to spread fear or self doubt in anyway at all.  Seriously guys shame on you for just calling anyone who disagrees with you a unicorn.  Go ahead I am sure I am one now, what you think is irrelevant I have been here sense day 1 fighting on behalf of CoH.  I donated, I signed, I spread, Ive done the call to actions, I not only paid for but spent about 8 hours mastering the "Want my City back song." That is about 600 dollars if you aren't aware of studio prices.  I have seen Little Frog here from day 1 too.  But hey Little Frog, we don't agree with everyone else so we must be unicorns trying to de-rail the conversation and spread fear and doubt.  Shame on you guys.  Especially you Colette, I have always been impressed with your rational and well thought out posts.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on January 23, 2013, 10:24:55 PM
Well Taceus, this is not just relative to this thread, but has been seen in many others as well. Whatever others do about the loss of CoX, Frog does not like it: from serious stuff to Victoria joking about having a sorcerer cast a hex on the company. He does not like it! The fact that others even think of defying NCStupid: he does not like it!  He just plain ol' does not like anyone taking action in a way that might harm or embarrass NCSoft.

People are finally starting to call him on it.

Thankfully it is not my fight, so that's all I'll say.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on January 23, 2013, 10:35:11 PM
Well Taceus, this is not just relative to this thread, but has been seen in many others as well. Whatever others do about the loss of CoX, Frog does not like it: from serious stuff to Victoria joking about having a sorcerer cast a hex on the company. He does not like it! The fact that others even think of defying NCStupid: he does not like it!  He just plain ol' does not like anyone taking action in a way that might harm or embarrass NCSoft.

People are finally starting to call him on it.

Thankfully it is not my fight, so that's all I'll say.

i concur, basically anytime i see them in a thread their posts are just massive derailment to the main topic of said thread
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Taceus Jiwede on January 23, 2013, 11:26:27 PM
Well Taceus, this is not just relative to this thread, but has been seen in many others as well. Whatever others do about the loss of CoX, Frog does not like it: from serious stuff to Victoria joking about having a sorcerer cast a hex on the company. He does not like it! The fact that others even think of defying NCStupid: he does not like it!  He just plain ol' does not like anyone taking action in a way that might harm or embarrass NCSoft.

People are finally starting to call him on it.

Thankfully it is not my fight, so that's all I'll say.

That I respect Illusionss, your point is valid and you aren't name calling.  And your two cents is always welcome to me just like everyone else.  That is what bothered me about the above post by Collete, it seems at times that most people here are willing to share their two cents, but not hear the two cents of someone who feels different.  At least in extreme cases of swinging opinions like this one.  I have seen Frog disagree with many, many people on this forum.  In fact I have disagreed with Frog on many topics. But I, personally, never once got the feeling he/she was a unicorn if anything someone who just happens to have completely different opinions of those on here.  Just to clarify I am not saying anyone is wrong here, just that I don't agree with the topic at hand
Quote
i concur, basically anytime i see them in a thread their posts are just massive derailment to the main topic of said thread
  Who is them NecrotechMaster?
Quote
derailment to the main topic of said thread
the OP is about the NCSoft Stock watch, we are all guilty of thread derailment here and the way this came to be is Little Frog talking about not being to aggressive and scaring off possible buyers or investors, that IS somewhat related to stock watch and it only stopped being related to stock watch when this little argument came up. 

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on January 24, 2013, 12:19:10 AM
  Who is them NecrotechMaster?

 the OP is about the NCSoft Stock watch, we are all guilty of thread derailment here and the way this came to be is Little Frog talking about not being to aggressive and scaring off possible buyers or investors, that IS somewhat related to stock watch and it only stopped being related to stock watch when this little argument came up.

was talking about Little Green Frog

and i guess so, the way they word their arguments though sounds more hostile than discussive though which is why most are seeing it as unicorning

this kind of argument comes up in almost every thread that ive seen Frog post in though which is why is why i see it as thread derailment
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on January 24, 2013, 12:24:35 AM
Before we go pointing fingers regarding derailing threads, would anyone care to look back and see what page we last discussed the state of the stock? Aside from the throwaway "it was at x, today" from a couple of pages ago. I believe there is even an Internet Rule regarding thread drift. :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 24, 2013, 01:19:36 AM
Just to add another rail, this about the capriciousness of the stock exchange, look what happened to Apple today.  Sales up 17.7%.  iPhone sales up 29.2%, iPad sales up 48.4%.  But profits were flat and the iPhone growth wasn't as high as analysts expected so hammer time, stock off 9.8% after hours (and after Apple's conference call).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Xieveral on January 24, 2013, 03:07:44 AM
They're crawling out of their hole this week. What happened to spark that?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: golemjoe on January 24, 2013, 03:46:15 AM
That I respect Illusionss, your point is valid and you aren't name calling.  And your two cents is always welcome to me just like everyone else.  That is what bothered me about the above post by Collete, it seems at times that most people here are willing to share their two cents, but not hear the two cents of someone who feels different.  At least in extreme cases of swinging opinions like this one.  I have seen Frog disagree with many, many people on this forum.  In fact I have disagreed with Frog on many topics. But I, personally, never once got the feeling he/she was a unicorn if anything someone who just happens to have completely different opinions of those on here.  Just to clarify I am not saying anyone is wrong here, just that I don't agree with the topic at hand  Who is them NecrotechMaster? the OP is about the NCSoft Stock watch, we are all guilty of thread derailment here and the way this came to be is Little Frog talking about not being to aggressive and scaring off possible buyers or investors, that IS somewhat related to stock watch and it only stopped being related to stock watch when this little argument came up.

Well it is what it is.. I tend to lurk like many.. but from where I sit, it seems like certain posters just have a love of the argument.  As in, MUST MAKE IT.. CANNOT RESIST.  Do I think the accusations are anything sinister?  No. Just the desire to be in the thick of it.  There are certain shades of green and red in a lot of "opposition posts".   I found Colette's post amusing, specifically because it didn't call anyone out by name.  YMMV.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Pinnacle Blue on January 24, 2013, 04:03:36 AM
Okay, that was interesting,  but... well, damn, I'm not gonna answer all of that because I'm not even sure what that was.  :P  I will say this: the idea is to partially unicorn NCSoft with a class-action lawsuit.  The main idea is to get them to relinquish the IP.  That means a suit would be filed with every intention of going to court, because my preliminary investigation reveals these things are not cheap to file.  So whoever files one has to be committed to see it through to the end.  That said, the hope would be that news of the suit would cause their stock to tank, them to panic, and cave without ever going to trial.

As for concerns about a buyer looking askance at the fan base committed enough to take that kind of drastic step?  I believe NCSoft's pancakery with regard to us would be unprecedented here if they themselves hadn't already set the precedent themselves several times over.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: kierthos on January 24, 2013, 04:13:59 AM
They're crawling out of their hole this week. What happened to spark that?
No idea. At least, I'm not seeing anything across a few easily checked news feeds.

*shrug* Maybe it's just a bull market on Korean stocks right now?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Pinnacle Blue on January 24, 2013, 04:15:38 AM
One more quick thing: sure, NCSoft did good for CoX in the past, but they violated the "one goat" rule.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 24, 2013, 04:54:10 AM
Okay, that was interesting,  but... well, damn, I'm not gonna answer all of that because I'm not even sure what that was.  :P  I will say this: the idea is to partially unicorn NCSoft with a class-action lawsuit.  The main idea is to get them to relinquish the IP.  That means a suit would be filed with every intention of going to court, because my preliminary investigation reveals these things are not cheap to file.  So whoever files one has to be committed to see it through to the end.  That said, the hope would be that news of the suit would cause their stock to tank, them to panic, and cave without ever going to trial.

As for concerns about a buyer looking askance at the fan base committed enough to take that kind of drastic step?  I believe NCSoft's pancakery with regard to us would be unprecedented here if they themselves hadn't already set the precedent themselves several times over.

To me the idea of a class action suit to force NCsoft to sell the IP is like a group of neighbors who use to borrow one guys sweet riding lawnmower to do their own yards but he now refuses to let them anymore now that he got a new one so they are suing to force him to sell the old one to them.  Unless there was some co-ownership agreement in place,  no court will force an entity to sell their wholly owned property against their will, period.  And in our case we were merely users of a service that is simply no longer available, never co-owners.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on January 24, 2013, 05:07:48 AM
To me the idea of a class action suit to force NCsoft to sell the IP is like a group of neighbors who use to borrow one guys sweet riding lawnmower to do their own yards but he now refuses to let them anymore now that he got a new one so they are suing to force him to sell the old one to them.  Unless there was some co-ownership agreement in place,  no court will force an entity to sell their wholly owned property against their will, period.  And in our case we were merely users of a service that is simply no longer available, never co-owners.

precise.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on January 24, 2013, 07:13:30 AM
Morgan Stanley still lists NCSoft as a stock to be dumped.  Wildstar is no closer to being rolled out, and I have it on extremely good authority that Carbine is operating under "two month warnings" now, which is NO way to run a company nor to get your creative people to do anything other than start looking for jobs elsewhere.  GW2 is still underperforming.  Despite all the trumpeting of projects to come with Nexxon, not a single project has been announced.  Games which were supposed to be released in China by now have not been.  Games which were supposed to have been released in the US by now have not been. 

Sooner or later someone is going to notice all these things.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on January 24, 2013, 07:22:24 AM
Morgan Stanley still lists NCSoft as a stock to be dumped.  Wildstar is no closer to being rolled out, and I have it on extremely good authority that Carbine is operating under "two month warnings" now, which is NO way to run a company nor to get your creative people to do anything other than start looking for jobs elsewhere.  GW2 is still underperforming.  Despite all the trumpeting of projects to come with Nexxon, not a single project has been announced.  Games which were supposed to be released in China by now have not been.  Games which were supposed to have been released in the US by now have not been. 

Sooner or later someone is going to notice all these things.

it sounds like its our job to start getting it publicized then lol

it sounds as a whole that they are falling behind and if they drop carbine that will be another major hit to their reputation with investors
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Taceus Jiwede on January 24, 2013, 08:27:03 AM
Morgan Stanley still lists NCSoft as a stock to be dumped.  Wildstar is no closer to being rolled out, and I have it on extremely good authority that Carbine is operating under "two month warnings" now, which is NO way to run a company nor to get your creative people to do anything other than start looking for jobs elsewhere.  GW2 is still underperforming.  Despite all the trumpeting of projects to come with Nexxon, not a single project has been announced.  Games which were supposed to be released in China by now have not been.  Games which were supposed to have been released in the US by now have not been. 

Sooner or later someone is going to notice all these things.

NCSoft has seen sunnier days, probably shouldn't have screwed all those people over.  Seems like they are running out of bridges.  Richard Garriot is probably behind this.  He is Lord British after all and has magic powers.

Edit: Left "have" out on accident
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 24, 2013, 09:47:24 AM
Morgan Stanley still lists NCSoft as a stock to be dumped.  Wildstar is no closer to being rolled out, and I have it on extremely good authority that Carbine is operating under "two month warnings" now, which is NO way to run a company nor to get your creative people to do anything other than start looking for jobs elsewhere.  GW2 is still underperforming.  Despite all the trumpeting of projects to come with Nexxon, not a single project has been announced.  Games which were supposed to be released in China by now have not been.  Games which were supposed to have been released in the US by now have not been. 

Sooner or later someone is going to notice all these things.

Morgan Stanley is one of 39 or 40 firms with analysts looking at NCsoft.  All but Morgan Stanley and one other has NCsoft as a buy or outperform.

As for Carbine and Wildstar, they are still cranking out their weekly blog to get the buzz on.  Of course Paragon had constant updates about new content right up to the plug being pulled but at that point CoH had cumulative sales of $170+ million.  Carbine is currently a big negative.  It would be a huge right off and a serious loss of face that the "Most Anticipated MMO for 2013" declared by multiple sites and game cons is still born.  As for the 2 month watch list, there is an old saying that goes "in every products development there comes a time to shoot the engineers and put it into production".

Yes B&S was suppose to be nearly out in China already but they had to do some serious retooling between the first and second closed tests.  Yes, it was to de-sleezify the female characters as well as toning down the blood shed.  However I hadn't heard anything about other titles being late to roll out.  The GW2 port was always targeting 4th quarter once the western version of the game came out.  Asian language ports can be somewhat difficult due to the much larger character set (which can be planed for) plus all the recorded dialog in the game.  Also don't forget that WoW had significant delays with several of their expansions in China.

Maybe Nexon can lend NCsoft some pointers because Nexon has a much larger presence in China than NCsoft.  That kind of experience is invaluable.

Yes there's been a joint project announcement back in November, Mabinogi Arena 2.

And I don't know where you are getting your information about GW2 but this evening all but 2 of the 24 American "worlds" have either very high populations or are closed to new characters.  However a lot of players are currently transferring characters about as the free server transfers are ending next week as they finally getting guest play  working.  Guesting allows you to play your character on your home and two other worlds every day.  Guest worlds last 24 hours before you can choose a different world.

Now do I think in 2 or 3 weeks that the 4Q and annual numbers will disappoint compared to analyst forecasts, sure, it never ceases to surprise me how bad "experts" can predict quarterly sales and earnings.  But unlike November I don't think we'll see another 25% drop in price because fundamentally the company is doing alright relative to other Korean game companies, even the larger software companies.  The P/E and P/S rations are now, after the correction that started Oct 2011, in an acceptable range.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lightslinger on January 24, 2013, 12:48:09 PM
To me the idea of a class action suit to force NCsoft to sell the IP is like a group of neighbors who use to borrow one guys sweet riding lawnmower to do their own yards but he now refuses to let them anymore now that he got a new one so they are suing to force him to sell the old one to them.  Unless there was some co-ownership agreement in place,  no court will force an entity to sell their wholly owned property against their will, period.  And in our case we were merely users of a service that is simply no longer available, never co-owners.

The idea of going after NCsoft because they closed ARE GAME!!! is silly and would be thrown out of court in extremely short order. Want to really scare NCsoft with a lawsuit? Dig up some dirt on them, get your hands on a memo or email that looks bad in the sunlight and threaten the lawsuit then. You could send NCsoft a certified letter saying "We're filing a lawsuit because you closed COH" and they'd welcome it. I'm positive a company like NCsoft probably does 100 illegal things a day, find an example of that to throw at them and now we're talking.

We don't need to be a community of sad refugees anymore, we need to be activists dedicated to making NCsoft hurt until they sell CoH.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on January 24, 2013, 02:19:12 PM
At this point I firmly believe that NCSoft will go down clutching that IP to their collective chest, last thing they ever do is going to be hold onto that IP with a death-grip and never, ever let go. The waves will wash over their head and they will die proud, CoX IP in hand. "NEVER WILL YOU TOUCH OUR SACRED PRECIOUS GAME!!" Now, since they hold it so very dear one is forced to wonder: then why kill the game in the first place? But no, logic does not apply here. No point in wondering.

They're not going to give it up. I have written a sale off as a lost cause; however I'm still hoping that the Great Bird of Karma flies back around and delivers a great big load of payback er.... whitewash onto their heads as they sink with the ship.

As you do to others, so may it be done unto you, NCSoft. May a great big "BOOM! HEADSHOT, LOL!" be the last thing you ever hear as a corporation.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on January 24, 2013, 03:17:45 PM
i dont think selling the IP is off the table yet, but i think it will be highly unlikely unless ncsoft is seriously failing as a company and goes bankrupt to which they will have to liquidate their assets
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on January 24, 2013, 03:30:46 PM
At this point I firmly believe that NCSoft will go down clutching that IP to their collective chest, last thing they ever do is going to be hold onto that IP with a death-grip and never, ever let go. The waves will wash over their head and they will die proud, CoX IP in hand. "NEVER WILL YOU TOUCH OUR SACRED PRECIOUS GAME!!" Now, since they hold it so very dear one is forced to wonder: then why kill the game in the first place? But no, logic does not apply here. No point in wondering.


Sometimes humans and logic dont meet up perfectly at the crossroads. And sometimes it just depends on the view, angle,  time of day, and which end of the gun a person find themselves on, and the eye of the beholder. What is very logical to one is insanity to another.

But in the end I think NCSoft isnt going anywhere. They are not even anywhere near floundering in debt to the point where they even have to worry about liquidating assets anytime soon unless someone does something illogical and gain a bunch of debt over the next couple of years.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ironwolf on January 24, 2013, 04:59:04 PM
I disagree on the viewpoint that NCSoft won't sell CoH.

They need a reason to do so and so far honestly we don't know what the team with Brian Clayton was offering. We know Valve may have offered $3 million.

I still think that an offer in the $10-12 million range is likely to spring it from their stickie hands. However if you look at this as a business your return on investment is a tough sell on that unless you have other uses for the IP. Disney could sneeze and raise that much cash and they have a built in advertising machine. So does Valve with Steam - but other smaller investors buying it outright and then having to spend cash advertising it would be a tough sale.

We love they game but businesses aren't charities and they love profits - rightfully so or they go bust. Don't panic - it has been 55 days only so far with 2 holidays in between.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on January 24, 2013, 05:20:41 PM
I'm not panicking, I just dont think they will sell. Out of spite, if nothing else. There is no way anyone is giving them eighty million dollars for an eight-year-old game, and they know it. Its just spitefulness at this point.

I am honestly amazed they are not asking 100 milion.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Codewalker on January 24, 2013, 05:31:46 PM
I'm not panicking, I just dont think they will sell. Out of spite, if nothing else. There is no way anyone is giving them eighty million dollars for an eight-year-old game, and they know it. Its just spitefulness at this point.

I am honestly amazed they are not asking 100 milion.

I have no evidence to back it up, but my gut feeling is that the $80m was the "no strings attached" counteroffer rather than the original price with all the crazy liability that they wanted the buyers to assume.

My theory is they are paranoid about some legal issues in the wake of the Gariott ruling and were looking for someone to take that risk off their hands -- or pay an equivalent amount of cash as somebody was afraid they might stand to lose.

It's still a ridiculous number, just a theory as to where it might have come from.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on January 24, 2013, 05:41:44 PM
I have no evidence to back it up, but my gut feeling is that the $80m was the "no strings attached" counteroffer rather than the original price with all the crazy liability that they wanted the buyers to assume.

My theory is they are paranoid about some legal issues in the wake of the Gariott ruling and were looking for someone to take that risk off their hands -- or pay an equivalent amount of cash as somebody was afraid they might stand to lose.

It's still a ridiculous number, just a theory as to where it might have come from.

 Is there evidence of the 80 million offer/price floating around?

Think I recalled some link to a small press release that Valve offered $3 million but nothing substantial bout the 80 million price besides hearsay that went viral inside this community.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on January 24, 2013, 05:52:10 PM
I have it on extremely good authority that Carbine is operating under "two month warnings" now, which is NO way to run a company nor to get your creative people to do anything other than start looking for jobs elsewhere.
Not trying to be argumentative here, as I can see how this could be...problematic, but what would be the right way to handle a studio of creative types who are not delivering on time? You needed it out this month, and they're still saying "it'll be done when it's done" or some variant. What is the proper way to motivate them to finish without driving them to quit?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on January 24, 2013, 05:55:28 PM
Not trying to be argumentative here, as I can see how this could be...problematic, but what would be the right way to handle a studio of creative types who are not delivering on time? You needed it out this month, and they're still saying "it'll be done when it's done" or some variant. What is the proper way to motivate them to finish without driving them to quit?

Cattle prod. :p
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on January 24, 2013, 06:03:38 PM
I think that might get them to quit FASTER. And possibly bring charges. >_>
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 24, 2013, 06:13:02 PM
It also depends what they are waiting on.  Art assets, animation assets, zone layout, missions, custom bosses, crafting/market infrastructure/UI.  Then there is always feature creep from above or within.  "Hey product X has this feature, how hard would it be at this point to put it in?"

Biggest problem with software development vs hardware development is the "soft" part.  Everyone knows it's just code, no molds, no inventory management, no part or sub-assembly suppliers, no change in the production line.  It's easy peasy right?

So is the underlying game client and server code complete and now they are just waiting on game content to be complete?  That's always the problem with MMOs, takes months and months to create content and then some dedicated fans blow though it in two weeks or less and demand more.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on January 24, 2013, 06:15:54 PM
Not trying to be argumentative here, as I can see how this could be...problematic, but what would be the right way to handle a studio of creative types who are not delivering on time? You needed it out this month, and they're still saying "it'll be done when it's done" or some variant. What is the proper way to motivate them to finish without driving them to quit?

I doubt anyone is telling them "It'll be done when its done," I'm thinking its more along the lines of what they are wanting done CANNOT be done within the specified time frame. If something is done but keeps needing bug-fixes or whatever, that might slow things down a bit. Some things are out of human control.

Then again, my own mother was all about the "I want x, and I dont care if something happens I BETTER get x by 12 noon today OR ELSE!!!" and she was completely serious about the punishment, as well as immune to stuff like certain things being out of the control of a ten year old, or logic in general. So I could understand having an employer tell people that, but as an adult I am not about to tolerate it, as I was forced to as a child. I cant speak for Carbine.  8)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ironwolf on January 24, 2013, 06:20:45 PM
The $80 million was to take everything including some undisclosed potential liabilities.

It was basically like an Ebay buy now button. If you wanted to keep the game running without shutting down and get rid of NCSoft - $80 million did it. After the game shutdown - the liabilities were removed and they could sell it straight up for the IP.

We have absolutely no public knowledge of any offers for the IP alone since the closure.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on January 24, 2013, 06:39:10 PM
The $80 million was to take everything including some undisclosed potential liabilities.

It was basically like an Ebay buy now button. If you wanted to keep the game running without shutting down and get rid of NCSoft - $80 million did it. After the game shutdown - the liabilities were removed and they could sell it straight up for the IP.

We have absolutely no public knowledge of any offers for the IP alone since the closure.

Yeah I heard what this 80 million price tag was supposed to entail.

But sounds like there is really no known source of this information is what I'm getting from your statement? It's all just all floating rumor?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ironwolf on January 24, 2013, 06:54:59 PM
This was at the time the best those in negotiation could release. Since then we have heard absolutely nothing from any source about any offers - at least posted publicly and not on Twitter.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on January 24, 2013, 07:02:51 PM
Since then we have heard absolutely nothing from any source about any offers - at least posted publicly and not on Twitter.

yeah I figured that.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Pinnacle Blue on January 24, 2013, 11:15:57 PM
The idea of going after NCsoft because they closed ARE GAME!!! is silly and would be thrown out of court in extremely short order. Want to really scare NCsoft with a lawsuit? Dig up some dirt on them, get your hands on a memo or email that looks bad in the sunlight and threaten the lawsuit then. You could send NCsoft a certified letter saying "We're filing a lawsuit because you closed COH" and they'd welcome it. I'm positive a company like NCsoft probably does 100 illegal things a day, find an example of that to throw at them and now we're talking.

We don't need to be a community of sad refugees anymore, we need to be activists dedicated to making NCsoft hurt until they sell CoH.

Oh, I'm sorry.  I didn't realize we had an actual lawyer present, y'all.  Well, if you can't tell the difference between "our" and "are" then I guess you must be the sharpest legal mind ever to grace these here forums, I reckon. :roll:

Sarcasm aside, in some cases in the U.S. you can file a suit against a company as a shareholder if your stock's value decreases significantly and you can prove the company didn't do some very obvious things to prevent that from happening.  NCSoft's stock is tanking after they closed a profitable game and pissed away a LOT of future customers and goodwill.  If they were based in the U.S., that would easily be grounds for a shareholder lawsuit.

Like I said, I am investigating.  This may not turn out to be a viable path but until I hear from an actual,  honest-to-goodness, degreed, certified, practicing lawyer, I'm not just going to stop looking into it on any one person's say so.  Ahem.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Tanklet on January 25, 2013, 12:14:18 AM
... unless ncsoft is seriously failing as a company and goes bankrupt to which they will have to liquidate their assets

This would be ideal.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on January 25, 2013, 01:07:02 AM
Oh, I'm sorry.  I didn't realize we had an actual lawyer present, y'all.  Well, if you can't tell the difference between "our" and "are" then I guess you must be the sharpest legal mind ever to grace these here forums, I reckon. :roll:

Sarcasm aside, in some cases in the U.S. you can file a suit against a company as a shareholder if your stock's value decreases significantly and you can prove the company didn't do some very obvious things to prevent that from happening.  NCSoft's stock is tanking after they closed a profitable game and pissed away a LOT of future customers and goodwill.  If they were based in the U.S., that would easily be grounds for a shareholder lawsuit.

Like I said, I am investigating.  This may not turn out to be a viable path but until I hear from an actual,  honest-to-goodness, degreed, certified, practicing lawyer, I'm not just going to stop looking into it on any one person's say so.  Ahem.

Go for it.


But there stock have been going down overall since Nov. 2011 at least and still above their May 2009 level and have risen the past 5 days. Not exactly tanking...at least not yet. But still, go for it. Never know until you try.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on January 25, 2013, 04:05:55 AM
its a good plan, but it could easily be turned around, if we only threatened to sue them if we had the evidence that could be considered blackmail and make us look bad

have to be careful with what you do with sensitive information
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lightslinger on January 25, 2013, 04:31:44 AM
Yeah, my bad that you didn't infer the intentional misspelling "are"="our" in order to be silly. I also missed the point where I made myself to be a lawyer AND the part where I told you to stop looking into legal counsel because of my proclaimed lawyerness. I'll blame the spellcheck or Siri for that I guess :shrug:

Do whatever you'd like, just pointing out something. No, we cant sue because they closed CoH, end of story. If your investigation turns up a different answer than that I would love to be proven wrong. We are a community after all, you volunteered info about something you were doing, am I not allowed to comment on it, albeit with a little snark?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on January 25, 2013, 05:02:59 AM
Yeah I heard what this 80 million price tag was supposed to entail.

But sounds like there is really no known source of this information is what I'm getting from your statement? It's all just all floating rumor?

I was NEVER able to find a reliable source for that number.  Brian's number was the much-more-reasonable one that was 1/8 of that price.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on January 25, 2013, 05:16:46 AM
I was NEVER able to find a reliable source for that number.

Same here.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Terwyn on January 25, 2013, 06:23:26 AM
Where did it come from, then?

I'm disappointed in myself for reporting on it if it wasn't as reliable a number as I had thought.

I suppose everyone makes such failures of confirmation of evidence on occasion.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Golden Girl on January 25, 2013, 06:31:16 AM
This would be ideal.

Example: http://www.joystiq.com/2013/01/24/court-approves-thq-asset-sales/
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on January 25, 2013, 07:05:47 AM
Where did it come from, then?

I'm disappointed in myself for reporting on it if it wasn't as reliable a number as I had thought.

I suppose everyone makes such failures of confirmation of evidence on occasion.

Hey we are all only human.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 25, 2013, 08:02:24 AM
I was NEVER able to find a reliable source for that number.  Brian's number was the much-more-reasonable one that was 1/8 of that price.

But you were the one who first mentioned it.

Well now, you have to remember that what is LEGAL and what is INTERESTING are two different things.  For instance, apparently it is not fraudulent for NCSoft to value all their IPs together at about $3m for tax purposes, yet tell their stockholders that CoH itself is worth $80m.  It's not fraudulent...but it's not ethical, and I bet their stockholders don't know that little tidbit of information.  And that is the sort of thing they would find very difficult to explain to a CNN business reporter.

And later.

Let me say I very recently got the $80 million figure from a third-party source I consider trustworthy, along with some other information that would probably send blood pressures soaring, but I need to get confirmation of that figure from the parties directly involved.

I assume you meant you couldn't get another independent source to confirm it.  So your trustworthy source was giving you a number that when shared would naturally outrage us all and thus be perpetuated throughout the MMO media as we spread the story?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Taceus Jiwede on January 25, 2013, 08:36:48 AM
Brian's number was the much-more-reasonable one that was 1/8 of that price.

Excellent if this is true I can put my complicated yet brilliant plan into motion!

Now for step 1:  Win Mega Millions and buy CoH from NCSoft with literally Wheelbarrows full of won, I would use American currency but you can fill more Wheelbarrows with won
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on January 25, 2013, 10:35:14 AM
But you were the one who first mentioned it.

And later.

I assume you meant you couldn't get another independent source to confirm it.  So your trustworthy source was giving you a number that when shared would naturally outrage us all and thus be perpetuated throughout the MMO media as we spread the story?

You have made a fundamental error in conflating two very different numbers.  You are mistaking the number pulled from the stockholder's report on the value of the CoH IP for a number that NCSoft was ASKING for the CoH IP.  The 80 million figure is right there in the stockholder's report for anyone to see, including you.  I was never able to confirm that NCSoft ever ASKED 80 million.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 25, 2013, 10:49:38 AM
You have made a fundamental error in conflating two very different numbers.  You are mistaking the number pulled from the stockholder's report on the value of the CoH IP for a number that NCSoft was ASKING for the CoH IP.  The 80 million figure is right there in the stockholder's report for anyone to see, including you.  I was never able to confirm that NCSoft ever ASKED 80 million.

Link please because I believe I have all of their stockholder reports and I don't remember seeing either the $3 million or $80 million number.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: UruzSix on January 25, 2013, 12:47:14 PM
(https://i.imgur.com/aQXng.gif)

... Popcorn, anyone?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on January 25, 2013, 03:31:06 PM
...Okay, well It looks like NCSoft's bump was just that. Their stocks could still rise, but it looks like this was a normal fluctuation in what looks like a brief plateau. Would you call a flat spot after a drop a plateau? A valley? A meadow?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on January 25, 2013, 05:13:51 PM
Usually a valley, I think.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 25, 2013, 06:05:09 PM
...Okay, well It looks like NCSoft's bump was just that. Their stocks could still rise, but it looks like this was a normal fluctuation in what looks like a brief plateau. Would you call a flat spot after a drop a plateau? A valley? A meadow?
Yes, because being up 6% for the week is a plateau and dropping 0.33% from the closing high for the week is a downturn.

Anyways the big date to remember is Feburary 5th is when the 4Q and annual numbers come out.  The next big move is then.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: General Idiot on January 26, 2013, 05:29:20 AM
I'll keep hoping it'll be a move downward then. Because I'm not bitter about CoH, not at all.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Hyperstrike on January 26, 2013, 05:45:35 AM
It keeps bouncing like someone who's been hung with a bungee cord...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on January 26, 2013, 06:04:34 AM
It keeps bouncing like someone who's been hung with a bungee cord...
sounds like average stock.

Like one of those heart monitor things.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on January 26, 2013, 07:03:41 AM
It keeps bouncing like someone who's been hung with a bungee cord...

Maybe it needs to be tied around the neck instead.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Taceus Jiwede on January 26, 2013, 07:13:00 AM
It keeps bouncing like someone who's been hung with a bungee cord...

Lol, that is a seriously morbid joke.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on January 28, 2013, 12:06:08 AM
"Anyway, the big date to remember is February 5th, when the fourth quarter and annual numbers come out.  The next big move is then."

I'll take some of that popcorn, Uruzsix.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: UruzSix on January 28, 2013, 05:36:12 AM
I'll take some of that popcorn, Uruzsix.

Let's see, they had two million boxes of GW2 sold within a week or two of launch, didn't get their third million until the holidays...

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.milehimama.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2009%2F06%2Freal-genius-popcorn-house.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on January 28, 2013, 07:09:55 AM
Let's see, they had two million boxes of GW2 sold within a week or two of launch, didn't get their third million until the holidays...


to top that off, they were expecting 6 million copies at launch lol

just to twist the knife in their wound lol
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 28, 2013, 07:23:30 AM
to top that off, they were expecting 6 million copies at launch lol

just to twist the knife in their wound lol

No they weren't.  The original game only sold 7 million copies in 7 years, counting expansions.  No sane person would expect or suggest 6 million at launch was possible.  However like many things, repetition of this misconception makes it impossible to kill off this rumor.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on January 28, 2013, 07:47:29 AM
(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.milehimama.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2009%2F06%2Freal-genius-popcorn-house.jpg)

If we can just get control of the device that made that popcorn, our NCsoft problems will be solved.  8)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Atlantea on January 28, 2013, 04:07:05 PM
Let's see, they had two million boxes of GW2 sold within a week or two of launch, didn't get their third million until the holidays...

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.milehimama.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2009%2F06%2Freal-genius-popcorn-house.jpg)

"This? This is ice. This is what happens to water when it gets too cold. This? This is Taek Kim Jin. This is what happens to people when they get too sexually frustrated."

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: UruzSix on January 28, 2013, 06:20:33 PM
Honestly, though, what I want to keep an eye most on is this chart:

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=mmofallout.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F11%2Fncsoftq3-607x263.png)

Does Lineage and Aion rebound? Does GW2 and B&S hold steady or even trend up?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on January 28, 2013, 06:31:53 PM
Good question. So far, the drop in Lineage and Aion coincides with B&S and GW2's release - I suspect a fair chunk of their subscribers are simply cannibalization from their other games.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on January 28, 2013, 06:47:38 PM
thats something i expect we will find out when the 4Q numbers are released

i agree that it does look like ncsofts newer games just cannibalized subs from older games

it would be nice if they did list coh and gw1 for a comparison
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: WildFire15 on January 28, 2013, 07:48:12 PM
well I can't see that slight raise in the 'Other' line between Q1 2012 and Q3 2012 having anything to do with Guild Wars and I think we all know what that line's decline is about.

I reckon GW2 and B&S will have an increase, they are new after all, while Lineage and Aion likely will continue going down, but probably not as much as they did between Q1 and Q3. Time will tell.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on January 28, 2013, 09:10:04 PM
They're dropping again. Down about 9000, scraping a new low of 141.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: srmalloy on January 28, 2013, 10:03:11 PM
Good question. So far, the drop in Lineage and Aion coincides with B&S and GW2's release - I suspect a fair chunk of their subscribers are simply cannibalization from their other games.

It looks to me as if Aion has been sliding since about Q4 2009, after the shiny wore off and people started seeing how abusive the grind was -- and the more precipitous drop starting Q1/Q2 2012 precedes the GW2/B&S releases, so unless it's people blowing off Aion to wait for GW2/B&S, Aion's got more problems than just the two new shinies. But there isn't enough data on either of the new games to judge by yet; I'm hoping we'll see the same kind of 'early peak and slide' that Aion showed.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 28, 2013, 11:00:07 PM
Honestly, though, what I want to keep an eye most on is this chart:

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=mmofallout.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F11%2Fncsoftq3-607x263.png)

Does Lineage and Aion rebound? Does GW2 and B&S hold steady or even trend up?

Duplicated the chart with CoH, GW and TR.

(https://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a213/FatherXmas/Charts/NCsoftGames_zps4faf0b49.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mistress Urd on January 28, 2013, 11:51:29 PM
They're dropping again. Down about 9000, scraping a new low of 141.

Always good for the stock to trend in the correct direction.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DarkCurrent on January 29, 2013, 01:16:40 AM
Odd thing with that graph is that 'other' is supposed to include CoH (?), but is lower than the numbers Xmas is showing for CoH alone.

As for GW2 and BS, I would be shocked if those two show increased sales.  Maybe slight, but based on the history of other games, the initial spike of sales is quickly followed by drops or plateaus.

BS hasn't gone beyond Korea, correct?  If not, I don't see sales going anywhere but down.  GW2 probably had a bump with that Time article, but there's been some bad press as well about it, so could be a wash.  What else is NCSoft selling that would affect their Q4 numbers positively?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ironwolf on January 29, 2013, 02:11:07 AM
CoH IP.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: saipaman on January 29, 2013, 02:52:04 AM
I doubt it's a COH IP sale.  At this point, it couldn't be worth much compared to capitalization of NCSoft.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 29, 2013, 06:21:36 AM
Odd thing with that graph is that 'other' is supposed to include CoH (?), but is lower than the numbers Xmas is showing for CoH alone.

As for GW2 and BS, I would be shocked if those two show increased sales.  Maybe slight, but based on the history of other games, the initial spike of sales is quickly followed by drops or plateaus.

BS hasn't gone beyond Korea, correct?  If not, I don't see sales going anywhere but down.  GW2 probably had a bump with that Time article, but there's been some bad press as well about it, so could be a wash.  What else is NCSoft selling that would affect their Q4 numbers positively?

I'm not sure if UruzSix's graph was his own or lifted from somewhere else but it simply didn't include CoH or the original Guild Wars series, I assume because they weren't broken out in the last quarter.  They simply decided only to list the top X number of games based on sales and if you aren't one of those you get shoved into "Other".  This included games like Exteel, Dungeon Runners, Auto Assault, small games that are only available in Asia and games they decided to no longer list separately, like Tabula Rasa in it's closing quarters.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 29, 2013, 06:24:36 AM
They're dropping again. Down about 9000, scraping a new low of 141.

Yep, it's called profit taking.  Stock went up 6% last week, let's pocket some of that money.  Now it's back up to 145.5 as I'm writing this.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: WildFire15 on January 29, 2013, 11:12:28 AM
Duplicated the chart with CoH, GW and TR.

(https://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a213/FatherXmas/Charts/NCsoftGames_zps4faf0b49.jpg)

Hmm, I was under the impression the first Guild Wars was more successful then that. Also, I can't see how games like Trickster Online and PangYa could contribute massively towards that pretty big bump in the 'other' line, unless I'm underestimating the power of F2P games like that
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 29, 2013, 11:57:53 AM
Hmm, I was under the impression the first Guild Wars was more successful then that. Also, I can't see how games like Trickster Online and PangYa could contribute massively towards that pretty big bump in the 'other' line, unless I'm underestimating the power of F2P games like that

In what way?  It had significantly higher sales than CoH until third quarter 2008.  In some quarters nearly 3x the sales.

As for the "Other" line they did acquire Ntreev for a reason.  You tend not to buy a company that doesn't have a good cash flow.  As for those games, after checking out screen shots, I starting to see a pattern with them and B&S.  Very anime fantasy loli girl character design.

Edit: you can't see how successful a cash item shop with numerous P2W options in a golf/rpg game?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: WildFire15 on January 29, 2013, 12:41:04 PM
In what way?  It had significantly higher sales than CoH until third quarter 2008.  In some quarters nearly 3x the sales.

As for the "Other" line they did acquire Ntreev for a reason.  You tend not to buy a company that doesn't have a good cash flow.  As for those games, after checking out screen shots, I starting to see a pattern with them and B&S.  Very anime fantasy loli girl character design.

Edit: you can't see how successful a cash item shop with numerous P2W options in a golf/rpg game?

Ah, didn't realize they only acquired Ntreev in 2011. When I noticed it on the wikipedia article with such a similar name, I thought they'd held it for a lot longer. So yes, it makes more sense now, even if it does enforce the Korean gamer stereotype (anything with anime girls in and they're all over it)

As for Guild Wars, I thought it would be above the 25000 line more regularly and occasionally challenging Lineage. Hell, I thought it would have been more consistent rather then jumping up and down as it did before settling only slightly above and then dropping under CoH. They have just sunk masses into it's sequel, after all, so I did think it had been more of a run away success then CoH was.

I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm guessing if Guild Wars didn't have 3 expansions in fairly quick succession (2 in 2006 and a third in 2007 and a forth in 2010), then it would have dropped under CoH and likely stayed there. Except for City of Villians release, CoH has remained surprisingly consistent. Hell, it shows how much NCsoft  is focused on the short term (something it shares with all major publishers these days) as they put a huge amount into Guild Wars 2 after it's successor boasted at least over a million accounts at one stage (that was in 2006, haven't been able to find any real numbers yet) yet never significantly outperformed CoH for long, an under advertised niche game with a subscription model and fewer players.

That's just my observations of it and they may be wrong. Time will tell if GW2 follows a similar pattern, but being a pay then free game, it's probably to be expected.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: UruzSix on January 29, 2013, 02:15:56 PM
I'm not sure if UruzSix's graph was his own or lifted from somewhere else but it simply didn't include CoH or the original Guild Wars series, I assume because they weren't broken out in the last quarter.  They simply decided only to list the top X number of games based on sales and if you aren't one of those you get shoved into "Other".  This included games like Exteel, Dungeon Runners, Auto Assault, small games that are only available in Asia and games they decided to no longer list separately, like Tabula Rasa in it's closing quarters.

Mea culpa, I yoinked it from MMO Fallout's post on NCSoft's third quarter report. CoH and GW weren't listed independently in the report, so they didn't make the chart.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on January 29, 2013, 06:13:36 PM
Down 4000 in two days. I hope FatherXmas is wrong, and this isn't profit-taking.

They haven't reversed their massive loss in Novenber, and appear to be sinking very, very slowly. Does anyone know if they have some other cool game in the pipe to buoy them?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Aggelakis on January 29, 2013, 06:22:17 PM
As for Guild Wars, I thought it would be above the 25000 line more regularly and occasionally challenging Lineage. Hell, I thought it would have been more consistent rather then jumping up and down as it did before settling only slightly above and then dropping under CoH. They have just sunk masses into it's sequel, after all, so I did think it had been more of a run away success then CoH was.
Guild Wars didn't have a subscription, so there was nothing to sustain them other than their extremely-meager cash shop and late-buyers between expansions. The bumps basically coincide with new boxes. Nothing surprising in there. Guild Wars sold more than six million copies of the game (plus an unverifiable amount of cash shop sales). Six million boxes times twenty to sixty per box (depending on the box). That is more money than City brought in over its whole life. And GW still has boxes out there and their cash shop is still present.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: WildFire15 on January 29, 2013, 07:45:16 PM
Guild Wars didn't have a subscription, so there was nothing to sustain them other than their extremely-meager cash shop and late-buyers between expansions. The bumps basically coincide with new boxes. Nothing surprising in there. Guild Wars sold more than six million copies of the game (plus an unverifiable amount of cash shop sales). Six million boxes times twenty to sixty per box (depending on the box). That is more money than City brought in over its whole life. And GW still has boxes out there and their cash shop is still present.

I know Guild Wars didn't have a subscription... where did all these numbers come from again?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 29, 2013, 09:03:56 PM
Ah, didn't realize they only acquired Ntreev in 2011. When I noticed it on the wikipedia article with such a similar name, I thought they'd held it for a lot longer. So yes, it makes more sense now, even if it does enforce the Korean gamer stereotype (anything with anime girls in and they're all over it)

As for Guild Wars, I thought it would be above the 25000 line more regularly and occasionally challenging Lineage. Hell, I thought it would have been more consistent rather then jumping up and down as it did before settling only slightly above and then dropping under CoH. They have just sunk masses into it's sequel, after all, so I did think it had been more of a run away success then CoH was.

I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm guessing if Guild Wars didn't have 3 expansions in fairly quick succession (2 in 2006 and a third in 2007 and a forth in 2010), then it would have dropped under CoH and likely stayed there. Except for City of Villians release, CoH has remained surprisingly consistent. Hell, it shows how much NCsoft  is focused on the short term (something it shares with all major publishers these days) as they put a huge amount into Guild Wars 2 after it's successor boasted at least over a million accounts at one stage (that was in 2006, haven't been able to find any real numbers yet) yet never significantly outperformed CoH for long, an under advertised niche game with a subscription model and fewer players.

That's just my observations of it and they may be wrong. Time will tell if GW2 follows a similar pattern, but being a pay then free game, it's probably to be expected.

Well that is GW's income model.  Sell the game and expansions, like any standard non MMO video game and add an item shop.  They also came out with combo box sets (game + one or more expansions) once the sales of each expansion died down.  This kept at least a version of the game on store shelves for much longer than CoH did plus the non-subscription nature of it, long before the move to hybrid/F2P, eliminated a barrier that may have stopped some people from purchasing it on a whim to try it out.

Nexon claims for a F2P game to be successful, they are looking at only 10% of the players to use the cash shop at least once a month.

I know Guild Wars didn't have a subscription... where did all these numbers come from again?

NCsoft's quarterly reports.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 29, 2013, 09:22:15 PM
Down 4000 in two days. I hope FatherXmas is wrong, and this isn't profit-taking.

They haven't reversed their massive loss in Novenber, and appear to be sinking very, very slowly. Does anyone know if they have some other cool game in the pipe to buoy them?

Yes, that's why November's drop, moving the support level from around 200 to 140 is generally called a correction.  The 3Q numbers weren't as pretty as predicted/promised/"fool me once shame on you, fool me a dozen times shame on me" and those waiting for the stock to move upward after the drop in September bailed, until the price hit around 140.

So the big question is will the 4Q and annual numbers in a week be expected, significantly higher or lower?  If they break 200,000 million won in sales for the quarter I think the stock's support level will go up since it makes the analysts (who have been collectively lowering their 2013 numbers over the last few weeks) will look like they know what they are talking about (remember all but 2 of 39 are rating NCsoft as a Buy or Outperform the market).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on January 29, 2013, 09:35:22 PM
Guild Wars didn't have a subscription, so there was nothing to sustain them other than their extremely-meager cash shop and late-buyers between expansions. The bumps basically coincide with new boxes. Nothing surprising in there. Guild Wars sold more than six million copies of the game (plus an unverifiable amount of cash shop sales). Six million boxes times twenty to sixty per box (depending on the box). That is more money than City brought in over its whole life. And GW still has boxes out there and their cash shop is still present.

$20-60 was the retail price, NCsoft only got whatever they sold the box to the reseller for (no more than about $20 even for the initial release in relatively small quantities for a no-clout retailer). I believe the lifetime revenues for CoH and GW were actually fairly similar through CoH's closure.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 29, 2013, 10:11:42 PM
$20-60 was the retail price, NCsoft only got whatever they sold the box to the reseller for (no more than about $20 even for the initial release in relatively small quantities for a no-clout retailer). I believe the lifetime revenues for CoH and GW were actually fairly similar through CoH's closure.

Yes and no.  GW still made lifetime around $15 million USD more than CoH but in a year's less time ($198 million Vs $183 million).  However a lot of that money came over a much shorter length of time.  It took GW only 3 years to reach $150 million in sales.  It took CoH almost twice as long to reach that mark (12 versus 23 quarters).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: kierthos on January 31, 2013, 03:36:54 AM
Ladies and Gents, NCSoft stock is at a new 52-week low (or it was a few minutes ago). They are currently down 6000 from the previous day's trading start.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on January 31, 2013, 04:19:58 AM
Ladies and Gents, NCSoft stock is at a new 52-week low (or it was a few minutes ago). They are currently down 6000 from the previous day's trading start.

how much longer you think before they will be under 130k won? lol
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: eabrace on January 31, 2013, 04:27:27 AM
Ladies and Gents, NCSoft stock is at a new 52-week low (or it was a few minutes ago). They are currently down 6000 from the previous day's trading start.
(https://i679.photobucket.com/albums/vv152/zacwyl/ManiacalLaughter.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Xieveral on January 31, 2013, 04:38:58 AM
how much longer you think before they will be under 130k won? lol

Considering there hasn't been much good business news for them and the upcoming Q1 report, I'd bet all my inf on a steep plunge in February. I think they might scrape the 130k mark then yo-yo between 130-145 for the next quarter (unless they pull a miracle out of their butts).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 31, 2013, 04:56:57 AM
Hmm.  I wonder if the report is leaking early?  Several of the analysts reduced their 2013 earning and sales estimates yet again.  However they are sticking with their Buy/Outperform call.

I'm betting that GW2 didn't come near some of the insane numbers that some of the analysts predicted while the "power 4" remain relatively flat.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Tubbius on January 31, 2013, 05:02:00 AM
Why does their stock graph remind me of my grades both times I had to take Calculus, in high school and in college?

(Hint: I'm an English major twice over, B.A. and M.A., and I teach English for a living.)

:)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: mikoroshi on January 31, 2013, 05:28:15 AM
Why does their stock graph remind me of my grades both times I had to take Calculus, in high school and in college?

(Hint: I'm an English major twice over, B.A. and M.A., and I teach English for a living.)

:)

Based on this I can only assume your students get passing grades all the time.  Because, you know, inability to mark 'em down?  I tease.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Tubbius on January 31, 2013, 05:32:30 AM
:)

They get the grades they deserve!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: mikoroshi on January 31, 2013, 05:40:21 AM
This class gets the grades they deserve, not the grades they need?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Joshex on January 31, 2013, 06:48:48 AM
as I just noted in another thread, it seems NCSoft has a touch of Internetcancer. people form all walks of the internet and business are reeling from them lest they too possibly get contaminated with this form of cancer.

may it consume them well!

we can always pickthrough thier remains and slavage what we need at a government auditor's auction.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 31, 2013, 08:46:30 AM
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on January 31, 2013, 04:08:36 PM
I appreciate you're ensuring we don't get our hopes up prematurely, FatherXmas. It's wise. There appears to be heavy trading. Interesting.

I'm not buying my party supplies just yet. But looking at the long-range graph, they have never been able to regain their peak share price of late 2011. Unless they have some ace up their sleeve, their current trajectory leads to buyout by mid-2014.

If NCSoft goes belly-up, how much would we need to ensure we can buy CoH at the liquidation auction? We'd need to rent or buy a server too....

"It seems NCSoft has a touch of Internetcancer."

Hmm... should I get back to making meme images?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 31, 2013, 05:56:49 PM
I'm not being Pro-NCsoft, I'm just trying to convey that stock price, while subject to public opinion to a degree, isn't something that will negatively impact the company.  It won't even go to 0 simply because there is a lower bound that's dictated by the actual company fundamentals like sales and profit.  It's what those 40 or so analysts say that will affect the stock price way more than a news piece about how they abandon entire communities of players with little or no explanation as to why.

Yesterday I was at the gym watch CNBC after the market closed and watched the second by second coverage of Facebook's stock price plumet in after hours trading when they released their earnings for the quarter and year (initial drop after hours was 8%).  Even though the quarter outperformed the consensus estimates it got hammered because one analyst downgraded from a buy to a hold (2 steps).  Just one guy even when others are raising their estimates on both sales and profits in 2013 for the company.  The stock is almost back up to where it closed yesterday.

The market moves in mysterious ways.  It doesn't always make sense and using it as a scoreboard for "pain inflicted" just doesn't make any sense.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on January 31, 2013, 06:09:11 PM
How much longer you think before they will be under 130k won?"

Only about 8,000 to go.

"I'm not being Pro-NCsoft."

I doubt anybody here is.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on January 31, 2013, 06:09:23 PM
I'm not buying my party supplies just yet. But looking at the long-range graph, they have never been able to regain their peak share price of late 2011. Unless they have some ace up their sleeve, their current trajectory leads to buyout by mid-2014.

If NCSoft goes belly-up, how much would we need to ensure we can buy CoH at the liquidation auction? We'd need to rent or buy a server too....

Pure fantasy I'm afraid. If the stock craters and, say, Nexon decides to cut their losses and sell their stock, who do you think will be first in line to buy it back?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on January 31, 2013, 06:14:24 PM
I'm not being Pro-NCsoft, I'm just trying to convey that stock price, while subject to public opinion to a degree, isn't something that will negatively impact the company.  It won't even go to 0 simply because there is a lower bound that's dictated by the actual company fundamentals like sales and profit.  It's what those 40 or so analysts say that will affect the stock price way more than a news piece about how they abandon entire communities of players with little or no explanation as to why.

Yesterday I was at the gym watch CNBC after the market closed and watched the second by second coverage of Facebook's stock price plumet in after hours trading when they released their earnings for the quarter and year (initial drop after hours was 8%).  Even though the quarter outperformed the consensus estimates it got hammered because one analyst downgraded from a buy to a hold (2 steps).  Just one guy even when others are raising their estimates on both sales and profits in 2013 for the company.  The stock is almost back up to where it closed yesterday.

The market moves in mysterious ways.  It doesn't always make sense and using it as a scoreboard for "pain inflicted" just doesn't make any sense.

basically.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 31, 2013, 06:38:32 PM
Pure fantasy I'm afraid. If the stock craters and, say, Nexon decides to cut their losses and sell their stock, who do you think will be first in line to buy it back?

Their CEO.  He gets back to 25% ownership and made a nice profit to boot.

How much longer you think before they will be under 130k won?"

Only about 8,000 to go.

"I'm not being Pro-NCsoft."

I doubt anybody here is.

I don't think it will go much lower before the numbers come out.  I think larger stockholders are "placing their bets" by either selling off because they expect it to go down or buying because they expect it to go up. 

The last four years they've had annual sales of 346.8 (billion KrW) in 2008; 634.7 in 2009; 655.9 in 2010; 608.9 in 2011.  So far in 2012 they have had sales of 470.2.  Now NCsoft was hoping for 800 in 2012 which is laughable, it would be miraculous if they hit 700.  However surpassing the 2009 number is in the realm of possibility.

Of course the great stock seer (tongue firmly in cheek), KDB Daewoo Securities, is predicting that NCsoft will hit 745 with GW2 bringing in a whopping 118 in sales during the 4th quarter (they only brought in 46 the quarter before).  They also see a big bounce in Lineage sales (from 38 to 63) while Aion, Lineage II and B&S remain flat relative to the third quarter.  That's an awful lot of eggs in GW2's basket and I can't see how they could hit that number.

This is an analyst who once had the target price at 600,000 for 2012.  Their current target price is 280,000 for 2013.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kitsudragon on January 31, 2013, 07:57:10 PM
At the risk of being buried in information, seeing as none of that makes any sense to me, do you have any sites a novice could go to where they could learn what all that means?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on January 31, 2013, 08:24:44 PM
Yesterday I was at the gym watch CNBC after the market closed and watched the second by second coverage of Facebook's stock price plumet in after hours trading when they released their earnings for the quarter and year (initial drop after hours was 8%).  Even though the quarter outperformed the consensus estimates it got hammered because one analyst downgraded from a buy to a hold (2 steps).  Just one guy even when others are raising their estimates on both sales and profits in 2013 for the company.  The stock is almost back up to where it closed yesterday.

See, this is exactly why I have always felt that the Unity Rally could have been responsible for that one temporary decline in stocks (that just happened to start the Monday after that weekend). These knee-jerk reactions are unbelievable sometimes. It's like some kind of 'shellshocked' person diving into his basement every time there's a gentle breeze, thinking he's about to get hammered by a tornado.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: srmalloy on January 31, 2013, 08:30:08 PM
Ladies and Gents, NCSoft stock is at a new 52-week low (or it was a few minutes ago). They are currently down 6000 from the previous day's trading start.

Ghu, but the six-month view of their stock prices over at Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS) looks pretty...  (defaults to 3-month view; go up and click on '6 mos' under the row of blue buttons)

Although I'm not sure that NCSoft's decision to shutter City of Heroes wasn't just another set of nails in the coffin -- if you look at the two-year view it's pretty clear that they've been on a long-term slide since October of 2011; a longer view shows their stock price at a pretty steady climb up to that point, and a steady decline since then. There are two rallies that level off and decline again, then a third that -- almost perfectly timed to the Unity rally -- doesn't even bother leveling off before doing a split-S and taking off for the ground. It looks to me as if NCSoft has been mismanaged for going on two years now, and the closure of City of Heroes is only one symptom of that.

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 31, 2013, 10:03:41 PM
Ghu, but the six-month view of their stock prices over at Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS) looks pretty...  (defaults to 3-month view; go up and click on '6 mos' under the row of blue buttons)

Although I'm not sure that NCSoft's decision to shutter City of Heroes wasn't just another set of nails in the coffin -- if you look at the two-year view it's pretty clear that they've been on a long-term slide since October of 2011; a longer view shows their stock price at a pretty steady climb up to that point, and a steady decline since then. There are two rallies that level off and decline again, then a third that -- almost perfectly timed to the Unity rally -- doesn't even bother leveling off before doing a split-S and taking off for the ground. It looks to me as if NCSoft has been mismanaged for going on two years now, and the closure of City of Heroes is only one symptom of that.

And this goes back to the fact the stock skyrocket to levels that the company fundamentals couldn't support.  Someone, analysts likely, got it in their collective heads that the stock was going from 50,000 in 2008 to "infinity and beyond" once the Aion numbers came out.  I guess the logic was if Aion's success boosted sales numbers by 50%, the new MMOs under production that will be coming any (years) day now would do the same thing.  That's how Daewoo could even suggest a target price of 600,000.  Oddly looking at their old NCsoft reports going back to 2003, their target price guesses were more reasonable and their future estimates of sales and earnings were a lot more accurate, usually guessing low of all things.  Now it's almost like they are betting on a long shot because Vinny is coming to collect an overdue "loan" and he accepts only cash or kneecaps.

Now going back to Daewoo's early coverage of NCsoft did afford me a look of what happened when Lineage II came out.  The stock doubled in a two to three week period to the point they did a 3 for 1 split in July 2003 to bring the price down from 250,000 to something more affordable.  The sudden boost may have been the result of Daewoo and other analysts setting their TP in the 250,000 range just before the the stock spiked as they all went bullish on the stock.  However the stock never really went anywhere for the next 4 plus years as NA and European sales of Lineage and Lineage II didn't add significantly more sales while their western titles while acclaimed, weren't huge successes relative to their two main MMOs.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Artillerie on January 31, 2013, 10:23:04 PM
Got to say FatherXmas, i really appreciate all of the information that you put up here - i even feel that i may be learning a thing or two.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DarkCurrent on February 01, 2013, 01:19:35 AM
She's still taking on water.  Man the pumps!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on February 01, 2013, 03:55:53 AM
Father Xmas, I think you've implied that unless they have some huge expenses...like the new HQ they are building in a very pricy section of Seoul...plus a downturn in actual money being taken in, even the stock price dropping into the basement won't wreck the company because they supposedly have some big cash reserves they haven't spent.

The only thing I am interested in is how to get them to turn loose of the IP.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 01, 2013, 04:38:10 AM
Father Xmas, I think you've implied that unless they have some huge expenses...like the new HQ they are building in a very pricy section of Seoul...plus a downturn in actual money being taken in, even the stock price dropping into the basement won't wreck the company because they supposedly have some big cash reserves they haven't spent.

The only thing I am interested in is how to get them to turn loose of the IP.

They've already made their money off the stock.  The stock price crashing is bad for the stock holders but not NCsoft's finances one bit.  All the stock holders can do is try to change up the board of directors who then could change up the senior management.

As for their new building, they started that back in 2010.  As for cost it's partially subsidized because their current building is in ... wait for it ... Gangnam (if you want to talk about pricy section of Seoul).  So to pull a company from such a high prestige area is going to require ... an incentive.  The new building is in relatively new city, a planned from scratch city that broke ground in 2001, just outside of Seoul, a "new" silicon valley for South Korea's biggest names in high tech.  The city itself looks like someone there really liked SimCity 4. 

Sadly the financing for the city center, called Alpha Dome City, has been reduced so this vision

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=img84.imageshack.us%2Fimg84%2F8315%2Fthumbnail7sm2.jpg)

isn't going to happen.  At least they dream big over there.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on February 01, 2013, 06:16:04 AM
hmm, well with ncsofts crazy way of doing business i wouldnt doubt it if they actually attempted to pull that off

and yes i agree it does look like something out of simcity
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 01, 2013, 08:01:15 AM
hmm, well with ncsofts crazy way of doing business i wouldnt doubt it if they actually attempted to pull that off

and yes i agree it does look like something out of simcity

No that was the idea for Pangyo's city center.  NCsoft just has a building (http://maps.google.com/?ll=37.399219,127.108775&spn=0.0028,0.004458&t=h&z=18) with a spiffy little park over in the R&D park.  I'm guessing that picture is around 9-12 months old.  Now zoom out and pan to the right and tell me that it doesn't look like SimCity with all the apartment complexes.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: General Idiot on February 01, 2013, 12:05:57 PM
If I hadn't already been told better I'd swear that was a screenshot of simcity 4 with some custom content added.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on February 01, 2013, 02:47:10 PM
Father Xmas, I think you've implied that unless they have some huge expenses...like the new HQ they are building in a very pricy section of Seoul...plus a downturn in actual money being taken in, even the stock price dropping into the basement won't wreck the company because they supposedly have some big cash reserves they haven't spent.

The only thing I am interested in is how to get them to turn loose of the IP.
The stock plummet only hurts those who own it. This includes some of those responsible for the decision-making, so it's good in that light, but even if the stock dropped to "people are paying to get it off their portfolio," the company could run just fine. Not a dime of the money that's measuring the value of their stock is actually going into the company coffers nor supporting a single jot of their operating budget. Not unless they release new stock to the public, diluting the shares that are already out there.

So the only way we're going to get them to turn loose the IP is if we can get the stock prices to be embarrassing and make those who hold them and make decisions think and hope that releasing it would reduce the embarrassment.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on February 01, 2013, 02:49:55 PM
No that was the idea for Pangyo's city center.  NCsoft just has a building (http://maps.google.com/?ll=37.399219,127.108775&spn=0.0028,0.004458&t=h&z=18) with a spiffy little park over in the R&D park.  I'm guessing that picture is around 9-12 months old.  Now zoom out and pan to the right and tell me that it doesn't look like SimCity with all the apartment complexes.

Did someone on the urban planning department just mash the copypaste buttons?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: General Idiot on February 01, 2013, 03:07:09 PM
The stock plummet only hurts those who own it. This includes some of those responsible for the decision-making, so it's good in that light, but even if the stock dropped to "people are paying to get it off their portfolio," the company could run just fine. Not a dime of the money that's measuring the value of their stock is actually going into the company coffers nor supporting a single jot of their operating budget. Not unless they release new stock to the public, diluting the shares that are already out there.

So the only way we're going to get them to turn loose the IP is if we can get the stock prices to be embarrassing and make those who hold them and make decisions think and hope that releasing it would reduce the embarrassment.

If may however have an effect on all manner of other things. For example the developers with new games, which they depend on to at least some extent for the profit that keeps them alive as a company, will look elsewhere for a publisher. Likewise customers will stay away, at least some of them. In the end it's just another thing contributing to their inevitable demise.

Of course, I may be being overly optimistic. But hey, power of positive thinking.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on February 01, 2013, 05:10:46 PM
Father Xmas, I think you've implied that unless they have some huge expenses...like the new HQ they are building in a very pricy section of Seoul...plus a downturn in actual money being taken in, even the stock price dropping into the basement won't wreck the company because they supposedly have some big cash reserves they haven't spent.

The only thing I am interested in is how to get them to turn loose of the IP.

The company is in no danger of collapse at all. The stock price dropping is analogous to property values dropping - it means nothing to the value of the property for use (i..e. the operation of the company), only for sale or borrowing against it. As long as NCsoft doesn't need to raise capital the stock value is meaningless to them. They're flush with cash, expecting another big inflow in Q3 2013 from B&S release in China, and the millions they're spending on buildings and baseball teams isn't even putting a minor hitch in their stride. The building may well be a good investment rather than a liability (even the baseball team could be a good long-term investment). Sorry, but the company's finances are thoroughly sound.

As for the leadership getting forced out... that's also not going to happen. To do that you first need to get a seat on the board, then you need to talk the majority of the board around to ousting Kim. Getting on the board isn't easy. You'd pretty much have to buy out Nexon or TPG to do it. In any case, it would cost somewhere around $200M to get your hands on enough stock to force your way onto the board. And if you did go after Nexon's stock, for example, you'd find they're run by one of Kim's closest friends and that he'd get a better deal and first chance at the stock. But let's say you replace Byung-moo Park on the board. That still leaves you trying to talk two out of three of Kim's close friends and associates into stabbing him in the back (there are five board members, so you need your own vote plus two others). I doubt there's one chance in a billion of getting COO Hee-sang Lee to do that. Meaning you have to get both Myung Oh and Yun-seok Seo to side with you. They're both close to Kim and particularly his wife Yoon. I've said it before and I'll say it again... NCsoft is not some old megacorp being run by a group of detached investor proxies, it's a young company being run by the founders and a very close-knit group of socially connected individuals. There's just no crack for a hostile takeover effort to pry open. Kim isn't going anywhere until he feels like it.

The only realistic hope I see is that the new Western subsidiary gets independence, ownership of CoH, a strong leader and a marketing firm that thinks selling or reviving CoH would be good PR. I really don't see any Hollywood ending for CoH unless it is driven almost entirely by PR considerations.

[Edit:] I still like to see their stock plummet, since NCsoft and Kim each own about 10% of the shares. The recent drops have cost that duo twice what the new baseball team did. :D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on February 01, 2013, 06:21:45 PM
[Edit:] I still like to see their stock plummet, since NCsoft and Kim each own about 10% of the shares. The recent drops have cost that duo twice what the new baseball team did. :D

i think this is the main reason why poeple are monitoring the stock prices since ncsoft, nexon, and kim himself all have a pretty good amount of the total stock shares, they are the ones losing money on the stock dropping

yes stocks themselves dont determine how a company is doing, but when the owners of said company own 25-30% of the stock, they are the ones getting burned by the stock drops
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on February 01, 2013, 06:35:30 PM
A brief new low of 135, but I'm not liking the current uptick back to 140. I'm still hoping to see 'em fall back to their 2008 mark.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on February 01, 2013, 07:07:53 PM
i think this is the main reason why poeple are monitoring the stock prices since ncsoft, nexon, and kim himself all have a pretty good amount of the total stock shares, they are the ones losing money on the stock dropping

yes stocks themselves dont determine how a company is doing, but when the owners of said company own 25-30% of the stock, they are the ones getting burned by the stock drops

But it also depends on when they bought. If they bought their shares prior to May 2009, then they are still ahead by a bit even now and even if they sold today, they will walk away with a profit. But I think Kim been around since the start and thus probably had his holdings since 2003 and prior when it was about 33,000. Even when he sold some of his shares, he raked in a large profit from what he invested. The stocks will have to drop signifcantly for him to even lose money from the stock drop, below the value he bought them for. Right now he is well in the black. Not sure about Nexon and new shareholders. They might be hurting especially the relatively recent ones tha twas looking to makea quick buck and get out. Long term people probably will either wait unti the price falls a little more or hold on to what they already have. The ones that had it prior to May 2009 may cash in for a profit at this point while some may just simply hold on.

They dont seem close to their 5 year low or anywhere near crashing. Thier chart looks comparable with ups and down with many coporations that are rated as doing well.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on February 01, 2013, 07:08:17 PM
A bunch of stuff I wouldn't want to hear no matter what company it was

Disgusting. Must be nice to be able to make a million mistakes and still not fail.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 01, 2013, 08:09:59 PM
Before Aion blew up large, looking at the 3Q of 2008, NCsoft had a trailing twelve month P/E of 29.6 meaning the price of the stock was 29.6 times the amount of earnings over the last twelve months.  Nothing new had come out recently.  Earnings had been down every quarter over that period.  Aion was a big unknown.  Stock price at the time Daewoo issued their report on NCsoft, the stock was at 44,000 with a twelve month target price of 60,000.

In 3Q of 2011, just before the peak the stock reached, NCsoft had a TTM P/E of 52.5, which is why I was saying the stock was insanely overpriced.  At the time of this Daewoo report, the stock price was 347,000 with a target price of 600,000 (?!?!).  Can we say irrational exuberance.  Knew you could.

Now using those two P/E numbers to bound the stock price using the current TTM would put the price between 102,800 and 182,200.  So not a surprise the stock is meandering about right in the middle.  It's not the best of times, it's not the worse of times. 

And considering how dismal 4Q was last year it's likely that those two numbers will go up by 40-50% at a minimum.  So unless their costs spiraled out of control or sales collapsed since 3Q, I'm expecting the stock to rebound back up to around 200,000 (149,000-264,000).  It may not be all at once but for those who are living vicariously through every NCsoft stock price drop, brace yourselves.

And if for some reason Daewoo is actually right about the fourth quarter, expect the stock to break 250,000 again.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on February 01, 2013, 08:11:41 PM
Disgusting. Must be nice to be able to make a million mistakes and still not fail.

Get in first on an emerging market so that what few competitors you have are playing catch up and you too can get away with closing profitable ventures (CoH) while starting up unprofitable ones (the NC Dinos - that's their baseball team, which technically has been around 2 years as a "futures" team but joined the "major" Korean league for 2013).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kistulot on February 01, 2013, 08:12:50 PM
Thanks for keeping things in perspective, FatherXmas.

It makes me wanna whine when I see one of your insightful posts that says "none of this is really special" but its better than feeling like a dip means something if it doesn't.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on February 01, 2013, 08:22:19 PM
In 3Q of 2011, just before the peak the stock reached, NCsoft had a TTM P/E of 52.5, which is why I was saying the stock was insanely overpriced.  At the time of this Daewoo report, the stock price was 347,000 with a target price of 600,000 (?!?!).  Can we say irrational exuberance.  Knew you could.

And you chided me for saying Daewoo's projections were so insane I'd begun to doubt their honesty.

And considering how dismal 4Q was last year it's likely that those two numbers will go up by 40-50% at a minimum.  So unless their costs spiraled out of control or sales collapsed since 3Q, I'm expecting the stock to rebound back up to around 200,000 (149,000-264,000).  It may not be all at once but for those who are living vicariously through every NCsoft stock price drop, brace yourselves.

This is fairly close to what I expect. A bump after the 4Q report - which will be objectively good but still disappoint those who believed the nutty fanboi analysts - followed by a steady but minor erosion until 3Q B&S China numbers come in causing a jump up near 200k as the year comes to a close.

Let's hope the Korean government really does decide to go nuts with their tax and regulate agenda for the Korean gaming industry. Heck, who knows, if the Korean Progressives get their way maybe NCsoft will start thinking their new building should be in Austin! They can certainly get a better baseball team in the Texas League than they can in the Korean Baseball Championship. :D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 01, 2013, 08:51:42 PM
Nevermind, misunderstood your comment Kosmos.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on February 01, 2013, 09:19:39 PM
Get in first on an emerging market

Isn't there a prerequisite for that? Such as, already having lots of power?  :P
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on February 02, 2013, 01:43:59 AM
i guess the korean goverment issuing some strict laws on gaming is what we should have hope for and just take pride in falling stock when it happens lol
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 04, 2013, 09:47:37 AM
Well back to 137,500, where it closed 2 trading days ago.  Now how the 4Q/annual numbers impact the price won't be reflected, likely, until Tuesday night/Wednesday early morning trading (from our POV in NA).  Traditionally the numbers aren't released until after the end of trading to give the market the maximum amount of time to digest the numbers before recklessly, I mean thoughtfully acting upon them.  :-\
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: General Idiot on February 04, 2013, 01:00:25 PM
Wait, that's out now? I'd be interested to see it, if it is.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on February 04, 2013, 02:28:04 PM
Same! Nothing on the quarterlies page yet.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on February 04, 2013, 04:38:33 PM
The slow dive continues. You'd think anyone who had money in this stock would have bailed long ago. The stock's been a consistent loser since November.

But of course, we'll see if the quarterlies changes things.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 04, 2013, 06:15:48 PM
Wait, that's out now? I'd be interested to see it, if it is.
Same! Nothing on the quarterlies page yet.

No.  The numbers should be released early Tuesday morning NA time (2-3a EST) after the close of Korea's market Tuesday Korea time.  So tomorrow.  Which way the stock goes, we won't know until their market opens Wednesday or our Tuesday evening.  Remember we are on opposite sides of the international date line.

The slow dive continues. You'd think anyone who had money in this stock would have bailed long ago. The stock's been a consistent loser since November.

But of course, we'll see if the quarterlies changes things.

Yes but there has to be a buyer for every seller.  All of the "technical" indicators has the stock "oversold", price too low.  The various "technical" methods to define the price range all have the stock at the bottom of those ranges.  Those two things combined will mean to some that the stock is being unfairly hammered on and therefore "on sale".  Now who can resist a sale.

When the numbers come out tomorrow, and they will be used to credit or discredit some analysts' predictions for the rest of the year, will determine if investors panic some more or go nuts and buy in because a corner has been turned.  Note there should also be some mention about the reorg of the western subsidiaries and what that means for the future.  The west is important again because of the spike in sales in NA and EU because of GW2.  And of course expect a lot of China China China ra ra ra talk.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 05, 2013, 12:43:33 AM
Okay, so they release there before the start of trading.  My bad.

And the analysts actually came in low.  It boggles the mind.

For the year game sales up 24.8%, profits up 30.6%.

For the quarter.

B&S down 17.6%
Lineage  up 69.3%
Lineage II  up 23.7%
Aion down 7%
GW2 up 159.6% (yes that's right)

GW2 had higher quarterly sales than Lineage I, II and Aion COMBINED!!11!

Combined NA and EU game sales exceeded Korea's for the quarter.

The bad news is that the parent company, excluding all their overseas subsidiaries, is now "Be in the red" (that's the way it appears in their presentation).

So overall company doing alright, except at home (egg on face).  I can see the stock climbing back up to 180,000 on fundamentals.

Edit: Actually the news that the parent was in the red 4th quarter with declining B&S sales and GW2 sales diminishing post holiday will likely put a damper on any rally.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DarkCurrent on February 05, 2013, 01:08:57 AM
There's no way Lineage is doing those kinds of numbers.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on February 05, 2013, 01:23:32 AM
So, Boobs and Shame is a loser? No surprise. Given NCSoft's rep as The Game-Killer, it'll maybe last until the end of the year.

No rally, huh? Good. We'll know by the end of the week, but it looks like they're still on course for a sloooow stagnant decline. Honestly, this stock's been a loser since October 2011. They're now back where they were at their big uptick in early 2009.

What're the chances of an investor panic sending this all the way back down to 50,000?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DarkCurrent on February 05, 2013, 01:27:27 AM
It'll go down, but not sure that far.  Right now they have seen the best GW2 is ever going to do.  BS is tanking.  Wildstar is nowhere to be found.  Would you buy their stock based on that?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 05, 2013, 01:30:44 AM
There's no way Lineage is doing those kinds of numbers.

There's a very big following for that game in Korea and Taiwan.  Plus the item store for the game is bringing in big bucks.  On top of that the game's been around for 15 years, you know how attached people get to their MMO after a long period of time, right?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on February 05, 2013, 01:38:49 AM
"Right now they have seen the best GW2 is ever going to do.  BS is tanking.  Wildstar is nowhere to be found.  Would you buy their stock based on that?"
-- DarkCurrent

Yeah, lemme answer that this way...

(https://i1305.photobucket.com/albums/s556/JackNolan1/derpy_zps60d6785c.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DarkCurrent on February 05, 2013, 01:51:09 AM
Whoops, down 2000 since my last post.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: General Idiot on February 05, 2013, 02:16:53 AM
I can't help but wonder if the jump in Lineage sales is people getting bored of yet another generic anime grindfest and going back to what they were playing before that. Hell, you could attribute the drop in Aion sales to the same thing if you wanted to. No straight evidence in either case, but I still can't help but wonder.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 05, 2013, 02:47:51 AM
I can't help but wonder if the jump in Lineage sales is people getting bored of yet another generic anime grindfest and going back to what they were playing before that. Hell, you could attribute the drop in Aion sales to the same thing if you wanted to. No straight evidence in either case, but I still can't help but wonder.

Or they know that they can play Lineage on older, slower hardware while B&S, L2 and Aion need a more "modern" gaming rig.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on February 05, 2013, 03:04:22 AM
Or they know that they can play Lineage on older, slower hardware while B&S, L2 and Aion need a more "modern" gaming rig.

thats another reason i think coh was doing very well for being 9 year old game, while it had good graphics for new systems it still had performance for low end systems as well
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DarkCurrent on February 05, 2013, 03:04:59 AM
They probably shuttled the remaining profits from CoH online store over to Lineage.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DarkCurrent on February 05, 2013, 03:14:41 AM
Rwoot!  Rwoot!  Red Alert!

I think the bottom mighta just fallen out.

Just hit their new 52 wk low of 131,500
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blue Pulsar on February 05, 2013, 03:38:48 AM
Rwoot!  Rwoot!  Red Alert!

I think the bottom mighta just fallen out.

Just hit their new 52 wk low of 131,500


Oh, it will go lower... Mhh mhh... Muh Muah! Hah! Hah! hah hah ha ha....
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on February 05, 2013, 03:52:18 AM
I guess the news is starting to hit... with any luck, we'll see the same kind of cliff dive as last quarter.

As for the numbers, Lineage is surprising, but it's possible there might be some creative accountancy going on - a near-70% jump in three months is just a leeettle bit fishy.

Bits and Tits tanking is no beeg surprise - they were banking heavily on China, but the fact that the game ran afoul of the law and had to be toned down heavily just to be sellable made it indistinguishable from dozens of other, cheaper cut-paste MMOs already readily available.

And likewise, Guild Wars 2 growing isn't surprising either - NCsoft has pumped enough money fuel into the hype machine to make it self-sustaining - what feedback I'm getting from other people is that it stands it's not a bad game on its own merit. That said, a lot of that income is coming from the cash shop items, and once the "pay to win" mood shifts {and that's probably a question of when rather than if}, things are gong to get pretty interesting.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on February 05, 2013, 04:27:35 AM
DIVE! DIVE! DIVE!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: MindBlender on February 05, 2013, 05:49:59 AM
China's required changes hurt NCSoftcore big time.  Lets face it, if you were a teenage boy...getting your hands on a Playboy was the ultimate "win".  Put clothes on those girls and it's just the Sears underwear section.  Perhaps I have done an overshare on me at age 14 :o
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 05, 2013, 06:03:05 AM
It's not that there's a lot of shares being sold, unlike when 3Q numbers came out.  It's just that there doesn't look like there are any buyers interested until the price broke through the previous lows.  Only a bit more than 1/3rd of the volume of shares traded than back in November.

I wonder what the percentage of outstanding shares are being shorted.

Looking at the minute by minute chart at Yahoo Finance, lunch was not a very good time for the stock.  Went from 136,000 at 11:55 am to 131,500 at 12:10 pm.  Did the conference call happen then?  Hmmm.  Maybe if I get really bored I'll try to listen to it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 05, 2013, 06:05:34 AM
China's required changes hurt NCSoftcore big time.  Lets face it, if you were a teenage boy...getting your hands on a Playboy was the ultimate "win".  Put clothes on those girls and it's just the Sears underwear section.  Perhaps I have done an overshare on me at age 14 :o

That and Age of Wulin (Wushu everywhere else) will have a year jump on the game for that kind of Kung-Fu style MMORPG.  Plus Age of Wulin is a home grown game and not an import.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on February 05, 2013, 06:33:56 AM
China's required changes hurt NCSoftcore big time.  Lets face it, if you were a teenage boy...getting your hands on a Playboy was the ultimate "win".  Put clothes on those girls and it's just the Sears underwear section.  Perhaps I have done an overshare on me at age 14 :o

Playboy was  wasa good win in my day but getting a hands on a Hustler, ya was King. That is until parents caught you and made a monkey out of ya. Then ya was the Jester.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: General Idiot on February 05, 2013, 08:28:09 AM
Or they know that they can play Lineage on older, slower hardware while B&S, L2 and Aion need a more "modern" gaming rig.

One would assume if they made the jump to the new game in the first place they already have a rig capable of at least running the game, but still a good point. I hadn't considered that.

Quote
Playboy was  wasa good win in my day but getting a hands on a Hustler, ya was King. That is until parents caught you and made a monkey out of ya. Then ya was the Jester.

And then the internet became a thing, and porn could be delivered to the fingertips of every curious teenager in the world in the blink of an eye whenever their parents' backs are turned. Of course, getting caught is still very much a possibility and just as embarrassing as it ever was. :p
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kurrent on February 05, 2013, 01:34:26 PM
Well, maybe if their stock continues to freefall they'll get desperate enough to sell the IP rights to CoX to another studio.  I might just be being hopeful, but we have to maintain some hope.  I miss our world.   :(
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: OzonePrime on February 05, 2013, 02:26:35 PM
Well, maybe if their stock continues to freefall they'll get desperate enough to sell the IP rights to CoX to another studio.  I might just be being hopeful, but we have to maintain some hope.  I miss our world.   :(
Me too!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on February 05, 2013, 03:44:36 PM
Well, NC Stock continues to slowly decline. They lost 11 in the past five business days. At this rate, shares will hit rock bottom in about twelve weeks. I doubt that will happen, but that's assuming the same rate of decline since... September, 2011.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on February 05, 2013, 07:15:40 PM
Well, maybe if their stock continues to freefall they'll get desperate enough to sell the IP rights to CoX to another studio.  I might just be being hopeful, but we have to maintain some hope.  I miss our world.   :(
They might but doubt even if they sell the IP it would stop stocks from falling, especially for 2-8 million selling price. They probably just fire more worker bees first starting with their international employees and on down to their domestic employees when fit really hits the shan. There stock is not freefall yet. A freefall graph kind of look like what GM looked like a while ago prior to their bailout (when it hit rock bottom declared banruptcy, got bailed out and picked up a new stock ID.). Even then the CEo still walked away with a very hefty pay day even after running the company into the ground. In the end on people that suffer is the ones trying to put food on the table to survive. The CEO might eventually  "offcially" resign, buy a private island and not lose a bit of sleep over the people that is now employed while counting the millions he walked away with even after doing a terrible job. Even if worse case for them and they go into bankruptcy and COX IP is sold it doesnt mean it will be revived. Spyker bought Saab during GM banruptcy and there havent been a new Saab since it was sold and no talks of it being revived. Saturn, is now considered defunct in 2010 and no buyer could be found, same with Hummer and rest of assets were sold to "Vehicle Acquisition Holdings LLC" which now operating under (lo and behold) The General Motors Company LLC. Of course processes may be different for a much smaller company and one in a different country but the main point is that even if they declare bankruptcy, the fate of the IP is just as uncertain as it is now. Not to mention there is nothing really stopping Nexon from upsurping NCSoft in that case and carrying on the current path and operations as is without even giving a single thought to the COX IP. Or they may pull an Enron which may or may not be an illegal process over there. These jokers may be seemingly "odd" in their decisions but remember they are not complete idiots and probably know the ins and outs to keep as much as they can under their control in one way or another.
 
The sale will add to their cash reseverve a little bit, which thay already have plenty of.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: LadyShin on February 05, 2013, 08:10:09 PM
"Right now they have seen the best GW2 is ever going to do.  BS is tanking.  Wildstar is nowhere to be found.  Would you buy their stock based on that?"
-- DarkCurrent

Yeah, lemme answer that this way...

(https://i1305.photobucket.com/albums/s556/JackNolan1/derpy_zps60d6785c.jpg)

(https://faces.cohtitan.com/render/image/large/0/81569.jpg)

Today's stock ticker...

Funny, 2013 looks a lot like 2012!!!

Edit: Looks like the last bit going up and down is showing investors are scrambling to salvage their earnings, however they simply don't have enough capital to make a difference ... Few options now, do investors hang on to their stocks and go down with the company or do they cut their losses and move on to another investment?

I'll be over here while they debate, listening to the Top Gun Anthem.   8)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on February 05, 2013, 11:08:22 PM
Well, the problem with selling a crashing stock is finding a buyer. So the Derpster up there is trying to help them out by encouraging people to buy. Isn't she sweet?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on February 05, 2013, 11:53:57 PM
I know people are saying not to read too much into fluctuating stocks.

I just know that if I owned a company with a graph like that attached to its performance, I would be none too pleased. Just saying.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on February 06, 2013, 12:04:34 AM
Hmmm depends on how big my "parachute" is.

If it's not big at all, I'd be pissed. If nice sized and the size that the old GM CEO got for being booted, I probably wouldnt give a damn. :P

Nah, my heart is too big. I'd be upset at myself for failing and letting the workers that depended on that work down. I'd give up  "parachute" if it means people still can keep their jobs and start from top down instead of bottom up if I have to cut people out. Why? The bottom rings probably have a lot riding on their paycheck while the higher ups problems are more in the lines of "oh well, no new Maserati this week. MY WORLD IS ENDING!!!" That's just me, and probably would be kicked (voted out if public corporation) out if I tried that and the bottom ring people probably will still lose their jobs.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TonyV on February 06, 2013, 12:41:33 AM
Boom, now under ₩130,000.  That's over 60% off their 52-week high.  Father Xmas makes some valid points about companies not being run according to stock price, but you can't deny that it does have an effect.  If I were a stockholder right now, I'd be VERY pissed off and demanding that the company do something to stop the bleeding of my money.  I'm just sayin'...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on February 06, 2013, 12:51:43 AM
Boom, now under ₩130,000.  That's over 60% off their 52-week high.  Father Xmas makes some valid points about companies not being run according to stock price, but you can't deny that it does have an effect.  If I were a stockholder right now, I'd be VERY pissed off and demanding that the company do something to stop the bleeding of my money.  I'm just sayin'...

Yep. Short term investors (aka ones that invested the past1-3 years) are probably very upset.

I think it has to reach a it lower to affect the long-term and usually large stake holder's anger threshold. But even with the prices slipping they have to do something. Although I havea feeling I wont like what they probably will do to try and stop the bleeding (i.e laying off more workers).


Still waiting for it to reach just a little lower and seeing if there might be a chance of an upswing. I might be waiting a while.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DarkCurrent on February 06, 2013, 01:14:16 AM
128.5

I'd say Carbine Studios is getting really nervous right about now.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on February 06, 2013, 01:22:58 AM
Oh dear! It's continuing the dive from yesterday. Even if it levels, that's a drop of 10 in a single day.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on February 06, 2013, 01:30:58 AM
(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=i.qkme.me%2F7c3w.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on February 06, 2013, 01:36:17 AM
(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=i.qkme.me%2F7c3w.jpg)
lol. It seems so with alot of casualties. Except inthis case doubt the Captain will go down with the ship. Probably will be on the first life boat out of there.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: SerialBeggar on February 06, 2013, 01:37:40 AM
Does it offer a dividend at least?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Axonius on February 06, 2013, 02:28:07 AM
 Do we know how their stock is doing relative it's countries economy? (Or relative to its most financially dependent country?) Relative to it's peers?

Just trying to get the whole picture to keep us from making too many assumptions.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on February 06, 2013, 02:32:08 AM
Do we know how their stock is doing relative it's countries economy? (Or relative to its most financially dependent country?) Relative to it's peers?

I'd guess the nuclear test threats aren't helping any.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DarkCurrent on February 06, 2013, 04:03:16 AM
It's like a limbo tournament.

How low can you go?

125K so far today.  51% loss in the last year.  Those Nexon fools are probably kicking themselves.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blue Pulsar on February 06, 2013, 04:34:40 AM

Oh, it will go lower... Mhh mhh... Muh Muah! Hah! Hah! hah hah ha ha....

Toldya.... ;)

Edit: Currently w126,000. Up 1k from it's daily and yearly low.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on February 06, 2013, 04:43:42 AM
128.5

I'd say Carbine Studios is getting really nervous right about now.

They'd better be thinking about the best way to GTFO. I would be, anyways.

Carbine is probably next on the chopping block, then I WOULD NOT BE AT ALL SURPRISED to see another of NCSoft's older games get the axe. Which one? Dunno, but profitability alone will not save it. If they want it gone its gone, and be damned to the money. We dont need money, and dont ask why we're closing! Let's just only remember the good things, shall we?

What a bunch of dyed-in-the-wool geniuses. LOL!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Perfidus on February 06, 2013, 04:47:19 AM
They'd probably take Lineage 2 out of the western market like they did the first one, if anything. Or cancel B&S coming here or something.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Twisted Toon on February 06, 2013, 04:49:35 AM
Hmmm depends on how big my "parachute" is.

If it's not big at all, I'd be pissed. If nice sized and the size that the old GM CEO got for being booted, I probably wouldnt give a damn. :P

Nah, my heart is too big. I'd be upset at myself for failing and letting the workers that depended on that work down. I'd give up  "parachute" if it means people still can keep their jobs and start from top down instead of bottom up if I have to cut people out. Why? The bottom rings probably have a lot riding on their paycheck while the higher ups problems are more in the lines of "oh well, no new Maserati this week. MY WORLD IS ENDING!!!" That's just me, and probably would be kicked (voted out if public corporation) out if I tried that and the bottom ring people probably will still lose their jobs.
In your defense, you would probably have never let your company get that bad in the first place.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on February 06, 2013, 04:51:21 AM
In your defense, you would probably have never let your company get that bad in the first place.
yeah.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 06, 2013, 05:11:59 AM
Boom, now under ₩130,000.  That's over 60% off their 52-week high.  Father Xmas makes some valid points about companies not being run according to stock price, but you can't deny that it does have an effect.  If I were a stockholder right now, I'd be VERY pissed off and demanding that the company do something to stop the bleeding of my money.  I'm just sayin'...

They announced some management changes (including new CPO).  I guess investors didn't like the sound of that.  Or the chorus of "just wait unit B&S and GW2 get to China" was getting old.  They are also saying they are going to be rolling out a lot of mobile games this year as well as well as just wait for Wildstar.  They also said there will be a GW2 paid expansion later this year.

What the quarter boiled down to, ignoring GW2, is that NCsoft's best game from a sales standpoint is their oldest, which is 15 years old.  Lineage II is more popular outside of Korea than in it.  Aion is showing a boom/bust cycle (sales off 36.5% in Korea from 2011 to 2012).  B&S numbers are down in it's 2nd full quarter and it's only available in Korea plus it only seems to draw players from NCsoft's other games.  So is NCsoft at it's core a one hit wonder.

Never looked at this before but here's a breakdown of game income by game from just Korea.

Lineage - 92.9%
Lineage II - 40.3%
Aion - 75.5%
B&S - 100% (only in Korea)
GW2 - 0% (not in Korea or anywhere in Asia ... yet)

According to the weekly charts in Korea, NCsoft still has the number 2, 3 and 4 MMORPG in Korea last week (http://www.gamenote.com/rank_ongame/?search_mode=weekly&genre=&update_date=2013-01-28).  It's possible that the MMORPG market in Korea is now saturated.  That's probably why they are so hot about getting into China.

It also looks like several more analysts lowered their sales guestimate for NCsoft for 2013 and 2014.  But they haven't changed from their Buy or Outperform rating for the stock.

Back when Aion came out, NCsoft became the new hot girl all the guys wanted to hook up with and now it looks like word got out that she's psycho ex-girlfriend material and everyone to trying to flee.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 06, 2013, 05:13:44 AM
They'd probably take Lineage 2 out of the western market like they did the first one, if anything. Or cancel B&S coming here or something.

Lineage 2 actual has a larger percentage of sales outside of Korea.  And they are still saying just wait until B&S goes worldwide and Wildstar comes out.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on February 06, 2013, 05:18:44 AM
Back when Aion came out, NCsoft became the new hot girl all the guys wanted to hook up with and now it looks like word got out that she's psycho ex-girlfriend material and everyone to trying to flee.

LOL. Great analogy.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 06, 2013, 05:22:25 AM
They'd better be thinking about the best way to GTFO. I would be, anyways.

Carbine is probably next on the chopping block, then I WOULD NOT BE AT ALL SURPRISED to see another of NCSoft's older games get the axe. Which one? Dunno, but profitability alone will not save it. If they want it gone its gone, and be damned to the money. We dont need money, and dont ask why we're closing! Let's just only remember the good things, shall we?

What a bunch of dyed-in-the-wool geniuses. LOL!

Here's the problem with Carbine, NCsoft is telling investors that Wildstar will be their next big hit coming out of the west.  See GW2, just wait for Wildstar.  NCsoft had been hyping GW2 and B&S for the past four plus years.  They have no other MMO in development other than Wildstar and Lineage Eternal (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oOw3TQufzI) (video).  It's not going to look good if they axe Wildstar after hyping it as much as they have.

Edit: And what's so special around noon everyday in Korea.  Both yesterday and today large sell orders were executed around that time.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on February 06, 2013, 05:59:28 AM
Let's not order those party supplies just yet. They appear to have stabilized.

Heh! Xmas is cackling and I'm the one advising caution. Times change.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Xieveral on February 06, 2013, 06:07:38 AM
It's not going to look good if they axe Wildstar after hyping it as much as they have.

What hype? Aside from the occasional gaming site article and slapping one of the characters on their English facebook banner I've seen little "hype" for Wildstar.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on February 06, 2013, 06:09:10 AM
i actually havent heard anything about wildstar since its first introduction announcement and everyone on the old coh forums was discussing it lol

hell if it werent for the coh forums i wouldnt even know wildstar existed lol
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on February 06, 2013, 06:10:10 AM
What hype? Aside from the occasional gaming site article and slapping one of the characters on their English facebook banner I've seen little "hype" for Wildstar.

Knowing NCsoft and their tendency towards certain fashion styles, it's probably been renamed 'Stars Gone Wild'.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Taceus Jiwede on February 06, 2013, 06:23:55 AM
Knowing NCsoft and their tendency towards certain fashion styles, it's probably been renamed 'Stars Gone Wild'.

BAAAZINNGGG.  That literally made me laugh out loud sir.

Quote
What hype? Aside from the occasional gaming site article and slapping one of the characters on their English facebook banner I've seen little "hype" for Wildstar.

I also haven't heard much hype on Wildstar.  I imagine though, they hype it up a lot more to investors quite awhile before they start hyping it up to customers.  I'm not speaking from a professional stand point though so I have no idea.  Is Wildstar suppose to be the next big western market release or is it more anticipated and hyped in Korea?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: MindBlender on February 06, 2013, 07:05:53 AM
I hope for the sake of Carbine that our efforts are causing NC Soft to hold back a bit and decide how to proceed with Wildstar.  If they monitize it, the West will balk.  They do not want another community to stir the pot with us.  On the other hand, they may be trying to find a way to monitize it in such a way as to not offend those of us out "there" in the West.  Either way, I think that anything new from them is going to planned a bit more carefully to avoid this situation. 

It's just a hope on my part, for those still willing to purchase NC Soft products, that we have had an effect on their business model that seemed to be "Take what we give you and deal with it when we take it away."
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Samuraiko on February 06, 2013, 07:16:10 AM
After seeing their continuous stock plunge, my first thought was:

"Wow, NCsoft, you really need a hero right about now... too bad you killed all of ours..."

Second thought was:

"Huh, guess they were mad that we actually made COMPETENT villains..."

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Samuraiko on February 06, 2013, 07:23:08 AM
I must be tired, other good pithy comments going through my head include:

"Apparently NCsoft's idea for designing a flagship game is to model it after the Titanic. It looks gorgeous, cost a fortune, it can't possibly fail..."

leading to...

NCsoft: "But this game can't sink!"
Gamer crowd: "It's made of crap, sirs, we assure you, it can."

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JanessaVR on February 06, 2013, 07:58:48 AM
Back when Aion came out, NCsoft became the new hot girl all the guys wanted to hook up with and now it looks like word got out that she's psycho ex-girlfriend material and everyone to trying to flee.
LMAO!  I'm sorely tempted to put that on a t-shirt... :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kistulot on February 06, 2013, 08:06:46 AM
Even if worse case for them and they go into bankruptcy and COX IP is sold it doesnt mean it will be revived.

Ubisoft (one of my most loathed companies ever) bought the Might and Magic IP soley to sell Heroes games. Five was okay (better than 4, not as good as 3, whatever, nothing is! :) ) and 6 is an insult in every way.

So the main RPG line is dead in the water. While 9 may have been an unfinished pile of bugs (as I hear it you cant beat the game, I never owned it as a kid and while I own it on GoG now I'm nervous to try if I can get hours in and not win :/) I loved 6, 7, and 8. There aren't really games like those anymore. There probably never will be, since 6 was barely even a heroes game.

So this is a very real problem with game IP. To me, it seems dumb to hold onto something people want to buy, and not use it, but this is a very common practice.

Ugh. Reality is nothing like my super hero videogame.

That reality took away. Grr. :/
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 06, 2013, 09:06:56 AM
What hype? Aside from the occasional gaming site article and slapping one of the characters on their English facebook banner I've seen little "hype" for Wildstar.

They have been hyping it to their investors.  Once you do that you're committed because dropping it after that is the opposite of instilling confidence about future products.

And you've never been to Carbine's site have you.  Developer blogs, feature videos, "friends" and family alpha testing, as well as getting articles posted about the game at least once a week at Massively.  Read this (http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,7888.0.html) thread about Wildstar.  2nd post is interesting.

Edit: Link fixed
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TonyV on February 06, 2013, 03:41:52 PM
Read this (http://) thread about Wildstar.

Um...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: HarvesterOfEyes on February 06, 2013, 03:46:17 PM
Um...

Yeah that's pretty damning. I hope for the sake of the shareholders that they aren't buying it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on February 06, 2013, 04:29:27 PM
The link seems to be broken.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 06, 2013, 05:10:19 PM
Fixed now.  Helps to actually paste it in.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on February 06, 2013, 06:10:40 PM
Here's the problem with Carbine, NCsoft is telling investors that Wildstar will be their next big hit coming out of the west.  See GW2, just wait for Wildstar.  NCsoft had been hyping GW2 and B&S for the past four plus years.  They have no other MMO in development other than Wildstar and Lineage Eternal (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oOw3TQufzI) (video).  It's not going to look good if they axe Wildstar after hyping it as much as they have.

This is predicated on the idea that this company behaves logically. Seems to me that logic has little to do with their decisions. As such, literally anything is possible - and really, the more insane it is, the likelier it seems.

Hence if I were working for Carbine I would be extremely nervous.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on February 06, 2013, 06:11:57 PM
Fixed now.  Helps to actually paste it in.

Link shows over here as "http:///" and that is all there is.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Technerdoc on February 06, 2013, 06:53:26 PM
I don't think that Wildstar will be the big next thing for them, just like they are printing money with Guild Wars 2 right now. In Guild Wars 2 there was the very sucessfull part 1 with that revolutionary concept without the monthly fee, people still had this in their mind, because all MMOs got monthly fees in this time. Now we are in a world with all this free to play games, but people see something evil in them, and now there is a game what is not free to play and this was something most people are looking for. It was a very clever marketing not to use the bad "free to play" words, but I'm thing that Guild Wars 2 is not that different from them, all in all it also had a item shop. Take the 50 bucks and spend it in any free to play game you want, buy character slots and a bigger inventory and so on... I don't see the difference, but people feels better when they have a box from the game and it's not called free to play. Did this also work with Wildstar? I don't know. I only see a niche title there and we all know what NC-Soft is doing with them sometimes... To bad for Carabine...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ironwolf on February 06, 2013, 07:20:46 PM
I see right now where Wildstar is going and so does every gamer who has ever played an MMO.

They are going to be pressured to release it before its done. It will be bug filled and lack content with no end game at the time of release. This will tick off people who wanted more and then it will drag along for a year until they fix all the junk.

You can't do this any more - people have too much choice.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 06, 2013, 07:58:31 PM
Our "favorite" analyst firm for NCsoft, KDB Daewoo, just released their analysis of the 4Q and 2012 numbers.

Well they still have the stock as a Buy but they lowered their 12 month price target to 200,000 from 280,000 (it was 600,000 back in Nov 2011, oops).

Highlights include:

Quote
We attribute disappointing 2012 earnings to: 1) Blade & Soul's underwhelming performance (in contrast to the blockbuster hit of rival game League of Legends), and 2) a sharp decline in the number of players for existing games (Aion, etc.).

As for their optimism.

Quote
We anticipate new significant game momentum beginning this March due to the 1Q release of the mobile version of Lineage I (co-developed with top Japanese mobile game provider GREE), as well as from  Blade & Soul, which is scheduled to hit the Chinese market in 3Q (following a large-scale 1H beta test).   

We anticipate NCsoft will also launch a mobile version of Blade & Soul in 1H through one of Japan's leading mobile-gaming platform operators, DeNA. NCsoft plans to roll out its new title WildStar (currently being developed by US-based Carbine Studios) in 2H usingCD packages in the US and Europe. It also intends to launch  Guild Wars 2 in China, Taiwan, and Japan. An expansion pack for Guild Wars 2 is slated for a 2H release in the US and  Europe.
                   
We are not overly concerned about release delays or outright flops (as we have seen in the past), as current share prices and earnings expectations do not seem to price in prospects for new games.   

They revised their 2013 revenue number down 2.5% and profit estimate down 34.6%.  Before the party hats come out they are still saying profits will be up 13.4% over this year.

They are also guesstimating that GW2 revenues will drop, a lot, for the first two quarters and picking back up when the expansion comes out but nowhere near the 4Q number.  Basically they are indicating that 2013 sales will equal the 4 months of sales in 2012.  I believe these are excluding any income from the game coming to Asia.

Same with B&S.  They see it's numbers remaining flat, again excluding any sales when the game expands outside of Korea.

They also indicate that Wildstar will come out Q4 2013.

So from their perspective, all is well. ALL IS WELL!! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDAmPIq29ro)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mistress Urd on February 06, 2013, 08:01:54 PM
I see right now where Wildstar is going and so does every gamer who has ever played an MMO.

They are going to be pressured to release it before its done. It will be bug filled and lack content with no end game at the time of release. This will tick off people who wanted more and then it will drag along for a year until they fix all the junk.

You can't do this any more - people have too much choice.

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner! Yep. Let the early "founders" waste money during paid beta test before the game goes Free to Play.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blue Pulsar on February 07, 2013, 04:54:34 AM
I have been watching NCSoft on Reuters and noticed something. Yesterday their stock dipped to 125,000 and then hovered around 126 for a while. Today, the same page, found here (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS), says that their 52 week low is 126. However, they still show that the company dipped to 125 yesterday. Is that just a mistake on the website or am I misunderstanding something?

Edit: It must have been a glitch. It seems as though they fixed it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on February 07, 2013, 05:28:18 AM
I have been watching NCSoft on Reuters and noticed something. Yesterday their stock dipped to 125,000 and then hovered around 126 for a while. Today, the same page, found here (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS), says that their 52 week low is 126. However, they still show that the company dipped to 125 yesterday. Is that just a mistake on the website or am I misunderstanding something?

Edit: It must have been a glitch. It seems as though they fixed it.

They might be adjusting for currency exchange. aka the worth it was in dollars 52 weeks ago compared to today.

(A mere stab in the foggy darkness while blindfolded with a cow hide.)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blue Pulsar on February 07, 2013, 05:36:55 AM
They might be adjusting for currency exchange. aka the worth it was in dollars 52 weeks ago compared to today.

(A mere stab in the foggy darkness while blindfolded with a cow hide.)

Well, whatever it was, the last 3 times I checked, the 52 week low was 127k won, then 126k won, then back to 127. I'm sure it's just something glitchy with the Reuters site.

Edit: Which is odd because it was 125 yesterday, and at the same time it said the 52 week low was 125. Maybe NCSofts sled ride is causing bugs in the software... >_<
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on February 07, 2013, 05:49:38 AM
Well, whatever it was, the last 3 times I checked, the 52 week low was 127k won, then 126k won, then back to 127. I'm sure it's just something glitchy with the Reuters site.

Edit: Which is odd because it was 125 yesterday, and at the same time it said the 52 week low was 125. Maybe NCSofts sled ride is causing bugs in the software... >_<
prbably just a glitch. Isnt the first time and probably wont be the last time.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 07, 2013, 05:56:53 AM
Well, whatever it was, the last 3 times I checked, the 52 week low was 127k won, then 126k won, then back to 127. I'm sure it's just something glitchy with the Reuters site.

Edit: Which is odd because it was 125 yesterday, and at the same time it said the 52 week low was 125. Maybe NCSofts sled ride is causing bugs in the software... >_<

Yahoo's page (http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=036570.KS+Interactive#symbol=036570.ks;range=5d;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;) has the low as 125,000.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: gogoman on February 07, 2013, 06:10:17 PM
I am a former employee of NCsoft.

I am glad to see that the analysts get it finally. I couldn't believe it when the stock went up to 360k KRW based on nothing but pure IR BS, but I have to say they had a really good CFO. I think Morgan Stanley's Sam Min is just the first one to really understand how revenue is made and what are the chances for NCsoft, namely nothing.

If I may shed some light on this:
While I was there until last year, there were always those projects for social and mobile, but in the end NCsoft is and will always be unable to produce anything that is not MMO. If you know about the CEO a bit, he was just extremely lucky that he built Lineage and then hired a good CFO to build this whole story of a multinational gaming company that is able to generate a presence in the US, has stable sources of revenue, good publishing capabilities, blablabla. That. was. all. pure. BS.
I can tell you from my personal experience that neither he nor any of his C-levels is able to provide leadership for a company. All discussions are about "why is the monster so easy to kill?" or "why do we not have that magic powder from the previous quest anymore". The CEO doesn't understand anything on a strategic business level, but always talks about product development. That is why - and here it comes - he eliminated all casual game developments as early as 2010. He tried to manage over quality, but as we all know, casual is not developed like MMO over quality, but over quantity. Same happened for their big announcement of social: big announcements and press-releases and today nothing is there, instead all development efforts got killed. And the CEO basically thinks that anything outside development is a pure cost-function and doesn't provide any value to the company. So then no wonder that their publishing organization is so incapable to localize a game outside Korea.

I think the CEO sold his stock to Nexon at a huge discount, because he knows that there is no future for NCsoft anymore. That's why he cashed in. He knew this: 1) Korean revenue is coming down because of the government policy to close down PC cafes after midnight. These users will then go into mobile, but there is no mobile offering from NCsoft, nothing. 2) Outside Korea, their revenue was shrinking, especially in the US and Europe. China clueless and 3rd party only. Japan total chaos with an organization falling apart. And Southeast Asia only opportunistic reactions, no strategic moves. 3) Social is kicking in, user-acquisition and retention marketing is becoming important, but Ncsoft has nothing to offer 4) Cannibalization of MMO's finally kicking in. I mean how many MMO's can Koreans play in a day?

And I don't event want to mention how the rest of the C-levels/the CEO's schizophrenic brother are...

I think Sam Min of Morgan Stanley was way to mild with 125,000 Won as target price. I am pretty sure they pulled a string to achieve growth in 2012. They always do funny things like "deferred revenue" and other BS. All their MMO's are coming down and there is no other thing in the pipeline that has serious revenue potential. If you play AION in Korea, all servers are dead, end-levels are empty, nothing going on, you can't even play certain tasks, ,as there are not enough players for it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Aggelakis on February 07, 2013, 06:19:42 PM
If you play AION in Korea, all servers are dead, end-levels are empty, nothing going on, you can't even play certain tasks, ,as there are not enough players for it.
Isn't Aion like the number 3 or 4 game in Korea? This doesn't add up.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on February 07, 2013, 06:22:07 PM
but if 80% of the population is playing the #1 or #2 games, then only like 20% is left for #3 and #4

as they mention you can only play so many mmos at a time
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JanessaVR on February 07, 2013, 06:25:32 PM
I am a former employee of NCsoft.
[snip]
So, it's as I feared/suspected - they're really just stupid.  No nefarious master plan, they're just idiots with no idea how to run a MMO-producing company.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JetFlash on February 07, 2013, 06:43:22 PM
So, it's as I feared/suspected - they're really just stupid.  No nefarious master plan, they're just idiots with no idea how to run a MMO-producing company.

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 07, 2013, 06:49:01 PM
Aion's quarterly revenue is down 72% from it's peak three years ago (4Q 2009 to 4Q 2012) and 53% from only a year ago.  If there's a similar decline in active population then it can look like the servers are now empty (remember that argument).  They've been updating the game and I believe patch 4.0 is coming shortly (or maybe it's already out) with hopes it will reinvigorate the game.  That said the one analyst whose reports on NCsoft that I can find easily is forecasting Aion's sales to decline another 20% in 2013.

As for the mobile space they may have discontinued internal development in 2010 to a "buy what's working" tactic when they acquired Ntreev.  And they are hyping CCG style mobile games in Japan based on their MMOs.  I'm not familiar with what passes as a successful mobile game genre in Korea so I don't know if these CCG "conversions" will work there.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Triplash on February 07, 2013, 07:13:46 PM
They've been updating the game and I believe patch 4.0 is coming shortly (or maybe it's already out) with hopes it will reinvigorate the game.

I'm not quite clear. Do you believe Aion is perfectly healthy right now?

Because I can remember another game NCsoft used to offer that was being updated regularly, with a "reinvigorating" patch nearly ready for release. That game also appeared to be perfectly healthy, right up to the day it was scheduled to be shut down. Edit: A savvy analyst would most likely notice behavior like that when they see it beginning to repeat.

The definition of a "perfectly healthy" product may have to be re-examined when the company offering it are themselves the toxic presence.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ironwolf on February 07, 2013, 07:18:50 PM
The trouble is they can't cut everything. It appears that NCSoft is playing a shell game. They are hiding the poor health of their games and the dubious releases of new projects by cloak and dagger means.

It really does appear Occam's razor is correct - the simplest reason for closing City of Heroes is incompetance by management.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 07, 2013, 07:33:33 PM
I'm not quite clear. Do you believe Aion is perfectly healthy right now?

Because I can remember another game NCsoft used to offer that was being updated regularly, with a "reinvigorating" patch nearly ready for release. That game also appeared to be perfectly healthy, right up to the day it was scheduled to be shut down. Edit: A savvy analyst would most likely notice behavior like that when they see it beginning to repeat.

The definition of a "perfectly healthy" product may have to be re-examined when the company offering it are themselves the toxic presence.

Yea ... Aion's worst quarter, the current one, still had sales 8-9x that of CoH's last reported quarter.  Size still matters.

Aion is definitely on a nosedive, just like CoH.  The question is where and when do they level out, with their hard core players not willing to leave.

Also let's face it, Aion when it was released was NCsoft's prettiest MMO to date.

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.aionfly.com%2Fwp-content%2Fgallery%2Felyos-armor-sets%2Felyos-draconic-cloth-female.jpg)

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.aionfly.com%2Fwp-content%2Fgallery%2Fasmodian-armor-sets%2Fasmo-draconic-cloth-female.jpg)

It's possible that B&S is attracting Aion's players because it's the new "prettiest" MMO in the stable.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 07, 2013, 07:37:22 PM
The trouble is they can't cut everything. It appears that NCSoft is playing a shell game. They are hiding the poor health of their games and the dubious releases of new projects by cloak and dagger means.

???

Watchya talkin about Willis?  What shell game?  What cloak and dagger means.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: HarvesterOfEyes on February 07, 2013, 07:40:03 PM

Aion is definitely on a nosedive, just like CoH.

Please clarify. What is this "nosedive" CoH is/was in?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: LadyShin on February 07, 2013, 08:02:25 PM
Just a curiousity, would it save NCSoft to go the way of Dell computers, and buy off 100% of their public stock from their shareholders and go 100% private?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on February 07, 2013, 08:06:41 PM
???

Watchya talkin about Willis?  What shell game?  What cloak and dagger means.

They're attempting to draw attention away from mistakes like closing very popular MMOs/tanking stock prices with New Shinies. Only the new shinies are having some problems.

They're also being very disingenious about all this [hope that is spelled right]. Its either fudging the truth, shoving some stuff under the rug or an outright Wall of Silence.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ironwolf on February 07, 2013, 08:13:19 PM
Cloak and dagger means they are flashing demo's of Wildstar and slapping a random release date on it - knowing the game won't make that date just to try and bloster slipping stock prices. The company isn't going bust........yet, but they are bleeding investors like crazy and so they are shuffling deck chairs around on the Titanic while the band plays to try and distract from cannibalizing from one game to try and build another.

When overall subs don't increase it just moves from one game to another instead of increasing total sales - you are dying. In sales if you are growing you are dying.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 07, 2013, 08:16:23 PM
Please clarify. What is this "nosedive" CoH is/was in?

Sales dropped 57% over the last three years.  You may not think that's a nosedive but it's losing altitude at an alarming rate.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Hyperstrike on February 07, 2013, 08:20:12 PM
Lol, that is a seriously morbid joke.

Glad you appreciated it!   ;D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: HarvesterOfEyes on February 07, 2013, 08:20:55 PM
Just a curiousity, would it save NCSoft to go the way of Dell computers, and buy off 100% of their public stock from their shareholders and go 100% private?
Not if they're run by morons, no.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 07, 2013, 08:23:14 PM
Cloak and dagger means they are flashing demo's of Wildstar and slapping a random release date on it - knowing the game won't make that date just to try and bloster slipping stock prices. The company isn't going bust........yet, but they are bleeding investors like crazy and so they are shuffling deck chairs around on the Titanic while the band plays to try and distract from cannibalizing from one game to try and build another.

When overall subs don't increase it just moves from one game to another instead of increasing total sales - you are dying. In sales if you are growing you are dying.

Well we'll see if the game is released at the end of the year or not.  It's true however that they do have a history of overestimating when the product will be done.  Much like any senior management at any software company I've ever worked at.  Writing software is like writing a novel, some days you a chapter done, some days only a few pages and some days you have to scrap a chapter because it sucks on a second reading.  That's why most developers follow Scotty's rules of estimating when they talk to senior management.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: HarvesterOfEyes on February 07, 2013, 08:27:13 PM
Sales dropped 57% over the last three years.  You may not think that's a nosedive but it's losing altitude at an alarming rate.
No that's not good. I guess we differ on how to use various aviation euphemisms. I would tend to call something bad by a different name than something else approximately 3 times worse, but that's just me.

I am curious though, how many times bigger were Aion's sales at their peak than CoH's at its peak.

I ask that, because without that information the 8-9X comparison of recent sales lacks context.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 07, 2013, 08:34:22 PM
Just a curiousity, would it save NCSoft to go the way of Dell computers, and buy off 100% of their public stock from their shareholders and go 100% private?

The purpose of taking a company private is to keep shareholders from interfering with what has to be done to restructure a company.  It doesn't help when every decision is dissected and commented on by pundits (analysts) ad nauseum, much like politics today.  When management can't do anything significant because of fear of how it may affect the stock price negatively you eliminate that fear by eliminating the stockholders.  Now you're free to do whatever is necessary to right the ship without all the "helpful" second guessing by outsiders.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 07, 2013, 08:46:02 PM
No that's not good. I guess we differ on how to use various aviation euphemisms. I would tend to call something bad by a different name than something else approximately 3 times worse, but that's just me.

I am curious though, how many times bigger were Aion's sales at their peak than CoH's at its peak.

I ask that, because without that information the 8-9X comparison of recent sales lacks context.

About 6x, 89,846 vs 15,706 million KrW.  Here have a chart.

(https://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a213/FatherXmas/Charts/NCsoftGames4Q2012_zpsffc144e4.jpg)

It's possible that some of Aion's and Lineage II sales are now counted as royalties since NCsoft licensed the running of the games in the EU to third parties.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blue Pulsar on February 07, 2013, 08:57:15 PM
So, CoX has been outselling Guild Wars since late 2008 and it's still around? Guild Wars, that is.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 07, 2013, 09:22:48 PM
So, CoX has been outselling Guild Wars since late 2008 and it's still around? Guild Wars, that is.

Yes, but ArenaNet was working on GW2.  Why shut down GW1 since at the very least it's advertising for GW2 and you don't tick off potential customers for it's sequel.  Plus GW1 still outsold CoH over it's lifespan, they had the cash to do the development work.

Chart of cumulative sales over lifetime, CoH (blue) Vs GW1 (orange/red).

(https://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a213/FatherXmas/Charts/CoH-GWSum.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blue Pulsar on February 07, 2013, 09:27:07 PM
Am I seeing that right? CoX only made 180k for it's entire run?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 07, 2013, 09:34:09 PM
Am I seeing that right? CoX only made 180k for it's entire run?

Sorry, didn't label the Y, that's million USD.  And I converted each quarter from KrW to USD using the average exchange rate for that quarter.

The previous chart are the actual game sale numbers reported in KrW from each quarterly report.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blue Pulsar on February 07, 2013, 09:36:22 PM
Sorry, didn't label the Y, that's million USD.  And I converted each quarter from KrW to USD using the average exchange rate for that quarter.

So, 180,000,000?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 07, 2013, 09:46:52 PM
So, 180,000,000?

Yes, the game in it's lifetime, at least up to when NCsoft stopped reporting it's sales numbers, had total lifetime sales of about $183 million dollars US.  In KrW it's 194,915 million based on the sum of quarterly reports.  There was a time from 4Q 2008 to 3Q 2009 where the exchange rate favored the dollar heavily so more KrW for the buck.

Edit: In contrast, GW2 just made 164,854 million KrW in it's first 4 months.  However analysts are predicting that next quarter, now that the initial sales rush is over, GW2 is expected to earn around 20,000 million KrW a quarter until the expansion comes out 3Q.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: HarvesterOfEyes on February 07, 2013, 10:10:28 PM
About 6x, 89,846 vs 15,706 million KrW.

Thanks.

How do sales compare to expenses for these two?

Quote
  Here have a chart.
No thanks. Just the numbers if you please.

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on February 07, 2013, 10:16:50 PM
Yes, but ArenaNet was working on GW2.  Why shut down GW1 since at the very least it's advertising for GW2 and you don't tick off potential customers for it's sequel.  Plus GW1 still outsold CoH over it's lifespan, they had the cash to do the development work.

Chart of cumulative sales over lifetime, CoH (blue) Vs GW1 (orange/red).

(https://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a213/FatherXmas/Charts/CoH-GWSum.jpg)

Why am I getting the feeling that those decision makers merely looked at these charts and made decisions?

While numbers dont lie, I think it dont account for potential and many other factors like player satisfaction, and realization the super hero MMO market is about as bare as the EL Paso/New Mexico desert. They had the run of the market to themselves to grow without much competition, if any depending on who is asked. While many probably wouldnt have switched to GW2 as quick as GW1 players, we were still there. They think many of us will switch to GW2 now? I highly doubt most of us will and I hope they didnt it would work like that. Looks like quantity over quality. But hey, that is how buisness sometimes works I understand. COX had the potential to go further with a little bit of cash. There was nothing like it on the market.

But looking at these charts being presented to the board, and if something had to be cut, it would be the something from the lower lines. Since GW2 was coming, GW1 got a pass so the playerbase of the GW franchise wont be pissed and try to ensure success of GW2.

Like a 1980s Saab. Quirky, different and wouldnt be mistaken for anything else. It was a Saab. Then GM got ahold of them, they sold more but it was a Chevy with a Saab emblem. Lost alot of hardcore Saab fans that wouldnt have otherwise bought any other brand. In the end, Saab ended up defuct and non-production. But mention a Saab, many times first thing that comes to mind is the 80s version although the 2000s and up are way newer and should be the one in memory when someone think of Saab.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 07, 2013, 10:25:41 PM
Thanks.

How do sales compare to expenses for these two?
No thanks. Just the numbers if you please.

NCsoft does not release expenses or profits on a per game basis, only sales.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: HarvesterOfEyes on February 07, 2013, 10:42:57 PM
...and from that I suspect people infer the existence of a shell-game.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 07, 2013, 10:59:29 PM
...and from that I suspect people infer the existence of a shell-game.

Why?  Apple doesn't release it's profits on each of the products, even the broader category of product lines like iPad or Mac.  Nexon doesn't even release sales numbers for their games, neither does Activision/Blizzard.  Few if any companies make a distinction of sales by product line and never profits.

A/B splits sales between Activision and Blizzard; or Retail and Online; or Online, HD Consoles, SD Consoles/Handhelds, PC and other; and of course regional, NA/EU/Asia.

I'm surprised that NCsoft actually has that level of transparency in sales but it makes sense since they have such a limited number of products to sell that got added to slowly over time.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: HarvesterOfEyes on February 07, 2013, 11:22:29 PM
Why? 
I would suggest probably because of the inconsistent statements about various topics including the profitability of one enterprise versus another and what precisely were the reasons for shutting down the one most posters to this forum give a tinker's damn about.

A rational person suspects a liar of lying.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 08, 2013, 01:00:41 AM
I would suggest probably because of the inconsistent statements about various topics including the profitability of one enterprise versus another and what precisely were the reasons for shutting down the one most posters to this forum give a tinker's damn about.

A rational person suspects a liar of lying.

The statements weren't inconsistent in my eye.  They simply were hesitant to say the reason until most of the former employees of the Paragon were resituated.  And NCsoft did reorganize their western subsidiaries.  They reduced staff at NC Interactive after the game's closure as well as discontinue several small, old casual games in Korea.  They are focusing on big name (read sales) MMOs, mobile gaming and expansion of new MMOs into untapped markets.

In their eyes Paragon had nothing new to offer and CoH simply wasn't large enough and didn't have the potential to be expanded into Asia to keep even a pared down Paragon.  At least that is what they were implying.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DarkCurrent on February 08, 2013, 01:45:34 AM
The statements weren't inconsistent in my eye.  They simply were hesitant to say the reason until most of the former employees of the Paragon were resituated.  And NCsoft did reorganize their western subsidiaries.  They reduced staff at NC Interactive after the game's closure as well as discontinue several small, old casual games in Korea.  They are focusing on big name (read sales) MMOs, mobile gaming and expansion of new MMOs into untapped markets.

In their eyes Paragon had nothing new to offer and CoH simply wasn't large enough and didn't have the potential to be expanded into Asia to keep even a pared down Paragon.  At least that is what they were implying.

Hmmm... and here I just thought they were pissing in my eye socket.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TonyV on February 08, 2013, 04:42:02 AM
Yes, but ArenaNet was working on GW2.  Why shut down GW1 since at the very least it's advertising for GW2 and you don't tick off potential customers for it's sequel.

Yes, but Paragon Studios could have been working on CoH2 if NCsoft had given it the green light.  Incidentally, it could have been more successful if NCsoft had thrown just a modicum of marketing dollars at it.  Why have one successful game when you could have had two?  Why shut down either game and piss off a community, a move that would undoubtedly have ramifications on your other business?  Again, City of Heroes was not losing money.  I'm not saying that it was a bad decision not to shut down Guild Wars or develop Guild Wars 2.  I am saying, however, that it was a bad decision to not develop City of Heroes 2, and it was a completely numskull decision to shut down City of Heroes and kill off Paragon Studios.  And then to follow that with not allowing the management of Paragon Studios to at least buy the IP so that you could milk a few dollars off of the husk of what you're throwing away is truly a move that only a frontal lobotomy could produce.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kistulot on February 08, 2013, 07:23:13 AM
Yes, but Paragon Studios could have been working on CoH2 if NCsoft had given it the green light.  Incidentally, it could have been more successful if NCsoft had thrown just a modicum of marketing dollars at it.  Why have one successful game when you could have had two?  Why shut down either game and piss off a community, a move that would undoubtedly have ramifications on your other business?

Supposedly they WERE working on another game, but now, we'll never know what it was.

Honestly if it wasn't CoH2 (and they said it wasn't) I wouldn't have been interested in all likelyhood, but who knows.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on February 08, 2013, 09:40:49 AM
Supposedly they WERE working on another game, but now, we'll never know what it was.

Honestly if it wasn't CoH2 (and they said it wasn't) I wouldn't have been interested in all likelyhood, but who knows.

based on what was said about it, it wasnt coh2

iirc i think it was mentioned by one of the devs either right around closing or after closing that it was soemthing that was similar to minecraft or something, like really left field for what we would think
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DarkCurrent on February 08, 2013, 12:11:29 PM
Stock price is creeping back up after those fluff news releases yesterday about their Q4 successes.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on February 08, 2013, 04:26:26 PM
Definite, but negligible. They're still in the 135 range.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 09, 2013, 12:19:54 AM
Stock price is creeping back up after those fluff news releases yesterday about their Q4 successes.

It drifted back up because after a two day decline of 6.9%, those who were getting out or rebalancing their portfolios were done.  You have to understand that stocks go down because there are more shares for sale than interest to buy, so the price is reduced until enough buyers step in.  Opposite is true when a stock goes up, there are more interest in shares to buy than actual shares for sale, so the price is increased until enough shares are up for sale.

What is revealing is the volume of shares traded.  The week before the average volume of shares trades was about 300K.  On Tuesday, the first day of the sell off, volume was 728K.  On Wednesday the volume was 970K.  When it opened higher and meandered on Thursday the volume was only 261K and today when it climbed a little bit it was 403K.  So nearly 1.7 million shares traded when the stock declined 6.9% and about 40% of that volume when it climbed.  And this pattern of higher volume days when the stock declined vs low volume days when the stock rises has been going at least for the last year.

Also looking at the last week changes in estimates from analysts, consensus sales estimates for 2013 is down 6.8% with earnings estimates for 2013 down 19.8%.  However compared to a year ago, the sales estimates for 2013 were off by 24% with earnings estimates off by whopping 50%.  Basket.  Eggs.  Blade & Soul. 

B&S was no Aion.  And how many years of hype imploded taking the stock price with it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 09, 2013, 12:59:02 AM
Yes, but Paragon Studios could have been working on CoH2 if NCsoft had given it the green light.  Incidentally, it could have been more successful if NCsoft had thrown just a modicum of marketing dollars at it.  Why have one successful game when you could have had two?  Why shut down either game and piss off a community, a move that would undoubtedly have ramifications on your other business?  Again, City of Heroes was not losing money.  I'm not saying that it was a bad decision not to shut down Guild Wars or develop Guild Wars 2.  I am saying, however, that it was a bad decision to not develop City of Heroes 2, and it was a completely numskull decision to shut down City of Heroes and kill off Paragon Studios.  And then to follow that with not allowing the management of Paragon Studios to at least buy the IP so that you could milk a few dollars off of the husk of what you're throwing away is truly a move that only a frontal lobotomy could produce.

Timing is everything.

Guild Wars came out in NA almost exactly a year after CoH.  By the end of 2006 it had more cumulative sales than CoH with CoH having a year head start.  By then they had two expansions out and the game was available in numerous Asian countries including Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore.  They were having international PvP tournaments.  Three months later ArenaNet announces both the next expansion AND Guild Wars 2.  So they got their go ahead on development when they were on top with one more expansion to bank so by the end of 2007, Guild Wars had 21,700 million KrW more in cumulative sales than CoH.

Once the last expansion for Guild Wars was released, nearly the entire development staff except for literally a handful, were shifted to Guild Wars 2 development.

Now Paragon Studio wasn't created until the end of 2007.  By then the Korean beta of City of Hero was dead by nearly a year and there was no further attempt to bring it to anywhere else in Asia.

Now I'm not sure when Paragon Studio pitched MMO ideas to NCsoft and got at least one approved to ramp up or shift staff to it.  I'm guessing after GR which by then CoH sales were already settling at only $2.5-3 million a quarter.

ArenaNet had the advantage of not needing to crank out significant content two to three times a year.  This let them move most of the development team over to a new project, one they got the OK for when they were flying high in sales with proof that their game design could succeed in Asia. 

Also this was before the debacle that was Tabula Rasa.  It's likely that the bar of what they would accept as a "good idea" for an MMO was now set higher than it was when GW2 got the green light or they became much more conservative about play style, looks, etc.

And Carbine Studio was founded in 2005 and bought by NCsoft in 2007 (as best as I can tell), again before Tabula Rasa went down in flames.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TonyV on February 09, 2013, 08:09:12 PM
I'm not talking about the "Secret Project". What I'm referring to is that Paragon Studios pitched CoH 2 multiple times to NCsoft, and they were turned down. Meanwhile, NCsoft gave them practically nothing in the way of marketing dollars. If NCsoft didn't like CoH's sales numbers, it's their own damn fault. There's no reason CoH couldn't have been just as or even more popular than Guild Wars, especially given the popularity of superheroes in the media these days. And I would strongly disagree with any assertion that CoH was any less deserving of a sequel than Guild Wars.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Copper Cockroach on February 09, 2013, 08:31:53 PM
Guild Wars, are you kiddin'? I've always said CoH would've been bigger than World of Freaking Warcraft if it had been promoted properly.

"The Avengers" is the 3rd highest-grossing movie of all time. Most of the other recent superhero movies have been huge smashes as well. Now imagine if all those filmgoers had known there was a game that let them do all that same stuff, but with their own characters...

Good job, NCsoft. Geniuses.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Peregrine Falcon on February 09, 2013, 09:35:42 PM
I'm not talking about the "Secret Project". What I'm referring to is that Paragon Studios pitched CoH 2 multiple times to NCsoft, and they were turned down. Meanwhile, NCsoft gave them practically nothing in the way of marketing dollars. If NCsoft didn't like CoH's sales numbers, it's their own damn fault. There's no reason CoH couldn't have been just as or even more popular than Guild Wars, especially given the popularity of superheroes in the media these days. And I would strongly disagree with any assertion that CoH was any less deserving of a sequel than Guild Wars.
I remember when Heroes was big on TV and people started begging NCSoft to just advertise City of Heroes. Anyone remember what happened?

Ex_Libris started a thread about how she had started a new MySpace page for City of Heroes. Then both her and Lighthouse took offense when people told her that she was wasting her time with a social media site that had already died.

Hitstreak said that when the servers went down that all of City's social sites (Twitter, etc.) would be taken down too. It looks like they forgot the Myspace page. (http://www.myspace.com/official_cityofheroes) Kinda like everyone else forgot that it existed.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 09, 2013, 10:28:06 PM
I'm not talking about the "Secret Project". What I'm referring to is that Paragon Studios pitched CoH 2 multiple times to NCsoft, and they were turned down. Meanwhile, NCsoft gave them practically nothing in the way of marketing dollars. If NCsoft didn't like CoH's sales numbers, it's their own damn fault. There's no reason CoH couldn't have been just as or even more popular than Guild Wars, especially given the popularity of superheroes in the media these days. And I would strongly disagree with any assertion that CoH was any less deserving of a sequel than Guild Wars.

Again timing.  When did Paragon pitch this?  It it was after the very public and expensive failure of TR their bar for new ideas may have been set higher.  Also the failure of the Korean CoH beta may have convinced NCsoft that a CoH2 wasn't such a great idea or at the very least one that would still not be successful in Korea.

Personally, talking out of my backside here, I suspect one of the reasons that CoH failed in Korea was PvP.  Let's face it, Asia (yes I'm painting with a very broad brush here, sorry) seems to enjoy video games where you can compete against other players online.  Have a formal tournaments, ranking system, etc.  What's the most popular video game in Korea PC cafes right now?  According to this (http://www.gametrics.com/) it's League of Legends by a nearly 3:1 margin.

Now our PvP at the time, late 2005/early 2006, pre IO, had very asymmetrical one on one.  Tank Vs Scrapper tended to be a draw.  Someone who could move quicker than their opponent tended to have an upper hand.  Blaster Vs Melee was a match in avoiding.  Balance was better on teams of course but even then gameplay and powers were very different between PvE and PvP.

Plus there was rooting.  I've been noticing in the various videos about MMOs that are popular in Korea and other Asian countries are a bit more FPS like with their movement and attacks.  Then there's the whole dodge/avoid/AOE hint mechanism that seems to be popping up everywhere.  Now I don't know if word got back as to why Korea CoH failed in beta and then took into consideration those faults when they pitched CoH2 or any other MMO idea.  I wouldn't be overly surprise to find out that proper feedback from Korea wasn't provided that upper management would simply expect Paragon to look around and figure it out themselves.  As a way to prove that the team was worthy of another shot.

Like I said, my opinion.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 09, 2013, 10:43:39 PM
Guild Wars, are you kiddin'? I've always said CoH would've been bigger than World of Freaking Warcraft if it had been promoted properly.

"The Avengers" is the 3rd highest-grossing movie of all time. Most of the other recent superhero movies have been huge smashes as well. Now imagine if all those filmgoers had known there was a game that let them do all that same stuff, but with their own characters...

Good job, NCsoft. Geniuses.

Other than Guild Wars 2, show me when NCsoft advertised any of their MMOs when there wasn't a box launch tied to it?  In Korea they have flippin K-pop concerts.  Heck they currently have a tie-in between Lineage and PSY (Gangnam Style).  They simply don't know how to spend ad money over here.  In Korea, they have a lot of promotions through all the PC cafes tied to their games.  Here...we buy them and take them home to play.  They are stuck with how our retail chains simply don't stock anything more than a few months old anymore.  That shelf space has been cut way back in the few stores that still carry PC games.  That you have to essentially bribe a chain to make sure your products are always prominently displayed.  The one time they did a deal with Walmart, GvE wasn't on the shelves in most of their stores the week it was in their circular.  One time shot, fail.  They did a deal with GameStop, we didn't even get a GameStop commercial out of it.  How many went to GameStop that week and their staff new nothing about Going Rogue or the deal?  Fail, strike two.

As for GW2, ArenaNet hired their own advertising company to promote the game.  They didn't wait for NCsoft to get their act together.  Now that ad company has been (or was) retained by NC Interactive just after GW2 hit the stores for all future games moving forward.

But that said DCUO isn't blowing up sales wise either.  Maybe because there were so few DC movies (however DC animated TV series were around since the mid 1990s).  Of course at some point the actual game makes a difference when it comes to word of mouth.  Advertising just puts a game on potential players radar before it's released.  Afterwards it's word of mouth and reviews that determines a sale.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on February 10, 2013, 02:01:46 AM
I remember when Heroes was big on TV and people started begging NCSoft to just advertise City of Heroes. Anyone remember what happened?

Ex_Libris started a thread about how she had started a new MySpace page for City of Heroes. Then both her and Lighthouse took offense when people told her that she was wasting her time with a social media site that had already died.

Hitstreak said that when the servers went down that all of City's social sites (Twitter, etc.) would be taken down too. It looks like they forgot the Myspace page. (http://www.myspace.com/official_cityofheroes) Kinda like everyone else forgot that it existed.

ncsoft had a coh myspace page? lol
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blondeshell on February 10, 2013, 04:17:28 AM
As another example of how NCsoft has no clue how and/or no desire to promote itself in the West on a corporate level, I just noticed that the press release section of the English version (http://global.ncsoft.com/global/board/boardlist.aspx?BID=mc_press) of their corporate site was last updated over three years ago for Aion's open beta, while the Korean version (http://kr.ncsoft.com/korean/board/boardlist.aspx?BID=mc_press) averages at least three items per week.  :roll:

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.imagecoast.com%2Fimages%2Fblondeshell%2Fncsales.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 10, 2013, 04:42:51 AM
As another example of how NCsoft has no clue how and/or no desire to promote itself in the West on a corporate level, I just noticed that the press release section of the English version (http://global.ncsoft.com/global/board/boardlist.aspx?BID=mc_press) of their corporate site was last updated over three years ago for Aion's open beta, while the Korean version (http://kr.ncsoft.com/korean/board/boardlist.aspx?BID=mc_press) averages at least three items per week.  :roll:

To be honest though we have this site (http://us.ncsoft.com/en/) for all our western gaming info needs although the corporate site does keep the IR and game information up to date or at least matching the Korean version of the site, just not the press releases.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Samuraiko on February 10, 2013, 06:54:17 AM
I remember when Heroes was big on TV and people started begging NCSoft to just advertise City of Heroes. Anyone remember what happened?

Ex_Libris started a thread about how she had started a new MySpace page for City of Heroes. Then both her and Lighthouse took offense when people told her that she was wasting her time with a social media site that had already died.

Hitstreak said that when the servers went down that all of City's social sites (Twitter, etc.) would be taken down too. It looks like they forgot the Myspace page. (http://www.myspace.com/official_cityofheroes) Kinda like everyone else forgot that it existed.

However, their YouTube channel is still there, as is the TwitchTV page.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on February 11, 2013, 02:37:10 AM
NCSoft would advertise premium sushi as "cold raw fish on rice mixed with vinegar".
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Zerias on February 11, 2013, 04:57:54 AM
NCSoft would advertise premium sushi as "cold raw fish on rice mixed with vinegar".

You forget to mention that they would insure we knew it came from the Breast Breed of Fish.

(nope, not sorry)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 11, 2013, 05:11:42 AM
No stock news today, last day of their 3 day Seollal holiday, aka Korean New Year, aka Chinese New Year, aka Lunar New Year.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DarkCurrent on February 11, 2013, 02:15:44 PM
Magic 8-Ball Says:

Big Drop This Week

Cause:

During a weekend of partying with business friends and investors, drunken NCSoft execs let slip that they really have no clue what they're doing.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on February 11, 2013, 02:32:37 PM
Magic 8-Ball Says:

Big Drop This Week

Cause:

During a weekend of partying with business friends and investors, drunken NCSoft execs let slip that they really have no clue what they're doing.

+1 Internets
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Absolute on February 12, 2013, 08:30:13 AM
it's League of Legends by a nearly 3:1 margin.

Now our PvP at the time, late 2005/early 2006, pre IO, had very asymmetrical one on one.  Tank Vs Scrapper tended to be a draw.  Someone who could move quicker than their opponent tended to have an upper hand.  Blaster Vs Melee was a match in avoiding.  Balance was better on teams of course but even then gameplay and powers were very different between PvE and PvP.

Plus there was rooting.

I just thought I'd comment on this while I'm here.

League of Legends PvP is extremely close to what CoH was.

Both are team based
Both have "roles" that need to be filled (Damage/ADC, Support etc.)
Both involve a lot of movement and kiting
Both were simplistic (PreIO/Incarnate age) - Funny enough, CoH PvP builds typically consisted of 4 main attacks, same as LoL
Both have rooting
Both have tons of options for gameplay style/character
Both involve a base with drones, winning is pushing your foe back (As was zone wars)
Both have advanced tactics of ambushing/baiting/deceiving/tricking

Biggest of all, both have fast gameplay. Fights can end in seconds. You need good reflexes. You need to be paranoid and think things through. Both have an excellent competitive scene. What do games like GW2 lack in their PvP? Movement and speed. LoL has that, so does CoH.

The only big difference I can think of is skill shots that take aiming, but that's not too far from timing your attacks with teammates for burst damage. Both include timing.

The LoL meta game is essentially the same as the old PvP. A lot of CoH PvPers have walked into LoL and risen through the ranking system fast.
I think the execution of CoH PvP was lacking, but the PvP itself wasn't the problem.

The problem?

-Gated behind 50 levels of PvE per character
-Subscription based
-Never advertised as a PvP game
-Some balance problems
-Lack of objectives/incentive

As someone stated earlier, the Korean video of CoH seemed like a bait and switch. That's definitely not the game I played.

While it can be argued that the popularity of Super Heroes isn't as high in Asia, there's no doubt we had something they would have loved (Our PvP system).

(Last note: PvP and PvE powers worked relatively the same until i13. Definitely at 2006)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Colette on February 13, 2013, 03:59:08 PM
Well, they appear to have stabilized, at roughly 135. Not a good week for us.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on February 13, 2013, 06:13:24 PM
i dont think we will really see them hurting until the next quarters numbers are out and showing that gw2 has dropped off a cliff due to only relying on in game purchases
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 13, 2013, 08:16:14 PM
i dont think we will really see them hurting until the next quarters numbers are out and showing that gw2 has dropped off a cliff due to only relying on in game purchases

Except that's been forecast already.  The current analyst consensus for the 1st quarter is around 185 for sales (range 153-211).  4th quarter 2012 was 283 (thousand million KrW).  Consensus profit for the 1st quarter is about 45 (range 21-74).  Book value is around 61,000 per share.  That puts Price to Book at 2.2.  Prior to the stock rise due to the success of Aion, the book value was 2.1 at the end of 2008.  At the end of 2010, off from it's first peak it was 4.3.  At the end of 2011, off from it's all time high, it was 5.9.

It's when a stock misses the consensus or when analysts change their guesstimates downwards or downgrade their buy/sell recommendation is when you get big selloffs.

As I've been saying, the super high stock price in 2010-2011 simply weren't supported by the companies fundamentals, it was predicated, somewhat like Apple, that NCsoft's next titles would significantly grow sales much like Aion did.  Except unlike Apple where new product announcements are like clockwork and that we could expect a "revolutionary" new product every few years, the over hype finally ran dry 3/4 the way though 2011 and much like an avalanche the stock price collapsed.  Of course it rallied a few times as investors decided it was cheap enough followed by another selloff from investors who missed the first one and then the second.  However when finally B&S came out, after hyping it since Aion, and it didn't bring in "new" sales like Aion did.  Finally reality set in and analysts are actually looking at the actual numbers than trying to correlate unique page views on MMO sites to determine projected sales of B&S, using Aion as a baseline.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 14, 2013, 04:57:45 AM
Someone posted on the GW2 forum the reported news that GW2 would be going to China this year and that there will be a paid expansion for NA/EU out the 2nd half of 2013.  This is the reply posted by ArenaNet's Head of Global Community, Martin Kerstein.

Quote
The information in this report is not correct.

It is true that Kongzhong is our Chinese publisher and that we are working with them to release Guild Wars 2 into the Chinese market. But like with the release in North America and Europe, we will do extensive beta testing, and the feedback of those tests will determine the time when we will release the game in China.

It is also true that we have said in the past that we will do an expansion at one point. But currently we are fully committed to expand the world of Guild Wars 2 through our Living Story (you can read more about it in this blog post by narrative designer Angel McCoy)

Sounds like another case of wishful thinking on whoever was the mouthpiece for NCsoft on the Investors Conference Call.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blue Pulsar on February 14, 2013, 06:53:23 PM
Except that's been forecast already.  The current analyst consensus for the 1st quarter is around 185 for sales (range 153-211).  4th quarter 2012 was 283 (thousand million KrW).  Consensus profit for the 1st quarter is about 45 (range 21-74).  Book value is around 61,000 per share.  That puts Price to Book at 2.2.  Prior to the stock rise due to the success of Aion, the book value was 2.1 at the end of 2008.  At the end of 2010, off from it's first peak it was 4.3.  At the end of 2011, off from it's all time high, it was 5.9.

It's when a stock misses the consensus or when analysts change their guesstimates downwards or downgrade their buy/sell recommendation is when you get big selloffs.

As I've been saying, the super high stock price in 2010-2011 simply weren't supported by the companies fundamentals, it was predicated, somewhat like Apple, that NCsoft's next titles would significantly grow sales much like Aion did.  Except unlike Apple where new product announcements are like clockwork and that we could expect a "revolutionary" new product every few years, the over hype finally ran dry 3/4 the way though 2011 and much like an avalanche the stock price collapsed.  Of course it rallied a few times as investors decided it was cheap enough followed by another selloff from investors who missed the first one and then the second.  However when finally B&S came out, after hyping it since Aion, and it didn't bring in "new" sales like Aion did.  Finally reality set in and analysts are actually looking at the actual numbers than trying to correlate unique page views on MMO sites to determine projected sales of B&S, using Aion as a baseline.

Okay, I'm sure other people know but I don't and am SUPER curious. I've been reading a lot of your posts in this thread and others... How the hell do you know so damn much about NCSoft, their stocks, and their financial situation? No, this is not at all sarcastic. You seem to know as much about them as they do, dare I say, enough that you seem to be an expert on it. I'm guessing you are.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JanessaVR on February 14, 2013, 08:56:48 PM
I'm guessing he works in the finance industry, he certainly seems to know his stuff, and therefore he knows where to go to get information that may not be obvious to members of the general public (and how to interpret it properly).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 14, 2013, 10:41:36 PM
Okay, I'm sure other people know but I don't and am SUPER curious. I've been reading a lot of your posts in this thread and others... How the hell do you know so damn much about NCSoft, their stocks, and their financial situation? No, this is not at all sarcastic. You seem to know as much about them as they do, dare I say, enough that you seem to be an expert on it. I'm guessing you are.

I watch a lot of CNBC (or I slept in a Holliday Inn Express, one or the other).  :P  I was also a credit shy for a minor in economics back in college (they didn't count the practical Engineering Economics course I took senior year  :().

Ratios are easy to compute and you just need to rummage through NCsoft's quarterly reports, which you can get off of NCsoft's website, for half of the raw data while getting the stock price for the period in question is available from Yahoo/Google finance pages.  Relatively recently I was pointed to one of NCsoft's analysts sites who post their analysis for free and it can be a funny read.  Every so often they would try to anticipate the impact of a new MMO by some of the most created methods of inference to other MMOs that had been released that I could imagine.

Once you calculate some of these ratios you take a look at other companies in their industry and known successful companies and see where they are relative to each other.  I've been looking at Nexon, Activision/Blizzard, and EA as comparison companies.

Also over time I've been finding more and more Korean gaming sites to try to glean insights on how NCsoft's games are doing there.  Gametrics is interesting because from what I can tell it looks only at the PC cafe numbers and while a lot of the data is gated for a fee, enough is available to get an idea of what's being played and in what numbers.  Since I was one of the hardware recommendation guys on the old forums what I found interesting was something like the Steam survey of hardware that's found in PC cafes.  And since video games are a big business in Korea, actually a surprisingly sizable exporter, Korean business sites like Money Today actually break out the gaming company news on a separate tab.  Sure reading Google translated articles will toast your mind due to the translation gibberish it ofter produces but you can find headlines about NCsoft that isn't on NCsoft's own website.  Also THISISGAME, both the beta global version and the native Korean version also have articles on NCsoft that aren't found in Massively or other western MMO sites.

Lastly it just annoys me that the majority of people don't actually understand what the price of stock actually means to a company and how often it isn't related to the relative financial strength or weakness of that company.

Also way back when the closing was first announced, I loaded up a spreadsheet with all the data I was able to pull from all the quarterly reports from NCsoft and updated it as the 3rd and 4th quarter numbers came out.  For CoH and GW I also bothered to pull the currency exchange rates for every quarter since CoH and GW were developed here in the USA so I could relay their numbers in $ and not thousands of KrW.  It's why I can throw together a quick chart of all the games NCsoft breaks out in their quarterly reports.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DarkCurrent on February 14, 2013, 11:53:23 PM
Someone posted on the GW2 forum the reported news that GW2 would be going to China this year and that there will be a paid expansion for NA/EU out the 2nd half of 2013.  This is the reply posted by ArenaNet's Head of Global Community, Martin Kerstein.

Sounds like another case of wishful thinking on whoever was the mouthpiece for NCsoft on the Investors Conference Call.

So what you're saying is that ArenNet is on the chopping block.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JWBullfrog on February 15, 2013, 12:15:22 AM
So what you're saying is that ArenNet is on the chopping block.

You know, I would see that as a good thing; provided that A-net can go independant. I would be more willing to try out their games.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on February 15, 2013, 12:56:17 AM
Honestly if ArenaNet can go idie, I will run out and buy a copy of something just to help support them.  I've talked to people who have friends working there, and a lot of the stuff that is.....less than customer friendly....is being mandated by edicts from NCSoft. 

But ArenaNet, fortunately for them, has a mandated buy-out clause in their contract.  None of the other studios NCSoft bought or created has that.  I feel REALLY sorry for Carbine.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Taceus Jiwede on February 15, 2013, 02:22:38 AM
I watch a lot of CNBC (or I slept in a Holliday Inn Express, one or the other).  :P  I was also a credit shy for a minor in economics back in college (they didn't count the practical Engineering Economics course I took senior year  :().

Ratios are easy to compute and you just need to rummage through NCsoft's quarterly reports, which you can get off of NCsoft's website, for half of the raw data while getting the stock price for the period in question is available from Yahoo/Google finance pages.  Relatively recently I was pointed to one of NCsoft's analysts sites who post their analysis for free and it can be a funny read.  Every so often they would try to anticipate the impact of a new MMO by some of the most created methods of inference to other MMOs that had been released that I could imagine.

Once you calculate some of these ratios you take a look at other companies in their industry and known successful companies and see where they are relative to each other.  I've been looking at Nexon, Activision/Blizzard, and EA as comparison companies.

Also over time I've been finding more and more Korean gaming sites to try to glean insights on how NCsoft's games are doing there.  Gametrics is interesting because from what I can tell it looks only at the PC cafe numbers and while a lot of the data is gated for a fee, enough is available to get an idea of what's being played and in what numbers.  Since I was one of the hardware recommendation guys on the old forums what I found interesting was something like the Steam survey of hardware that's found in PC cafes.  And since video games are a big business in Korea, actually a surprisingly sizable exporter, Korean business sites like Money Today actually break out the gaming company news on a separate tab.  Sure reading Google translated articles will toast your mind due to the translation gibberish it ofter produces but you can find headlines about NCsoft that isn't on NCsoft's own website.  Also THISISGAME, both the beta global version and the native Korean version also have articles on NCsoft that aren't found in Massively or other western MMO sites.

Lastly it just annoys me that the majority of people don't actually understand what the price of stock actually means to a company and how often it isn't related to the relative financial strength or weakness of that company.

Also way back when the closing was first announced, I loaded up a spreadsheet with all the data I was able to pull from all the quarterly reports from NCsoft and updated it as the 3rd and 4th quarter numbers came out.  For CoH and GW I also bothered to pull the currency exchange rates for every quarter since CoH and GW were developed here in the USA so I could relay their numbers in $ and not thousands of KrW.  It's why I can throw together a quick chart of all the games NCsoft breaks out in their quarterly reports.

Ohhhh I get it....your a witch!  Seriously though Father Xmas I love reading your posts I always learn something new.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 15, 2013, 04:19:03 AM
So what you're saying is that ArenNet is on the chopping block.

If you were concerned about being shut down, why aggravate the situation by publicly disagreeing with your "bosses".  Especially if it might affect the stock price.

Ohhhh I get it....your a witch!

But I don't weigh the same as a duck?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Twisted Toon on February 15, 2013, 07:27:21 AM
If you were concerned about being shut down, why aggravate the situation by publicly disagreeing with your "bosses".  Especially if it might affect the stock price.

But I don't weigh the same as a duck?
A duck prepared for dinner doesn't weigh the same as a duck roaming free on a pond either.

Just sayin'  :P
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lucretia MacEvil on February 15, 2013, 05:20:14 PM
A duck prepared for dinner doesn't weigh the same as a duck roaming free on a pond either.

Just sayin'  :P

But the whole point is to weigh as much as something that floats (as proof a witch is made of wood, which also floats), so if he weighs the same amount as a dinner duck that does not float, it has no bearing on the argument.

... what's with all the funny looks?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on February 16, 2013, 12:26:31 AM
Someone on this board uses the screenname "Roderick." He hasn't posted much, but I've had to fight the urge to post this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX0XDHF3M60) when I does. I dont' want to come off as mocking him, but I have to go watch it every time. :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on February 16, 2013, 02:52:44 AM
Larry speculates that all is not well in ArenaNetLand.  We've talked to several people who know folks who work there, and there is growing unhappiness about the Edicts from On High.  And now NCSoft announces in the corporate meeting that they are putting out a GW2 expansion which....they aren't.  He thinks the immediate announcement from ArenaNet of "No we aren't," is the first sign of overt rebellion.

I will say that if they buy themselves out, I will be the first to buy a package (even though I have no intentions of playing) to support them.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: General Idiot on February 16, 2013, 04:28:25 AM
If they get away from NCsoft the first thing I'll do is buy a pile of gems to spend on stuff, probably transmutation stones.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JanessaVR on February 16, 2013, 04:57:16 AM
I'll second that.  If they break free of NCLimp, I'll happily buy a copy of GW2 from them, even if I probably won't play it.  I could give it away to someone here.  :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on February 16, 2013, 05:50:23 AM
if they get free of ncsoft, its very likely ncsoft will go under very fast since GW is one of their biggest sellers

they could float along on lineage for awhile but it certainly wouldnt last
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on February 16, 2013, 05:56:49 AM
If they get free, I'll have to send NCsoft a sympathy letter.

"Sorry you lost your game."
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Roderick on February 16, 2013, 09:25:19 AM
Someone on this board uses the screenname "Roderick." He hasn't posted much, but I've had to fight the urge to post this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX0XDHF3M60) when I does. I dont' want to come off as mocking him, but I have to go watch it every time. :)

I had the same handle on the official forums, too. And that was posted in response to me a couple times there, too. I've got a pretty tolerant sense pf humor, so as long as it doesn't come across deliberately mean, I probably won't care.
It's strange that I even saw that though. As you say, I'm not a frequent poster. And no, I wasn't ego searching. I read Mercedes Lackey's posts every couple days, and happened to catch my name in the post above one of hers. Go figure... I never knew I was an internet celebrity.  ;P

Also... I think you have a video to go watch.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: SARobb on February 16, 2013, 11:25:09 AM
Also... I think you have a video to go watch.

*snicker* well played.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Teutonic Rogue on February 16, 2013, 03:56:35 PM
... what's with all the funny looks?

Check the mirror? You may have been given a fake nose. ;p
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Codewalker on February 16, 2013, 04:16:14 PM
Knowing NCSoft, even if there is a buyout clause, unless it's very well worded (and I doubt NCSoft's lawyers would have accepted it if it was), they'll find a loophole to set the price high enough so that it's not feasible for ArenaNet to ever exercise it.

Especially given how much money it's made them lately.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on February 16, 2013, 04:29:17 PM
Things get bad enough and anyone will be willing to walk out of a job.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 16, 2013, 05:42:34 PM
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TonyV on February 16, 2013, 06:43:49 PM
If they get away from NCsoft the first thing I'll do is buy a pile of gems to spend on stuff, probably transmutation stones.

I would pay ArenaNet $1,000 to go indie by starting the letter notifying NCsoft with the following sentence: "ArenaNet is incredibly proud of NCsoft, but unfortunately, the continued support of NCsoft no longer fits within our long term goals for the company."
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on February 16, 2013, 07:24:01 PM
nice one tony lol

i still think that if arenanet wanted to go indie that ncsoft would be in some pretty hot water, their NA share of games will be effectively dead
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Surelle on February 17, 2013, 02:19:21 AM
nice one tony lol

i still think that if arenanet wanted to go indie that ncsoft would be in some pretty hot water, their NA share of games will be effectively dead

To be honest, though, it is apparent that NCSoft could care less about NA and EU.

But isn't the GW series crazy mad popular in Asia as well?  I seem to remember tons of Koreans overtaking the original GWs' PvP arenas back when I played it at launch.   Now there would be your difference in the "caring" department for NC.  I would think they'd do anything within their power to keep ArenaNet and the GW franchise.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on February 17, 2013, 02:28:39 AM
To be honest, though, it is apparent that NCSoft could care less about NA and EU.



Indeed.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 17, 2013, 03:31:34 AM
To be honest, though, it is apparent that NCSoft could care less about NA and EU.

But isn't the GW series crazy mad popular in Asia as well?  I seem to remember tons of Koreans overtaking the original GWs' PvP arenas back when I played it at launch.   Now there would be your difference in the "caring" department for NC.  I would think they'd do anything within their power to keep ArenaNet and the GW franchise.

Yes GW was localized for a variety of Asian countries including Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand.

GW2 is now being localized for Asia, currently it's only available in NA and EU.

And while it's true that they are down to Lineage 2 and Aion in NA, and they aren't doing particularly well (seen any advertising for those MMOs in NA?) it is reported that they are revamping the missions in B&S to make the game more suited to NA and EU than a simple language translation.  Don't know if this means less grindy, less team dependent, less PvP targeted, don't know I guess we'll see.

I think every MMO company would love to have a game that's equally popular in the East and the West.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: General Idiot on February 17, 2013, 05:09:47 AM
Quote
it is reported that they are revamping the missions in B&S to make the game more suited to NA and EU than a simple language translation.  Don't know if this means less grindy, less team dependent, less PvP targeted, don't know I guess we'll see.

The same was reported about Aion before it launched in NA. It proved to be completely untrue, and I doubt it'll be any different this time around.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Taceus Jiwede on February 17, 2013, 08:22:41 AM
I would pay ArenaNet $1,000 to go indie by starting the letter notifying NCsoft with the following sentence: "ArenaNet is incredibly proud of NCsoft, but unfortunately, the continued support of NCsoft no longer fits within our long term goals for the company."

Hell yes, I would throw a $1000 in with you Tony.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mister Bison on February 17, 2013, 11:45:03 AM
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blondeshell on February 17, 2013, 12:18:25 PM
(funny the source (http://us.ncsoft.com/en/news/response-to-city-of-heroes-player-and-fan-suggestions.php) has been taken down from the official ncsoft website)

Fixed the link for ya.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mister Bison on February 17, 2013, 12:55:24 PM
Fixed the link for ya.
Thanks ! What was the typo, if I may ask ? I took this link from quarter a dozen Video Games websites.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 17, 2013, 06:05:57 PM
(funny the source (http://us.ncsoft.com/en/news/response-to-city-of-heroes-player-and-fan-suggestions.html) has been taken down from the official ncsoft website)
The link is dead because they changed up how the news page is done.  Current link (http://us.ncsoft.com/en/news/response-to-city-of-heroes-player-and-fan-suggestions.php).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blondeshell on February 17, 2013, 07:26:38 PM
It's apparently done as php now instead of html.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DarkCurrent on February 18, 2013, 01:25:06 PM
In regard to advertising the game using the current superhero movie surge:

I haven't seen anyone post numbers about box office sales for the genre, so I'm linking to a site here.  If you peruse the foreign market sales after you go to one of the movie links you can see the breakdown for S. American, European, Asian, etc. countries.  For the half dozen big name movies I looked into, S. Korea, China, and Japan were typically top 10 markets... often outperforming all European countries except for the UK.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/genres/chart/?id=superhero.htm (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/genres/chart/?id=superhero.htm)

Seems from that data that superhero movies were well received by the Asian audiences.  Another interesting tidbit is the sales in Russia, Mexico and Brazil were really strong.  Based on these big spending markets it makes you think that CoX had a huge untapped playerbase.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: General Idiot on February 18, 2013, 03:56:00 PM
I know it was sold in Brazil cause I knew a guy who played from there. But I'd imagine it was advertised even less there than in America.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Twisted Toon on February 18, 2013, 07:00:12 PM
I know it was sold in Brazil cause I knew a guy who played from there. But I'd imagine it was advertised even less there than in America.
Isn't Leandro (His CoH Forum name) from South America?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Knight Light on February 18, 2013, 08:47:05 PM
Isn't Leandro (His CoH Forum name) from South America?

His last name, Pardini, sounds Italian if you ask me.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 18, 2013, 08:56:13 PM
Isn't Leandro (His CoH Forum name) from South America?

Yes he's in Argentina.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Minotaur on February 19, 2013, 12:00:03 AM
I know it was sold in Brazil cause I knew a guy who played from there. But I'd imagine it was advertised even less there than in America.

There were quite a lot of Brazilians that played, they had BR in some of their global/toon names. I had a couple of toons (Jararaca and Jararaca Pintada) which are named after Brazilian venomous snakes and I kept getting asked by them in Portuguese if I was Brazilian.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Twisted Toon on February 19, 2013, 03:18:47 AM
His last name, Pardini, sounds Italian if you ask me.
He might be an Italian living in Argentina.
All I knew is that I recalled something about him living somewhere in South America.  :)

*somewhat associated to the point but rambling useless information*
I knew a Steve Sapon, which is Greek. He's from Ohio.
He hated the cold there so much he moved to Southern California.

Names don't really mean that much in regards to where one currently lives.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Knight Light on February 19, 2013, 06:37:53 AM
Oh, I wasn't dismissing the possibility that he was in South America, was just saying his name sounds Italian. Wondered if that's his origin. I had never heard anything in regards to his location myself.


I maintain that NCSoft thoroughly failed City of Heroes as a publisher and I believe the game still had a lot of untapped market potential. For a game that was nearly a decade old, whose general enjoyment factor completely dwarfs anything else in my game library(it's not a small library), the general public's knowledge of City of Heroes existence is obscure at the very best. FatherXmas has already said I wasn't going to get my CoH tv spots but I can't be convinced that it was outside of NCSoft's budget to have a short commercial made for every Issue and I firmly believe they would have had a return on such an investment.
You know, if they had any clue what they were doing, that is.

It may have been outside of Paragon Studios budget but we now know that, next to their sibling subsidiaries, they received the bare bones minimum of support.

There's no reason CoH couldn't have taken a bigger chunk out of WoW's playerbase, that game has nothing going for it except addictive gameplay(for some). I tried World of Warcraft twice. Once back in 2006, before I was set in my CoH ways, I rolled a character and played for all of 7 minutes until I was struck with the most overwhelming sensation to go play outside because life is too short. Fortunately it went away once I logged in to City of Heroes and I assured my family that an ambulance was unnecessary. I tried it again this past December. While searching for something to take my mind off of how much I miss someone, I came across the copy of WoW I received as a gift and realised I had never actually used the free month that came with it, I recalled that I tried the game using a friend's account. I once again put myself through that laughable excuse for a character creator and upon popping out the other side in the middle of a crowd of 9 other players that looked almost exactly like me, I logged out and uninstalled the game immediately with no regrets. I'm certain I'm not the only person that experienced something along these lines and yet the name World of Warcraft is recognized today by even the most game illiterate person. CoH; not so much.

There's another franchise CoH could easily have taken a bite out of and not just any franchise, the one that can boast having the best selling pc game of all time; The Sims. Between CoH's character creator and base builder, there's no reason CoH shouldn't have enjoyed a fair amount of crossover from that playerbase, especially after The Sims Online was shutdown.

The thing about City of Heroes is, even though it, at first glance, appears to be a niche game that mainly caters to superhero enthusiasts and MMO players, its accessibility goes FAR beyond most any game out there. I cannot count the number of times I encountered an instance of "My wife/girlfriend/sister/daughter/etc. saw me playing it, tried it and got hooked." It's kind of natural for boys to be attracted to a game of CoH's content but a game with this much potential to make gamers out of girls who never had an interest in video games deserves more credit than it has received. That was the story of the person I miss most in the world. She had no interest in video games until she saw her brother playing City of Heroes. He and I didn't see eye to eye on a number of things but I'll always be eternally grateful to him for having purchased his copy of City of Heroes(sigh, I'm going off on a tangent). Okay, the PvP needed work but the bottom line is CoH has pretty much everything one could want in a game.

According to Wikipedia:

"As with book publishers or publishers of DVD movies, video game publishers are responsible for their product's manufacturing and marketing, including market research and all aspects of advertising."

I believe the number of missed opportunities for NCSoft to have promoted City of Heroes are countless.

I don't believe for even one second that CoH's shutdown was a result of current sales numbers but if at any point NCSoft was dissatisfied with CoH's performance; it can only be attributed to NCSoft's own ineptitude.

Arenanet seems to have recognized NCSoft's inability to find its own ass and outsourced the task of promoting that game that doesn't deserve my hatred but has it anyway(I recognize that my ire towards Anet is unfair and I'm somewhat ashamed of the hatred I possess in their regard but the fact of the matter is that, for the loss of the life that is no longer open to me and their involvement in that, I simply can never forgive Guild Wars 2 for existing).

I believe now more than ever that the people running NCSoft have absolutely no idea how to manage a company and any success that has come their way has been nothing more than the result of luck and fortunate circumstances.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: P51mus on February 19, 2013, 07:27:32 AM
There's no reason CoH couldn't have taken a bigger chunk out of WoW's playerbase, that game has nothing going for it except addictive gameplay(for some).

WoW has the best boss design of any MMO I've played so far.  They tune the encounters really well, and there's lots to keep in mind when fighting them.  Especially the raid bosses.  Unfortunately, getting to the point where you fight the interesting stuff takes a while.  And the amount of time required to gear up for raids was pretty insane.  I liked learning raid fights, but not farming the gear from fights we already did so we could take on the new ones.

I know we're here because we love CoH and want to see it return, but saying WoW has nothing is just wrong.  (Haven't played since about midway cata though, guild died and I was sick of raiding)

CoH was definitely the best at letting you look/play how you want though, and that's why I always came back to it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Knight Light on February 19, 2013, 07:32:56 AM
My statement that WoW has nothing going for it is not my own opinion. It didn't interest me enough to look into it past the first few minutes. I'm quoting someone who loved the game and played it for 5 years, a video game store manager who played pretty much every product he sold. He didn't really try City of Heroes, he used up a free trial during a couple of weeks that he didn't have a lot of time and even he recognized CoH to be superior to WoW in general.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Knight Light on February 19, 2013, 08:37:26 AM
I'm thinking I should elaborate a little. It's not that WoW has "nothing!"; it has loads of content, a gigantic world, nice graphics and a well composed score and as I mentioned, addictive gameplay. I believe your boss encounters fall under the umbrella of that.

All I ever hear about WoW though is how much the community outright sucks, the monetary system is a pain and you can't get anywhere without gear. A big non-selling point is that if you aren't of a certain level or don't have certain gear, you're kind of ostracized. My friend continually brought up mention that if his friends outleveled him he basically didn't have anyone to play with. He's not a novice to video games so I trust his judgement. I don't believe CoH ever truly suffered from any of these, even with the old sidekick system. A properly built toon driven by a skilled player could handle themselves just fine operating with only Single Origin enhancements even today. Money was not an absolute necessity nor was it particularly difficult to come by, in many instances thanks to very generous other players. As for the community, you guys don't need me to praise and gush all over you, you guys already know how awesome you are.

But anyways, all this is very much beside my earlier point;

NCSoft sucks.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Taceus Jiwede on February 19, 2013, 09:56:39 AM
I liked learning raid fights, but not farming the gear from fights we already did so we could take on the new ones.

Pretty much where I fall with WoW too.  I just can't invest that much time into a game for just raiding.  I love raiding but the operant conditioning to get the raiding gear just doesn't cut it for me.

CoH had a great casual friendliness to it that if you wanted to take further you could.  I really enjoyed the end-game system set up in the later life of CoH.  Challenging but doable, took team work but not the tight scheduling or raid guilds other games like WoW or Rift require to get a raid going, all you needed was RWZ :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on February 19, 2013, 01:08:27 PM
If they get free, I'll have to send NCsoft a sympathy letter.

"Sorry you lost your game."

Yep..... grinning evilly, even as I signed with a flourish. Because: Machiavelli.  8)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Twisted Toon on February 19, 2013, 03:14:50 PM
Oh, I wasn't dismissing the possibility that he was in South America, was just saying his name sounds Italian. Wondered if that's his origin. I had never heard anything in regards to his location myself.
Ah, a related but tangential thought that popped into your head. I see. :)

I maintain that NCSoft thoroughly failed City of Heroes as a publisher and I believe the game still had a lot of untapped market potential. For a game that was nearly a decade old, whose general enjoyment factor completely dwarfs anything else in my game library(it's not a small library), the general public's knowledge of City of Heroes existence is obscure at the very best. FatherXmas has already said I wasn't going to get my CoH tv spots but I can't be convinced that it was outside of NCSoft's budget to have a short commercial made for every Issue and I firmly believe they would have had a return on such an investment.
You know, if they had any clue what they were doing, that is.

It may have been outside of Paragon Studios budget but we now know that, next to their sibling subsidiaries, they received the bare bones minimum of support.

There's no reason CoH couldn't have taken a bigger chunk out of WoW's playerbase, that game has nothing going for it except addictive gameplay(for some). I tried World of Warcraft twice. Once back in 2006, before I was set in my CoH ways, I rolled a character and played for all of 7 minutes until I was struck with the most overwhelming sensation to go play outside because life is too short. Fortunately it went away once I logged in to City of Heroes and I assured my family that an ambulance was unnecessary. I tried it again this past December. While searching for something to take my mind off of how much I miss someone, I came across the copy of WoW I received as a gift and realised I had never actually used the free month that came with it, I recalled that I tried the game using a friend's account. I once again put myself through that laughable excuse for a character creator and upon popping out the other side in the middle of a crowd of 9 other players that looked almost exactly like me, I logged out and uninstalled the game immediately with no regrets. I'm certain I'm not the only person that experienced something along these lines and yet the name World of Warcraft is recognized today by even the most game illiterate person. CoH; not so much.

There's another franchise CoH could easily have taken a bite out of and not just any franchise, the one that can boast having the best selling pc game of all time; The Sims. Between CoH's character creator and base builder, there's no reason CoH shouldn't have enjoyed a fair amount of crossover from that playerbase, especially after The Sims Online was shutdown.

The thing about City of Heroes is, even though it, at first glance, appears to be a niche game that mainly caters to superhero enthusiasts and MMO players, its accessibility goes FAR beyond most any game out there. I cannot count the number of times I encountered an instance of "My wife/girlfriend/sister/daughter/etc. saw me playing it, tried it and got hooked." It's kind of natural for boys to be attracted to a game of CoH's content but a game with this much potential to make gamers out of girls who never had an interest in video games deserves more credit than it has received. That was the story of the person I miss most in the world. She had no interest in video games until she saw her brother playing City of Heroes. He and I didn't see eye to eye on a number of things but I'll always be eternally grateful to him for having purchased his copy of City of Heroes(sigh, I'm going off on a tangent). Okay, the PvP needed work but the bottom line is CoH has pretty much everything one could want in a game.

According to Wikipedia:

"As with book publishers or publishers of DVD movies, video game publishers are responsible for their product's manufacturing and marketing, including market research and all aspects of advertising."

I believe the number of missed opportunities for NCSoft to have promoted City of Heroes are countless.

I don't believe for even one second that CoH's shutdown was a result of current sales numbers but if at any point NCSoft was dissatisfied with CoH's performance; it can only be attributed to NCSoft's own ineptitude.

Arenanet seems to have recognized NCSoft's inability to find its own ass and outsourced the task of promoting that game that doesn't deserve my hatred but has it anyway(I recognize that my ire towards Anet is unfair and I'm somewhat ashamed of the hatred I possess in their regard but the fact of the matter is that, for the loss of the life that is no longer open to me and their involvement in that, I simply can never forgive Guild Wars 2 for existing).

I believe now more than ever that the people running NCSoft have absolutely no idea how to manage a company and any success that has come their way has been nothing more than the result of luck and fortunate circumstances.
I agree. NCSoft missed 99.99999999999999999% of all advertizing opportunities for CoH.

I tried WoW not too long before Mist of Pandaria came out. Mainly, to help a friend get a mount. I think I managed level 7 before I stopped playing.
There are very few Fantasy based games that I will play because most of them are, pretty much, the same.
I do enjoy the Elder Scrolls series of games though. Only problem is, there are a few I can't play because my computer is too good.  :o

I tried Guild Wars several years ago. It just didn't grab my interest. I haven't even looked at Guild Wars 2 because I had no interest in the original. Plus, I have zero trust in NCSoft. If Arenanet can pull away from NCSoft, then I wish the GW franchise well. Although, I still would not be interested in playing it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DarkCurrent on February 19, 2013, 10:21:22 PM
I'm curious about the use of niche to describe a superhero themed game.  I know that the vast majority of MMOs are fantasy based, but when I think of pop culture I think more people are into superheroes than fantasy.  Judging by movies, cartoons, TV shows, at any rate.  If you were to ask the average Joe on the street if he likes Batman or Aragorn more, I'd wager Batman wins hands down.  So based on that, it would seem fantasy genre is more niche than superhero and thus have lower playerbase potential for an MMO.  Superhero games are an untapped area I think.  Their main hold up is that Marvel and DC hold all the copyrights and probably will sue whoever starts a hero game. 
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mistress Urd on February 19, 2013, 11:10:41 PM
Me personally, I like to play good games not something Genre specific. I thought that CoH while it was a "superhero" themed game, offered quite a bit of flexability on what one could create. The big thing that sold me on CoH was no loot. While the Fantasy type MMO it often all about loot.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on February 19, 2013, 11:22:49 PM
Oh, I wasn't dismissing the possibility that he was in South America, was just saying his name sounds Italian. Wondered if that's his origin. I had never heard anything in regards to his location myself.

It's estimated that about 60% of all Argentinians have some Italian ancestry. From the late 1850s until the late 1950s Italy, not Spain, was the primary source of Argentine immigrants.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blue Pulsar on February 20, 2013, 04:10:23 AM
Okay, who hit the derailleur lever?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Triplash on February 20, 2013, 04:32:47 AM
Okay, who hit the derailleur lever?

Honestly? I think this is the unofficial "off the rails" thread. See, if they allow derails more than usual here, it helps prevent them everywhere else. I mean sure, it still happens a bit... but just imagine if this thread wasn't anchoring down the rest of the forums. It'd be chaos. Total anarchy! Cats and dogs living together! Game over, man!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 20, 2013, 04:46:07 AM
Well the stock is up for the last few days.  Right now it's up 12% from it's 52 week interday low, over 9% from it's 52 week end of day low.

It's not surprising the "cheerleaders" aren't rah-rahing it up.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on February 20, 2013, 04:55:23 AM
Well the stock is up for the last few days.  Right now it's up 12% from it's 52 week interday low, over 9% from it's 52 week end of day low.

It's not surprising the "cheerleaders" aren't rah-rahing it up.

And worse... I see no reason to believe that will change any time soon. Some other thread is going to have to pick up the slack.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Twisted Toon on February 20, 2013, 06:34:13 AM
Honestly? I think this is the unofficial "off the rails" thread. See, if they allow derails more than usual here, it helps prevent them everywhere else. I mean sure, it still happens a bit... but just imagine if this thread wasn't anchoring down the rest of the forums. It'd be chaos. Total anarchy! Cats and dogs living together! Game over, man!
Nice mix of movie quotes. :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Xieveral on February 20, 2013, 06:45:40 AM
It's not surprising the "cheerleaders" aren't rah-rahing it up.

Why would they?

Spirits already seem pretty low around here lately, why bring it down further by pointing out how well NCSoft is doing this week?

Even if the numbers or our actions have little effect on their bottom line it makes people feel better to see things not going perfectly for NCSoft. Such things keep people motivated. The last thing we want to happen here is for people to start thinking "why bother".
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 20, 2013, 08:00:58 AM
Why would they?

Spirits already seem pretty low around here lately, why bring it down further by pointing out how well NCSoft is doing this week?

Even if the numbers or our actions have little effect on their bottom line it makes people feel better to see things not going perfectly for NCSoft. Such things keep people motivated. The last thing we want to happen here is for people to start thinking "why bother".

But that's my point.  Rooting for the stock price to go down or believing that the low price somehow hurts them is simply wrongheaded.  NCsoft stock was riding an overinflated bubble that burst in Oct 2011 and has been deflating over time with the occasional steep drops coinciding with quarterly reports.  As of right now I believe the enough air has been let out of the stock price so it is now more representative to the company's actual financial condition.  The next big event is B&S and/or GW2 introduction to China and the rest of Asia, and in the case of B&S the west as well.  That is where they are expecting sales growth to be. 

We would need to see news like a reissue of 2012 numbers to take into account something bad they forgot for the investors to panic once again.  I think all the analysts have finally finished adjusting their estimates for the upcoming quarters and year for now so it's unlikely we'll see any news from them that could cause a sell off.

So I expect to see the stock meander in the 130-150K range for a while.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Taceus Jiwede on February 20, 2013, 08:26:54 AM
I don't really know much about stock but it is nice to chime in here to hear whats current, and to learn something new.

Quote
The last thing we want to happen here is for people to start thinking "why bother"

Very true, hopefully people take away the attitude of "Why give up now" but if what Father Xmas says is true, (which I believe he is sense he seems to be on the ball), at least we know they aren't doing as well as they thought they were doing.

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on February 20, 2013, 01:59:53 PM
Spirits already seem pretty low around here lately, why bring it down further by pointing out how well NCSoft is doing this week?

I don't know quite where you're seeing this. The immediacy is gone, because we're too late to keep the game open. Now, the "sneak attack" has driven the other side into their "walled compound." They have supplies to last a while, so it's a siege. Keeping up the pressure is a slow thing, and we have a lot of folks here with short patience cycles. The key is to not give up. We're doing other things, and there are threads for them, but we're all still here.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on February 20, 2013, 03:52:03 PM
Well the stock is up for the last few days.  Right now it's up 12% from it's 52 week interday low, over 9% from it's 52 week end of day low.

It's not surprising the "cheerleaders" aren't rah-rahing it up.

One of the reasons I think (Dont shoot me yet!!) there shouldnt be much cheering for their demise either. When stocks were falling I seen a lot of ra- rahing. Which is fair, but then it wouldnt be fair to be irked if someone, although I dont think anyone has or probably will, come in here and rah-rah when the stock prices rises.

I think I said in an earlier post that stock prices rise and fall. Very few times is it ever a straight drop or rise in either direction. And Father Xmas as usual is right on the money.


I dont mind the rah-rah for stock prices to go down at all, it's like harmless past time to raise spirits. A symbol. But lets not set ourselves for surprise or rage if it just so happens the rah-rah starts to happen on the other side.

On side note: I dont think the overall spirit is down maybe things slowed down from the original furvor and entering normality. I hope the spirit is not depended on the stock prices because then we are in for a hell of a emotional roller coaster ride. ;D lol.
 Although I doubt this will happen (then again I doubted many things may happened and it happened), NCSoft stocks might continue to go up over time and break the barrier that it had when COX was running. If that was to happen do we just pack it up and go home? Hell no. For all I care NCSoft can become the richest cororation on the planet and take over microsoft google facebook walmart all in one night and the goal shouldnt change one bit.


Don't worry, Marty. Assuming we succeed in our mission, this alternate 1985 will be changed back into the real 1985, instantaneously transforming around Jennifer and Einie. Jennifer and Einie will be fine, and they will have absolutely no memory of this horrible place.

  MARTY MCFLY
Doc... what if we don't succeed?
 
DOC BROWN
We *must* succeed
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ironwolf on February 20, 2013, 04:13:15 PM
I do understand that people want to see NCSoft fail - it will not however restore the game and in fact would slow down any attempt at buying the game as if the company went bust it would take YEARS to break it up or for someone else to buy it out and pick the bones of the stuff not actually up and running any more.

In reality if the company was doing WELL, they may see fit to sell off excess IP for a lower price as they don't need the cash as badly. I really do understand folks wanting to see them punished for sheer stupidity, but as my mother said life isn't fair. People make stupid decisions every day and some of them hurt other people.

I think the reason this thread has derailed is that the sting has become less urgent and we have other good news to pay attention to:
SEGS
Google actually ASKING for our pitch - we didn't have to hunt them down and beg!
TPP
H&V
and other efforts that create positive relentless action.

That is how you win at life and all its parts positive relentless action. Quitting is just one of the words I don't know the meaning of, there are many more!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Tubbius on February 21, 2013, 04:19:38 AM
Google actually ASKING for our pitch - we didn't have to hunt them down and beg!

.......

They actually ASKED straight up for it?  For real?  :O

In the words of Waddle the Penguin, "Happy Waddle!"
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lucretia MacEvil on February 21, 2013, 05:02:08 AM
Google actually ASKING for our pitch - we didn't have to hunt them down and beg!

.......

They actually ASKED straight up for it?  For real?  :O

In the words of Waddle the Penguin, "Happy Waddle!"

THIS made my day!

It even beat out getting an "A" on a paper I'd been stressing about for the past couple weeks.

 ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on February 21, 2013, 05:05:33 AM
Google actually ASKING for our pitch - we didn't have to hunt them down and beg!

.......

They actually ASKED straight up for it?  For real?  :O

In the words of Waddle the Penguin, "Happy Waddle!"

When I went to my contact at Google, he initially looked for venture capitalists and contacts at other companies that might want to pick CoH up, not within Google play.

Those didn't pan out, I asked him, "Is it worth talking to Google Play?"

He went to his guy at Google Play, who said, "sure send my direct contact info and send me the pitch."

First time someone has asked for a pitch on initial contact.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: P51mus on February 21, 2013, 05:09:47 AM
Google actually ASKING for our pitch - we didn't have to hunt them down and beg!

.......

They actually ASKED straight up for it?  For real?  :O

In the words of Waddle the Penguin, "Happy Waddle!"

Well if I got the details right, Mercedes Lackey/Victoria Victrix talked to a contact Google.  This contact talked to a few contacts outside google (that didn't pan out).  Another person the contact talked to within google said to send the pitch package (and VV now has contact info for this person).  The pitch is currently being reworked by Ammon, Rae and Quinch, VV doesn't have time to help until she meets a book deadline (that she wasn't able to work on before because she had the flu for a bit).

So, not quite Google asking for it unprompted, but much better than a blind send.  Also, patience, business stuff takes a while.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ironwolf on February 21, 2013, 06:15:39 PM
The thing is someone did actually say - sure send me the stuff - let's look it over.

When they ask for it - that's when you go from cold sales to a hot lead. They might just WANT it. It's like working at Best Buy and the difference between a guy walking in asking for a Lenovo Z580 with an i5 processor and 6gb of ram and a 500 gb hard drive and somebody getting a flyer in the newspaper on a weekly ad.

One guy wants to see if the specific product meets his needs - the other one might look at the flyer - or he might not.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Tubbius on February 22, 2013, 05:03:07 AM
Here's hoping.  Thank you for the info, Ms. Lackey.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: godslayer on March 01, 2013, 04:14:34 AM
When I went to my contact at Google, he initially looked for venture capitalists and contacts at other companies that might want to pick CoH up, not within Google play.

Those didn't pan out, I asked him, "Is it worth talking to Google Play?"

He went to his guy at Google Play, who said, "sure send my direct contact info and send me the pitch."

First time someone has asked for a pitch on initial contact.

I for one am quite willing to put down money and pre-order any true successor to CoH Google would like to produce.

Who's with me?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Raven L. Prince on March 01, 2013, 05:31:02 AM
In an heartbeat I would pre-order or do anything else to get Google to consider the proposal....
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Aggelakis on March 01, 2013, 05:51:01 AM
Seems to be holding pretty steady (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=036570.KS) between 140k to 145k for the last little while. Some dips and some rises, but mostly steady. Until more news comes out (good or bad), I don't expect it to be doing much.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mistress Urd on March 01, 2013, 07:05:47 AM
I for one am quite willing to put down money and pre-order any true successor to CoH Google would like to produce.

Who's with me?

It would probably be the better option at this point. While it would be nice to keep the IP, the old game running and a way to transition players to the new game. I'm sure one of the Plan Zs or something else being developed will come out.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Taceus Jiwede on March 01, 2013, 10:55:37 AM
I for one am quite willing to put down money and pre-order any true successor to CoH Google would like to produce.

Who's with me?

Interesting idea.  I wonder if they would be more inclined to purchase it if enough people said they would put down money upfront.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lightslinger on March 01, 2013, 11:22:32 AM
Interesting idea.  I wonder if they would be more inclined to purchase it if enough people said they would put down money upfront.

Collection data on our community would be incredibly valuable. If we could get a poll up and ask people if they would play CoH again, if they'd subscribe again, etc etc. Some raw numbers about what a new CoH launch would bring in could be very helpful.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: therain93 on March 01, 2013, 05:44:49 PM
Collection data on our community would be incredibly valuable. If we could get a poll up and ask people if they would play CoH again, if they'd subscribe again, etc etc. Some raw numbers about what a new CoH launch would bring in could be very helpful.

Except internet polls are pretty meaningless, especially when it comes to words vs action.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mistress Urd on March 01, 2013, 08:36:05 PM

Except internet polls are pretty meaningless, especially when it comes to words vs action.

So very true. Its NEVER easy to get good information off the internets. Just like when I was doing smartphone research. It took a long time to find someone who could give me meaningful information. Too often it was Droid User: Get a Droid Phone but no reason why, iphone user: get an iphone but no reason why, winphone user: get anything but a winphone but no reason why.  :P So after about 2 weeks of that, I found an iphone user who said get a droid phone, and yes I got some good honest info.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on March 01, 2013, 09:22:41 PM
A couple of bits of information about the current state of NCsoft, at least in Korea.

First B&S has climbed above ArcheAge for the first time since ArcheAge was introduced, according to the site Gamenote.com (http://www.gamenote.com/rank_ongame/?cid=588&cname=%BF%C2%B6%F3%C0%CE%B0%D4%C0%D3%BC%F8%C0%A7) (in Korean, use Chrome or a translation service to read the list).  So it appears that ArcheAge was just the new kid on the block and after a month or so players are returning to older favorites.

Second, KDB Daewoo has put out another analysis on NCsoft.  While nothing has really changed in their forecasts it does contain hours played at PC cafes, info that I couldn't extract off of Gametrics without paying, among their four MMOs, League of Legends (which is the currently the most popular game at PC cafes in Korea) and Diablo III.

Overall the number of hours people were playing NCsoft MMOs (Lineage, Lineage 2 and Aion) in PC cafes dropped from 37.7 million hours per month (Jan 2012) to 23.2 million hours this January.  However if you include the B&S numbers it brings the Jan 2013 total back up to 37.6 million hours.  In the same period of time LoL went from 11.2 million hours in Jan 2012 to 58.4 million hours (wow!).  Diablo III on the overhand peaked at 56.2 million hours in June 2012, plummeted to only 5.1 million in Jan 2013.  Swing and a miss for Blizzard.  So LoL is the new StarCraft (since StarCraft II isn't).

Of NCsoft's four MMOs, Lineage seems to be the only one holding it's own or growing.  Aion numbers are less than half of what they were a year before.  For all you B&S haters out there, you will be happy to know that B&S's numbers have yet to level out, going from 40.2 million hours played in July 2012 (new game) to only 14.5 million in Jan 2013 (large drop in Jan 2013 likely due to ArcheAge).  Lineage 2 is still following up the pack at a distant 4th losing 1.9 million players from last year.

January 2013

B&S - 14.5 million hours
Aion - 12.8 million hours
Lineage - 7.2 million hours
Lineage II - 3.1 million hours

The most interesting quote in the report was the following.

Quote
But with practically every major gaming platform shifting towards online games, we believe developers of high-end, hardcore online games (which are rare these days) will gain value over the long term.

Does this mean the analyst wants more grindy MMOs or simply a comment about the plethora of casual games?  Don't know.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: srmalloy on March 02, 2013, 02:08:13 AM
Collection data on our community would be incredibly valuable. If we could get a poll up and ask people if they would play CoH again, if they'd subscribe again, etc etc. Some raw numbers about what a new CoH launch would bring in could be very helpful.

And unfortunately, I think it would be stretching the limits of what Kickstarter would allow to set up a Kickstarter program that was set up to essentially take commitments to pre-order a CoH successor from Google if they acquired the IP and put out a new game.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Aggelakis on March 02, 2013, 02:17:59 AM
And unfortunately, I think it would be stretching the limits of what Kickstarter would allow to set up a Kickstarter program that was set up to essentially take commitments to pre-order a CoH successor from Google if they acquired the IP and put out a new game.
Kickstarter wouldn't take it. There needs to be some groundwork already done on the product in order to begin a Kickstarter campaign at all.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on March 02, 2013, 02:37:45 AM
And unfortunately, I think it would be stretching the limits of what Kickstarter would allow to set up a Kickstarter program that was set up to essentially take commitments to pre-order a CoH successor from Google if they acquired the IP and put out a new game.

speaking of which, if available, again if available, once more IF available, is there any word or concrete sense of which direction Google is leaning towards with the IP thing or if they even contacted NCSoft yet?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Aggelakis on March 02, 2013, 03:08:07 AM
TF Hail Mary hasn't said if they've even submitted the paperwork yet.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on March 02, 2013, 03:09:44 AM
speaking of which, if available, again if available, once more IF available, is there any word or concrete sense of which direction Google is leaning towards with the IP thing or if they even contacted NCSoft yet?

I JUST FINISHED THE BOOK.

I'll be working on the revamped proposal starting today.  I figure to have it done in about a week.  We obviously did not approach Google without a proposal.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Samuraiko on March 02, 2013, 04:08:59 AM
I JUST FINISHED THE BOOK.

I'll be working on the revamped proposal starting today.  I figure to have it done in about a week.  We obviously did not approach Google without a proposal.

Lady, take a short break. Indulge in chocolate, wine, a really good massage, something. You owe it to yourself. You're not only burning your candle at both ends, you've got a team of fire/fire blasters blowtorching the thing on a timed mission.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: houtex on March 02, 2013, 04:19:20 AM
Gratz on your finishing the book, VV!
 
And what Michelle said, for sure.  After the flu, and the deadline... a couple of small time offs is a good idea. :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Rotten Luck on March 02, 2013, 12:59:55 PM
Same here.  VV you earned your cape ten times over.  Take a moment and saver the fact you have fans that care more about you then what you can do for us. 
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Triplash on March 02, 2013, 01:10:07 PM
Same here.  VV you earned your cape ten times over.  Take a moment and saver the fact you have fans that care more about you then what you can do for us.

Amen to that! Take the weekend or something, girl. I'm sure you could use a break by now.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on March 02, 2013, 02:24:21 PM
We obviously did not approach Google without a proposal.
Good. Very good.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Twisted Toon on March 02, 2013, 02:35:30 PM
Same here.  VV you earned your cape ten times over.  Take a moment and saver the fact you have fans that care more about you then what you can do for us.
I am in full support of the Save Mercedes Lackey campaign in addition to the SaveCoH campaign. :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lucretia MacEvil on March 02, 2013, 04:54:15 PM
I am in full support of the Save Mercedes Lackey campaign in addition to the SaveCoH campaign. :)

Agreed.  Even heroes need some downtime.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blondeshell on March 02, 2013, 08:03:35 PM
Lady, take a short break. Indulge in chocolate, wine, a really good massage, something

At first I read that as "chocolate wine." :)

I agree with everyone else that you deserve some kind of a break. After all, how can you save the rest of us if you can't save yourself first?  ;D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on March 02, 2013, 09:30:14 PM
My wife bought some chocolate wine over the holidays. She loved it. I... didn't. Regardless, no one's going to fault you, VV, if you take the weekend before diving into the proposal. Despite our impatience, we all know this is a siege, not a blitz. :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JWBullfrog on March 03, 2013, 01:56:38 AM
I am in full support of the Save Mercedes Lackey campaign in addition to the SaveCoH campaign. :)

well, there's a really easy way to contribute to the Save ML campaign. All you need to do is go your favorite bookstore...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on March 03, 2013, 02:52:32 AM
It was about 60,000 words in three weeks.

I have no nose.  The grindstone took it all off.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Twisted Toon on March 03, 2013, 08:16:08 AM
It was about 60,000 words in three weeks.

I have no nose.  The grindstone took it all off.
I know a Duct Tape Specialist that could attach another one on for you. He even has a Duct Tape Specialist shirt that I got him last year for his B-day to prove it.  :P

He got about 2 dozen rolls of Duct Tape for Christmas too. You'd have a wide variety of colors and patterns to choose from. :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: houtex on March 03, 2013, 12:46:30 PM
So THAT'S what happened to Voldemort... he wrote a book after having the flu... Makes sense now.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on March 03, 2013, 06:37:52 PM
Chocolate wine.... *is simultaneously attracted and repelled by the thought....*

And yes, ditto to what everyone else is saying: no losing any health or sanity over all this.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Samuraiko on March 03, 2013, 08:23:24 PM
The best chocolate wine I have EVER had is called Desiree. You can get it at BevMo for about $30/bottle, IIRC - you drink it from those little snifter-size glasses about the size of a Cadbury egg.

And it is soooooooo good.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mister Bison on March 03, 2013, 08:33:11 PM
The best chocolate wine I have EVER had is called Desiree. You can get it at BevMo for about $30/bottle, IIRC - you drink it from those little snifter-size glasses about the size of a Cadbury egg.

And it is soooooooo good.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite
So it does exist.

*imagines red wine mixed with dark chocolate, and throws up*

*begins to imagine something more creamy and liquorous, and wants to taste it"
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Tubbius on March 03, 2013, 10:52:40 PM
It was about 60,000 words in three weeks.

I have no nose.  The grindstone took it all off.

Sounds like it's time for a visit to ICON so they can build you a new face design for a few influence.  :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Jonfan on March 03, 2013, 11:35:28 PM
Pssst... Mercedes.....we aren't actually super-heroes. For the love of god, take a break.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kuriositys Kat on March 04, 2013, 01:10:52 AM
I JUST FINISHED THE BOOK.



YAY! *starts to tab to Amazon...SCREECHING halt,  runs publishing schedules in head*  I am getting ahead of myself again *sigh*  Maybe I will get the hang of knitting socks in the meantime.

60,000 words in three weeks?!?   Pamperage is called for.  Rest/massage/ and comfort foods for you and maybe some time in a clean room for your writing  comp?

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Xieveral on March 04, 2013, 10:05:50 AM
So it does exist.

*imagines red wine mixed with dark chocolate, and throws up*

*begins to imagine something more creamy and liquorous, and wants to taste it"

Hot cocoa with rum. Not that cheapo "just add water" stuff, home made goodness with milk and ganache (a touch of cayenne and cinnamon for a nice tingle)

Its a shame the weather is warming up here, cocoa doesn't feel as good in warm weather.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Twisted Toon on March 04, 2013, 03:00:03 PM
Hot cocoa with rum. Not that cheapo "just add water" stuff, home made goodness with milk and ganache (a touch of cayenne and cinnamon for a nice tingle)

Its a shame the weather is warming up here, cocoa doesn't feel as good in warm weather.
I'll let you have my share, since I don't really care for the taste of alcohol.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Merseine on March 04, 2013, 04:01:06 PM
Not trying to be a downer here...but can we rename this thread as "the thread that used to be the NCSoft Stockwatch thread but has gone so far off track that we haven't talked about the stock for pages...." 
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on March 04, 2013, 04:13:24 PM
Nothing interesting to report. Continuing a slight upward slope that started in the second week of February. Ta-Dah. :P
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on March 04, 2013, 04:16:22 PM
Not trying to be a downer here...but can we rename this thread as "the thread that used to be the NCSoft Stockwatch thread but has gone so far off track that we haven't talked about the stock for pages...."
Hmm, then again it wasnt so much as stockwatch to begin with but seemed to be more about the sliding of NCSoft stock. It seems as soon as it stopped sliding, the convo was over.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Xieveral on March 04, 2013, 06:28:24 PM
Quote
Sunday's closing at 145,500 KRW, a gain of 2,500 KRW...

Blah blah blah financial analysis...

Our efforts never had and never will have an impact...

Schadenfreude is for idiots, quit enjoying things.

Is it any wonder the topic derails now and then?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on March 04, 2013, 09:03:33 PM
Quote
Sunday's closing at 145,500 KRW, a gain of 2,500 KRW...

Blah blah blah financial analysis...

Our efforts never had and never will have an impact...

Schadenfreude is for idiots, quit enjoying things.

Is it any wonder the topic derails now and then?

All I've advocated is that using the stock price as an indicator of success/failure is a poor choice.  It's like gauging the size of the active player population by the price of Luck Charms.  Sales, profits, those are fine but come out infrequently. 

That's why I posted the bit about hours of play in PC cafes in Korea.  It shows Aion and Lineage II failing even in Korea and that's more of an indication of NCsoft having trouble than the stock price.  Only thing is NCSoft still has the 3 of the top 5 MMORPGs in Korea right now with ArcheAge and Terra being the other two (Lineage II being the one NCsoft game not in the top 5).

When the push into China blows up in their face, by not bringing in the added sales in the numbers they have been hinting at, we'll have our day.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: srmalloy on March 04, 2013, 09:16:38 PM
The best chocolate wine I have EVER had is called Desiree. You can get it at BevMo for about $30/bottle, IIRC - you drink it from those little snifter-size glasses about the size of a Cadbury egg.

Wouldn't you want to drink it out of these (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001MNTYR4)?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blue Pulsar on March 05, 2013, 12:50:04 AM
Pssst... Mercedes.....we aren't actually super-heroes. For the love of god, take a break.

Speak for yourself!

*Spams SB on V.V.*
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on March 05, 2013, 01:53:58 AM
what is that about being a super hero? Oh we are not supposed to kill random blokes or beat them senseless and hand them over to Arachnos?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on March 05, 2013, 08:25:52 PM
Well this little piece of news (http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/03/05/no-guild-wars-2-expansions-currently-planned) might cause some downward pressure on the stock price.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kistulot on March 05, 2013, 08:34:55 PM
Considering the lack of in game support and how I could barely play without running into some game breaking bug the last time I played, I'd have to say this is probably a good idea on Arenanet's part.

Does make NCSoft out to look like liars though.

That's nice.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Aggelakis on March 05, 2013, 09:35:29 PM
Does make NCSoft out to look like liars though.
NCsoft shouldn't be saying things that ArenaNet aren't telling them. Simple as that.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kistulot on March 05, 2013, 11:32:11 PM
NCsoft shouldn't be saying things that ArenaNet aren't telling them. Simple as that.

You won't hear me arguing :)

I said seem like because it's not important if NCSoft is a questionably ethic'd company or not if it doesnt seem like it to enough people for it to matter. That's all.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on March 05, 2013, 11:39:31 PM
I have never been one of those "This is WAR, NCSoft!" guys, nor have I ever wished ill on any of the studios, but this did give me a warm fuzzy.

(Full disclosure: I'm in one of the areas hit by today's snow storm in the Midwestern US, and I've had to shovel driveways and sidewalks at my house, my mother's house, my father's house, and my grandparents' house, though my uncle got to the last one a little bit before I did. I've been "staving off the cold" with rum-fortified cocoa for about an hour, now...)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Twisted Toon on March 06, 2013, 03:48:40 AM
I have never been one of those "This is WAR, NCSoft!" guys, nor have I ever wished ill on any of the studios, but this did give me a warm fuzzy.

(Full disclosure: I'm in one of the areas hit by today's snow storm in the Midwestern US, and I've had to shovel driveways and sidewalks at my house, my mother's house, my father's house, and my grandparents' house, though my uncle got to the last one a little bit before I did. I've been "staving off the cold" with rum-fortified cocoa for about an hour, now...)
Are you sure it wasn't the rum-fortified cocoa that was giving you the warm fuzzy?  :P
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Tubbius on March 07, 2013, 02:51:30 AM
So, did something go down on the 4th?  I'm seeing stock dropping again.  :o
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on March 07, 2013, 04:38:47 AM
Someone over there may have just noticed what I pointed out in this (http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,5250.msg108501.html#msg108501) post.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on March 07, 2013, 05:59:48 AM
i think that was bound to come and bite them

since ncsoft was the one originally parading around the idea of a GW2 expansion, but arenanet had no plan for that
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Waffles on March 08, 2013, 09:13:35 PM
Ncsoft's stock is like a rollercoaster of failure. We're just waiting for the inevitable crash since part of the track broke off.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: MindBlender on March 12, 2013, 01:13:24 PM
Up it went again...5,000 up  >:(
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on March 12, 2013, 04:37:58 PM
the stocks seems like its been fairly balanced between 135k and 145k won, since its been that way for about 1-2 months, i wouldnt expect to see it fail completely anytime soon

i think their future will depend on if arenanet decides to take GW games and run, since thats basically the only game they have going for them in the NA/EU market
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Rotten Luck on March 12, 2013, 05:22:36 PM
Wonder if we can raise up enough cash quickly to give ML a spa visit.  After all she done for us and a new book on top of it!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on March 12, 2013, 06:01:55 PM
Up it went again...5,000 up  >:(

Ok I'm up a little. Hopefully it wont go up too much by next month.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on March 12, 2013, 07:43:45 PM
NCsoft shouldn't be saying things that ArenaNet aren't telling them. Simple as that.

Since when has that outfit cared what any underling has to say? Seriously. NCSoft seems to view themselves as invincible.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Aggelakis on March 13, 2013, 04:29:56 AM
(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=imageshack.us%2Fa%2Fimg7%2F4703%2Fmodhat2.jpg)

We'll keep politics out of this, please.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on March 13, 2013, 02:16:36 PM
Trying to figure out who mentioned politics, I became confused and decided to post this instead:

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.jesseshunting.com%2Fimages%2Fwhut_star_trek_kirk_spock.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: eabrace on March 13, 2013, 02:59:11 PM
Trying to figure out who mentioned politics
The posts have been removed.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on March 13, 2013, 07:44:16 PM
The posts have been removed.

Ah. Je comprends.

Back on topic, I'm just gonna agree with what was said earlier. They are hanging pretty stably within an honestly pretty narrow range. Unless some major change happens, I doubt we'll see any new developments on the stock front.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Chrome on March 14, 2013, 01:05:18 AM
This got a chuckle out of me
Title: More Layoffs
Post by: Whyaylooh on March 28, 2013, 11:58:03 PM
Looks like there were more layoffs in the Seattle office today, including a CoH alum (Beastyle).

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/03/28/ncsoft-west-confirms-layoffs/
Title: Re: More Layoffs
Post by: Nyx Nought Nothing on March 29, 2013, 12:23:28 AM
Looks like there were more layoffs in the Seattle office today, including a CoH alum (Beastyle).

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/03/28/ncsoft-west-confirms-layoffs/ (http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/03/28/ncsoft-west-confirms-layoffs/)
Darn it, i liked Beastyle.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Menrva Channel on March 29, 2013, 12:55:19 AM
Poor Beastyle. :/ Hope he finds a new job soon!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Perfidus on March 29, 2013, 03:12:42 AM
I like to think that Beasty, after seeing what happened to Paragon, no longer assumed his job was safe, and has a contingency plan. Best of luck to him and all the others who've lost their jobs.
Title: Re: More Layoffs
Post by: DJMoose on March 29, 2013, 04:08:49 AM
Looks like there were more layoffs in the Seattle office today, including a CoH alum (Beastyle).

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/03/28/ncsoft-west-confirms-layoffs/
Anyone notice the "realignment of company focus" mantra in this one? :roll:
Title: Re: More Layoffs
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on March 29, 2013, 06:20:16 AM
Anyone notice the "realignment of company focus" mantra in this one? :roll:

"In an effort to put a greater focus on the success of the Western-developed games from NCSOFT..."

*taps fingers*
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DarkCurrent on March 29, 2013, 10:42:17 AM
Someone call Roget's.  There's a new synonym for focuslayoff.
Title: Re: More Layoffs
Post by: Kriiden on March 29, 2013, 11:10:14 AM
Looks like there were more layoffs in the Seattle office today, including a CoH alum (Beastyle).

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/03/28/ncsoft-west-confirms-layoffs/

Met Beastyle at the Focus Group and other events. Really Nice guy. Hope he lands on his feet!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on March 29, 2013, 12:38:55 PM
"In an effort to focus our energies on Western-developed games, we will continue to let go everyone employed by us in the Western Hemisphere." GENIUS!!!

These people do not like the West, or anyone in it. I am fine with them retrenching toward the Far Eastern market and "realigning their focus" there: they obviously don't want to be here. So I say, go. And don't come back.
Title: Re: More Layoffs
Post by: UruzSix on March 29, 2013, 01:59:18 PM
"In an effort to put a greater focus on the success of the Western-developed games from NCSOFT..."

*taps fingers*

Translation: Don't get too invested in Aion, Lineage 2, or a Blade & Soul import.
Title: Re: More Layoffs
Post by: srmalloy on March 29, 2013, 04:04:51 PM
Translation: Don't get too invested in Aion, Lineage 2, or a Blade & Soul import.

If I ever go back to Aion, it will be to act as a complete freeloader, buying nothing from the in-game store, playing just to take up space on the servers. But even unbending toward NCSoft that much is going to take a lot more time for the feelings of betrayal to fade.
Title: Re: More Layoffs
Post by: therain93 on March 29, 2013, 05:48:06 PM
If I ever go back to Aion, it will be to act as a complete freeloader, buying nothing from the in-game store, playing just to take up space on the servers. But even unbending toward NCSoft that much is going to take a lot more time for the feelings of betrayal to fade.
That still helps NCsoft.  You become someone that paying players will play with, enticing them to stay and further line NCsoft's wallet.  Even if you solo, your presence still contributes positively to the game at least in terms of appearance, if not in actually value that you contribute to the gameworld (generating currency/equipment/etc.)
Title: Re: More Layoffs
Post by: JetFlash on March 29, 2013, 06:44:54 PM
Anyone notice the "realignment of company focus" mantra in this one? :roll:


That phrase they keep using.  I do not think it means what they think it means.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on March 29, 2013, 07:01:36 PM
No, I'm pretty sure that's accurate. You need to move the magnifier around if you want to keep burning those ants.
Title: Re: More Layoffs
Post by: Xieveral on March 29, 2013, 10:42:10 PM
That still helps NCsoft.  You become someone that paying players will play with, enticing them to stay and further line NCsoft's wallet.  Even if you solo, your presence still contributes positively to the game at least in terms of appearance, if not in actually value that you contribute to the gameworld (generating currency/equipment/etc.)

Unless he decides to become a griefer to turn people off the game.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on March 29, 2013, 10:55:22 PM
I was wondering with the initial shutdown if an overall lack of confidence in the U.S. economy in general was more to blame, rather than a lack of general interest in the U.S.

In other words, what's the point in running games here if another Great Depression happens and nobody can afford them?

Bu then Wildstar stayed on course, and there was little sign of shutting down Aion.

But now, I have to wonder what is going through the minds of NCsoft and any other Korean gaming company, now that NK and America have managed to get themselves in a cold war that could hit the boiling point at any moment. Presuming NK is anywhere near the point of long range missiles, the first thing they'd try to light up aside from Hawaii, would be the major cities along the west coast. NCwest is sitting in the middle of a primary target zone.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on March 30, 2013, 12:04:24 AM
As someone who has peripheral experience with the practical side of this and has a couple of other insights into the region, I am not worried about North Korea launching a nuclear missile at anyone. They can detonate a nuclear weapon, and they can launch a rocket, occasionally. They don't have the technology to mount a nuclear warhead, and China doesn't trust them enough to sell them the tech. They're too unstable.

Now, they are unstable enough to sell nuclear weapons to anyone willing to buy them...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: UruzSix on March 30, 2013, 01:30:14 AM
I think its more a matter that Aion and Lineage 2 never really caught on over here and are now in a visible decline. Meanwhilem Guild Wars 2 has become a license to print money. I think that had to have made an impression on the upper echelons. I wouldn't be surprised if all that NCSoft has left here by this point next year is GW, GW2, and Wildstar.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: General Idiot on March 30, 2013, 02:11:45 AM
I'm not sure about license to print money. Initial sales were good, yes, but there's no sub fees coming in since then and anyone who wanted the game probably already has it by now, so they're relying on people spending money in the cash shop and personally, I never saw anything in there I actually wanted enough to spend real dollars on it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on March 30, 2013, 04:18:42 AM
If another Great Depression happens, we will not go down alone. As the main consumer-nation in the entire world, we will take almost everyone with us; things are much more interconnected now than they were in the 1930s. For instance, if we go the Chinese will be right behind us - because they sell the lion's share of what they make to us, and they own most of our debt. And they're already horribly overextended as it is, building "ghost" cities and infrastructure that they don't need, in order to give a semblance of growth. In one shot, the two largest superpowers in the world are economically helpless.

You'd better believe that the resulting ripple effect will be more like a tsunami. Korea and the entire Far East will not escape that economic wall of water.

As far as NK, they're in a whole hell of a lot of hot water that they are intent on making hotter by the day. But squashing them like a bug won't be that big of a deal. They're going totryto use 1950s technology against things like the Stealth bomber. I give that war about two days before NK is a smoking wasteland - and not necessarily a nuclear one. We dont need nukes to flatten Lil' Kim.

Quote
Meanwhilem Guild Wars 2 has become a license to print money.

Has it? I have not logged in in almost a month now. Even back then I was seeing fewer people.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: LadyVamp on March 30, 2013, 04:32:58 AM
I'm a fairly active player in gw2 and it seems to have plateaued as far as membership is concerned. 

oh and companies that are restructuring are almost always broke.  They're confirming what I suspected all along.  They killed their one good money maker aka coh and now they're getting what they sowed back.  I would say let's form that LLC and make a tender offer for coh just as they go under.  It's the only asset they got worth buying anyway.  After we got the real code, then we pull Matt and friends back in and get back to smashing hellion faces.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Aggelakis on March 30, 2013, 04:56:18 AM
They killed their one good money maker aka coh and now they're getting what they sowed back.
I say this as a City fangirl and with the full force of my love of City backing it: LOL WUT. You're crazy. City was not their one good money maker. City was barely a blip on the radar.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kemphler on March 30, 2013, 05:46:38 AM
I say this as a City fangirl and with the full force of my love of City backing it: LOL WUT. You're crazy. City was not their one good money maker. City was barely a blip on the radar.

If I recall correctly, City was making only 2% of their total Revenue...Hardly anything, considering the amount of games they have out there. It may have been one of their main money makers here in the States...at least until GW2 came along. That game probably blew City out of the water, unfortunately, rather fast, considering how fast people took to it. I could hardly be called an expert on this stuff though, so its all speculation on my part (being a business major student) based on what I've heard/seen.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on March 30, 2013, 06:02:01 AM
If I recall correctly, City was making only 2% of their total Revenue...Hardly anything, considering the amount of games they have out there. It may have been one of their main money makers here in the States...at least until GW2 came along. That game probably blew City out of the water, unfortunately, rather fast, considering how fast people took to it. I could hardly be called an expert on this stuff though, so its all speculation on my part (being a business major student) based on what I've heard/seen.

That's about the sum of it - North America amounted for a whopping 4% of NCsoft's total earnings {with Korea alone making up for over 70%}. It's quite possible that, with GW2 coming up a success, they figured they could painlessly get rid of the smaller earner and simply transfer the City of Heroes customers to another NCsoft game.

If that's the case, it backfired just a little bit.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on March 30, 2013, 06:13:30 AM
That's about the sum of it - North America amounted for a whopping 4% of NCsoft's total earnings {with Korea alone making up for over 70%}. It's quite possible that, with GW2 coming up a success, they figured they could painlessly get rid of the smaller earner and simply transfer the City of Heroes customers to another NCsoft game.

If that's the case, it backfired just a little bit.

Yeah. I guess they forgot that many COX players liked COX because it was COX and nothing was like it on the market. Then again, it may e a calculated loss move and realized that already and figured they lost a few thousand customers (maybe about 10-20 thousand of course I have no way of proving any of these numbers even if I think it was 100,000 customers lost or 1 million) in exchange for many thousands more. I doubt they expected the backlash and the outcry.

But they went down a path that really there is no way to correct. Even if they turned on COX today many already stated they  wont play as long as NCSoft is involved meaning it will make even less than before and be even smaller percentage of total income. Yet, if they do nothing people will still be angry. It's like they went down a path where there is no turning back and is in a damned if they do damned if they dont situation. And what do many entities and people do in this situation? Continue on hoping to get through it instead of trying to go back in a now futile attempt to correct what cant be corrected.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on March 30, 2013, 09:44:36 AM
As for GW2 coming up with something in the cash shop to attract paying customers, they just added as drops to their equivalent to our Super Packs, a series of weapon skins that had people pour a whole lot of money since Tuesday into their item store in hopes to get one.  And just like our Super Packs with numerous threads have blown up complaining about the RNG and how some have spent supposedly thousands upon thousands of gems (their Paragon Points) to in an attempt to get those skins.  100 Gems = $1.25 or 2.29 gold.  A week ago 100 Gems would have cost only 2.02 gold.  The gold to gem exchange rate goes up as more players convert gold to gems and down when they convert gems to gold (their legal RMT method).

Then like back on our boards when SP came out, a debate ignited about if this is considered gambling and whether it's legal, since you are paying for a "roll of the dice" hoping to "win" the prize you want.  Before this they spent the whole month putting different items up for sale every day, 20% off.  I believe it was moderately successful, at the very least they should be able to tell the kind of products players are interested in.

Note: Unlike the devs in CoH, ArenaNet is a flashback to Jack's days where they hold the actual percentage chances and drop table weights to themselves.  One dev recently posted "we don't want to show you how the sausage is made".  Lack of transparency has also brought out a number of the tin foil hat crowd.

On the up side the changes that went into Tuesday's large patch for WvW, server vs server vs server PvP via capture the flag across 4 similar maps have queued up entry to WvW on all the maps for the first time in recent memory.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on March 30, 2013, 09:58:14 AM


Note: Unlike the devs in CoH, ArenaNet is a flashback to Jack's days where they hold the actual percentage chances and drop table weights to themselves.  One dev recently posted "we don't want to show you how the sausage is made".  Lack of transparency has also brought out a number of the tin foil hat crowd.



Isnt there a saying somewhere that states something of the likes when there is no facts available people will create their own "facts"?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Triplash on March 30, 2013, 12:00:55 PM
That's about the sum of it - North America amounted for a whopping 4% of NCsoft's total earnings {with Korea alone making up for over 70%}. It's quite possible that, with GW2 coming up a success, they figured they could painlessly get rid of the smaller earner and simply transfer the City of Heroes customers to another NCsoft game.

If that's the case, it backfired just a little bit.

Score one for the underdog, eh? :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on March 30, 2013, 06:22:59 PM
Then like back on our boards when SP came out, a debate ignited about if this is considered gambling and whether it's legal, since you are paying for a "roll of the dice" hoping to "win" the prize you want.  Before this they spent the whole month putting different items up for sale every day, 20% off.  I believe it was moderately successful, at the very least they should be able to tell the kind of products players are interested in.

Always fascinated me, that loophole. One of those things that had a hand in killing video arcades too, really. Those games that dispense tickets when you win, which you can then use to get toys that are even cheaper than the ones at the Dollar Store.

Apparently it's only gambling in the eyes of government if you can win money.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on March 30, 2013, 07:51:33 PM
Score one for the underdog, eh? :)

I'd rather have had CoH see the success it deserved than underdog vindication.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Golden Girl on March 30, 2013, 08:03:56 PM
Closing Aion so soon after CoH could have a major impact on player confidence in any of their titles.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on March 30, 2013, 09:06:11 PM
Closing Aion so soon after CoH could have a major impact on player confidence in any of their titles.

hear hear.

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kistulot on March 30, 2013, 10:03:28 PM
Closing Aion so soon after CoH could have a major impact on player confidence in any of their titles.

Then, tin foil hatting for a moment, how long (theoretically) would it take for the closure of Aion not to be perceived as such? Feels a worthwhile question to consider.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on March 30, 2013, 10:21:40 PM
Then, tin foil hatting for a moment, how long (theoretically) would it take for the closure of Aion not to be perceived as such? Feels a worthwhile question to consider.

Who knows: it has been since last August that we got our announcement, and that perception has not faded one bit. In fact it seems to be spreading, as the idea that NCSoft cannot be trusted is getting mentions in articles that are not even about CoX in the first place.

Player confidence has been traumatized, and I have zero faith that the people running NCIdiocracy are smart enough to avoid similar actions, when the latest wound has not even begun to close. That is not an intelligent bunch and they exhibit little if any insight into the causes of their current woes.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Triplash on March 30, 2013, 10:28:49 PM
I'd rather have had CoH see the success it deserved than underdog vindication.

Well yeah. Naturally. However if it's down to vindication or nothing, I'll take vindication. The sting they're feeling serves to remind me that we're right to be upset over what happened, and we're right to be fighting to change the situation.

They chose poorly in dismissing us so easily, and other people are starting to see that now too. Hopefully "don't mistreat your players" is what other game companies are hearing these days, each time a new article talks about the latest downturn NCsoft has taken. Most of them probably aren't, but some of them are, and that's a start.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Tubbius on March 31, 2013, 04:09:43 AM
Closing Aion so soon after CoH could have a major impact on player confidence in any of their titles.

Are they closing Aion?  Am I missing something?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Aggelakis on March 31, 2013, 04:13:25 AM
Are they closing Aion?  Am I missing something?
No announcement of such. The numbers are dropping, though.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on March 31, 2013, 08:49:53 AM
Always fascinated me, that loophole. One of those things that had a hand in killing video arcades too, really. Those games that dispense tickets when you win, which you can then use to get toys that are even cheaper than the ones at the Dollar Store.

Apparently it's only gambling in the eyes of government if you can win money.

Except the ticket thing has some kind of skill associated with it, Skee-ball for example.  Gambling has to be entirely by chance and it needs to be pay money to win money.  If you win a prize then it's a raffle and raffles are usually OK with the government.

Pachinko in Japan is interesting.  You take your "winnings" from the machine (balls) and use them to buy little goods.  However there is a place near by, TOTALLY unrelated to the pachinko parlor who will buy the items for cash.   ;)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on March 31, 2013, 09:04:29 AM
Are they closing Aion?  Am I missing something?

No announcement of such. The numbers are dropping, though.

Aion's numbers have declined rather noticeably in the last year or two.

2010 - 262,137 million KrW world wide, 178,867 million in Korea (68.2%)
2012 - 141,311 million world wide, 106,627 in Korea (75.5%)

Only thing is sometime after 2010 they did license the EU operations to a third party.  That income may now be reported as royalties and not assigned directly to the game.  Royalties did increase from 48,033 in 2010 to 64,101 million KrW in 2012. 

It was the sensational success of Aion that drove the stock price through the roof.  Between it fading and B&S not seeming to generate new income the way Aion did is what was behind the drop of the stock to the 120,000s range.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: General Idiot on March 31, 2013, 09:26:32 AM
What are those percentages there?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on March 31, 2013, 03:18:21 PM
What are those percentages there?

The percentage of income from Korea in Aion Vs overall.  Just showing that the bulk of the game's income is still "local".

The 4Q of 2012, Aion had world wide income of 25,057 million KrW, 15,688 million KrW from Korea (62.6%).

In 4Q of 2010, Aion had world wide income of 65,124 million KrW, 48,333 million KrW from Korea (74.2%).

So in two years Aion saw a world wide drop of income in 4Q of 61.5% and 67.5% just in Korea.  Quite the nosedive.  Korea's percentage drop is higher but that's likely due to the fact B&S only seemed to pull players from other games and B&S was only available in Korea.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DarkCurrent on March 31, 2013, 06:04:14 PM
Who wants to start a pool on when the shutters go up for Aion?

Let's see, when's the next American holiday?  Ah, there it is.  Memorial Day.  Monday, 5/27.  So Friday 5/24 would fit the NCSoft motif.

[EDIT: Removed politically- and racially-charged commentary ~Agge]
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lucretia MacEvil on March 31, 2013, 06:07:04 PM
They chose poorly

Makes me think of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

I wonder how long it will take NCsucks to wither and shrivel and die.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Aggelakis on March 31, 2013, 06:29:49 PM
Who wants to start a pool on when the shutters go up for Aion?
Aion is still, comparatively, raking in the dough. Just not as much as it used to.

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=imageshack.us%2Fa%2Fimg7%2F4703%2Fmodhat2.jpg)

Remember to keep politics and race out of this.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Ziggy1890 on March 31, 2013, 07:13:57 PM
Aion is still, comparatively, raking in the dough. Just not as much as it used to.

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=imageshack.us%2Fa%2Fimg7%2F4703%2Fmodhat2.jpg)

Remember to keep politics and race out of this.

Same could have been said about COH
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Aggelakis on March 31, 2013, 11:49:58 PM
Same could have been said about COH
CoH never raked in the dough, let's be honest. Aion was a beastly huge MMO - it's still rather more successful than most MMOs.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: UruzSix on March 31, 2013, 11:53:25 PM
Aion is still, comparatively, raking in the dough. Just not as much as it used to.

True, but I can't say its a good sign when they downsize the community manager.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on April 01, 2013, 12:08:12 AM
Realistically speaking, if I were looking at NCSoft from the perspective of an investor, I would see a company that is past its prime, and is going down, fast or slow, no way to tell.  They have shuttered games without having replacements for them; shuttering at least two shortly after hatching.  They managed to create a wave of negative press that persists months later far out of proportion to the shuttering of both Tabula Rasa and CoX.  As my father in law used to say of the Army, "It only takes one 'oh shit' to wipe out all of your 'attaboys'" and they've had a page full of "oh shits," from the initial way they handled the shutdown, to the way they treated the players, many of whom still have not gotten their refunds, to the final dull thud of the last day.  In fact, at this point, they have a huge deficit of "attaboys" and they keep pulling "oh shits."   There is the delay in getting their game into China; there is the delay in finishing Wildstar which is looking a lot more like a comedy clone of Borderlands than an MMORPG.  There are customer complaints galore in GW2; NCSoft announced an expansion of GW2 which was promptly denied by AreaNet which is another huge "oh shit."  And NCSoft has literally nothing cooking for after Wildstar launches.

This is a company in trouble.  It has a fat cushion to carry them for a while, but it won't carry them forever.  It has a HUGE customer problem it refuses to acknowledge.  It has an even bigger market perception problem it refuses to acknowledge.   In fact, it managed to trigger a market-wide tremor that has got the customers of other games taking a hard look at their games and companies and asking themselves how much longer--or even IF--they want to keep themselves invested in those games.   Only time will tell if gamer-goldfish-brains reset themselves and they go back to business-as-usual--or if gamers are going to start to seriously question the entire marketplace and start making demands.  If the latter, well, OTHER companies will know where to place the blame.  And so will the customers.  We already know the kind of arrogance NCSoft uses to respond to customer revolt.  That arrogance to demand might well be the dagger in the heart of the company, which will be hoovered up and absorbed into Nexon.

Sadly, Taek Jin Kim will sit back under his golden parachute and watch his baseball team.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mister Bison on April 01, 2013, 12:56:19 AM
Realistically speaking, if I were looking at NCSoft from the perspective of an investor, I would see a company that is past its prime, and is going down, fast or slow, no way to tell.  They have shuttered games without having replacements for them; shuttering at least two shortly after hatching.  They managed to create a wave of negative press that persists months later far out of proportion to the shuttering of both Tabula Rasa and CoX.  As my father in law used to say of the Army, "It only takes one 'oh pancake' to wipe out all of your 'attaboys'" and they've had a page full of "oh shits," from the initial way they handled the shutdown, to the way they treated the players, many of whom still have not gotten their refunds, to the final dull thud of the last day.  In fact, at this point, they have a huge deficit of "attaboys" and they keep pulling "oh shits."   There is the delay in getting their game into China; there is the delay in finishing Wildstar which is looking a lot more like a comedy clone of Borderlands than an MMORPG.  There are customer complaints galore in GW2; NCSoft announced an expansion of GW2 which was promptly denied by AreaNet which is another huge "oh pancake."  And NCSoft has literally nothing cooking for after Wildstar launches.

This is a company in trouble.  It has a fat cushion to carry them for a while, but it won't carry them forever.  It has a HUGE customer problem it refuses to acknowledge.  It has an even bigger market perception problem it refuses to acknowledge.   In fact, it managed to trigger a market-wide tremor that has got the customers of other games taking a hard look at their games and companies and asking themselves how much longer--or even IF--they want to keep themselves invested in those games.   Only time will tell if gamer-goldfish-brains reset themselves and they go back to business-as-usual--or if gamers are going to start to seriously question the entire marketplace and start making demands.  If the latter, well, OTHER companies will know where to place the blame.  And so will the customers.  We already know the kind of arrogance NCSoft uses to respond to customer revolt.  That arrogance to demand might well be the dagger in the heart of the company, which will be hoovered up and absorbed into Nexon.

Sadly, Taek Jin Kim will sit back under his golden parachute and watch his baseball team.
You gave me a new definition of "assassin words". Thank you.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on April 01, 2013, 04:24:38 AM
Realistically speaking, if I were looking at NCSoft from the perspective of an investor, I would see a company that is past its prime, and is going down, fast or slow, no way to tell.  They have shuttered games without having replacements for them; shuttering at least two shortly after hatching.  They managed to create a wave of negative press that persists months later far out of proportion to the shuttering of both Tabula Rasa and CoX.  As my father in law used to say of the Army, "It only takes one 'oh pancake' to wipe out all of your 'attaboys'" and they've had a page full of "oh shits," from the initial way they handled the shutdown, to the way they treated the players, many of whom still have not gotten their refunds, to the final dull thud of the last day.  In fact, at this point, they have a huge deficit of "attaboys" and they keep pulling "oh shits."   There is the delay in getting their game into China; there is the delay in finishing Wildstar which is looking a lot more like a comedy clone of Borderlands than an MMORPG.  There are customer complaints galore in GW2; NCSoft announced an expansion of GW2 which was promptly denied by AreaNet which is another huge "oh pancake."  And NCSoft has literally nothing cooking for after Wildstar launches.

This is a company in trouble.  It has a fat cushion to carry them for a while, but it won't carry them forever.  It has a HUGE customer problem it refuses to acknowledge.  It has an even bigger market perception problem it refuses to acknowledge.   In fact, it managed to trigger a market-wide tremor that has got the customers of other games taking a hard look at their games and companies and asking themselves how much longer--or even IF--they want to keep themselves invested in those games.   Only time will tell if gamer-goldfish-brains reset themselves and they go back to business-as-usual--or if gamers are going to start to seriously question the entire marketplace and start making demands.  If the latter, well, OTHER companies will know where to place the blame.  And so will the customers.  We already know the kind of arrogance NCSoft uses to respond to customer revolt.  That arrogance to demand might well be the dagger in the heart of the company, which will be hoovered up and absorbed into Nexon.

Sadly, Taek Jin Kim will sit back under his golden parachute and watch his baseball team.

One day I'll have a golden parachute too. :p
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on April 01, 2013, 04:38:44 AM
One day I'll have a golden parachute too. :p

With...Blackjack! And Hookers! In fact, forget the parachute!

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=cdn.memegenerator.net%2Fimages%2F300x%2F5090397.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on April 01, 2013, 05:42:59 AM
I feel a little sorry for NCSOFT.  They are like some first time author who writes a critically acclaimed and wildly popular novel and then the pressure is on them to do it again, and again, and again.

Before CoH was ever released, way back when NCSOFT first came out with Lineage, that game blew up big time.  I don't know if it was the first successful MMO in Korea but it made the company.

Then the company decided to go to full 3D unlike the Diablo style of Lineage for Lineage II, which is actually a prequel.  The stock price shot up so much leading up to it's release it was the only time NCSOFT split their stock, three for one, as it was in the 250,000+ a share range.  Overall sales nearly doubled between 2003 and 2004 (yes, CoH came out in 2004 but was less than 13% of sales).

Then Guild Wars came out in 2005, did well.  Overall sales up 21%.

Then Auto Assault came out in 2006, didn't do well.  Overall sales up 10%.

Then Tabula Rasa came out in 2007, didn't do well.  At all.  Overall sales down 3%.  Oops. 

2008.  Late October 2008.  If you had a time machine and wanted to take over the company, that was the time to do it.  The stock price closed at a post split low on Oct 27th, 2008 of 24,400 a share.  That was below book value, the shareholder's value of a company's assets.  Stock quickly rallied after that partially due to reports on Aion's successful beta and buzz generated by it.  On Nov 24th, 2008 the stock closed at 41,900.  On the 25th Aion went live.  By the end of the year the stock was at 52,600.  On Aion's first anniversary it was at 151,500.

NCSOFT started big with Lineage.  Expanded overseas all over Asia.  Invested in several studios in the US.  Hit it big with Lineage II.  Then hit it really big with Aion.  They could do no wrong with their AAA properties.

Overall sales in 2008 was up only 5%, but mostly due to only a month of Aion sales. 

In 2009 sales was up 83%, profits up 623%.  It was Lineage II's success all over again.  The sky was the limit for the stock.  Aion brought in sales that were almost as large as Lineage and Lineage II combined in 2009 (89%).

And then ... nothing.  For nearly four years.  No new MMOs.  Lots of talk about B&S and GW2 but nothing to release.  It really didn't matter in 2009, they were riding high on Aion's first year.

But sales in 2010 were up only 2%, profits down 6%.  No new MMOs.

Sales in 2011 were down 7%, profits down 18%.  No new MMOs.  And that's when the stock price started to fall.  Oct 19th, 2011 the stock closed at it's all time high of 380,500.  Almost 3 years after it closed at it's post split low of 24,400.

In 2012 profits kept declining quarter after quarter.  And the stock's momentum went from everyone on the party train to outer space to fighting for lifeboats on the Titanic.

And when B&S didn't pull an Aion or Lineage II in terms of sales in the 3Q 2012 numbers.  Boom.  GW2 didn't matter as much because it's not being played down at the local PC cafe.  It's not on their weekly charts.  It doesn't matter to Korean investors.  What mattered to them was Aion and Lineage II sales taking a dive in 2012 while B&S didn't even pick up the slack to break even.

But still 2012 sales were up 24%, profits by 31%.

Maybe NCSOFT's best days are behind them.  They had three big successes in Korea and Asia.  But as long as their Asian business is still going strong.  And if Wildstar is successful or not, they have at least three or four more AAA MMO titles under development in the upcoming years.  As long as they remain profitable as they diversify into Mobile gaming; if GW2 can have the same kind of success in Asia as GW1 had; they aren't going anywhere any time soon.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on April 01, 2013, 04:57:44 PM
It does not matter how muuch money Aion rakes in: if NCS wants to shut the game, boomshakalaka! Its going down.

Money does not matter. Customers dont matter, public perception matters not. Whether or not this makes sense to the average person does not matter. If they want to "realign more focus," then by gum they are gonna do it and devil take the hindenmost.

That's how they roll.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on April 01, 2013, 05:03:06 PM
That's how they roll.

Downhill. And by the looks of it, they're gathering no moss either.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Aggelakis on April 01, 2013, 06:27:56 PM
It does not matter how muuch money Aion rakes in: if NCS wants to shut the game, boomshakalaka! Its going down.

Money does not matter. .....
On the contrary, money matters more than anything. They are a business.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on April 01, 2013, 06:48:20 PM
On the contrary, money matters more than anything. They are a business.
Yup.

It's that invisible (to the customer and in some cases the workers) money threshold line that can be a problem. If they set the threshold at Aion better bring in xx amount of millions or else, then if it dont reach that threshold whether a bit too high or low, then they may rid of it like a few people I know get rid of spare change.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: eabrace on April 01, 2013, 06:52:24 PM
they may rid of it like a few people I know get rid of spare change.
If only NCsoft practiced "take a penny, leave a penny".
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on April 01, 2013, 06:54:08 PM
If only NCsoft practiced "take a penny, leave a penny".
If only...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on April 01, 2013, 08:15:31 PM
It does not matter how muuch money Aion rakes in: if NCS wants to shut the game, boomshakalaka! Its going down.

Money does not matter. Customers dont matter, public perception matters not. Whether or not this makes sense to the average person does not matter. If they want to "realign more focus," then by gum they are gonna do it and devil take the hindenmost.

That's how they roll.

Wrong.  Aion, in it's depressed state, had nearly as much sales in 4Q 2012 than CoH had in it's last two years.  Also in Korea Aion is still the number 4 MMORPG in Korea with Lineage being 1 and B&S being 2 (ArcheAge is 3).

It'll be news when NCSOFT shuts down entirely any of their big three Korean grown titles.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mistress Urd on April 01, 2013, 08:27:51 PM
I feel a little sorry for NCSOFT.  They are like some first time author who writes a critically acclaimed and wildly popular novel and then the pressure is on them to do it again, and again, and again.

Before CoH was ever released, way back when NCSOFT first came out with Lineage, that game blew up big time.  I don't know if it was the first successful MMO in Korea but it made the company.

Then the company decided to go to full 3D unlike the Diablo style of Lineage for Lineage II, which is actually a prequel.  The stock price shot up so much leading up to it's release it was the only time NCSOFT split their stock, three for one, as it was in the 250,000+ a share range.  Overall sales nearly doubled between 2003 and 2004 (yes, CoH came out in 2004 but was less than 13% of sales).

Then Guild Wars came out in 2005, did well.  Overall sales up 21%.

Then Auto Assault came out in 2006, didn't do well.  Overall sales up 10%.

Then Tabula Rasa came out in 2007, didn't do well.  At all.  Overall sales down 3%.  Oops. 

2008.  Late October 2008.  If you had a time machine and wanted to take over the company, that was the time to do it.  The stock price closed at a post split low on Oct 27th, 2008 of 24,400 a share.  That was below book value, the shareholder's value of a company's assets.  Stock quickly rallied after that partially due to reports on Aion's successful beta and buzz generated by it.  On Nov 24th, 2008 the stock closed at 41,900.  On the 25th Aion went live.  By the end of the year the stock was at 52,600.  On Aion's first anniversary it was at 151,500.

NCSOFT started big with Lineage.  Expanded overseas all over Asia.  Invested in several studios in the US.  Hit it big with Lineage II.  Then hit it really big with Aion.  They could do no wrong with their AAA properties.

Overall sales in 2008 was up only 5%, but mostly due to only a month of Aion sales. 

In 2009 sales was up 83%, profits up 623%.  It was Lineage II's success all over again.  The sky was the limit for the stock.  Aion brought in sales that were almost as large as Lineage and Lineage II combined in 2009 (89%).

And then ... nothing.  For nearly four years.  No new MMOs.  Lots of talk about B&S and GW2 but nothing to release.  It really didn't matter in 2009, they were riding high on Aion's first year.

But sales in 2010 were up only 2%, profits down 6%.  No new MMOs.

Sales in 2011 were down 7%, profits down 18%.  No new MMOs.  And that's when the stock price started to fall.  Oct 19th, 2011 the stock closed at it's all time high of 380,500.  Almost 3 years after it closed at it's post split low of 24,400.

In 2012 profits kept declining quarter after quarter.  And the stock's momentum went from everyone on the party train to outer space to fighting for lifeboats on the Titanic.

And when B&S didn't pull an Aion or Lineage II in terms of sales in the 3Q 2012 numbers.  Boom.  GW2 didn't matter as much because it's not being played down at the local PC cafe.  It's not on their weekly charts.  It doesn't matter to Korean investors.  What mattered to them was Aion and Lineage II sales taking a dive in 2012 while B&S didn't even pick up the slack to break even.

But still 2012 sales were up 24%, profits by 31%.

Maybe NCSOFT's best days are behind them.  They had three big successes in Korea and Asia.  But as long as their Asian business is still going strong.  And if Wildstar is successful or not, they have at least three or four more AAA MMO titles under development in the upcoming years.  As long as they remain profitable as they diversify into Mobile gaming; if GW2 can have the same kind of success in Asia as GW1 had; they aren't going anywhere any time soon.

I don't feel sorry for them. One of the hardest things when you get to the top is staying there. The people making the decisions have to keep making good ones. Mistakes happen, no doubt they will make their share of good ones and bad ones. If they make too many bad ones, the company will fail.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Tanklet on April 01, 2013, 10:20:23 PM
I refuse to feel sorry for a company that refuses to listen to their market, and yet somehow still expect them to be customers...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Whyaylooh on April 01, 2013, 11:43:58 PM
Wrong.  Aion, in it's depressed state, had nearly as much sales in 4Q 2012 than CoH had in it's last two years.  Also in Korea Aion is still the number 4 MMORPG in Korea with Lineage being 1 and B&S being 2 (ArcheAge is 3).

It'll be news when NCSOFT shuts down entirely any of their big three Korean grown titles.
Agreed, especially since that there are stragglers in their herd that are a.) more sickly, and b.) less likely to cheese off the home crowd.

My guts says, "Look for Guild Wars (the original) to be culled in August."  (Which means I should probably get something to eat here, and probably look into some medication, if my stomach is speaking to me so clearly, but that's neither here nor there.)  Earnings aren't much better than CoH's when it was cut, they're already a foot in the grave, anyway -- I believe they're down to a skeleton crew maintaining it, with everyone else moved over to GW2 -- and the home audience couldn't care less about it.  Right around late summer earnings reports is when they tend to announce or execute closures (see: Auto Assault, Exteel, and, yes, CoH), and if earnings are starting to slide again, it would make a relatively low-risk, "Yeah, things aren't looking good, but we're reorganizing to make things better!" move.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Victoria Victrix on April 02, 2013, 12:31:17 AM
And if Wildstar is successful or not, they have at least three or four more AAA MMO titles under development in the upcoming years. 

Only if they actually pay to develop those titles in a timely manner.  I don't know what the situation in Korea is when it comes to staffing but so far in the US all we are hearing about is cuts.  If there are not good updates, frequently, there are other new, shiny, and FTP game out there that will not cost the internet cafes a single won to put on the roster. 

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Tubbius on April 02, 2013, 12:42:18 AM
A single won?  You mean one won?  :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JWBullfrog on April 02, 2013, 01:24:56 AM
A single won?  You mean one won?  :)

you know, I was in a Korean lottery once. I won one won.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on April 02, 2013, 01:44:48 AM
In Comedy Sportz, that would get a flag on the play: groaner.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JWBullfrog on April 02, 2013, 01:45:47 AM
And that wasn't the worst part...
My friend from Spain was in that same lottery...
 
Juan won one won too.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on April 02, 2013, 01:58:30 AM
I'm killing you with brain lasers, now...

 :P
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on April 02, 2013, 02:03:58 AM
Juan won one won too.

Wait... Juan won one won when?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on April 02, 2013, 02:48:32 AM
Brain lasers everywhere!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on April 02, 2013, 03:00:45 AM
Wrong.  Aion, in it's depressed state, had nearly as much sales in 4Q 2012 than CoH had in it's last two years.  Also in Korea Aion is still the number 4 MMORPG in Korea with Lineage being 1 and B&S being 2 (ArcheAge is 3).

It'll be news when NCSOFT shuts down entirely any of their big three Korean grown titles.

But that still does not matter. NCSoft will still close that game any time they feel like it, whether or not it makes sense or whether or not it is making money. That is how they roll.

Sooooooooooooo...... If I were an Aion player, I would be very nervous. If I were heavily invested in GW1, I'd be nervous about that too. This is a very trigger-happy company.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Triplash on April 02, 2013, 04:22:40 AM
And that wasn't the worst part...
My friend from Spain was in that same lottery...
 
Juan won one won too.

Cool! A friend of mine entered a raffle over there once. She got a ballet skirt from a dollar store.

She won one one-won tutu.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Twisted Toon on April 02, 2013, 04:41:56 AM
A single won?  You mean one won?  :)

you know, I was in a Korean lottery once. I won one won.
And that wasn't the worst part...
My friend from Spain was in that same lottery...
 
Juan won one won too.
Wait... Juan won one won when?
Cool! A friend of mine entered a raffle over there once. She got a ballet skirt from a dollar store.

She won one one-won tutu.

I'll be able to sleep well tonight...once I stop giggling... :P
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Tubbius on April 02, 2013, 05:41:40 AM
Wow.  :)  Look what I spawned with a single pun!

THAT was a hilarious read.  :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on April 02, 2013, 07:46:14 AM
But that still does not matter. NCSoft will still close that game any time they feel like it, whether or not it makes sense or whether or not it is making money. That is how they roll.

Sooooooooooooo...... If I were an Aion player, I would be very nervous. If I were heavily invested in GW1, I'd be nervous about that too. This is a very trigger-happy company.

/facepalm

As much as we hated it they didn't close CoH out of malice.  They had their reasons, it's just we don't understand them.  And even if they told us we would still likely disagree with them.  Maybe it wasn't making enough.  Maybe Paragon was costing too much.  I'm not talking straight up profit or loss, I'm talking about some 2nd or 3rd order abstract metric that they teach MBAs or is a report in SAP.  Sell through per player, profit per employee.  Maybe the return on the game was less than what they could get investing the money in bonds.

My point was CoH was bringing in a paltry amount of sales compared to Aion even at it's current anemic levels, anemic compared to where it was even a year ago.  I doubt a game with still over 10x the sales CoH had when it's plug got pulled is in the crosshairs.  Yet.

Sure down the line, after a total collapse of it's player base as they moved on to newer NCSOFT pastures, Aion could get it's plug pulled.  And for those who stayed behind, those who showed the game some loyalty will be POed like we were.  Or they will accept these things happen and move on to join their fellows in the greener pastures.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TonyV on April 02, 2013, 02:23:03 PM
My point was CoH was bringing in a paltry amount of sales compared to Aion even at it's current anemic levels, anemic compared to where it was even a year ago.

You keep saying that, but I still have to point out that I honestly believe that your assessment is based on investor reports that NCsoft has produced in-house, and we don't know what the actual numbers are.  It is not unusual for companies to shift numbers around to convey some impression or another, and with less regulation in South Korea than the SEC mandates here in the United States, it would be even easier to do so.  I'm telling you, do not trust the numbers that NCsoft is putting out when it comes to sales and expenses.  I can't prove it.  I wish I could.  If this were a U.S. company, I'd have more avenues to chase down to try.  I think that someday we'll find out the truth, but it won't be until NCsoft is forced to turn over information that it really wants to keep locked up.  But based on what I've been told by people who would know, people I have a lot more trust in than anyone at NCsoft, City of Heroes was doing very well and the amount of money it was making could hardly be called "paltry".
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on April 02, 2013, 03:01:35 PM
So TonyV, you believe that NCSOFT had been intentionally lying in they investor reports for years leading up to the closure of CoH as part of some grand plan to lay the groundwork for a justifiable reason to close the game?  So at what point did this start or is all their numbers for the last 8 years are falsified?  That sounds a lot like premeditation which does imply then some degree of malice.
 
Are you suggesting that CoH, at any time, was even remotely as large of an income source as any of NCSOFT's big 3 worldwide?  Are you suggesting that CoH style had the player population hadn't declined from it's heyday when NCSOFT still reported those numbers?  Or don't you believe that Aion's worst quarter brought in almost as much income, from just Korea in 4th quarter 2012, than CoH did in it's 4th quarter of 2005, the quarter that CoV was released?

This all does sound a bit conspiracy theorist to me.  Sure we don't like the reason they gave.  It's only natural to dismiss facts if they don't agree with our "gut".  But how did closing our game, if it was doing as well as you are suggesting, help them?  What was NCSOFT looking to gain from the closure?  What balanced the negative publicity they were likely aware that the closure of a 8 year old game that had none of the usual public precursors that it was in trouble (server merges, staff layoffs) would generate?  No company would intentionally upset their customer base unless there was an upside to it, so what was it?  What was their motive if they've been planning this for years, cooking the books just to back their claim (not that they ever said that CoH was losing money)?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lightslinger on April 02, 2013, 03:11:01 PM
I personally think CoH was still doing well, just not as "well" as NCsoft would've liked. NCsoft saw an 8 year old game that had definitely peaked, the $$$ from CoH was only downhill from when they made the decision to shut down.

I believe it would've been a very long and slow downhill, but CoH had most likely peaked. NCsoft saw this as justification to get out. Also, NCsoft was probably looking at the ROI, return on investment factor. Because of CoH's age it had a lower ROI. So even though CoH was making money, it was making less than an investment in another property would.

Basically, NCsoft puts $1 into CoH, they get $2. They put $1 into GW2, they get $5. Translate that to millions and its a big difference.

NCsoft closing CoH doesn't make them stupid or malicious, its the way it was conducted that was wrong. If NCsoft didn't want CoH they should have:

-Ramped down development and slashed Paragon Studios to a smaller team.
-If that didn't work for them, go to "maintenance mode".
-Sell CoH to highest bidder.

The business side of shutting down CoH kind of makes sense, the Customer Service side however...yikes.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on April 02, 2013, 03:30:25 PM
You keep saying that, but I still have to point out that I honestly believe that your assessment is based on investor reports that NCsoft has produced in-house, and we don't know what the actual numbers are.  It is not unusual for companies to shift numbers around to convey some impression or another, and with less regulation in South Korea than the SEC mandates here in the United States, it would be even easier to do so.  I'm telling you, do not trust the numbers that NCsoft is putting out when it comes to sales and expenses.  I can't prove it.  I wish I could.  If this were a U.S. company, I'd have more avenues to chase down to try.  I think that someday we'll find out the truth, but it won't be until NCsoft is forced to turn over information that it really wants to keep locked up.  But based on what I've been told by people who would know, people I have a lot more trust in than anyone at NCsoft, City of Heroes was doing very well and the amount of money it was making could hardly be called "paltry".

Sooooo. Without true financial reports and numbers can we say it was for one reason or another in a definate manner? I.e it was for malice; it was for lack of profits; it was irregardless of profit; it was making a killing; it wasn't making anything and etc. But one thing that father xmas is proper about is that Ncsoft had a reason. Although they havent elaborated on it, it may have been a stupid reason good reason personal reason business reason some ate a burger and got rot gut reason but all reasons nonetheless. Yet it doesn't seem as the reason will be clear anytime soon unless a public audit of finance dating far back shows the reason. We have a company the only one that know the true numbers that may have pencil whipped some numbers but I always thought they pencil whip to make it look more profitable not less but hey.

The f2p model seemed to make it easier to make up numbers. With pure subs more people logged on more money. I remember when just about all servers were decently populated. In the end it seemed that there were less people on than in the past but with server transfers being handed out like candy, people who play and don't pay a dime, villain zones being all but empty due to AT prof. and ease of switching its possible that everyone migrated to virtue and freedom. Maybe money made decreased over the years maybe not. Maybe there are 34 alt. dimensions. What is a butt load of money to one us chump change not worrying about to another. That is why I wished companies express their expectations and thresholds a bit better. WoW if profits decreased to say 18 million a year
and many would say that is super excellent money, some companies may look at it as a loss and shut it down for nit performing anymore. How long must it not perform? Depends on company expectations. Some may wait 4 years others after a few months but the threshold is ever rarely stated. I guess they assume mmo players/workers have the ability to read the company financial analyst minds.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on April 02, 2013, 03:53:47 PM
Basically, NCsoft puts $1 into CoH, they get $2. They put $1 into GW2, they get $5. Translate that to millions and its a big difference.

NCsoft closing CoH doesn't make them stupid or malicious, its the way it was conducted that was wrong.

That said, that perspective would make sense if that was an either-or kind of situation - there was no reason not to get both the $2 and $5 returns from supporting both titles. Unless, again, NCsoft execs assumed we'd simply move from the dollar well to the cash cow.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lightslinger on April 02, 2013, 03:58:04 PM
That said, that perspective would make sense if that was an either-or kind of situation - there was no reason not to get both the $2 and $5 returns from supporting both titles. Unless, again, NCsoft execs assumed we'd simply move from the dollar well to the cash cow.

I think what some businesses would think is that if they freed up that $1 going to the low ROI project, they could invest more in the high ROI project.

I personally would want to stay diversified and have my money coming from multiple stable projects. Once again, not saying I agree with NCsoft, just showing that it is possible that the CoH shutdown was NOT done because of malice toward us or stupidity on NCsoft's part. Two sides to every story and all that jazz.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on April 02, 2013, 04:08:11 PM
Indeed, but the investment had already been made and paid for itself - past that point, everything Paragon Studios put out that exceeded operating costs was gravy.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: srmalloy on April 02, 2013, 04:43:48 PM
Only if they actually pay to develop those titles in a timely manner.  I don't know what the situation in Korea is when it comes to staffing but so far in the US all we are hearing about is cuts.  If there are not good updates, frequently, there are other new, shiny, and FTP game out there that will not cost the internet cafes a single won to put on the roster.

There's also the consideration of system overhead working against NCSoft -- aside from the game setting, there isn't much real difference in the play of NCSoft's 'core' MMOs, so they have to keep cranking up the level of chrome in the games, whether it's more ornate armor, or flashier combat moves, or more world detail, or more special effects. And remembering that NCSoft had to go out to the Internet cafes in Korea and offer them free hardware upgrades so that they'd be able to run Aion on their systems, it's entirely possible that NCSoft runs into a situation where the Internet cafes will have to decide whether to run NCSoft's new games at lower graphics settings (defeating the purpose of all the new chrome), buying upgraded hardware to run the games (and charging more for time on them, which could cut down on players), or to go back to NCSoft and see whether they're willing to front the same hardware upgrade in order to get their games into the cafes.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on April 02, 2013, 05:19:50 PM
Quote
My point was CoH was bringing in a paltry amount of sales compared to Aion even at it's current anemic levels, anemic compared to where it was even a year ago.  I doubt a game with still over 10x the sales CoH had when it's plug got pulled is in the crosshairs.  Yet.

That still does not matter! This is a honey badger of a company that just does what it wants. If Aion or GW1 or any of their titles stops "aligning with their current focus" then guess what? It ***WILL*** be history. Don't ask questions, dont wonder why. BOOM! CLOSED!

Quote
As much as we hated it they didn't close CoH out of malice.

it was probably actually stupidity not malice, yet their actions subsequently reek of malice. They'll reek more strongly of malice just as soon as we find out they're going to refuse to sell the game to Emmert, or Cryptic or whoever. Which I do believe they will do, because that's how they are.

None of us was there, we can only judge on what we see. If it looks like malice, acts like malice, smells like malice and is afraid to say why because oops, got to keep that quiet 'cause it looks like malice, then I believe there is a strong possibility that there's some antisocial behavior going on here.

Quote
So TonyV, you believe that NCSOFT had been intentionally lying in they investor reports for years leading up to the closure of CoH as part of some grand plan to lay the groundwork for a justifiable reason to close the game?  So at what point did this start or is all their numbers for the last 8 years are falsified?  That sounds a lot like premeditation which does imply then some degree of malice.

Do you really think that corporations never lie? They never fudge numbers? because far as I can tell, they do lie and hide their real motives for various actions. It happens every day. Its a big reason that the entire world economy is teetering on the brink as I type. If the whole world can be on the brink due to businesses lying and fudging numbers, you'd better believe one gaming company situated overseas can do it. They probably have LESS oversight than the US does!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TonyV on April 02, 2013, 05:44:55 PM
So TonyV, you believe that NCSOFT had been intentionally lying in they investor reports for years leading up to the closure of CoH as part of some grand plan to lay the groundwork for a justifiable reason to close the game?

How many times do I have to say this?  More or less, YES.  I think that "lying" might be a bit strong of a word to use, as I'm sure they probably don't view it as lying.  You know as well as I do that almost all companies shift money around from point A to point B to accomplish various goals and convey certain appearances.

For example, how many companies are incorporated in Delaware?  How many companies do you honestly think have any connection to Delaware other than it being on some paper saying that's where they incorporated?  Why do you think they do this?  It's because the fees, taxes, and laws regarding corporations in Delaware are the most conducive to incorporation than any others in the United States, so some hugely disproportionate number of companies are incorporated there.  (A quick Internet search turns up that 60% of Fortune 500 companies are incorporated in Delaware and 75% of IPOs happen in Delaware.)

Is this "lying"?  I would argue that it's at least a bit dishonest.  If I've been operating a business in, for example, the state of Georgia, taking advantage of the resources that exist here to build my company up to a point where I'm ready to incorporate, I intend to continue doing so after incorporation, and I'm indelibly associated with the state of Georgia (The Home Depot (http://ir.homedepot.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=63646&p=irol-faq#37547)? Coca-Cola (http://www.coca-colacompany.com/investors/restated-certificate-of-incorporation-originally-incorporated-on-september-5-1919)? Delta Air Lines (http://www.delta.com/content/www/en_US/about-delta/investor-relations/corporate-governance.html)?), it seems to me pretty scummy to incorporate in Delaware and deny money that the state of Georgia desperately needs in its own budgets to continue providing services and resources to allow more people to start businesses and prosper.  Yet not only is this practice legal, it is extremely common.

Companies do things all the time that normal people like you and I would consider at least a bit dishonest, sometimes outright lying, but that are technically legal.  Do you really think that if NCsoft is going to launch a new game such as Aion that they're not going to do their dead-level best to convince customers and investors that this is the best game on the market and that people are flocking to it in droves?  One way to do so is to take any kind of shared expenses such as, I dunno, corporate accountants, legal consultants, etc., and shift them onto studios and/or games that the company doesn't care so much about, games that are in other markets where they don't want to focus their efforts.  Another is to take sales that can't really be precisely pinned down to City of Heroes sales such as game time cards or subscription fees and attribute them to games you want to make look better.

That's just off the top of my head, the most common things companies do in this vein.  I'm sure that a practiced attorney could come up with more.  And that's just assuming that what NCsoft is doing is strictly legal.  I don't know how loose the laws are in South Korea.  I do know that their version of the SEC isn't as stringent and that bribery and corruption are not exactly unknown (http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/24/world/asia/south-korean-president-apology) in the country.  So is it really that hard to imagine that the numbers that NCsoft are reporting do not convey an accurate picture of what has actually been going on within the company, but an ideal picture of what they want investors to think is happening?

It's only natural to dismiss facts if they don't agree with our "gut".  But how did closing our game, if it was doing as well as you are suggesting, help them?

My rationale for what I believe has never solely been my "gut".  I have repeatedly said, and I'll say again, that I have been told by multiple sources within Paragon Studios that City of Heroes was doing very well.  I've even had people go so far as to say that it was doing better than appearances within the IR reports at NCsoft would have it appear to be doing.  I was told some of this even before the August 31 announcement.

So someone is either lying, or at least mistaken.  When such a conflict arises, I ask myself who has more of a motive to lie (or more likely to be mistaken), and who has more to lose?  The Paragon Studios thing is done.  NCsoft clearly has more of a motive to protect its reputation and income by clinging to their position than some schmoes who have moved on and gotten new jobs with other companies, especially since we're not the only people questioning it (http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2012/08/133_117289.html).

I also ask, who has been a more reliable source of information in the past?  Well, we do know that NCsoft has been doing bupkiss for marketing the game, and they have committed what I consider at least two egregious lies when: 1) they told us that "all options have been exhausted", and 2) they shoveled the whole "unsuccessful in finding a suitable partner (http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/3/feature/7015/City-of-Heroes-Profitable-or-Not.html)" spiel on us via MMORPG.com.  (And I have to point out that although Lincoln Davis made the statement, I do not personally pin the blame on him for this lie; he is the head of corporate communications, not executive management and not the financial guys who are spinning the numbers.  I'm almost certain that he was only relaying a message that was given to him by higher-level management.  He's basically the Zwillinger of the NCsoft corporate overlords.)

It also just doesn't make sense to me that Paragon Studios was committing to so many resources, staffed up to double what would be normal to work on another game, going full steam ahead with development of new features, items, and expansions for City of Heroes, if the management of the studio had any clue at all that they were considered in trouble or if he considered their income "paltry" over the last year or two.  If Paragon Studios management didn't honestly believe that the game was doing really well, I have to ask you, why in the world weren't they going into big-time cost-cutting mode trying to save money and increase their bottom line?  Meanwhile, everything that NCsoft has done since indicates that they are scrambling to consolidate operations and management at the home office in South Korea, really focusing more on the Asian market than the North American one.

No company would intentionally upset their customer base unless there was an upside to it, so what was it?

It's really simple.  I really believe that NCsoft had no idea whatsoever that the outcry at the closure of Paragon Studios and City of Heroes would generate.  I honestly believe that they expected to announce that it was all shutting down, people would say, "Gosh, that's too bad.  Oh well, time to move on to Guild Wars 2!", and that would be that.  I honestly believe that NCsoft has not one drop, not one microscopic speck, of clue when it comes to how western gamers tend to get attached to their game, their development staffs, and not so much to companies, how we don't view these games as just interchangeable cogs, that when one shuts down, we don't simply move on to the next big thing.  So there's the bulk of your answer: NCsoft never considered that shutting down Paragon Studios or City of Heroes would upset their customer base.

And why would they?  They had shut down Auto Assault, Exteel, Dungeon Runners, and Tabula Rasa without much outcry.  The closest they came was Tabula Rasa, but to be blunt, that game hadn't really been around long enough to generate the intensity of feelings people had towards it to match what happened with City of Heroes.  To be fair, if City of Heroes had shut down in early 2006, there probably wouldn't have been much outcry about it, either.

And what's the upside?  As I've said repeatedly, I believe that NCsoft's current strategy is to consolidate operations and management to their South Korean corporate offices.  The upside is that they have one less foreign subsidiary that they have to worry about, one that was probably getting a bit antsy due to what I think were (valid, in my opinion) feelings within Paragon Studios management that they were being jerked around and not supported by their publisher like they should have been.  NCsoft had already had one subsidiary blow up on them and weren't keen on a repeat.  The upside is that they wouldn't have to risk that.  Just shut the whole thing down and be done with it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on April 02, 2013, 06:10:20 PM
Wow.  :)  Look what I spawned with a single pun!

THAT was a hilarious read.  :)

<----- suffering from Cape Radio Punday Night Withdrawal.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on April 02, 2013, 06:13:32 PM
That still does not matter! This is a honey badger of a company that just does what it wants. If Aion or GW1 or any of their titles stops "aligning with their current focus" then guess what? It ***WILL*** be history. Don't ask questions, dont wonder why. BOOM! CLOSED!

it was probably actually stupidity not malice, yet their actions subsequently reek of malice. They'll reek more strongly of malice just as soon as we find out they're going to refuse to sell the game to Emmert, or Cryptic or whoever. Which I do believe they will do, because that's how they are.

None of us was there, we can only judge on what we see. If it looks like malice, acts like malice, smells like malice and is afraid to say why because oops, got to keep that quiet 'cause it looks like malice, then I believe there is a strong possibility that there's some antisocial behavior going on here.

Do you really think that corporations never lie? They never fudge numbers? because far as I can tell, they do lie and hide their real motives for various actions. It happens every day. Its a big reason that the entire world economy is teetering on the brink as I type. If the whole world can be on the brink due to businesses lying and fudging numbers, you'd better believe one gaming company situated overseas can do it. They probably have LESS oversight than the US does!

could be malice but if so why not just let it sink the first time instead of buying cryptic shares? Or why not kill it off when it was at it's peak. Why the wait of 8 years? Most games, that doesnt get the label of being "shot" dont last 8 years.

Plus yes thye may as well turn down Jack and cryptic. Depends o nthe actual offer and HOW it's presented. If it's presented as, "Hey NCStupid (and or all those other names people come up with) you better sell or we'll make a PR nightmare." Then hell yeah they probably wont be itching to talk turkey (business) with that group. I wouldnt blame them.

But you might as well be right with the malice thing. if it look like malice smell like malice (etc) then it might be. Yet apply that to their end. If a deal look fishy smells fishy then it might be fishy. Then they will turn it down.

Then again no one even know if they have plans for the IP or not yet. They havent said. All we know right now they havent (or refused to as some put it) to sell.

Just as many here are quick to label anyone that agrees with NCSoft as a paid NCSoft employee or worse, and seemed to have been labeled the enemy my plenty of people here, espeically apparent with some that constantly turn it's name into NC(insert negative connotation and or insult) why would they run to the table when someone anyone that may hvae look smell or have suspicion of laying in bed with those that seem to hate them? Most people here probably wouldnt no matter how much money is offered. If someone insults a person everyday because they no longer allow them to borrow the lawnmower, then that perosn that been insulted them for weeks on end show up on the doorstep talking about "here's $50. I want to buy the lawnmower." Many people would not be friendly to that person. Especially if you turn them down and they say you refused to sell and is stupid for not selling on Facebook, and to anyone they come across. Would that make a person go "geesh, well since they are talking bad about me, how about I'll accept his offer with a smile." Many here probably would say "Man, screw that guy. I dont care if he offer his first born child. I am not selling a single item to him ever." In the offer's eyes, the lawnmower owner may not be using the lawnmower anyways and it was with malice they took it back especially since they allowed them to use it for 5 years, put gas in it, repaired it when it broke and lost all that money when the owner took it back.

What I'm getting at, how and why would it be expected to entertain any offer from just any old company especially ones in alliance or agree with the enemy? Hell, that type of behavior here is barely tolerated if at all here. Someone cannot come here and say NCSoft was just and proper without a few comments later someone saying "This is for saveCOH and if you do not believe in that you should leave." or the likes. So why expect NCSoft to do the exact opposite of the behavior of the people that are expecting? Serious question out of curiosity and for clearification. No malice intended.

Not to mention, patience goes a long way.  They may not be selling right now but later down the line they might but dont want to burn bridges before they are even completed. At first if they are not interested in selling, they wont sell, just like any human being or corporation.  Ever hear every now and then about the story of some land developer wanting to build a mall (or the likes) yet a couple of old people refuse to sell the land even after being offered many times over the appraised value of the land even though they are not currently using it? Do it make these old people just as stupid  and antisocial or act with malicious intent (even though I'm not sure a corporation is supposed to be social in the first place as that would imply they are a  living feeling entity that should have the same rights as humans, which I think is a political debate now so I wont delve into that) as NCSoft. Same cocnept. They own land they not using it wont allow others to use it. NCSoft owns COX not using it wont allow anyone else to use it. Some would gladly say yes, others will side with the old people and as usual it's war. The lines are drawn. Them vs us. That side vs this side. This battle with NCSoft is as old as people owning property and other people wantign that property they dont own.  All I'm saying is that if we or anyone else is serious about wanting to get NCSoft to talk any type of turkey, think about the otherside if you had something (for whatever reason) didnt want to sell but someone wanted to buy. Someone might live where everythign they own is for sell. If one of those people is on right now. I have $16 dollars for your playstation 2 and all one hundred games. Take it or else you are an anti-social malicious prick to dare deny me the right to buy your property for what ever I think is a fair price. :p But seriously, try to look at it if you(not you in you in particular but you in general) had something to sell but didnt want to (for what ever reason).

But in the end what NCSoft do and will do will be irrelevant as we will have two games that will show them how it's done.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on April 02, 2013, 06:44:28 PM
Yet apply that to their end. If a deal look fishy smells fishy then it might be fishy. Then they will turn it down.

If there's any accuracy to what I heard about how businessmen typically think in Korea, then practically ANY offer to buy CoH would smell fishy to them.

And this isn't really a racial accusation. It's more of a cultural one. Allegedly they're a little bit skiddish about making deals with people or companies they don't already have ties, and that leads to a lot of what to us would appear to be 'phobia' or spite. This mindset isn't really that weird. We feel it all the time when getting cold calls from telemarketers.

Typically before one starts doing business with another in Korea, they are introduced to each other by a third party that knows both. This means that perhaps all offers made for CoH aside from anything by Paragon Studios, would likely by treated with great skepticism.

Keep in mind I'm not stating this as fact. For one, none of the sources I found made any distinction between North & South Korea, even though those nations are as different as night and day. This is only what I was able to find based on a lot of web link reading. It could be outdated (but even if it is, all cultures have conservatives who stick to older ways of doing things), or it could be a lot of misinformation (intentional or unintentional), like a certain 'other' topic about the traditions of Korea that I hope none of us ever start discussing again. But it certainly seems to fit the behavior of NCsoft during the Paragon City's darkest hour.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Aggelakis on April 02, 2013, 06:46:53 PM
Let's talk about NCsoft's stock in the stockwatch thread, shall we?

http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=036570.KS

They've been solidly in the 140-160 range for the last couple months (with a big dip in early Feb). Between 155-160 for the last week. I don't see them moving much from there without another disaster.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on April 02, 2013, 06:47:52 PM
Quote
Then again no one even know if they have plans for the IP or not yet. They havent said. All we know right now they havent (or refused to as some put it) to sell.

The only "plan" they have for that IP is locking it in a nuclear bunker 500 feet underground, pouring a half-ton of concrete over the entrance and then putting the actual Cerebus from Hell in front of the mass to guard it. They don't want it, but they will make damn sure no one else gets it either. There will be no bunker-buster bomb that can reach that IP: it will be dead forever. BUT! Love you guys and FLY FREE, y'hear?

If we love NCStupid, if we hate them, either way: honey badger just dont care. They are immune to our sweetest blandishments, and immune to our sharpest swords. They're that way because they just don't care.

They are free to prove me wrong any minute of every day! I will be the first to apologize and admit I was wrong.

I wont hold my breath waiting.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on April 02, 2013, 07:31:36 PM
The only "plan" they have for that IP is locking it in a nuclear bunker 500 feet underground, pouring a half-ton of concrete over the entrance and then putting the actual Cerebus from Hell in front of the mass to guard it. They don't want it, but they will make damn sure no one else gets it either. There will be no bunker-buster bomb that can reach that IP: it will be dead forever. BUT! Love you guys and FLY FREE, y'hear?


lmao.

yeah, kind of hard to defend that case.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on April 02, 2013, 07:38:50 PM
Let's talk about NCsoft's stock in the stockwatch thread, shall we?

http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=036570.KS

They've been solidly in the 140-160 range for the last couple months (with a big dip in early Feb). Between 155-160 for the last week. I don't see them moving much from there without another disaster.


Wait, what? ;)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Menrva Channel on April 02, 2013, 07:51:23 PM
In reference to the latest stock update, wasn't February the end of  quarter? (And does that mean we are in a new quarter?)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on April 02, 2013, 07:53:41 PM
If there's any accuracy to what I heard about how businessmen typically think in Korea, then practically ANY offer to buy CoH wou;ld smell fishy to them.

And this isn't really a racial accusation. It's more of a cultural one. Allegedly they're a little bit skiddish about making deals with people or companies they don't already have ties, and that leads to a lot of what to us would appear to be 'phobia' or spite. This mindset isn't really that weird. We feel it all the time when getting cold calls from telemarketers.

Typically before one starts doing business with another in Korea, they are introduced to each other by a third party that knows both. This means that perhaps all offers made for CoH aside from anything by Paragon Studios, would likely by treated with great skepticism.

Keep in mind I'm not stating this as fact. For one, none of the sources I found made any distinction between North & South Korea, even though those nations are as different as night and day. This is only what I was able to find based on a lot of web link reading. It could be outdated (but even if it is, all cultures have conservatives who stick to older ways of doing things), or it could be a lot of misinformation (intentional or unintentional), like a certain 'other' topic about the traditions of Korea that I hope none of us ever start discussing again. But it certainly seems to fit the behavior of NCsoft during the Paragon City's darkest hour.

Yeah. Sounds like most corporations. If I called Apple right now and said I want to buy the rights to the Ipod they probably would either laugh their heads off, hang up, give run around until I give up or all three even if I write up a business prop proper and was serious as a heart attack about it and had the means to do it they probably won't take it serious if they entertain it at all. Now if the likes of Google called they probably will set up a business meeting even if to say "hell no!"
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: eabrace on April 02, 2013, 07:54:23 PM
In reference to the latest stock update, wasn't February the end of  quarter? (And does that mean we are in a new quarter?)
I know the business world doesn't always function quite the way I think it does, but I'm pretty sure the quarter is Jan/Feb/Mar, not Dec/Jan/Feb.  That being said, since we just entered April, then yes, we are in a new quarter now.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on April 02, 2013, 07:55:50 PM
Yeah. Sounds like most corporations. If I called Apple right now and said I want to buy the rights to the Ipod they probably would either laugh their heads off, hang up, give run around until I give up or all three even if I write up a business prop proper and was serious as a heart attack about it and had the means to do it they probably won't take it serious if they entertain it at all. Now if the likes of Google called they probably will set up a business meeting even if to say "hell no!"

I think you mean Lisa. The iPod, as a property, is still going strong. (Isn't it?)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on April 02, 2013, 07:59:34 PM
I know the business world doesn't always function quite the way I think it does, but I'm pretty sure the quarter is Jan/Feb/Mar, not Dec/Jan/Feb.  That being said, since we just entered April, then yes, we are in a new quarter now.

Yeah i forget sometimes their quarter system number. Was it first quarter aka fiscal year started Jan. or second quarter, fiscal year in Oct.?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on April 02, 2013, 08:02:01 PM
I think you mean Lisa. The iPod, as a property, is still going strong. (Isn't it?)

Either way. Insert any major corporation and product. Figured apple would be mist recognizable compared to some that is well known in my circles but unheard of in most others.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: eabrace on April 02, 2013, 08:02:09 PM
Was it first quarter aka fiscal year started Jan. or second quarter, fiscal year in Oct.?
That one always throws me.  It doesn't help that it's different from business to business.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on April 02, 2013, 10:18:52 PM
In reference to the latest stock update, wasn't February the end of  quarter? (And does that mean we are in a new quarter?)

No, they have proper quarters, Jan-Mar, Apr-Jun, Jul-Sep, Oct-Dec.  But yes, this quarter is now over and it will be 5-6 weeks before they release the numbers.  Historically the 1st quarter numbers comes out a few days before mid May.

IF YOU BELIEVE THEM.  :o

I expect GW2 numbers to go into the toilet simply because most of their income will be item shop now that the holiday season is over.  This is expected.  All the analysts have been told well in advance the likelihood this will happen (estimates or around 1/6th of the 4th quarter number). 

ArenaNet have been running sales, pushing out new player asked for items like a name change for $10 in Gems as well as a sale on the game itself.  I noticed while in Target the game is on sale for $45 this week. 

I also expect that cash purchases for Gems will increase as the gold->gem exchange rate in the game has rocketed upwards since the various sales and neat weapon skins in their version of Super Paks (the exchange rate floats based on how much gold is turned into gems and vice versa).  While accumulating gold in the game is easy it's slow and various patches and diminishing returns has reduced the number of farms one can spreed run every day for treasure that then can be converted eventually to gold.

Since their big 4 titles have 80%+ of their income from Korea, I don't know what the normal seasonal swing in sales is there so I can't guess what to expect, unlike GW2 which is currently exclusively in the west.  If there's unexpected change for the worse in sales for their other titles, then we may see a downward correction.  If GW2 does better than expected, it may go up. 
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Menrva Channel on April 03, 2013, 04:06:44 PM
Thanks. :D I've never been big on getting the way the stock market works, so that was perfect. It'll be interesting to see the new numbers.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: srmalloy on April 03, 2013, 05:28:59 PM
I think you mean Lisa. The iPod, as a property, is still going strong. (Isn't it?)

That or the Newton.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Tubbius on April 08, 2013, 01:27:54 AM
Any particular reason folks can think of that the NCSoft stock is slipping back down in increments?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Thunder Glove on April 08, 2013, 01:56:11 AM
Either way. Insert any major corporation and product. Figured apple would be mist recognizable compared to some that is well known in my circles but unheard of in most others.

Not really "either way".  Apple is still producing and supporting iPod products, so it's not analogous to the situation City of Heroes is in with NCsoft (wherein NCSoft has discontinued anything even remotely having to do with CoH and is trying to pretend it doesn't even exist).

So you can't just compare it to just any corporation and product, you have to compare it to a corporation and a product that it's long since stopped producing and supporting.   That's why the aformentioned Lisa (a computer brand that Apple hasn't produced or supported since the 1980s) or Newton (Apple's line of PDAs that they discontinued in the late 1990s) are better comparisons than the iPod.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on April 08, 2013, 02:32:18 AM
Lisa and Newton aren't even the best examples. True, Apple doesn't support them, but try walking into an Apple Store and asking the "Genius Bar" to take a look at your early Intel-Mac (say, an original white MacBook). I couldn't get an answer on it when "Snow Leopard" was new, and I had just upgraded it to "Leopard." I know Apple still technically supports it, but they don't make it easy on you. And, when it comes down to it, I can still pull my old PowerMac out of the garage and fire it up, if I really feel masochistic.

And, Tubbius, it's amazing what a stray "ncStock--" can do...  ;D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on April 08, 2013, 04:02:36 AM
Lisa and Newton aren't even the best examples. True, Apple doesn't support them, but try walking into an Apple Store and asking the "Genius Bar" to take a look at your early Intel-Mac (say, an original white MacBook). I couldn't get an answer on it when "Snow Leopard" was new, and I had just upgraded it to "Leopard." I know Apple still technically supports it, but they don't make it easy on you. And, when it comes down to it, I can still pull my old PowerMac out of the garage and fire it up, if I really feel masochistic.

And, Tubbius, it's amazing what a stray "ncStock--" can do...  ;D

Two drums and a cymbal fall off a cliff:

Ba-bum, tss!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on April 08, 2013, 05:33:23 AM
The NC Dinos have lost their first 5 games while the Nexon Heroes are 5-2?

Up 20% from it's low so time to take some profits while there's still a South Korea?

Someone leaked that they saw and didn't like the 1Q numbers?  We'll know in a month.

Only article I saw garbled this week (slam of Google Translate) was one on how hard it was to crack the NA/EU market with a Korean MMO.

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kistulot on April 08, 2013, 06:23:47 AM
Only article I saw garbled this week (slam of Google Translate) was one on how hard it was to crack the NA/EU market with a Korean MMO.

And yet they still try.

Pst. Hint. Give us games that you know we will like. Or you know have a higher penetration rate. Its called smerts or some book word like that.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: General Idiot on April 08, 2013, 12:32:01 PM
Like, you know, that one game that did well here (Well by standards of non-WoW MMOs, that is) despite receiving practically zero advertising so almost no one was even aware of it.... now which game was that, I can't quite remember....

:P
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on April 08, 2013, 05:35:02 PM
Like, you know, that one game that did well here (Well by standards of non-WoW MMOs, that is) despite receiving practically zero advertising so almost no one was even aware of it.... now which game was that, I can't quite remember....

:p

I'm curious, which MMO developed in Korea that's done well here?  Oh, you aren't talking about a game developed in Korea, just one that was supported and later bought outright.

Anyway what I can make out from that article is GW2 and Wildstar have great potential to do well in the west but they were developed there and could probably do well in Asia and that Tera is doing better than most Korean MMOs in the west.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: drbjr on April 08, 2013, 08:28:15 PM
I discovered CoH on August 7, 2012. I wish I'd known about it sooner. While there are elements of fantasy and sci-fi that I love, I'm not really that interested in playing games based strictly on them. However, having been a boy growing up in the '70s and ingesting all the Bronze Age superhero comic goodness I could get my hands on, I instantly fell in love with CoH. I tried to invest my characters with as much of that vibe as I could. I played the ftp, and was considering a subscription when the bad news hit. Had an absolute blast playing on the beta server while awaiting shut down.

What I loved was the lower graphics (I could play on my old pc w/out too much of a problem), the game play (perfect for an older fella who isn't a gamer), and the community. While I was a solo player, everyone I seemed to meet in game was friendly and helpful, and there was a sense of togetherness in the CoH universe.

I've been lurking on the Save Paragon forum since I heard the news. Don't post much (hardly at all), but am looking forward to some sort of resolution to the problem (whether emulator, sale of ip, spiritual successor, whatever). I don't have the history that most of you have with this game, but I fell in love with it rather quickly and really love to see it make a comeback!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on April 08, 2013, 09:58:57 PM
null
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on April 08, 2013, 10:03:32 PM
p.s. welcome to Titan, drbjr.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: MindBlender on April 09, 2013, 04:58:25 AM
NC S*^$T should open an amusement park.  They can use their stock chart for the rollercoaster. That would be one heck of a ride! ;D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Rotten Luck on April 09, 2013, 12:38:35 PM
Naw they would have to Advertize the Park and we all know they hate that.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Triplash on April 09, 2013, 12:50:38 PM
I wouldn't ride that coaster. They'd probably make people pedal their butts off to get to the top of the track, then put coins in the slot to come back down again. :P
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on April 09, 2013, 01:22:58 PM
put coins in the slot to come back down again. :P

Holy crap that may be a good idea. People have to come down. How much will people be willing to pay to come down? Express service extra. How come I didnt think of that :p
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on April 09, 2013, 05:24:34 PM
NC S*^$T should open an amusement park.  They can use their stock chart for the rollercoaster. That would be one heck of a ride! ;D

*snort of amusement*
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on April 13, 2013, 08:07:38 AM
the stock seems suprisingly stable despite the upswing in coh media, although my guess is its more reflecting on what happened to coh than bashing ncsoft and/or pointing out one of the many flaws about them
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on April 13, 2013, 08:51:29 AM
the stock seems suprisingly stable despite the upswing in coh media, although my guess is its more reflecting on what happened to coh than bashing ncsoft and/or pointing out one of the many flaws about them
Yeah.
dont take any of the following this the wrong way or anything but it's just little tidbit I observed while hanging about many people that deal heavily in stock. I mean beyond the little fiddling I do, I mean some are in it major that make my 10,000-15,000 per corporation, look like a penny not worth bothering about. Some of those guys gain and lose more than that in a matter of hours (depending if the stocks are actually in a nose dive) and dont even flinch.

I dont think we reached their sight much. Alot of these guys are old school old money who definition of playing a game is blowing 100,000 or so at the craps tables. For some, the stock market IS a game.

Also some dont give a hootenanny about how the corporation make money and raise the value of the stock, as long as they do just that. For many, the corporation could fire everyone person except one guy working for 1.50 hour 19 hour days 7 days a week and burying his body out back when he dies from exhaustion as long as the profits go up and or stock value go up.

Although some will sell their stock off after hearing about questionable activities no matter how much they lose out of their moral beliefs. 

Others still, may be outrage at the decision but stick around.

And some are in it for the long haul and look at things in 5-10 year increments. We see a dip here and there but it's still higher than about 5 years ago and 10 years ago and those long haulers dont care about minor dips that happen month to month. As long as it stays above the level they bought it and show no sign of crashing, they are smugger than a dude swimming in an ocean of money.

And some area combination of all the above, well most are in one way or another according to the ones I know about and who they know about.


Overall stockholders are not on Massively, IGN and other game sites. Many probably never played the game. If I get a letter to the stockholder's meeting and I can go (side note: one corporation I own only one stock now and really dont even count it as part of my portfolio and still get the invites lol.) I'll try to ask them if they actually play the products assuming I dont get crushed by someone's wallet.

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Tubbius on April 19, 2013, 04:19:25 AM
Anyone got any ideas as to why the stock chart is going almost vertical for the last few days?  :|
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on April 19, 2013, 05:52:27 AM
Only thing I can find is that the 3rd closed beta test date was announced for B&S in China, May 7th, and beta keys are becoming available.  Also this beta is closer to the current Korean live version than the last beta (well I hope so).

Also it may be undergoing a name change or at least an addition in China.  The Chinese website has a letter to players that Google translated as the game will now be referred as "Sword of the Spirit".

Investors might be getting excited by that.  It's likely not for the 3-11 record of the NC Dinos.  The Nexon Heroes are 10-6 BTW.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on April 19, 2013, 05:54:50 AM
I must say "Sword of the Spirit" has a much nicer ring to it than "Blade & Soul."
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Beltor on April 19, 2013, 06:46:40 AM
The stocks may be on the rise because Wildstar is a week into beta.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: General Idiot on April 19, 2013, 12:27:12 PM
I must say "Sword of the Spirit" has a much nicer ring to it than "Blade & Soul."

On the other hand, both of them sound stupid next to 'City of Heroes'. :p
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mister Bison on April 19, 2013, 02:25:28 PM
On the other hand, both of them sound stupid next to 'City of Heroes'. :p
the Korean name even was "city of hero". talk about individuality!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Safehouse on April 23, 2013, 02:23:29 AM
the Korean name even was "city of hero". talk about individuality!

Well "hero" does have a very individual ring to it :P
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on April 23, 2013, 03:15:51 AM
That's because the plural for hero in Korean is hero.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Twisted Toon on April 24, 2013, 02:29:53 PM
That's because the plural for hero in Korean is hero.
Sort of like the plural of sheep is sheep?

What would you call a group of heroes (or hero in Korea) anyway? My guess would be a League.

Much like a group of girls is called a giggle... :o
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on April 24, 2013, 05:47:47 PM
Oh and a second reason, for the uptick last week, GW2 1st closed beta test in China is starting next month as well.  And yes they nerfed a few costume parts there as well to reduce the exposed skin on females.  Kind of a shame since Norns, giant sized shape shifting (not a great power unfortunately) Norse like humanoids can have full body tribal style tattoos.  Can't really show those off all covered up.

So we have both the former B&S 3rd closed beta and  the GW2 first closed beta in the same month in China, so it does look as if the China strategy is going ahead at full force.  Toss in a few weeks ago Wildstar expanded closed beta starting up here has soothed investor's nerves over new product/markets and the lousy record for the baseball team, now 3-1-13 and currently 8th of 9 teams in the league.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: srmalloy on April 24, 2013, 08:34:15 PM
Sort of like the plural of sheep is sheep?

Sort of; it's more that Korean, like Japanese, doesn't by default indicate plurality for nouns -- they have a 'general number', and can be either singular or plural. For example, 책 (chaek) can mean book, or books. You can specify the number -- 책 한 권 (chaek han gwon) "one book", 책 두 권 (chaek du gwon) "two books" (권  -- 'volume' -- is a counting term to indicate how a collection is counted, as is sometimes seen in English -- one sock, two socks, one pair of socks). However, you can make a noun explicitly plural by adding 들 (deul) to the end: 책들 (chaek-deul) "books". The Korean localization of CoH, however, transliterated the name -- 'Siti Obeu Hieoro' -- rather than doing an actual translation of the game title into Korean (in the same way that 'elevator' is often transliterated as 'erebetaa' in Japanese). Pushing "City of Heroes" through an online translator into Korean returns '영웅들의 도시', which does have the plural marker, which leads me to wonder how well the Korean localization was done.

As I don't know enough Korean to be able to make an informed judgement, I'm not in a position to say for certain, but it leads me to wonder whether NCSoft might not have stacked the deck against CoH's Korean release by having a slipshod localization done; they couldn't make the art or gameplay worse, but a shoddy translation of the game text would have make the game look like a half-assed American attempt to break into the Korean MMO market. If true -- and I have to point out that I have no clear evidence that it is -- it would suggest that NCSoft had regarded CoH as the 'red-headed stepchild' in their stable of games for years before the shutdown, although I can't see CoH as having had the ability to make any significant dent in their home-grown MMOs even if it had gotten a full push in Korea.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Golden Ace on April 30, 2013, 12:11:10 AM
That's because the plural for hero in Korean is hero.

Marketing was stupid on that one.  Marketing it in Korea they should have packaged it in Korean.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on April 30, 2013, 02:31:25 AM
OK, much as I can't believe this thread is still going, it's been more than 8 months and is nearing 100 pages. Now, we MUST! :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DarkCurrent on April 30, 2013, 02:37:44 AM
Stock is creeping upward in anticipation of its next major drop following misguided Chinese dreams and lackluster Western sales.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: srmalloy on April 30, 2013, 08:24:12 PM
Marketing was stupid on that one.  Marketing it in Korea they should have packaged it in Korean.

Want to bet that NCSoft (this being pre-Paragon Studios, IIRC) didn't allocate enough money to do a proper localization on it?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Golden Ace on April 30, 2013, 10:38:43 PM
Want to bet that NCSoft (this being pre-Paragon Studios, IIRC) didn't allocate enough money to do a proper localization on it?

lol hell no.

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Joshex on May 01, 2013, 04:54:15 PM
eventually gamers are gonna realize that any MMO thats been in china has already been hackzored before it gets here, I didn't notice any hacking for example in Aeria games Scarlet Blade, but the Game Masters had to shut down the server unexpectedly abot 5 times in the last week to address security concerns

one time I was in the middle of playing and suddenly a red message comes in chat "emergency server maintenace" and then says "you have been disconnected from the server" 2 seconds later.

obviously something severe has happened, and from what I can tell the more we Beta MMOs in china first the more and more the hackers will know how to do more and more nasty things.

I forsee a future where by the time we get the game in america it comes prehacked and random account details are stolen.

it's for this reason that unlike NCSoft, aeria games does not supply the ability to link a credit card to your account and does not retain credit card info on thier servers.

I have never seen aeria do this much work to anti hack a game, usually they just refute it as something the player needs to prove, but this time they themselves are catching it cause it's there from the start.

immagine the liability lawsuits to NCSoft if blade an soul comes prehacked with an account hacking system to steal credit card info, yeah I know they probably have some clause in thier ToS that states it's your problem but that wont hold up in court in the case of mass account theft as that would obviously be thier problem.

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 03, 2013, 10:46:52 PM
Okay, what the deuce?  An 11,000 point, 6.75% rise in the last few hours of Friday's trade?

Someone heard about something.  1st quarter numbers are due very soon now.

KDB released last week (but may only be publicly available yesterday or today) a new outlook on the company.

Overall they've adjusted their estimates on earnings for each quarter.

They expect Lineage to do 17 billion KrW more than their previous 1Q prediction and 30 billion more for the entire year.

Lineage 2 is expected to stay the same as their last estimate.

Aion is expected to do 1 billion more than previous guess for the quarter and 10 billion more for the year.

B&S is expected to do 6 billion worse than previous 1Q guess and 13 billion worse for the year.  (I hear cheers)

GW2, the estimates now reflecting no paid expansion, has 1Q at 18 billion more (nearly doubled from previous guess) with 2013 guess off by 33 billion.

Their 4Q Wildstar estimate has doubled, up 27 billion for the quarter and the year.

Overall their 1Q guess is up 31 billion while the 2013 guess is up by 33 billion.

They've now changed their price target to 250,000 a share from 200,000.

I have no idea if this and possibly other similar releases have caused this sudden rise today.  I'm guessing we'll see the 1Q numbers on the 14th.

Edit:  Oh, they've estimated 1Q profit to be 43 billion, up 10 billion from last estimate and the year's profit up 51 billion to 226 billion from previous estimates.  Last year it was 154 billion.

KDB is on the high side of estimates BTW.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on May 04, 2013, 07:07:48 AM
interesting, not happy to see a rise in price, but the higher they rise the harder they fall is how i see things lol

i think what will determine if they pass or fail is if they can get a foothold in the Chinese market
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little David on May 05, 2013, 09:25:45 AM
Ugh. Well, with the way EA's shrugged off the ruinous handling of Sim City, I guess it's going to take a lot more than bad press for publishers like NCSoft to be taken down a few pegs. There was an article about EA's handling of the Sim City debacle, how they managed to make people forget about the launch disaster simply by not talking to the press anymore. Gaming sites couldn't keep the flames fanned without something to report, and the story just died out.

I can't see CoH as having had the ability to make any significant dent in their home-grown MMOs even if it had gotten a full push in Korea.

This is somewhat off-topic, but it's something that's bothered me a few times. Why didn't Cryptic go for a Japanese instead of Korean release for CoH? I got in the game late in its life, but I've found evidence that CoH used to have a sizable (http://web.archive.org/web/20040605052141/http://kreis.or.tv/cohjj/) Japanese (http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-SanJose/4850/coh/) player community. I also understand that for City of Hero, Cryptic made a lot of changes to downplay the American-ness of the setting. I guess that's because of the extreme anti-American sentiment among South Koreans back then ... I doubt they would have had to do the same things for a Japanese release.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 05, 2013, 09:50:08 AM
Because NCSOFT is a Korean company and they asked/paid for a Korean port?  It was still a joint venture at the time between Cryptic and NCSOFT.

As for hating Americans, well we have been "occupying" their country for 60 years with a sizable military force and like Okinawa in Japan, there's been incidents that show that we are somethings not the best guests.  A lot of it deals with pollution from our various bases.  There is enough public awareness that it was used as a basis for a popular Korean horror/monster movie a few years back, The Host (not the one based on another series by the sparkly vampire author, Korean title: Gwoemul).  The writer/director didn't pull his punches in his portrayal of the US Army and government.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little David on May 05, 2013, 11:57:09 AM
Well, if NCSoft asked for a Korean port, I suppose it would make sense.

However on the political side of things, the U.S. military isn't there to occupy the country--a lot of the hatred stemmed from specific incidents. That, and South Korea's consensus on America fluctuates. There was an article I read about an opinion poll in 2008 finding that 80% of South Koreans viewed Americans favorably, compared to polls showing the exact opposite years earlier.

That's why I mentioned the anti-American sentiment as being back then--because around 2006 when Cryptic was doing the City of Hero thing, there was still a lot of hatred for the U.S. over the 2002 Yangju highway incident and controversy at the 2004 Olympics.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 05, 2013, 06:39:22 PM
Fine, I put occupying in quotes.  We have a substantial presence due to the DMZ.

The movie I mentioned came out in 2006 and was the boxoffice leader that year in Korea, at least among Korean films.

The movie used this incident (http://www.waterworld.com/articles/2000/07/us-military-apologizes-for-formaldehyde-release-in-s-korea.html) as how the monster was accidentally created.  In the movie the "bad American Army coroner" who ordered it was played by the same actor who played Herschel on The Walking Dead.  He had all about a minute of screen time.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on May 05, 2013, 07:37:38 PM
Well, if NCSoft asked for a Korean port, I suppose it would make sense.

However on the political side of things, the U.S. military isn't there to occupy the country--a lot of the hatred stemmed from specific incidents. That, and South Korea's consensus on America fluctuates. There was an article I read about an opinion poll in 2008 finding that 80% of South Koreans viewed Americans favorably, compared to polls showing the exact opposite years earlier.

That's why I mentioned the anti-American sentiment as being back then--because around 2006 when Cryptic was doing the City of Hero thing, there was still a lot of hatred for the U.S. over the 2002 Yangju highway incident and controversy at the 2004 Olympics.

To South Koreans, America has got to feel like an annoying insurance company. They hate the downsides, but 'need' the upsides. Every few years, NK shakes its saber, and then they're glad they have us around just in case the crap hits the fan.

As for hating Americans, well we have been "occupying" their country for 60 years with a sizable military force and like Okinawa in Japan, there's been incidents that show that we are somethings not the best guests.  A lot of it deals with pollution from our various bases.  There is enough public awareness

Wow... are they really so green that it's easy to notice the introduction of additional pollution by a few bases?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on May 06, 2013, 01:23:06 PM
I doubt it; the US is, actually, one of the cleanest countries in the world, and that goes for our military bases, too. There are some that are cleaner than us, but not many. (And add in that our HYGIENE tends to be remarkably high compared even to Europe, due to having built our infrastructure and culture with more modern standards in mind, and we really come out smelling, not like a rose, but like soap.)

Not denigrating anybody else, mind, nor saying everybody is dirty. Just pointing out that, on a comparative scale, vilifying the US for being a filthy polluter is pretty unfair. (Especially compared to something far bigger that's pretty close to Korea: China.)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on May 06, 2013, 03:00:23 PM
(And add in that our HYGIENE tends to be remarkably high compared even to Europe, due to having built our infrastructure and culture with more modern standards in mind, and we really come out smelling, not like a rose, but like soap.)

What if it's rose-scented soap?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on May 06, 2013, 03:42:39 PM
What if it's rose-scented soap?
I think we'd confuse poor Mr. Montegue. Would a soap by any other scent still name as sweet?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 06, 2013, 06:21:12 PM
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Hayashi-Kiminori/3185

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/graphics/pentagon_pollution/flash.htm

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-10-14-cover-pollution_x.htm

http://www.uswaternews.com/archives/arcquality/5connsubx6.html

You obviously don't live near a base do you Segev, or if you do you don't watch the local news in the last decade or two.  And nearly all of those articles deal with pollution here in the US.  Now imagine overseas where we don't have to congressmen fighting for the people they represent who are affected by that pollution.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on May 06, 2013, 06:28:41 PM
Yeah, but are they actually worse than any non-government-affiliated R&D facility/manufacturer?

...Area 51 aside.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 06, 2013, 08:43:57 PM
It's a matter of accountability, being a "good" neighbor.

Where in business, poor environmental record and institutionalized pollution centers around cost and profit.  For the military it's rationalized because what they represent is the "greater good".  Eggs and omelets.

Like I said earlier, bases in the US have to deal with the same political structure that they themselves fall under.  Overseas, what the local and national government can and can not do is negotiated by the state departments of the two countries.  It's too easy to turn what should be a simple enforcement matter into a red tape drenched political problem.  And because of that the locals feel as if their interests matter very little.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Sleepy Wonder on May 06, 2013, 09:58:23 PM
What does any of this have to do with the topic? The last time I even mentioned a peep involving "DMZ", "Korea" and "U.S. Military" I was basically told to keep politics out of threads.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on May 06, 2013, 10:11:07 PM
This thread has not approached 100 pages by staying on topic. There's been a sort of loose understanding as far as tangents, here. :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Angelus Animi on May 06, 2013, 11:04:15 PM
I hereby (under no real authority) rename this thread "The Zwillinger" as it is all tangents, all the time.



I miss community coffee talk.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 06, 2013, 11:15:34 PM
Sorry, the derail started as why did Cryptic first try a Japanese port rather than Korean and that post included comments about public opinion in Korea about the US.

Expecting hard numbers soon, like a week or sooner.  How that agrees or disagrees with the general investor sentiment will dictate how the stock price reacts in the short term.  The 4th quarter numbers turned into a nice short term profit opportunity if you bought a week after and sold now, nearly 30%.

You still would have tripled your money if you went 5-year long term.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on May 07, 2013, 01:23:02 AM
[...] general investor sediment [...]

LOL. Nice typo. I need to start referring to certain stocks as "sediment".
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 07, 2013, 09:34:21 AM
LOL. Nice typo. I need to start referring to certain stocks as "sediment".
Ah ... sun was in my eyes ...   :roll:

How about an inherent problem with Dragon, even the wrong words are spelt correctly.  :o

English is my first language but sometimes you can't tell.   :-[
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Triplash on May 07, 2013, 11:30:13 AM
I hereby (under no real authority) rename this thread "The Zwillinger" as it is all tangents, all the time.

In that spirit, I propose the act of starting a whole new tangent based on the previous tangent be known as "putting a hat on the thread".

As in, "Wow... we went from stocks, to language differences, to a 'Why did the chicken cross the road?' joke in Praetorian Clockwork. We have officially put a hat on this thread, guys."
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Twisted Toon on May 07, 2013, 01:51:45 PM
Ah ... sun was in my eyes ...   :roll:

How about an inherent problem with Dragon, even the wrong words are spelt correctly.  :o

English is my first language but sometimes you can't tell.   :-[
Who, in their right mind, would argue with a dragon? They think we are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

Those of us in our left mind might argue with a dragon though...because we're weird that way.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on May 07, 2013, 01:55:42 PM
http://www.japanfocus.org/-Hayashi-Kiminori/3185

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/graphics/pentagon_pollution/flash.htm

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-10-14-cover-pollution_x.htm

http://www.uswaternews.com/archives/arcquality/5connsubx6.html

You obviously don't live near a base do you Segev, or if you do you don't watch the local news in the last decade or two.  And nearly all of those articles deal with pollution here in the US.  Now imagine overseas where we don't have to congressmen fighting for the people they represent who are affected by that pollution.
I work on one. And it's one of the cleanest facilities I've seen, "green" college campuses included.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on May 07, 2013, 02:44:36 PM
I gotta back Segev up on this. I was in the navy 15 years ago, and it was "greener" than a Subaru plant claims to be. On the other hand, we parked a dozen nuclear power plants within sight of major metropolitan areas. We had a loaded gun pointed at our own heads, in so many ways, and it would have been collaterally messy if it went off.

The military has a bad rep from the sheer scale of the incidents that do happen when really the day to day is much more benign. It's no Googleplex, by any stretch, but the conservation and "green" policies came out of military and tactical necessity, rather than political correctness.  That said, you would be amazed at the level of technology being used to run those nuclear power plants, but the emphasis is on having reliable equipment, which would not be the case if it were run from, say, a netbook running Windows. :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: srmalloy on May 07, 2013, 04:26:10 PM
LOL. Nice typo. I need to start referring to certain stocks as "sediment".

I'm reminded of the chemistry variant of an old aphorism...

"If you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate."
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TimtheEnchanter on May 07, 2013, 04:32:14 PM
It goes right back to the business vs. government policy of blame.

Business is expected to be heartless, while government has to be politically correct.

I know manufacturing plants have gotten flak... but this fiasco about bases in SK seems quite the hypocrisy, and at best, is probably just political propaganda.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 08, 2013, 04:12:16 AM
See I've had the misfortune to live close to a number of closed bases that later were declared EPA Superfund sites due to the water and soil contamination there.

I'm sure today military bases are the poster child of environmental responsibility but that doesn't magically fix a problem that stemmed from activities and practices from the 50s through 80s where stopping those "Ruskies" was always priority one.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on May 08, 2013, 04:23:39 AM
See I've had the misfortune to live close to a number of closed bases that later were declared EPA Superfund sites due to the water and soil contamination there.

I'm sure today military bases are the poster child of environmental responsibility but that doesn't magically fix a problem that stemmed from activities and practices from the 50s through 80s where stopping those "Ruskies" was always priority one.

Yeah they had a major issue with the local German EPA equivalent when it was found an old gasoline tank at a fuel point been neglected and was leaking into the soil. That was lot of Euros on the line and alot of backdoor political stuff because part of the agreement of that land was basically to take care of it and not pollute it. You think the US EPA is nuts about stuff, try out the German EPA and it makes the US version look like heavy somking industrialists, at least when it comes to non-local entities.

A lot of military bases have infrastructure that is old as dirt and been around since the 40s-70s. Even here in the states on a base, they tore down housing that still used abestos and mold issues and had people living in it up to it even as recent as 2012. It took them that long to finally fix the problem. The army is now going "green" but lot of stuff hanging around since the old days because the military is basically excempt from many EPA regulations, although now they are more complying with them not out of sheer love for the environment but more so for political and in many cases after hindsight, mission standards.

But I tell you if the fish hit the shampoo, all bets will be off again until things cool down and they get around to it again in 3 or 4 decades.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on May 08, 2013, 05:34:01 AM
See I've had the misfortune to live close to a number of closed bases that later were declared EPA Superfund sites due to the water and soil contamination there.

I'm sure today military bases are the poster child of environmental responsibility but that doesn't magically fix a problem that stemmed from activities and practices from the 50s through 80s where stopping those "Ruskies" was always priority one.

The issues with pollution on US military bases had almost nothing to do with priorities. It is mostly a result of the military, and everyone else, being ignorant of what sort of long term health hazard certain chemicals posed. Since the US military is huge, has been for 70+ years, uses lots of heavy machinery, and likes to keep that machinery clean, they used lots of degreasers. And those degreasers that were used willy-nilly have subsequently been found to pose long term environmental health risks. As a result of this fact, many bases - particularly old/closed bases - have pollution issues.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on May 08, 2013, 12:08:39 PM
See I've had the misfortune to live close to a number of closed bases that later were declared EPA Superfund sites due to the water and soil contamination there.

I'm sure today military bases are the poster child of environmental responsibility but that doesn't magically fix a problem that stemmed from activities and practices from the 50s through 80s where stopping those "Ruskies" was always priority one.

Bearing in mind that this was around the same timeframe when you could buy an Erector set with a Geiger counter and a small chunk of Uranium.

http://www.burlingamepezmuseum.com/bannedtoy/fivetoone.html
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on May 09, 2013, 11:01:00 PM
Bearing in mind that this was around the same timeframe when you could buy an Erector set with a Geiger counter and a small chunk of Uranium.

http://www.burlingamepezmuseum.com/bannedtoy/fivetoone.html

That toy is comical. The ignorant fear that caused it to be banned is just sad.

I know of number of people who study radiation effects for a living, and they occasionally bring up that toy when lamenting the ignorance of the general public when it comes to radiation. Here's a link one sent me not too long ago (http://depletedcranium.com/2011/10/).

If you decide to put granite counter tops (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/garden/24granite.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0) in your kitchen you're probably exposing your kids to more radiation than giving each of them one of these sets would. Moving to Denver would increase their exposure to radiation far more than letting them sleep with the Atomic Energy Laboratory under their pillow would. BAN GRANITE! EVACUATE THE ROCKIES!!!

I wish NCSoft would do something equally stupid. I really want to be able to refer to their investor sediment. Too bad we can't convince people exposure to NCSoft is a health hazard.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on May 09, 2013, 11:54:53 PM
As a former nuclear reactor operator, I'm not gonna be signing any petitions to bring that one back to ToysRUs, but I would be OK with it in a high school physics class. Give it the same security that raw sodium gets.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: MakoMako on May 10, 2013, 01:14:00 AM
A lot of military bases have infrastructure that is old as dirt and been around since the 40s-70s. Even here in the states on a base, they tore down housing that still used abestos and mold issues and had people living in it up to it even as recent as 2012. It took them that long to finally fix the problem. The army is now going "green" but lot of stuff hanging around since the old days because the military is basically excempt from many EPA regulations, although now they are more complying with them not out of sheer love for the environment but more so for political and in many cases after hindsight, mission standards.

Keesler AFB in Biloxi, Mississippi. There's a rather amusing building called "Jones Hall". Within it there's a room called "Air Room" where the ventilation is recycled. Directly on the door? "WARNING: Asbestos." I only wish they would've let me take a photograph of that.

Anyone that claims that Military bases are so incredibly clean can probably only speak for its internal sanitation. They're cleaned religiously. But the crap pumped out of, especially the older, bases is pretty bad.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on May 10, 2013, 02:58:39 AM
As a former nuclear reactor operator, I'm not gonna be signing any petitions to bring that one back to ToysRUs, but I would be OK with it in a high school physics class. Give it the same security that raw sodium gets.
Word to that, man.

Also, their recent bump from mid-April appears not to be slowing too much. Bummer.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on May 10, 2013, 03:19:00 AM
Keesler AFB in Biloxi, Mississippi. There's a rather amusing building called "Jones Hall". Within it there's a room called "Air Room" where the ventilation is recycled. Directly on the door? "WARNING: Asbestos." I only wish they would've let me take a photograph of that.

Anyone that claims that Military bases are so incredibly clean can probably only speak for its internal sanitation. They're cleaned religiously. But the crap pumped out of, especially the older, bases is pretty bad.

yeah
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 10, 2013, 03:21:48 AM
Word to that, man.

Also, their recent bump from mid-April appears not to be slowing too much. Bummer.

That's because I believe the Magic 8-Ball analysts use is suggesting that their will be no negative surprise when the numbers come out, likely Tuesday I'm guessing.  The report will point out the 3rd closed beta test in China for B&S as well as the first one their for GW2 as an indication that soon those games will bring in money from that vast, untapped (by NCSOFT) market.

You just need to look at Nexon's 2012 China numbers to see the kind of income potential we're talking about here.

But I'm sure someone somewhere will find something they don't like and jump on it and hype that fact to death.  Spin is spin.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 10, 2013, 10:58:47 AM
Oops, guessed wrong, numbers are out today.

Sales up 31% from 1Q12 numbers (year over year, YoY).

Lineage, up 51.3% YoY , up 1.8% over 4Q12 (quarter over quarter, QoQ).

Lineage 2, down 22.8% YoY, down 13.6% QoQ.

Aion, down 46.6% YoY, up 12.9%QoQ.

B&S, down 38.7% QoQ.  Still only in Korea.

GW2, down 69.4% QoQ.  Still only in NA and EU.

Other, up 16.2% YoY, down 10.8% QoQ.

Total sales from just L1, L2, Aion, down 5.6% YoY, up 2.0% QoQ.

Last 12 months, sales up 34.1%, profits up 96.3%, profit margin 24.3%.

1Q13 profit margin - 28.3%  1Q12 profit margin - 8.8%.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on May 10, 2013, 11:48:14 AM
Also, all markets are trending upward, lately. It would be perfectly reasonable for NCSoft to just be "riding a wave," rather than rising on its own merits.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on May 10, 2013, 02:55:45 PM
Might be worthwhile to check it in inflation-adjusted money, but that's hard to measure accurately due to what is used as a metric and, more importantly, what isn't.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 10, 2013, 06:44:33 PM
Might be worthwhile to check it in inflation-adjusted money, but that's hard to measure accurately due to what is used as a metric and, more importantly, what isn't.

For a Korean company, what matters to them is sales and profits in Korean currency.  When was the last time you heard of an American company's sales numbers adjusted first to a foreign currency and then compared.  An overseas division yes, an entire company, no.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 10, 2013, 07:43:54 PM
Other minor notes.

Looking at just the parent company.  Sales of their big 4 MMOs are up 18.1% YoY (up 16,520 million KrW).  So even though in Korea Aion's huge 49.7% decline in sales (down 21,284 million KrW) and Lineage II's 21.2% decline (down 1,821 million KrW), the addition of B&S's 16,504 million KrW and the massive 57.6% sales increase in Lineage (up 23,121 million KrW).

So B&S actually does represent real MMO market growth in the homeland.  Who would have thought it after the previous two quarters where it looked as if it eating its siblings.

NCSOFT's press release spins that B&S will have a new content update shortly and that should improve sales and the uptick in Aion from 4Q12 to 1Q13 shows that the new V4.0 is reinvigorating the game.  Wildstar's release in the west this fall plus B&S finally launching in China by year's end should keep sales up.  Guild War 2 steep decline is solely due to how it's sold in the west, moving from box sales to cash shop as its major source of income so don't panic.

I don't see anything surprisingly bad in these numbers.  Costs are down, in some cases a lot from the previous quarter.

Sales Chart by game

(https://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a213/FatherXmas/Charts/1q13NCSoft_zps7f3a4447.png)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on May 11, 2013, 06:38:58 AM
it still bugs me to see ncsoft succeeding, although as stated most of those numbers are coming from just korean gamers not much outside that

im just glad im not feeding the beast that killed us by playing any of their games
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 11, 2013, 09:21:50 AM
Korea represents 64.5% of it's 1Q13 sales.

NA+EU represents 21.3%.  GW2 sales makes up 92.3% of that.

Japan represents 7.0%, Taiwan 1.4% and Royalties 5.8%.

So if you ignore GW2, Korea has 39.5x the sales of NA+EU.

Another interesting note.  Even with GW2 transitioning over to Cash Shop as the majority of its sales, it's 2nd in sales only exceeded by Lineage.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blondeshell on May 11, 2013, 12:12:07 PM
This is the 2,000th reply in this thread.

OT: Thanks for keeping updated stats on this, FX. Charts are always convenient.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kemphler on May 11, 2013, 05:40:27 PM
The main thing the really hits me is that from the looks of that chart, CoH really was the bottom earner of their games for the longest time. I suppose the main reason for that is because it never really took off in the East like it did here in the West. I still think they would have been better of selling it, however, due to the simple fact that they could have made some more cash off of it before shutting it down, where they now make a grand total of $0. Either way, as much as people will hate to hear it, NCSoft 'might' have made a sound business decision with closing CoH, as it was such a small share of the revenue. They took out a game that had costs and a low return on said costs, streamlining what they had. Sure, I still hate them for it because of how they handled the whole situation, but the basic premise of what they did has logic behind it. Chances are they didn't see any coming increase in CoH's playerbase, especially subscribing playerbase, and as a result figured it wouldn't be worth it anymore. As I mentioned already though, they could have cut their losses better by selling the game to another business, rather than just lopping it's head off.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: VyoletRose on May 11, 2013, 05:57:59 PM
The main thing the really hits me is that from the looks of that chart, CoH really was the bottom earner of their games for the longest time. ... as much as people will hate to hear it, NCSoft 'might' have made a sound business decision with closing CoH, as it was such a small share of the revenue. They took out a game that had costs and a low return on said costs, streamlining what they had. ... Chances are they didn't see any coming increase in CoH's playerbase, especially subscribing playerbase, and as a result figured it wouldn't be worth it anymore.

With little to no advertising budget, it's no wonder that CoH had a hard time bringing in new players. Most gamers didn't know the game existed. What kind of revenues could have been brought it with just a commercial here or there, like WoW or Halo? What if they advertised in comic book stores? Magazines? We know those at Paragon Studios wanted to advertise...

*heavy sigh*
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 11, 2013, 06:31:42 PM
With little to no advertising budget, it's no wonder that CoH had a hard time bringing in new players. Most gamers didn't know the game existed. What kind of revenues could have been brought it with just a commercial here or there, like WoW or Halo? What if they advertised in comic book stores? Magazines? We know those at Paragon Studios wanted to advertise...

*heavy sigh*

Yes but do NCSOFT advertise any of their games well here, other than around when it's released and the first and maybe the second holiday season?  I remember back when there were PC gaming magazines that they did advertise those first few years.  Then magazines went away.  Then the section in stores that handled PC games got smaller and smaller until only a few games with paid product placement (all things Blizzard, all things Sims) and whatever new games that just came out.  I always content, and it looks as if Blizzard and EA agrees, that being on the shelf is the best advertising you can "buy".  Before it was all about an end cap, now with the limited space, it's just keeping a few copies in stock and on display.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mister Bison on May 11, 2013, 07:29:24 PM
Yes but do NCSOFT advertise any of their games well here, other than around when it's released and the first and maybe the second holiday season?  I remember back when there were PC gaming magazines that they did advertise those first few years.  Then magazines went away.  Then the section in stores that handled PC games got smaller and smaller until only a few games with paid product placement (all things Blizzard, all things Sims) and whatever new games that just came out.  I always content, and it looks as if Blizzard and EA agrees, that being on the shelf is the best advertising you can "buy".  Before it was all about an end cap, now with the limited space, it's just keeping a few copies in stock and on display.
if I wander into racist territory, censor me, but I think this may have something with Korean market not needing as much advertising as Occidental. why not, since they are more into PvP than us, that just may be another difference.

Thing is, it turned bad for City of Heroes, since it was nearly a west-exclusive game.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 11, 2013, 09:11:22 PM
if I wander into racist territory, censor me, but I think this may have something with Korean market not needing as much advertising as Occidental. why not, since they are more into PvP than us, that just may be another difference.

Thing is, it turned bad for City of Heroes, since it was nearly a west-exclusive game.

I don't think it's cultural per say, I just think advertising is handled very differently.  Looking at the Korean NCSOFT site there's always mention of some shindig or another featuring a K-pop star with a tie in to one of their games.  Then there's the whole PC cafe experience.  It's quite possible that a lot of the advertising is done there.  I also know that there are tie-ins offered at cafes.  Buy time this weekend, get exclusive in-game widget.  Between this and the press generated from attending various game conventions around the world is their idea of what advertising should be.

Over at the Korean game news site ThisIsGame, they use a series of rotating flash ads to pimp all of there games.  The one banner ad is for a Korea Vs China e-sport event.  They also have a few of the small graphic link ads like we see pimping web comics here but for MMOs there.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Peregrine Falcon on May 12, 2013, 09:11:40 PM
Not sure if this article by Massively has any new info, but since I haven't seen a link to it posted...

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/05/12/ncsoft-sales-down-from-last-quarter-up-from-last-year/

It has a nice colorful graph, but it looks like it's pretty much the same info that FatherXmas posted up thread.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 13, 2013, 03:50:25 AM
Yea, that's page 5 from the 1Q13 report.

They chopped off the two lines at the top of that page in the picture but mentioned one, the reason why NA/EU sales number were off from the previous.  The other line was about how Lineage's "robust and healthy subscriber base" plus in-game item promotions kept it's sales up (grew a smidgen) while all their other games (except Aion) had sales worse than the previous quarter.

What really helped in terms of quarterly profits was the 24% reduction in expenses.  Of that reduction, 28% of it was from reduced marketing costs (does this surprise any of us), 22% were from reduced labor costs and 43% from the "other" category.  The 4Q spike in "other", which wasn't there 1Q was hiring new players for the baseball team.  Go Dinos!  (Does anyone else think it's an oxymoron for a high tech company sponsored sports team to be named after an extinct species?  Nexon's team is names Heroes)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: beveri8469 on May 13, 2013, 05:36:20 AM
it still bugs me to see ncsoft succeeding, although as stated most of those numbers are coming from just korean gamers not much outside that

im just glad im not feeding the beast that killed us by playing any of their games


i agree with this myself.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Safehouse on May 13, 2013, 11:19:51 AM
With little to no advertising budget, it's no wonder that CoH had a hard time bringing in new players. Most gamers didn't know the game existed. What kind of revenues could have been brought it with just a commercial here or there, like WoW or Halo? What if they advertised in comic book stores? Magazines? We know those at Paragon Studios wanted to advertise...

*heavy sigh*

That's a REALLY good point. Three years ago, I didn't even know CoH existed. It took my girlfriend at the time telling me about it for me to try it out.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lightslinger on May 13, 2013, 01:28:55 PM
That's a REALLY good point. Three years ago, I didn't even know CoH existed. It took my girlfriend at the time telling me about it for me to try it out.

This is -the- standard for most MMOs however. I see very, very few MMO ads on TV or at the movies. NCsoft does some heavy advertising for a game when it launches then they pretty much advertise all their MMOs the same as they did CoH.

TV and movie ads are INCREDIBLY expensive, its why you see pretty much only WoW doing any sort of sustained adverstising campaign.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on May 13, 2013, 03:32:11 PM
the point being made is that there was basically $0 for any advertising for coh, not even for like a once a year tv ad or even just a page in a magazine like gameinformer (or similar)

almost every person who played coh either heard about it through word of mouth or they just happened to see a box in a store and their curiosity spiked and they wanted to give it a try (i prolly figure only about 25% or less of the playerbase knew about the game before it was in initial beta)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 13, 2013, 04:40:27 PM
I remember seeing a write up in a CGW about games in development that included a mention of CoH.  Caught my eye only because I was playing Freedom Force and the idea of an MMO super hero game sounded interesting.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little David on May 13, 2013, 04:44:11 PM
In my case, I got into CoH by word of mouth. I'd known about the game for a few years prior thanks to friends who played it, but I didn't get into it until 2008, when I played a free trial with some other acquaintances.

CoH didn't hold their attention for more than a month at best, but it sure held mine.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on May 13, 2013, 05:35:19 PM
In my case, I got into CoH by word of mouth. I'd known about the game for a few years prior thanks to friends who played it, but I didn't get into it until 2008, when I played a free trial with some other acquaintances.

CoH didn't hold their attention for more than a month at best, but it sure held mine.

It was pure chance. Then I told other people about it. Most found it to not be their cup of tea. But most gave it a try. Most of them never
 even heard about COX prior to me mentioning it to them. And to this day, even serious gamers that can name idependent studios in a basement working on a new game that never see the light of day, even heard of many of NCSoft other offerings never heard of this game. The word just never got out there much. In fact, before I even figured NCSoft was behind COX, a couple mentioned NCSoft to me and their other games but when I mentioned COX they looked as clueless as a brain dead person at a NASA meeting.

One, way back when I first started playing and the discussion of game publishers, one mentioned "oh yeah NCsoft have this super hero game out. Heard it's pretty good." And I piped up, "Yeah, it's called City of Heroes." He tried it out for a few months, then left. Last I heard he's still playing WoW. He said it was too dead. Of course I asked what does he means, at the time, I was on regular hours, so didnt see what he meant at the time. He said that while there is plenty of people on at peak times, the crowd is still small compared to WoW and he could only imagine that teaming is out of the question (his words) off peak times. I work during the day, have to cook dinner, take care of the wife and kids and many days I wont be able to get on until about 9pm (Central) and weekends are all but out of the question Saturday family time, and Sunday is church and dinner with mother law. I play MMOs to team. If I wanted to solo, I'd play console. In WoW and other games with larger population teaming is not worry because better chance in shorter time for finding people that have similar lifestyle." And after a while when I went to Europe I knew exactly what he meant. There wasnt many people on and the pool of people to team with dwindled outside peak hours. Luckily I dont mind soloing much.  One stayed, and played until it went dark. But most people never even heard of COX but mention WoW, and I done this, even to non-gamers that never even touched a computer game or in some cases, a console game, heard of WoW.

Advertising works. Hell even a youtube video which dont cost a single penny, and WoW and many other MMOs have plenty of, works too. In a nutshell it's was absolute FUBAR with marketing as far as COX goes. It was a wonder they attracted as many players as they did by mostly word of mouth and an abstract ad way back in 2004 in some unknown magazine that are usually aimed at hardcore gamers which from what I hear among many hardcore gamers is not their style of game in COX. Which is like advertising a G8 jet plane in the coupon section of the food stamp pamplet. Sure maybe a few G6 buyers might heard of and might somehow come across a food stamp pamplet, but wrong target  audience.

And how is WoW so well known? Continued reminder here and there that it exist. In the age of where games are played and forgotten, a reminder is sometimes needed especially after the many changes over the years. I5 COH barely even feels like i23 COX. Same game, same concept but so many changes so many additions that anyone who seen i5 and prior ad for COH and played and left due to not liking it, especially the early SK system, might have found themselves having a ball if they knew about the changes. And out of curiosity after contacting a few major TV stations for advertising times and price for slots, it owuld have been few beans they wont even miss. It's gets pricey during major sport events like playoffs, Superbowl, championships, and tier one programs, but plenty of affordable spots between the hours of 7am and 9pm and I'm talking about national syndicate stuff. Even a well off single person of upper middle class could afford it even though they probablywill miss that money. And here, a billion dollar corporation, it would have been pennies even based on the income and profits of COX alone. They just dropped the ball on ad. You see, they ad like crazy with their other games. There is even a Lineage and Guild Wars spot here in the Game Stops here way out here in El Paso. Never once have there been a City of Heroes spot even in it's prime. So out of curiosity I asked the game stop people about what it take to get one of those spots. They said here, they just ask the head manager and the people send out the package (the spots apparently come with games, the carboard display and sign in the window) and he said only one that regularly does it id Blizzard even though it dont cost much and so when Blizzard call they have nothign to say but yeah, we plenty fo room for it and Blizzard sends. The other game companies just dont on a regular basis which explained the Lineage and Guild Wars but not Lineage 2 and Guild Wars 2 even though they have all four game cards at the minimum. One manager even complained that he "feels they lose lot of computer game sales because people think they only carry WoW and Starcraft and thus when they sell less of others they have to order less of the others. But the companies dont send anything to advertise their games. You're the first person in a while that even mentioned COX. We had it, but no one knew it existed, and it didnt sell. But I love that game and many people have no idea what they are missing. NCsoft is stupid for not advertising this game"

So we arent the only ones that noticed lack of advertisment for COX. And those quotes are from people only in El Paso, a small crap hole of at own in the middle no where desert. Imagine in Los Angelese, Atlanta, New York, Dallas, Miami, St. Louis, Boston, Houston, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago and etc.? WoW is known because they made it be known. It wasnt just magically popped up in everyone heads when it was made. It wasnt WoW went live and everyone got a mental psychic message that WoW is live. And that is for any game or any product. Was it a risk that even with advertisment, it wouldnt bring in the money? Possible but even the first few years, considered the peak of COX, when it was raking in the area of 10 million or more in profits a quarter and 150,000-195,000 players, that they was thinkign WoW was sinking and not bringing in enough and that it might not be around by the year end but that is clouded by the success that followed, patience. They took risk, they won. NCSoft played it safe and got so-so results even though they SAID they wanted more but didnt make a single move to make it happen. Paragon Studios wanted it and seen it, but NCsoft dragged feet till the end and guess who paid the price for that folly? Paragon Studios and the players. That is what sucks and quite frankly irks the crap out of me about the entire situation shutdown more than anything.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lightslinger on May 13, 2013, 06:04:06 PM
I agree entirely that NCsoft should have advertised CoH moreso, I was merely pointing out that most people refer to movie and TV commercials when they talk about advertising and that is not the standard for MMO advertising. It's not like every other MMO had sustained commercials while NCsoft ignored CoH. Commercials are extremely expensive so most games/MMOs go other routes. NCsoft missed that "other routes" part a lot though.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on May 13, 2013, 06:08:32 PM

...most games/MMOs go other routes. NCsoft missed that "other routes" part a lot though.

Yup.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Floride on May 14, 2013, 02:00:30 AM
I didn't mind that NCSoft didn't advertise CoX. It just meant those who played had been invited to play by those already playing. Kinda like an exclusive club for just "the cool kids". Kept out a lot of the riff-raff imo.

But as far as CoX making such a small profit, that's entirely NC's fault. CoX had something that WoW and all it's clones don't have - a CITY. A city full of BILLBOARDS.
How do you make a game that takes place in an expansive city full of billboards and NOT charge for advertising space on them? Nike, Mountain Dew, Chevrolet - this game could've made sick amounts of cash for NC.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lightslinger on May 14, 2013, 02:43:41 AM
I didn't mind that NCSoft didn't advertise CoX. It just meant those who played had been invited to play by those already playing. Kinda like an exclusive club for just "the cool kids". Kept out a lot of the riff-raff imo.

But as far as CoX making such a small profit, that's entirely NC's fault. CoX had something that WoW and all it's clones don't have - a CITY. A city full of BILLBOARDS.
How do you make a game that takes place in an expansive city full of billboards and NOT charge for advertising space on them? Nike, Mountain Dew, Chevrolet - this game could've made sick amounts of cash for NC.

They tried, it was a huge flop. Though I still remember the remarkably forgettable Jeter Clutch tennis shoe.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little David on May 14, 2013, 03:25:44 AM
That sucks. I'd wondered why they hadn't used the billboards for actual advertisements, too ... the first MMO I saw using in-game billboards to advertise stuff was Anarchy Online, oddly enough. Which kind of felt incongruous, because Anarchy Online is set like 20,000 years in the future on a distant planet, and you're seeing ads for stuff in our time and place.

In City of Heroes, I wouldn't have had a problem with it. I would have liked it, even. It'd help give that feeling that you're looking at an alternate contemporary Earth, so there'd still be a level of familiarity.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Floride on May 14, 2013, 03:30:16 AM
They tried, it was a huge flop. Though I still remember the remarkably forgettable Jeter Clutch tennis shoe.
They didn't try.
The easiest way to sell adspace is to prove it works. There was nary an Aeon or Lineage billboard anywhere in Paragon or the Isles. You can't expect to sell adspace that you don't even think can promote your own products.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 14, 2013, 03:56:01 AM
No they did try.  The problem was the effectiveness of advertising in games was an unknown.  If the people with the ad budget don't think running an ad in your publication, in our case game, then it doesn't matter how many billboards you have available for rent, no matter how cheap your rates are.  So the agency who was running the whole selling ad space in game, yes there was a third party involved, couldn't get anyone to do so.  Well they did get three ads, 2 in the US and 1 in the EU.  But in the end, that was it. 

Plus I believe Paragon had last say as to what ads they would let run.  No Trojan Man ads for instance (although I could see that being funny at one level the game was still rated T).  No casino ads, no ads for games from other publishers, etc.

You may think it's obvious that an energy drink company or a movie studio with a super hero summer flick would be perfect but it's up to them, not NCSOFT, not Paragon, to think it's good use of part of their ad budget to advertise here.  They didn't see it that way, the ad program closed, the code was removed and that was that.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 14, 2013, 04:03:18 AM
They didn't try.
The easiest way to sell adspace is to prove it works. There was nary an Aeon or Lineage billboard anywhere in Paragon or the Isles. You can't expect to sell adspace that you don't even think can promote your own products.

Except you forget that NCSOFT doesn't advertise any of their games outside of a very narrow set of criteria, soon/just released game or expansion OR the Christmas holiday season if the game is still "new".  Since it was a third party company who ran the ad server you are asking NCSOFT to pay someone to run ads for one or more of their games, in another of game that is theirs.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: MindBlender on May 14, 2013, 04:26:39 AM
The best way to get non-Gamers into the MMO fold is T.V.  People that don't play MMOs have little idea of what is out there.  A movie may have a short ad for GW2 before it starts, but that is about it for the West.  WoW had the ONLY T.V. ads I have seen!  Yes, I know it's pricey, but if you ask any non-Gamer what MMO they even know about I would guess WoW would be the answer they would give if they even had one.  Just my 2 infl on that.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Joshex on May 14, 2013, 04:36:14 AM
modern administration is so futile.. I see comments of what people have tried and then given up on.. instantly I could come up with better ideas. but they don't take the initiative to do them.. it's like once they become a successful company thier initiative falls asleep on the couch while social light becomes a heavier issue..

doesn't matter how people or other companies think about you as a company or what you do, so long as what you make is truely extra ordinary then people wont care if you are really bat@#$% crazy.

thats what I live by in my game dev, yeah companies may think I'm a bit loopy but I know how to utilize situations allot better than most.

ok enough B.S. what would have I done? put up a bunch of new billboards in atlas and other high visit regions, enough so the players will definitely see them as "hey, that wasn't there before the server update" then put up unauthorized advertisements for big companies and thier products without thier permission. even advertisements for thier competitors so there is no special treatment, then send them links. and say "this isn't permanent, but in the future this space is available for purchase and is viewed by #people every day."

that would be the best way to get bites on that particular marketting ploy.

btw I'm thinking of starting my own marketing agency.. seeing as I happen to know the business inside and out just from having to deal with so many bad ideas that companies made which really ticked me off.

The best way to get non-Gamers into the MMO fold is T.V.  People that don't play MMOs have little idea of what is out there.  A movie may have a short ad for GW2 before it starts, but that is about it for the West.  WoW had the ONLY T.V. ads I have seen!  Yes, I know it's pricey, but if you ask any non-Gamer what MMO they even know about I would guess WoW would be the answer they would give if they even had one.  Just my 2 infl on that.

yeah TV is a good thing, but it's also expensive, in order to run an ad even in one state of the USA not to mention the world costs a ton of money...

so, Although T.V. supplies the most direct route to gaining more gamers it wont be cost effective to reach them all.

so what do? simple utilize your fans, with every physical release of your game supply window decals, stickers and bumper stickers.

sell pins and hats and shirts for cheap, include them as runner up winnings in some sweepstakes for 1000's of people.

make CoH plastic lunchboxes and get in the news by donating them to a orphanage.

there are tons of ways.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 14, 2013, 05:05:01 AM
ok enough B.S. what would have I done? put up a bunch of new billboards in atlas and other high visit regions, enough so the players will definitely see them as "hey, that wasn't there before the server update" then put up unauthorized advertisements for big companies and thier products without thier permission. even advertisements for thier competitors so there is no special treatment, then send them links. and say "this isn't permanent, but in the future this space is available for purchase and is viewed by #people every day."

And as soon as they do that they would have been hit with cease and desist letters from those companies legal departments.

And even if they didn't you are missing the point, offering ad space is meaningless if a company doesn't think advertising there is worth it.  To make it worth it you have to provide numbers about how many unique people see them.  The third party ad company had Paragon insert code for that, and whatever those numbers were, they weren't good enough for what ever was charged to Nike and Nokia.  This is not "Field of Dreams", if Paragon built it there is no guarantee anyone would come.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 14, 2013, 05:11:10 AM
The best way to get non-Gamers into the MMO fold is T.V.  People that don't play MMOs have little idea of what is out there.  A movie may have a short ad for GW2 before it starts, but that is about it for the West.  WoW had the ONLY T.V. ads I have seen!  Yes, I know it's pricey, but if you ask any non-Gamer what MMO they even know about I would guess WoW would be the answer they would give if they even had one.  Just my 2 infl on that.

Yes but Blizzard had dump trucks of money coming in, of course they could do TV commercials.  The only reason Defiance has so many TV spots is because of the TV show that NBC Universal dumped a lot of money in, it's in their best interest for now to run ads for the game, which they funded as well.  Since they own Comcast, the commercial runs during Comcast local ad time as well.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Floride on May 14, 2013, 05:22:41 AM
Since it was a third party company who ran the ad server you are asking NCSOFT to pay someone to run ads for one or more of their games, in another of game that is theirs.
Good point. I knew they tried it before but figured they had they're own marketing department doing it, not a 3rd party. After the ad thing went bust, I still think they should've replaced some billboard textures with ads for their other games. Sure, advertising in-game is new ground, but so was CoH back in the day.

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=static.tvtropes.org%2Fpmwiki%2Fpub%2Fimages%2FMysteryMenCaptainAmazingSponsorShot_5718.jpg)
I just couldn't NOT tack this pic here! LOL ;D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on May 14, 2013, 06:58:16 AM
ive seen ads for other games on tv as well (world of tanks, wizard 101, pirate 101 are some recent examples)(not so recent would be toon town)

i actually havent seen a WoW tv commercial since the panda expansion came out yet i see a world of tanks commercial at least once every week
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lightslinger on May 14, 2013, 11:16:34 AM
ive seen ads for other games on tv as well (world of tanks, wizard 101, pirate 101 are some recent examples)(not so recent would be toon town)

i actually havent seen a WoW tv commercial since the panda expansion came out yet i see a world of tanks commercial at least once every week

The biggest part of the CoH ad-space failure is simply numbers, CoH did not have enough of a playerbase to justify any company spending any money on us. At best an ad in CoH probably would reach 50,000 people. I know there were more players at the time but not all players will see/react to an ad. For a large corporation that's next to nothing, they're focusing on selling things by the million.

Now there are plenty of smaller companies that would love that traffic, however they by nature of being smaller do not have extensive advertising budgets, are not as willing to take a risk on a new advertising technique like MMOs.

I personally would've liked to see them go product placement route, CoH was unique in that it actually would have made the world feel more real and alive to see actual restaurants dotting the city. For a modest fee each restaurant could choose how many locations they wanted around the City. Billboards are fine too, would have probably been more successful if they could make them clickable to launch your default browser and take you to a site to buy it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on May 14, 2013, 11:58:01 AM
ive seen ads for other games on tv as well (world of tanks, wizard 101, pirate 101 are some recent examples)(not so recent would be toon town)

i actually havent seen a WoW tv commercial since the panda expansion came out yet i see a world of tanks commercial at least once every week

You must be seeing these on more kid-centric networks than the ones I watch. I have a boy who spends a few hours a week watching Cartoon Network, but I don't usually pay all that much attention. My own viewing is primarily network and USA Network, with a little BBCAmerica, and I only saw a couple of WoW ads around the time of the panda expansion launch.

I think there was an ad for the Pirates of the Caribbean game around the time it launched, and that may have only been on ABC, which is owned by Disney.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on May 14, 2013, 12:55:21 PM
Technically, it's possible to give free advertising. But you've got to be ludicrously careful. Pick your target well, and be extremely tasteful in advertising their product. It can't be one that would think you're trying to use their trademarks to promote YOUR brand to your audience. It can't be in any way that they would be in any way upset to see their product.

One of the ways Rush Limbaugh (he talked about this last month) got his new model of radio advertising to sell is that he was drinking Snapple one day in his office and said, "This is some great stuff. I'd love to have them as a sponsor, because they make a great product." So, he just started talking them up on the air, and encouraging people to go buy some. At the time, Snapple was a New York company, relatively small, not widely known (and unknown nation-wide). Snapple noticed an uptick in sales, and started investigating. Especially when they started getting calls from outside their distribution region, asking how to get some.

This started people coming to Rush because of proven effectiveness, rather than just based on dollars-per-thousand-who-will-hear-this-ad.

Joshex's suggestion is similar, but poses more problems, because it involves printing and using trademarks in a way other than "conversationally."


Speaking from my perspective, the problem, as I understand it, for the CoH ads was the pay model, as well as the lack of sponsors. The pay model was "per view," and defined a "view" as the ad being on a player's screen for at least half a second. With travel powers et al, people saw it a lot...but zipped by so fast that no "views" were counted.

Were I doing such a thing, I would, first of all, put them in places that people will stare at them for a while because they're stopped. Put them on billboards in loading screens (if your game has such). Put them in places behind Miss Liberty and Quartermasters and other "utility" NPCs around which players gather. Put them in social gathering areas.

But even more importantly, I would probably look into some other effectiveness-measure. I would work with the sponsor to come up with a special deal people could get by entering a code from the ad (radio personalities do this all the time, "Enter offer code 'Rush' for a 10% discount!"). I'd include a small costume bit or new logo people could add to their chest or a re-skinned emote in flavor with the sponsor, if somebody clicks on the ad. I might include a one-per-day-per-ad drop of c-store points for interacting with it in some way (and charge the sponsor per-click). Effectively, getting the sponsor to pay for the c-store points for the player.

But above all, demonstrating effectiveness of the ads is critical. If they get charged for 10,000 clicks per day, but don't see an uptick in sales, nobody will pay for ad space. So tools to make sure that our audience is interested in the ads and helps support us by supporting our sponsors would be important, too.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lightslinger on May 14, 2013, 01:54:11 PM
The devs also have to look at ad revenue vs intrusiveness. If the ads are bringing in money but they are hampering the game for players because of how obnoxious they are you will eventually lose players and the ads will no longer bring in money.

The billboards and maybe store locations could be a nice touch, but if you start adding floating ads around trainers, on the loading screen, log in screen, character UI, giving away special items for using the ads...yikes that just sounds stressful.

Also, Rush Limbaugh is probably the worst person in the world to talk about advertising. Hundreds of stations that air his caustic, hateful rants have lost money and sponsors have been running away from him for a long time now. I would personally avoid any company that went out of their way to be associated with his show.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on May 14, 2013, 03:02:46 PM
....Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing about El Rushbo, his mouth that never stops bestowing wisdom upon us unwashed masses and the general kind, caring and informative persona he so oft' displays.






....OR NOT.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on May 14, 2013, 03:37:20 PM
You must be seeing these on more kid-centric networks than the ones I watch. I have a boy who spends a few hours a week watching Cartoon Network, but I don't usually pay all that much attention. My own viewing is primarily network and USA Network, with a little BBCAmerica, and I only saw a couple of WoW ads around the time of the panda expansion launch.

I think there was an ad for the Pirates of the Caribbean game around the time it launched, and that may have only been on ABC, which is owned by Disney.

well you are mostly right about that, i watch cartoon network almost all the time lol, i usually watch other channels when nothing good is on cartoon network though but prolly 90% of the time i watch cartoon network (a good portion of that is adult swim)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on May 14, 2013, 03:42:49 PM
The devs also have to look at ad revenue vs intrusiveness. If the ads are bringing in money but they are hampering the game for players because of how obnoxious they are you will eventually lose players and the ads will no longer bring in money.

The billboards and maybe store locations could be a nice touch, but if you start adding floating ads around trainers, on the loading screen, log in screen, character UI, giving away special items for using the ads...yikes that just sounds stressful.

Also, Rush Limbaugh is probably the worst person in the world to talk about advertising. Hundreds of stations that air his caustic, hateful rants have lost money and sponsors have been running away from him for a long time now. I would personally avoid any company that went out of their way to be associated with his show.
Given that his radio show is actually quite successful, makes him millions while supporting numerous full-time staff, and is aired by many, many affiliates, I find your assertions suspect. Whether you agree with his politics or not (and I do, while clearly you don't), it is pretty silly to claim he's losing money for people who pay for the privilege of having him on their airwaves. KMOX, in St. Louis, is not conservative in the slightest, and looks for excuses to pre-empt his program with just about anything, but they still pay for the privilege of having it.

Also, anybody who accuses him of hate speech doesn't listen to his show, and thus can safely have their opinion of it disregarded.

But we're not here to tear each other apart. All I was doing is pointing out one useful model that supported Joshex's suggestion of doing free advertising to demonstrate your venue's effectiveness.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lightslinger on May 14, 2013, 03:59:02 PM
Given that his radio show is actually quite successful, makes him millions while supporting numerous full-time staff, and is aired by many, many affiliates, I find your assertions suspect. Whether you agree with his politics or not (and I do, while clearly you don't), it is pretty silly to claim he's losing money for people who pay for the privilege of having him on their airwaves. KMOX, in St. Louis, is not conservative in the slightest, and looks for excuses to pre-empt his program with just about anything, but they still pay for the privilege of having it.

Also, anybody who accuses him of hate speech doesn't listen to his show, and thus can safely have their opinion of it disregarded.

But we're not here to tear each other apart. All I was doing is pointing out one useful model that supported Joshex's suggestion of doing free advertising to demonstrate your venue's effectiveness.

Not going down this rabbit hole, agree to disagree.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 14, 2013, 04:19:25 PM
There's a difference here, between Joshex and the example Segev used.  In the case of Rush, he had a huge established audience so any sell through that causes an uptick in sales by simply  mentioning product could be tracked back to him.

We didn't have a large audience to begin with.  The business model that the 3rd party had for games was to sell ads across multiple games as a package deal.  Sort of the way the big web ad server sites work, advertise with us and we can get your ad on these popular sites and the viewing stats for those sites could be examined by anyone.  MMOs generally stopped publishing numbers due to WoW envy, now you could infer size by other means but you were more likely going to have to take this ad server company's word for the population size when you are making your assessment on if you are going to advertise through them or not.

Oh and for those who forgot or came after the attempt at ads ended

http://massively.joystiq.com/2008/04/03/in-game-advertising-headed-to-cox/

http://massively.joystiq.com/2009/01/19/is-city-of-heroes-in-game-advertising-missing-its-mark/

Edit: Oh and here's a story about what happened to that ad company

http://www.reloadedadvertising.com/what-happened-to-iga-wordwide-and-double-fusion/
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on May 14, 2013, 04:38:55 PM
Quote
Also, anybody who accuses him of hate speech doesn't listen to his show, and thus can safely have their opinion of it disregarded.

Dude, this is the same guy who opined that he wished that all abortions were performed via intervaginal gunshot. I have to listen to him any time I am at my mother's house, I am well aware of what he is and what he does.

With that said, agree to disagree and all that.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: eabrace on May 14, 2013, 05:33:19 PM
Given that his radio show is actually quite successful, makes him millions while supporting numerous full-time staff, and is aired by many, many affiliates, I find your assertions suspect.
He may still be doing better than most syndicated radio shows, but he's heading downhill pretty fast these days.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/14/opinion/obeidallah-rush-limbaugh/index.html
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on May 14, 2013, 05:49:46 PM
Meh. He seems to be doing just fine, especially considering the age of those supposed scandals (which, having listened to him through them, I know the full context of...including the gross mischaracterization of several that were taken ludicrously - and I mean "quote him paraphrasing somebody else and attribute it to him" levels of ludicrous for at least 2 of them), so I find it rather a shrug-worthy article.

If he were really irrelevant, he wouldn't be in the news so constantly.

And, since we failed our "let it lie" roll, I'll go ahead and respond to the "abortion" criticism: I don't recall ever hearing him say that, and I do listen pretty regularly. Moreover, if you actually look at how abortions ARE carried out, they're almost as violent, and certain methods still practiced today have nearly as hazardous an effect on the woman.



But seriously, it's kind-of silly to try to argue whether Rush is a good show or not. He IS doing better than most. And his method to change the standard model of advertising...worked. The model he uses now is the one he pioneered then, and is mimicked by most personality-based shows. It is, in effect, a broadcast-media version of celebrity endorsement.

However, it should work for just about any medium that needs to track performance of its specific impact on its audience's buying decisions.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: eabrace on May 14, 2013, 06:08:29 PM
And his method to change the standard model of advertising...worked. The model he uses now is the one he pioneered then, and is mimicked by most personality-based shows. It is, in effect, a broadcast-media version of celebrity endorsement.

However, it should work for just about any medium that needs to track performance of its specific impact on its audience's buying decisions.
I certainly can't argue with any of that.  I've seen others successfully apply that model over the years too.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 14, 2013, 06:14:13 PM
He may still be doing better than most syndicated radio shows, but he's heading downhill pretty fast these days.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/14/opinion/obeidallah-rush-limbaugh/index.html

You are using an opinion piece by a political comic as proof.

One thing Rush isn't is soundbite-able.  Rush is a satirist and sometimes his satire falls flat or goes off the rails.  It's like listening to a complex joke and then on occasion he messes up the punch line.

In advertising, at the end of the day, you go to where the people are.  I would imagine smaller companies will start jumping in to fill those ad slots.  Also if Cumulus doesn't re-up his contract, which ends later this year, undoubtedly another radio media giant will step up to sign him up.  He is still #1 in talk radio.  And that's a good thing IMO because #2 is Michael Savage and #3 is Glenn Beck; both who are much worse in my opinion.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lightslinger on May 14, 2013, 06:17:34 PM
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 14, 2013, 06:33:41 PM
I've said his satire isn't soundbite-able yet you proceed to provide a list of soundbites.  Yes most of those examples are cringe worthy.  However there is truth in a lot of those.

Often what Rush does is to take an arguments that liberals and the left have use to degrade conservatives and the right and turn it back around at one of their Holy Grails thus highlighting how shocking and outrageous the original liberal comment was.  Yet the original comment gets a pass.

But we are derailing here, badly.  The original sub-topic was whether "if you build it (ad platform in game), would they come (advertisers)" and how a free sample might have driven interest.  As others pointed out, mentioning by name on radio is very different than using TM logos and artwork so that wouldn't likely to have worked out.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lightslinger on May 14, 2013, 06:36:46 PM
Please, do enlighten me about the truth in those quotes.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on May 14, 2013, 06:49:00 PM
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: eabrace on May 14, 2013, 06:53:47 PM
You are using an opinion piece by a political comic as proof.
You misunderstand.  I'm not stating that the opinion presented by the article is correct or incorrect.  It was the points presented about the number of advertisers that have pulled ads and the number of ads that are being aired for Rush's show.  Really, if you wanted to boil it down to just one quote, it would probably be this:  "Well, according to the radio industry magazine 'Radio Ink,' 48 of the 50 network advertisers for Cumulus radio have excluded Limbaugh's show from their ad orders."  I guess I shouldn't have assumed that anyone would interpret that the way I intended without specifically spelling it out.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lightslinger on May 14, 2013, 06:57:16 PM
Dont have much time, but to address point 2...Do you literally believe schools should not feed poor children? I guess if they can't bring their lunch they should go hungry, huh? Get those kids some bootstraps to pull themselves up by then they can eat!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on May 14, 2013, 07:11:31 PM
Well Rush has always been "edgy". And the words usually don't translate well to text format. I can see how reading some of those comments can be racially offensive, like the ones about the nba and nfl. What? Another jab under guise of satire and jokes that all blacks are thugs? Sure some get into trouble but the real numbers compared to players in the nba and nfl compared to those that do "stupid" stuff is relatively small and don't see how even joking naming it Thug Basketball Association for example is funny. I mean if I joked about white athletes and lack of black players in the NHL is due to them all wanting to hang all black people and or saying ensure white people don't leave their hoods at home it might cause issues. Joking or not.

Sure some people won't see no issue with it but given history with the Indians comments that is like joking that the holocaust was no a significant event because there are more jews alive now than it was then and thus what is the big deal? Yes some own Casinos but many don't benefit just like some Jews own banks now but most as well don't.

And I listen to Rush from time to time and some stuff he say is a little "odd" but of course he gets free pass because he's Rush. If it was anyone else the media would be calling for their head and or resignation but since its Rush, no big deal its all ok no matter how offensive it is or racists. But some say he gets away with it is because his audience target have no idea what's it like on the business end of racism or being massacred for the land or being forced into slavery. So of course they wouldn't see the big deal about it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 14, 2013, 07:16:00 PM
Dont have much time, but to address point 2...Do you literally believe schools should not feed poor children? I guess if they can't bring their lunch they should go hungry, huh? Get those kids some bootstraps to pull themselves up by then they can eat!

The question is, isn't SNAP enough?  Why do we need to introduce another plan rather than fix the first one?  How far should we extend the plan?  It started with lunch, then breakfast and in some areas now dinner with volunteer organizations providing weekend meals to children. 

What is this saying, parents aren't feeding their children with the money they are getting, is it not enough or are parents shirking their responsibility?  You don't patch one benefit program with another, you fix the first one.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on May 14, 2013, 07:25:52 PM
Purely by coincidence (seriously, I wasn't looking for it), I stumbled across this article (http://spectator.org/archives/2013/05/14/cumulus-media-suicide-of-a-com/) discussing Cumulus Media's Rush issues and that boycott. Mostly Cumulus media, actually, but it does discuss the boycott, and how those lists don't include people who ever DID advertise on Limbaugh's show.

It's the equivalent of a bunch of mormons signing a pledge to boycott Budweiser and Maxwell House.



And if you see racism in the NBA and NFL comments, then you're the racist; I'm sorry. Rush comments on behavior, not skin color. He probably would say something similar about the NHL if it came up on his radar. (To my knowledge, he isn't as big a fan of hockey as he is of basketball and football, so it likely won't unless somebody brings it up to him.)

As far as Indians being equivalent to Jews in the holocaust: 1) that's remarkably insensitive of you considering the actual events of the holocaust, and 2) I don't see Germany setting up national guilt-fests to blame white Germans for generational sins against jews, trying to claim that Germans are illegitimately in their own country because of how the Jews were treated, etc.

As it's the "reparations" and affirmative-action mindset to which Rush responds, attempting to liken it to the holocaust is a straw man at best, and offensive at worst.



Ah, yes, and I almost forgot the school lunch issue: No, I don't think schools should be feeding kids for free. There are programs for that already, and frankly, there are private organizations (my own church amongst them) that would be delighted to help out. I'm a huge fan of charity; I loathe government handouts. The incentives are all backwards, as a bureaucrat's job is measured by how many people he has on his program, not by how many he's gotten off of it. Charities can, at least, be much more local, and are much more directly answerable to their donors. Government needs to be made more efficient? How heartless are you for wanting to STARVE CHILDREN! Charity not doing it's job right? Well, donate to a different one.

That's digression, however. In short: no. I think parents should feed their kids. If they can't, they're squandering funds from extant programs that are already meant to.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on May 14, 2013, 07:30:51 PM
And, since we failed our "let it lie" roll, I'll go ahead and respond to the "abortion" criticism: I don't recall ever hearing him say that, and I do listen pretty regularly. Moreover, if you actually look at how abortions ARE carried out, they're almost as violent, and certain methods still practiced today have nearly as hazardous an effect on the woman.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/01/rush-limbaugh-you-know-how-to-stop-abortion-require-that-each-one-occur-with-a-gun/267279/

My point here being not to introduce an abortion debate on the Titan forums, but that this guy wants to dish it out, and he should be well aware that 1. People ARE going to take him at face value and that 2. its a psychological truism that there really is no such thing as satire, or a joke: these are ways to state socially unacceptable views in an acceptable manner and 3. if one wishes to dish, one had best be ready to take return fire.

"Oh he's just kidding!"

"Oh its all just satire!!"

No, not really. I am pleased that this loosest of all loose cannons managed to help his team lose last November; and he is still doing all he can to ensure the future irrelevancy of his chosen party. People like him have real-world, non-satirical consequences.

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=t0.gstatic.com%2Fimages%3Fq%3Dtbn%3AANd9GcQp30sMSWQQcAjZcTaG9cp1l9bMZo5AsqaonEuAxr0CdNnXmYzddw)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Lightslinger on May 14, 2013, 07:35:34 PM
I'll be leaving this tangent as I see it going nowhere good.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on May 14, 2013, 07:40:28 PM
Yeah, the tangent needs to end.

Elections will always speak for themselves, and we don't need to be tearing each other apart in here. I've responded to the points people have made that I couldn't bear to let stand; there's been some counter-response, but nothing I feel needs rebuttal. It's sufficient for both sides, I think, to stand on their merits and let readers judge for themselves.

So, maybe we can get Cumulus to buy out NCSoft and work their magic on them, too? >_> <_<
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on May 14, 2013, 08:11:54 PM
Purely by coincidence (seriously, I wasn't looking for it), I stumbled across this article (http://spectator.org/archives/2013/05/14/cumulus-media-suicide-of-a-com/) discussing Cumulus Media's Rush issues and that boycott. Mostly Cumulus media, actually, but it does discuss the boycott, and how those lists don't include people who ever DID advertise on Limbaugh's show.

It's the equivalent of a bunch of mormons signing a pledge to boycott Budweiser and Maxwell House.



And if you see racism in the NBA and NFL comments, then you're the racist; I'm sorry. Rush comments on behavior, not skin color. He probably would say something similar about the NHL if it came up on his radar. (To my knowledge, he isn't as big a fan of hockey as he is of basketball and football, so it likely won't unless somebody brings it up to him.)

As far as Indians being equivalent to Jews in the holocaust: 1) that's remarkably insensitive of you considering the actual events of the holocaust, and 2) I don't see Germany setting up national guilt-fests to blame white Germans for generational sins against jews, trying to claim that Germans are illegitimately in their own country because of how the Jews were treated, etc.

As it's the "reparations" and affirmative-action mindset to which Rush responds, attempting to liken it to the holocaust is a straw man at best, and offensive at worst.



Ah, yes, and I almost forgot the school lunch issue: No, I don't think schools should be feeding kids for free. There are programs for that already, and frankly, there are private organizations (my own church amongst them) that would be delighted to help out. I'm a huge fan of charity; I loathe government handouts. The incentives are all backwards, as a bureaucrat's job is measured by how many people he has on his program, not by how many he's gotten off of it. Charities can, at least, be much more local, and are much more directly answerable to their donors. Government needs to be made more efficient? How heartless are you for wanting to STARVE CHILDREN! Charity not doing it's job right? Well, donate to a different one.

That's digression, however. In short: no. I think parents should feed their kids. If they can't, they're squandering funds from extant programs that are already meant to.

But saying what happened to the Indians as Rush did is not insensative and offensive? To me its on the same level as people that say that hlocaust was no big deal and or didn't happen. Why is the killing of one and joking about the murder of one group of people is offensive but joking about the murder and down grading and dismissing it as small beans is ok? If its offensive for one group it should be offensive for both but to say one is off limits but the other one that got.murked on now US soil is nothing is the real racist portion and the real offensive and insensative portion.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: VyoletRose on May 14, 2013, 08:13:08 PM
Ugh, can't take anymore talk about Rush - sorry. It's off topic anyway.

I believe TV advertising works - banner ads on MMO and Gamer websites would be the best way to reach the target audience.

But gotta be honest, it wasn't any type of advertising that caught our eye for City of Heroes. My husband and I learned of the game from a show on Discovery Channel called "Gamer Generation (http://richardhuskey.com/2012/10/03/discovery-channel-gamer-generation-episode/)" that aired in 2007. We thought - Oooo you can play a villain?! Gotta try it! - and thus our army of supervillains were born (Muwahahaha!)

It's a documentary about the pros and cons of MMOs and gaming in general. Sure, it focuses a lot on WoW, as it's the most well-known. And of course, it focuses on mostly the cons of gaming as negative attention always gets the most attention.

In my opinion, CoX has  the most well-rounded customer base. We are not associated with the "basement dwelling gamer" stereotype. The game was very family friendly, not just a children's game, that parents, grandparents and children could all play together. Going free-to-play really helped those who loved the game on a tight budget. The majority of our playerbase seem to be established working professionals.

Overall, I agree that more initiative could have been taken to promote advertising for the game.

I also have to agree with the argument that there weren't enough players on the servers for teaming. It was always a concern. We had SO MANY MAPS! It seemed our populace was spread very thin. We got even more maps when Going Rogue was launched, spreading us out even further!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on May 14, 2013, 08:25:58 PM

Overall, I agree that more initiative could have been taken to promote advertising for the game.

I also have to agree with the argument that there weren't enough players on the servers for teaming. It was always a concern. We had SO MANY MAPS! It seemed our populace was spread very thin. We got even more maps when Going Rogue was launched, spreading us out even further!

Yeah
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 14, 2013, 08:35:30 PM
Sure we could have gone with web ads.  However I always had a fear in the back of my mind that they'll end up like this.

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.gamearena.com.au%2Fres%2F2007%2Fimages%2Ffeatures%2Fcustom%2Fsinglefeatures%2Fevony.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on May 14, 2013, 08:40:15 PM
Sure we could have gone with web ads.  However I always had a fear in the back of my mind that they'll end up like this.

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=www.gamearena.com.au%2Fres%2F2007%2Fimages%2Ffeatures%2Fcustom%2Fsinglefeatures%2Fevony.jpg)

Probably so. Probably would be a pic of Sister Psy. or one of the other scantly clad women with a "Save Me!" Look on their face. But it might of worked.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on May 14, 2013, 09:05:42 PM
Isn't Evony basically a turn-based strategy game? In other words, nothing like what the scantily clad women shown in the ads?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 14, 2013, 09:55:14 PM
Isn't Evony basically a turn-based strategy game? In other words, nothing like what the scantily clad women shown in the ads?

ssshhhh!   :roll:
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on May 14, 2013, 10:45:41 PM
Yeah, the tangent needs to end.

Elections will always speak for themselves, and we don't need to be tearing each other apart in here.

I wasn't tearing anyone apart, unless it was El Rushbo; and I get the impression he's into that kind of thing anyways. I will qualify that the "he" in my prior post was referring to the aforementioned hot air balloon, and not to Segev. Please excuse any misunderstanding.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: V-Mink on May 15, 2013, 03:37:28 PM
The funniest sendup of the Evony ads was (I think) AdventureQuest.  "Pants, m'Lord?"

The problem with web ads is that, to me at least, they look... kind of tawdry.  Even, perhaps especially, when they're animated.  I've yet to see a web ad that didn't look kind of strained or cheesy or wan.  This could just be a twenty-year-old dislike for web ads in general, though, so take what I say with some salt (and Geritol.  Damn kids on my lawn.)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mister Bison on May 15, 2013, 08:01:40 PM
Isn't Evony basically a turn-based strategy game? In other words, nothing like what the scantily clad women shown in the ads?
ssshhhh!   :roll:
Don't tell that to everybody, most games will stop selling because of you!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on May 15, 2013, 09:05:41 PM
ssshhhh!   :roll:
Don't tell that to everybody, most games will stop selling because of you!

Hey! I've lost entire weekends to Civ games, as well as the occasional day here and there to Age of Empires. I'm just sayin', if you show cleavage in the ad, and there isn't any in the game, I'm gonna be disappointed. I'm not gonna say, "this game is a festering, poopy, pile of lies!" Assuming it's a fun game. However, I already have the Civ series up thru 4, including the Call to Power games, so I don't need to try some online monetized version. :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on May 16, 2013, 02:17:32 PM
Back on topic, NCsoft is rapidly backpedaling away from their announced "expansion".

http://www.dualshockers.com/2013/05/14/ncsoft-taking-a-wait-and-see-stance-on-guild-wars-2-expansion/
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: OzonePrime on May 16, 2013, 02:25:39 PM
Back on topic, NCsoft is rapidly backpedaling away from their announced "expansion".

http://www.dualshockers.com/2013/05/14/ncsoft-taking-a-wait-and-see-stance-on-guild-wars-2-expansion/
Interesting!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: General Idiot on May 16, 2013, 03:47:22 PM
Is anyone else mildly amused by their choice of screenshot there?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 16, 2013, 04:19:06 PM
Is anyone else mildly amused by their choice of screenshot there?

Female Norn Engineer or Thief (I'm leaning Thief) wearing the Duelist Armor set?

This is the 2nd time in a row they had to back pedal on the whole GW2 expansion story.  I think that there is a lot of instutional belief that since GW1 came out with "expansions" at a relatively rapid rate that GW2 must also because it's subscription free.

I'm imagining after explaining in detail how the income model is planned to work in GW2, releasing free monthly story segments and tying them into new items at the cash store, the analysts nod along as if they understand and when the presentation is over the first question is "so when is the expansion coming out?"  So as to not confuse the analysts they say sometime, it gets reported it's coming out and ANet once again gets to walk the story back.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on May 16, 2013, 04:30:35 PM
I'm not sure if I'm reading you correctly - are you saying it's basically a planned thing? How's that work in NCsoft's favor - each time they do it, it makes them look less in control of their own subsidiaries.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 16, 2013, 05:26:02 PM
I'm not sure if I'm reading you correctly - are you saying it's basically a planned thing? How's that work in NCsoft's favor - each time they do it, it makes them look less in control of their own subsidiaries.

No but it's tough to change people's minds once they get an idea planted.  Back in the day GW was controversial because it was B2P with no subscription.  In 2005 that was virtually unheard of but they were able to make it work with those additional box releases and a modest cash shop.

So when GW2 comes around, also B2P with no subscriptions, the analysts all assume it will be just like GW with an expansion coming out in a year.  They keep asking about it.

Since we hate to talk about cultural differences here, I'm sorry, but in a lot of Asian countries, you simply do not say no in a face to face (live) conversation.  It's considered rude.  You deflect, you say the matter is under consideration, you nod your head in agreement as if you concede them the point they are making but you say anything but no.  Don't ask me why, it's one of the biggest source of misunderstandings in East meet West business discussions when someone new is exposed to it for the first time.  So they end up leaving the idea that an expansion is in the works on the table by not denying it.  This then puts the onus on the rude western company, ArenaNet, to say no while reiterating what was actually said in the conference call.  Corporate CFO saves face and the truth eventually gets reported a few days later.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Quinch on May 16, 2013, 05:27:47 PM
Okay, I guess that makes sense in a roundabout sort of way.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on May 16, 2013, 07:41:18 PM
Since we hate to talk about cultural differences here, I'm sorry, but in a lot of Asian countries, you simply do not say no in a face to face (live) conversation.  It's considered rude.  You deflect, you say the matter is under consideration, you nod your head in agreement as if you concede them the point they are making but you say anything but no.

This is also called "sales" in any part of the world. :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JWBullfrog on May 16, 2013, 07:50:08 PM
This isn't just and east vs. west thing. This same tactic has been used by politicians, businessmen, public officials, pundits, and just about everybody who makes their living working with the public. The whole idea is to imply that you are open to everything without ever actually going on record as being either for or against it.
 
Personally I hope A-net does stand their ground on this. Not because of any (somewhat justified) anti- NC Soft bias on my part, but more because it annoys me when I see anybody acting this way. If you're going to run a business, run it as fairly as you can. Leave the 'creative accounting' and 'innovative marketing strategies' to those people who just want to make a fast buck. If you want customers who will be with you 20-50-100 years down the road, behave.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on May 16, 2013, 08:50:37 PM
This isn't just and east vs. west thing. This same tactic has been used by politicians, businessmen, public officials, pundits, and just about everybody who makes their living working with the public. The whole idea is to imply that you are open to everything without ever actually going on record as being either for or against it.
 
Personally I hope A-net does stand their ground on this. Not because of any (somewhat justified) anti- NC Soft bias on my part, but more because it annoys me when I see anybody acting this way. If you're going to run a business, run it as fairly as you can. Leave the 'creative accounting' and 'innovative marketing strategies' to those people who just want to make a fast buck. If you want customers who will be with you 20-50-100 years down the road, behave.

Yeah wish it was that simple. Yet corporations that treat customers like mere numbers and don't give a crap about what they think rake in billions while businesses trying to keep a personal touch and fair shake barely survives it at all. Politicians, the same types keep voted in over and over and over and over. Its like people as a whole say they don't like it but don't make a move to one that suits what they say they want. Like the big uproar that happens every so often about BoA  charging fees for everything but not many making a move to banks that is better no fees or ability to talk to real person. Either people are fearful, hopeless feeling, or contrary to what some vocal people say like the way things are with corporations, don't care, or thinks its messed up but accept it as that is just how the world works. So in essence corporations get the best of both worlds. They can make a quick buck without regards and still have people hanging around for decades even if the gripe and complain and belly ache with or without good cause. On one hand why would they care if even the ones that gripe and complain  about the treatment and or customer service if they still put money into the company and or don't even bother leave? Don't sound like much incentive besides showing that companies can make a killing by screwing over customers and they may fuss and vote worse company polls but they still will go no where no matter how you treat them especially if ya a major company.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JWBullfrog on May 16, 2013, 10:54:03 PM
Yeah wish it was that simple. Yet corporations that treat customers like mere numbers and don't give a crap about what they think rake in billions while businesses trying to keep a personal touch and fair shake barely survives it at all. Politicians, the same types keep voted in over and over and over and over. Its like people as a whole say they don't like it but don't make a move to one that suits what they say they want. Like the big uproar that happens every so often about BoA  charging fees for everything but not many making a move to banks that is better no fees or ability to talk to real person. Either people are fearful, hopeless feeling, or contrary to what some vocal people say like the way things are with corporations, don't care, or thinks its messed up but accept it as that is just how the world works. So in essence corporations get the best of both worlds. They can make a quick buck without regards and still have people hanging around for decades even if the gripe and complain and belly ache with or without good cause. On one hand why would they care if even the ones that gripe and complain  about the treatment and or customer service if they still put money into the company and or don't even bother leave? Don't sound like much incentive besides showing that companies can make a killing by screwing over customers and they may fuss and vote worse company polls but they still will go no where no matter how you treat them especially if ya a major company.

Sadly, true. And I admit to being old and cynical enough to know it. But, I'm also a bit of an old idealist. I do try to support businesses that show signs of caring about their customers or at least trying to do things the right way. They do seem to be few and far between these days but I'll support them when I find them.
 
 
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Tanklet on May 17, 2013, 10:02:42 AM
Yeah wish it was that simple. Yet corporations that treat customers like mere numbers and don't give a crap about what they think rake in billions while businesses trying to keep a personal touch and fair shake barely survives it at all. Politicians, the same types keep voted in over and over and over and over. Its like people as a whole say they don't like it but don't make a move to one that suits what they say they want. Like the big uproar that happens every so often about BoA  charging fees for everything but not many making a move to banks that is better no fees or ability to talk to real person. Either people are fearful, hopeless feeling, or contrary to what some vocal people say like the way things are with corporations, don't care, or thinks its messed up but accept it as that is just how the world works. So in essence corporations get the best of both worlds. They can make a quick buck without regards and still have people hanging around for decades even if the gripe and complain and belly ache with or without good cause. On one hand why would they care if even the ones that gripe and complain  about the treatment and or customer service if they still put money into the company and or don't even bother leave? Don't sound like much incentive besides showing that companies can make a killing by screwing over customers and they may fuss and vote worse company polls but they still will go no where no matter how you treat them especially if ya a major company.

I agree not enough people take a stand. I do what I can in my local market, from my banking, to my food shopping to my dining out. My area has so many little neat and wonderful stores. I wish more people stood up to big business with their wallets (*coughcoughncsoftcoughcough*). Sadly there are some institutions that have monopolies (cable tv, colleges, gas, power). With today's modern conveniences, the only way to make an impact would be to go without them ye old catch 22
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on May 17, 2013, 01:57:07 PM
I agree not enough people take a stand. I do what I can in my local market, from my banking, to my food shopping to my dining out. My area has so many little neat and wonderful stores. I wish more people stood up to big business with their wallets (*coughcoughncsoftcoughcough*). Sadly there are some institutions that have monopolies (cable tv, colleges, gas, power). With today's modern conveniences, the only way to make an impact would be to go without them ye old catch 22

Yeah. Monopolies especially for somethings in small town. Re
Cable me personally is easy to without for me but some its up there with electricity as far as scale of needs.

In el paso there is one gas company one power company and many believe there is only one cable but actually over half dozen service the area.

How did these companies gain their monopoly here? It was voted by the people that was voted to city council who was voted in by the people.

And many people also are uneasy about the monopoly and other electric companies are itching to start here but blocked by government sanctioned monopoly. Lately though it seems that the power company is wearing out its grip by continued raising fees in the name of upgrades but the grid haven't been upgraded not a single penny since 1950. And an audit revealed the income that the fees were raised coincided directly with the extra millions to the penny the ceo got paid that year. There is rumor of plans and many upset elpaso citizens calling for ending the monopoly. I think the current monopoly contract expires in 2014 or 2016. And a couple of years after that we might be seeing two or more electric companies and maybe even a Mexican one.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 17, 2013, 02:29:20 PM
The original cable TV monopolies started, at least in my state, was based on them taking on the up front cost of stringing up the cable throughout a region.  By guaranteeing every home in a region could be connected to it for a modest fee, they were given monopoly status for that region and their rates would be regulated as a public utility.  This was still back in the day of the original Ma Bell where you rented the phones in your home (I'm talking the late 1960s).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on May 17, 2013, 02:32:54 PM
The original cable TV monopolies started, at least in my state, was based on them taking on the up front cost of stringing up the cable throughout a region.  By guaranteeing every home in a region could be connected to it for a modest fee, they were given monopoly status for that region and their rates would be regulated as a public utility.  This was still back in the day of the original Ma Bell where you rented the phones in your home (I'm talking the late 1960s).

Yeah, it used to be like that in the up to the 90s here. But  Time Warner kept rasing rates while quality kept going down and violated the contract. And now there are other players in town. Many people getting ATT wireless.

LOL. I remember hearing about the phone rental things (and how some people had their phone repoed) back in those days from elders in my family.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 17, 2013, 02:53:32 PM
Well ATT U-Verse is sprouting up all over but there was a huge fight in my state by the various regional cable companies to first stop them and then making sure they got regulated as well.  The thing is U-Verse can cherry pick their roll out, wiring more affluent areas first, even if this means wiring past many less affluent neighborhoods to get there.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on May 17, 2013, 03:04:19 PM
Well ATT U-Verse is sprouting up all over but there was a huge fight in my state by the various regional cable companies to first stop them and then making sure they got regulated as well.  The thing is U-Verse can cherry pick their roll out, wiring more affluent areas first, even if this means wiring past many less affluent neighborhoods to get there.

Yeah Time Warner made a huge fuss about ATT not long ago out here but basically was told to shut up and improve service if thye wish to survive.

ATT is starting to eat them alive and basically overtook them in the business package service.  But Time Warner is fighting back by tying in their service with a lot of apartment complexes before ATT get to them but ATT is fighting back by ensuring good wireless connection even in Time Warner territory, which a lot of people are doing anyways especially with lap tops. And also since ATT phone service is popular here and offer cable, phone and internet packages and even just internet and phone packages, many people are switching. Time Warner is in trouble out here a place they once had monopoly but squandered it but see, enough people got fed up and ended that monopoly, and then many switching over to ATT. Of course Time Warner will still fight and probably wont even notices a dent in money if they lose entire El Paso but consumers are not powerless they just have to do the talking with thier wallets and sometimes political votes instead of useless surveys and ranting on opinion sites.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on May 17, 2013, 03:51:10 PM
All I have to say is that I have been very negatively impressed with Time Warner as a service provider, and I live in one of the apartment complexes where they're the only option.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on May 17, 2013, 04:30:18 PM
All I have to say is that I have been very negatively impressed with Time Warner as a service provider, and I live in one of the apartment complexes where they're the only option.

Yeah, I havent heard too many in fact, no one I came across that said, I love Time Warner. But many people have to put up with them espeically around here because it's the only cable internet available in their apartment complex.

I have them, they are meh, especially when fish hit the shampoo, it's like no one ever knows what is going on. The usual, "reset the modem, unplug it for ten seconds and reset it." I'm like "dude, I been customer for years so of course that is first thing I tried before calling you, how about stop stalling and lets get down to the real issue." Come to find out, after that, and basically threatening to "find a way" to get a refund due to too many days without lack of service, it was the main box in the area that was on the fritz. Sometimes customer service reps need to shut up for a sec and listen to the customer as many especially non-first timers know the basics of restting the computer and modem and stuff. And another tiem they tried to pin it on my network card. Fine, I just bought a new computer anyways, that was sitting in box and had another one I just aquired. And I said, ya meaning to tell me, that all three computers, including the one straight out the box, network cards is on the fritz? Stop BSing me. Even the one hooked up now, yesterday, while having problems as you labeled my internal network card, as I said yesterday and the day before, it's not the network card." Then eventually after a couple of days of time wasting lo and behold they finally came out and it was the actual modem that they supplied that was on the fritz.  Poor customer service.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Tubbius on May 22, 2013, 05:53:01 PM
Stock's taking a crazy dive of like 6k won.  Any ideas why?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on May 22, 2013, 06:04:33 PM
Stock's taking a crazy dive of like 6k won.  Any ideas why?


 :(


My first instinct was to sell sell sell. But had to think long term. Hopefully it goes up and I made right decision.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Aggelakis on May 22, 2013, 07:10:16 PM
Note that 6k KRW is only like five dollars, so it's not really a "crazy dive"...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 22, 2013, 07:16:36 PM
Stock's taking a crazy dive of like 6k won.  Any ideas why?

Nothing at any of the news sites.  One analyst lowered their 2nd, 3rd quarter and 2013 year end sales estimates.  The consensus for those numbers are down slightly.  The first GW2 China beta is over.  I haven't really seen any 3rd party opinion on how that went.

Maybe it's just profit taking.  There was a big move up first thing Monday and now there's a big move down first thing Wednesday.  Still the stock is up 23% in the last 3 months, 15.9% for the year.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 22, 2013, 07:19:05 PM
Note that 6k KRW is only like five dollars, so it's not really a "crazy dive"...

Well it is a 2.8% drop in a day.  Of course there was a 6.7% rise back on May 3rd that few noted.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: srmalloy on May 23, 2013, 04:50:15 PM
Well it is a 2.8% drop in a day.  Of course there was a 6.7% rise back on May 3rd that few noted.

Still, the last two days did wipe out all the gains it had made since April 19th.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 23, 2013, 05:57:38 PM
True but it still has been quite the run up since the stock bottomed just after the 4Q numbers were published in February at 128,000 KrW.

I still don't see any news pertaining to NCSOFT or any of their games, or anything negative about their current closed beta going on in China for B&S.

I'll stick with profit taking.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: KSinclaire on May 25, 2013, 01:57:34 PM
A few interesting tidbits about the way NCSoft handles games. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3F_ZcvR-pg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 25, 2013, 04:07:28 PM
A few interesting tidbits about the way NCSoft handles games. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3F_ZcvR-pg)

I was hoping this wouldn't be Dontain's video again.  It's sad that I can recognize the video ID.

He doesn't know anything he is talking about.  He totally misread an article about the last investor conference call, one that ArenaNet rebuffed a day later for a second time (NCSOFT did the same thing at the 4Q CC as well).  He also completely ignores the fact that "Hey, NCSOFT owns ArenaNet so on one level, it's all NCSOFT's money anyways" before he spins off wildly about who ArenaNet isn't calling the shots or sees any of the cash shop money and before he digs into the laundry list of everything GW1 (and WoW) players have been complaining about in GW2.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Osborn on May 25, 2013, 10:53:23 PM
I was hoping this wouldn't be Dontain's video again.  It's sad that I can recognize the video ID.

He doesn't know anything he is talking about.  He totally misread an article about the last investor conference call, one that ArenaNet rebuffed a day later for a second time (NCSOFT did the same thing at the 4Q CC as well).  He also completely ignores the fact that "Hey, NCSOFT owns ArenaNet so on one level, it's all NCSOFT's money anyways" before he spins off wildly about who ArenaNet isn't calling the shots or sees any of the cash shop money and before he digs into the laundry list of everything GW1 (and WoW) players have been complaining about in GW2.

It makes perfect sense to me considering how they handled City of Heroes and their communications to the US/EU markets thus far:

That we're not a market they care about or are really interested in, and the games we're interested in aren't games they are interested in, we're a quick cash in side project to help fund projects they care about that sell well in markets they care about.

That makes perfect sense with shutting down CoH when it was merely making enough money for itself. NCSoft put almost no money into making CoH a better brand (programmers, advertisement) because it wasn't a game their CEOs either understood or cared about and we (US/EU) aren't a market they understand or care about. They wanted to throw in the bare minimal of effort to get a quick chunk of development change to throw towards their favored market, and the minute we were no longer funding their other games, even if we were in the black, we got the axe.

They don't care about our perception of their company, because, again we're not who they're interested in selling to. We were an open wallet for Lineage and Blade & Soul development. Nothing more.

They won't sell CoH because the IP, in the hands of people who understand the genre and our market, could create competition for them, but they won't leave the lights on because it's not funding games they personally find interesting.

So, hearing somebody complain that the same thing is happening with Guild Wars 2? Makes perfect sense to me.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 26, 2013, 12:09:52 AM
Honestly I was thinking of not replying but it's rainy, cold and I'm quite bored.

It makes perfect sense to me considering how they handled City of Heroes and their communications to the US/EU markets thus far:

That we're not a market they care about or are really interested in, and the games we're interested in aren't games they are interested in, we're a quick cash in side project to help fund projects they care about that sell well in markets they care about.

I hardly think a 5 year commitment to developing a game would count as a "side project".  And considering the game broke the 200 billion KrW mark in 7 months that took GW 7 years to accomplish, a mark that our game didn't, should pretty much define it as a major success and not as some stop gap income scheme because the chiefs at NCSOFT "knew" that 5 years down the line after they GW2 started development that they would need to shore up their own income.  Right.

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That makes perfect sense with shutting down CoH when it was merely making enough money for itself. NCSoft put almost no money into making CoH a better brand (programmers, advertisement) because it wasn't a game their CEOs either understood or cared about and we (US/EU) aren't a market they understand or care about. They wanted to throw in the bare minimal of effort to get a quick chunk of development change to throw towards their favored market, and the minute we were no longer funding their other games, even if we were in the black, we got the axe.

Advertisement argument again.  Please show me where they advertise any of their games in the US marketplace a year out of their initial release or holiday season?  They don't.  As for staffing levels, Paragon had plenty of staff, they just weren't working on CoH.  If ANet was being raided for income then why are they on a hiring bonanza?

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They don't care about our perception of their company, because, again we're not who they're interested in selling to. We were an open wallet for Lineage and Blade & Soul development. Nothing more.

They won't sell CoH because the IP, in the hands of people who understand the genre and our market, could create competition for them, but they won't leave the lights on because it's not funding games they personally find interesting.

And this is where I award you the Tin Foil Hat conspiracy theory reward.  :roll:   Lineage has been around since 1998.  It's annual sales today are greater then when CoH first came out.  It is South Korea's WoW.  It's the country's #1 MMO and is only challenged by other NCSOFT titles.  Sure some new hot MMO pops up every so often and rise to the top of the charts but it quickly fades away and Lineage once again assumes the lead.  Now if you think the paltry income our game brought in was funneled off to pay for the continued development cost of Lineage, which at worse made only twice as much in the same quarter as CoH but usually made 5 to 10 times as much, then you are really invested in this notion that the chiefs at NCSOFT has an ax to grind with us or maybe just the whole western hemisphere.

Quote
So, hearing somebody complain that the same thing is happening with Guild Wars 2? Makes perfect sense to me.

What drives Dontain and his followers is the fact that GW2 offers a way to pay for cash shop items with in-game gold.  If this didn't exist there would be a lot less bemoaning on the GW2 boards.  But you ask, isn't that a good thing?  Well yes and no.  They implemented a proxy currency exchange which allows those who buy Gems (the name of the proxy currency) with cash to exchange them for gold, establishing an approved way to buy gold, and interlocking it with the gold for Gems.  They made it a floating rate so as more players bought gems with gold, the exchange rate would change making it more expensive to buy gems with gold but make it more attractive to buy gold with gems bought with cash. 

Problem is that now 8ish months in the Gold to Gem price is now 10x what it was in the beginning, 50% more than just two months ago.  Why?  Because they started to offer good stuff at the cash shop and everybody bought gems with all their gold.  And what's worse, most of the items bought were gift boxes with a "rare" chance for something and a lot of players had a very different definition of "rare" than the developers.  So now they are out of gold and it's not really easy to earn gold in GW2.  There are a few "farms" and speed runs you can do until you are bored to death.  You can try to become a market savvy trader but all the "good" items to flip are already squatted on by players more savvy than you.  But ArenaNet is shutting down the prime farms because it destabilizes the price of some goods.

So it boils down to players upset that they can't earn lots of gold so they can get "for free" items off the cash shop who they blame on Nexon/NCSOFT because ArenaNet hired a former Nexon cash shop person for their expertise so it must be Nexon pulling NCSOFT's strings to saddle ArenaNet with a horrible cash shop person who implemented gift boxes that had "rare" desirable skins (think costume pieces) that they didn't get after they spent all the gold trying to.

Simply because they allowed players to buy cash shop items with gold.  No good deed ...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on June 02, 2013, 06:13:48 AM
to try to keep this on track, the last week has seen a noticeable down slope in ncsoft stock, ive not been keeping up with the news so i wouldnt have the first idea what could be causing it, or if it is just a standard up/down slope
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on June 02, 2013, 09:44:42 AM
to try to keep this on track, the last week has seen a noticeable down slope in ncsoft stock, ive not been keeping up with the news so i wouldnt have the first idea what could be causing it, or if it is just a standard up/down slope

No idea.  None of the analysts covering the stock issued any adjustments in the last week.  No negative stories about them.  Some more talk about government wanting to cut back gaming hours per day.  There was a piece at ThisIsGame (Korean version) that appeared (Google Translate, it's hard to tell sometimes) to be a post mortem about Blade & Soul, why it isn't doing as well as people thought it would (players burn through content too quickly and become bored).  I see lots of talk about mobile gaming but none referring to NCSOFT, that could be read as bad I guess.

No news is bad news?  It could still be profit taking from the rise since early February.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Randomvector on June 07, 2013, 02:49:09 AM
Way down today for some reason...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on June 07, 2013, 10:23:53 AM
Again, nothing.  Well NCSOFT did feed a story that GW2 and WildStar is generating loads of interest in the west with GW2 already selling over 3 million copies (old news) and WildStar being one of the most anticipated games for 2013 (again old news, but maybe new to Korean press?).  It's a rah-rah puff piece. 

Like I said last time, no real news is bad news.  Well like me redefine that.  No mobile gaming news is bad news.  It's where are your mobile games in Korea?  Everyone seems to have something new in that platform.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Tubbius on June 09, 2013, 07:06:31 PM
NCSoft stock resembles Pocket D's ski slopes at the moment.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on June 10, 2013, 06:31:00 PM
looks like it's going up today some compared to Friday.

Did the math on what my friend invested in way back in 2009, 4,000 shares, then andn ot sure nor didnt ask how many they bought recently but just by that 4,000 shares from 2009, and if they sold today they would pocket about a decent sum of money. Still wished I put in way back then. If my math is correct about $500,000 odd for their about $180,000 investment.

But me, I'm still in the red by about $8-$9 a share. :(
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on June 11, 2013, 05:35:06 AM
5 year gain - 236%
6 month gain - 1%
3 month gain - 13%
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Randomvector on June 25, 2013, 11:32:45 PM
Stock dropped almost 3% today, back down to 150k range.
General stock downturn? Or something else?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on June 26, 2013, 01:34:26 AM
The fundamental problem that I have always had with this thread is that we're looking at a single stock, and things were happening that were market-wide. Don't get me wrong. I'm as tickled as anyone else to see it drop, but you should check the Dow or NASDAQ or your local country's average indicator for an indication of whether it's part of a larger trend..
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Tubbius on June 26, 2013, 04:52:38 AM
Interesting observation there, about comparing it to other stocks.  I hadn't considered that before.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on June 26, 2013, 05:54:04 AM
Or other companies in the same business in the same country.

Two bits of news out of Korea.  First they rolled out a new major content update for B&S along with a formal apology to players for taking so long to add new content.  My guess they were splitting their time between the update and all the changes to make the game palatable to China.  This was last Friday.

As an aside I did come across a 15 minute demo of the character creator and tutorial for the latest Chinese beta, which has been extended.  I have to admit it, the game does look interesting and the Chinese version didn't seem to have as mutantly long legs on the women.  Also that the costume creator "nighty" for females is now more cute and solid than sexy and translucent.  Still it was just the tutorial teaching things such as basic attacks, recovery, sprinting and gliding.  And yes it is in Chinese with the occasional English subtitle.  Still can't stand the girly walking in the video (well your guide's walk, what adult woman walks like that?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mKSScdX6d_8

Second is that the Korean government is thinking about a new 5% tax on MMO developers to fund a development fund for new developers.  Well it's to fund new startups which can include games development.  This was Friday before last.

And one more thing, there was a shake up at another game developer WeMade Entertainment.  A co-CEO suddenly resigned.  That and the new tax may be affecting that market segment negatively.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: General Idiot on June 26, 2013, 02:00:15 PM
One does have to wonder, if that tax isn't to specifically fund MMO developers then why is it only placed on them? If it's to fund any and all startups, you'd think they'd make it a bit more general.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Segev on June 26, 2013, 02:31:24 PM
Likely part of a social engineering effort, rather than a genuine economic one. Korean government has decided MMOs are "too successful" and are a net bad for their society, so is making them more expensive in an effort to diminish their presence.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on June 26, 2013, 05:54:27 PM
One does have to wonder, if that tax isn't to specifically fund MMO developers then why is it only placed on them? If it's to fund any and all startups, you'd think they'd make it a bit more general.

I believe all they've done is decide to apply Article 7 of the Korean Value-Added Tax Act to MMO services and virtual goods.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on June 26, 2013, 06:05:48 PM
Two things.

First the current government of SK has made combating Internet addiction a priority.  They were, don't know if it went through, looking to tax game companies whose games are played via the Internet 1% to fund Internet addiction treatment centers as well as increasing the age range and lockout period of their nationwide game nanny so those 18 and under are booted from 10p to 7a, currently 16 and under from midnight to 6a.  From my understanding of their extreme high school education system (school, study groups, cram school), those 3 hours are basically the only 3 hours teens have to play games.

Second, we're talking about a country that designed their own silicon valley, a suburb designed for young engineers and software developers to live and work.  Which happens to be where NCSoft NCSOFT built their new office complex.  The original plans from the Korean government for the suburb included a futuristic semi domed downtown center, which they were forced to downsize due to costs.

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=img84.imageshack.us%2Fimg84%2F8315%2Fthumbnail7sm2.jpg)

Oh what movies could have been filmed there.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: onyxprincess on June 27, 2013, 04:12:13 PM
I just had to check the stock on the current face- it is up 5k since the close at 160k. I do not know if NCSoft is traded on the NYSE or the NASDAQ.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on June 27, 2013, 04:46:35 PM
I just had to check the stock on the current face- it is up 5k since the close at 160k. I do not know if NCSoft is traded on the NYSE or the NASDAQ.
NASDAQ

symbol: NCSCF

close price June 26th 2013- $136.9587


Although, it's also a gray market stock. Basically one that is commonly sold before and after the market here closes (due to the time zone difference probably of the Korean Stock Exhange (the home market)). And if you have the connection you can purchase directly from the Korean Stock Exchange although it's easier with a Korean broker account and sometime odd hours in the night (here in the US) to make those purchases live.
 Can use Scottrade to trade NCsoft stock. Be forwarned though, requires minimum initial $500 deposit before you can do anything. 
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on June 27, 2013, 07:01:42 PM
That quote is over 3 years old, Dec 4, 2009.  It's a straight up conversion to USD from where the stock closed that day at 158,500 KrW.  It just happens to be really close to where the stock is now.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on June 27, 2013, 08:02:44 PM
That quote is over 3 years old, Dec 4, 2009.  It's a straight up conversion to USD from where the stock closed that day at 158,500 KrW.  It just happens to be really close to where the stock is now.

Yeah checked with KSE website it actually translate into 138.72 a share or 160,000KW currently with current exchange rate, as of today.

Maybe Nasdaq dont offer it anymore and for some time which makes clear of the gray market stock label.

I have a Korean Account from my army days that I opened on the base. Funny thing is, I opened it originally with the intent of purchasing Japanese, Chinese and Indian currency.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on August 07, 2013, 09:20:41 AM
2nd quarter results will be out in a matter of days.  Maybe as soon as today, probably no later than next Monday.  Expect a shift depending how well they met expectations of analysts.

KDB Daewoo last prediction was sales of 188,000 (up) and profits of 44,000 (down) million KrW.  They are guessing both GW2 and B&S sales to be down a little while Lineage sales are way up.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on August 14, 2013, 10:21:36 AM
Numbers are out.

Sales up 3.9% over first quarter.  Operation profit up 12.1%.  Net profits down 34.6% due to near doubling of taxes and a large charge under "Impairment on Intangible Assets"

Also NC Europe is NOT a part of NC West Holdings.

Games
Lineage - 84,791 million KrW, up 28.4%
GW2 - 28,899, down 20.6%
Aion - 23,257, down 17.8%
Lineage 2 - 14,298, up 0.6%
Blade & Soul - 14,152, down 14.3%
Other - 13,591, up 6.9%
Royalties - 13,027, up 21.3% (includes Aion in China)

Factoring GW2 out of NA and Europe sales shows only 3,221 million KrW in sales on non-GW2 games in 2nd quarter Vs 3,018 in the 1st quarter.  That's only 30% greater sales than Taiwan.  Compare that to 2nd quarter sales of 128,443 million KrW in Korea shows how much NA/EU has rejected their other released games.

GW2 sales still would translate as 575,000 $15 a month subscription uses.

Stock price is down a smidgen, see if tomorrow reaction is positive or negative once this news is bounced around the world.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: HEATSTROKE on August 14, 2013, 12:26:53 PM
why are we so fascinated with watching their stock? are we hoping for a collapse ( which I dont believe for one minute is going to happen )
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on August 14, 2013, 02:01:58 PM
why are we so fascinated with watching their stock? are we hoping for a collapse ( which I dont believe for one minute is going to happen )

Well the thread was started mid Sept last year.  At that point the stock was down from a recent high of 286,500 to 256,000 over two weeks.  More people were more heated at NCSOFT so yes they were hoping for a collapse and in a way it happened.  After the 3rd quarter numbers were released 3 months later the stock was down to 144,000.  In another 3 months after the very good 4th quarter numbers the stock bottomed out at 128,000.

I tried to convey that stock price is a very poor indicator of the actual health of the company.  I tried pointing out that when the stock was over 375,000 that the company's fundamentals never supported that price level and the 18 month steep decline was a long overdue correction followed by market psychology and momentum that drove it further down with no support from the financials.  The upward movement since February is simply the stock slowly rebounding from the oversell.  End of June it closed at 162,000.  That gives us a TTM P/E of 15 or so.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: srmalloy on August 14, 2013, 03:35:13 PM
I tried to convey that stock price is a very poor indicator of the actual health of the company.  I tried pointing out that when the stock was over 375,000 that the company's fundamentals never supported that price level and the 18 month steep decline was a long overdue correction followed by market psychology and momentum that drove it further down with no support from the financials.  The upward movement since February is simply the stock slowly rebounding from the oversell.  End of June it closed at 162,000.  That gives us a TTM P/E of 15 or so.

As an example of how little stock price relates to corporate health, I was listening to a piece on NPR yesterday about the day's stock market events, and they noted that Apple's stock prices rose 5% in the wake of a single person making two tweets stating that Apple stock was undervalued. A paper increase of $15 billion in value completely unrelated to the actual performance of the company.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on August 14, 2013, 04:01:17 PM
On the flip side of that, Apple stock, with Jobs back at the helm of the company, went from $10 to nearly $400 over ten years. Most companies aren't that tied to the public psyche, though. This thread is more for the gratification of those who want to see NC$oft fail, and there really isn't any other publicly available metric to use. Is it essentially meaningless? Absolutely. But people need to find hope and satisfaction in different ways. For some, it's watching a graph from one day to the next.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on August 14, 2013, 07:07:53 PM
On the flip side of that, Apple stock, with Jobs back at the helm of the company, went from $10 to nearly $400 over ten years. Most companies aren't that tied to the public psyche, though. This thread is more for the gratification of those who want to see NC$oft fail, and there really isn't any other publicly available metric to use. Is it essentially meaningless? Absolutely. But people need to find hope and satisfaction in different ways. For some, it's watching a graph from one day to the next.
don't think I could've said it better.

To many, symbols and visuals matter the most, the appearance and hope that they are hurting and on the verge of bankruptcy when in reality, most long term investors (That I know of) don't care or even worry about little dips and usually just buy more at that point. They are looking at long term, 5 years and up.

And some companies stock look "healthy" then the company crash. A lot of people forget that GM been in bad shape for years before declaring bankruptcy and the media circus that followed, which then the stock went down the tube, but GM was already in the tube long prior.


Just about every company stock sheet looks like a seismometer located in a place that have constant earthquakes and volcanos.


But right now, since the stock is most visual thing and a symbol of wealth, people grab onto that and celebrate every little dip as a victory of "teaching them a lesson" for closing down the game.

The thread is titles stock watch, but truthfully, the real purpose is obvious. As you notice, many don't say a single word or post when the stock rises, but jump on with joy when it goes down. It's really "NCSOFT stock watch and hope it crash" thread. But I doubt it will crash anytime soon, probably to many dismay. It's just doing what Father Xmas explained it was doing.  Yet, dont fret, they will have their chance to "stick it to the man" soon enough. But first they have to escape the power that NCSOFT still apparently hold over the emotions in the way that some seem to live breath think about NCSOFT 24/7, while NCSOFT probably haven't given so much as a thought probably since their last statement shortly after release. I doubt ncsoft counted on many angry players to go to their other games or give them money. Or they would be silly to think so. And of course they probably wont re-release COX even if they wanted to. If people mean what they say then it's guaranteed that it will make even less money, making it not even worth re-release in it's current form. Thus the ex-customers gave them no reason to even consider bringing it back.   
Make the successors succeed, support it like nothing have been supported before in the history of games, and become a real threat in the form of competition that they created and take over the market. A tall order but that is probably the only way to "get back" at NCSOFT in way that is beyond hollow words and being angry 24/7 for the rest of the life. Because quite frankly, I don't think NCSOFT from their actions gives a crap about some people being angry and not giving $15 a month. Their prerogative. As long as people keep NCSOFT on the mind all day every day and angry and stuff and add to their traffic numbers on their sites NCSOFT is really winning. Ads and sponsors don't look at comments, they look at traffic

Want to win? Victory is already waiting people just have to claim it. We have games being built, we gained knowledge about the sledge of the corporate gaming world and how it can burn people. Hopefully not taking for granted the people that many used to flame in the past when they tried to warn us about the way corporations in the gaming world work and the risks. And we'll have a home where no one can take away with absolutely no control that NCSOFT have. We already won, it's just that some people don't seem to realize it yet.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DarkCurrent on August 15, 2013, 04:12:53 AM
don't think I could've said it better.

To many, symbols and visuals matter the most, the appearance and hope that they are hurting and on the verge of bankruptcy when in reality, most long term investors (That I know of) don't care or even worry about little dips and usually just buy more at that point. They are looking at long term, 5 years and up.

And some companies stock look "healthy" then the company crash. A lot of people forget that GM been in bad shape for years before declaring bankruptcy and the media circus that followed, which then the stock went down the tube, but GM was already in the tube long prior.


Just about every company stock sheet looks like a seismometer located in a place that have constant earthquakes and volcanos.


But right now, since the stock is most visual thing and a symbol of wealth, people grab onto that and celebrate every little dip as a victory of "teaching them a lesson" for closing down the game.

The thread is titles stock watch, but truthfully, the real purpose is obvious. As you notice, many don't say a single word or post when the stock rises, but jump on with joy when it goes down. It's really "NCSOFT stock watch and hope it crash" thread. But I doubt it will crash anytime soon, probably to many dismay. It's just doing what Father Xmas explained it was doing.  Yet, dont fret, they will have their chance to "stick it to the man" soon enough. But first they have to escape the power that NCSOFT still apparently hold over the emotions in the way that some seem to live breath think about NCSOFT 24/7, while NCSOFT probably haven't given so much as a thought probably since their last statement shortly after release. I doubt ncsoft counted on many angry players to go to their other games or give them money. Or they would be silly to think so. And of course they probably wont re-release COX even if they wanted to. If people mean what they say then it's guaranteed that it will make even less money, making it not even worth re-release in it's current form. Thus the ex-customers gave them no reason to even consider bringing it back.   
Make the successors succeed, support it like nothing have been supported before in the history of games, and become a real threat in the form of competition that they created and take over the market. A tall order but that is probably the only way to "get back" at NCSOFT in way that is beyond hollow words and being angry 24/7 for the rest of the life. Because quite frankly, I don't think NCSOFT from their actions gives a crap about some people being angry and not giving $15 a month. Their prerogative. As long as people keep NCSOFT on the mind all day every day and angry and stuff and add to their traffic numbers on their sites NCSOFT is really winning. Ads and sponsors don't look at comments, they look at traffic

Want to win? Victory is already waiting people just have to claim it. We have games being built, we gained knowledge about the sledge of the corporate gaming world and how it can burn people. Hopefully not taking for granted the people that many used to flame in the past when they tried to warn us about the way corporations in the gaming world work and the risks. And we'll have a home where no one can take away with absolutely no control that NCSOFT have. We already won, it's just that some people don't seem to realize it yet.

Wow.  I agree with Jaguar for once.  Well said.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Captain Electric on August 15, 2013, 05:24:53 AM
http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/08/14/ncsoft-sales-are-up-income-is-down/

"It looks as though North American sales has decreased from Q1, but an increase in Japanese and Korean sales has more than made up for the loss."

Good for NCSoft. Here's hoping they keep inching out, and then stay out.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on August 15, 2013, 02:21:52 PM
http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/08/14/ncsoft-sales-are-up-income-is-down/

"It looks as though North American sales has decreased from Q1, but an increase in Japanese and Korean sales has more than made up for the loss."

Good for NCSoft. Here's hoping they keep inching out, and then stay out.

But as I pointed out, factoring out GW2 from the combined NA+EU sales then Aion/L2/GW sales are less than $3 million for the quarter.  But GW2 is nearly $26 million.  Once Wildstar hits I would expect to see another surge here in NA was well as the EU.  If anything a successful launch of Wildstar may force them to realize that Asian style MMOs simply don't fly here and the proper strategy all along is separate east and west style MMOs as oppose to trying to find a universal one.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JanessaVR on August 15, 2013, 11:05:05 PM
If anything a successful launch of Wildstar may force them to realize that Asian style MMOs simply don't fly here and the proper strategy all along is separate east and west style MMOs as oppose to trying to find a universal one.
That would require some degree of actual intelligence, rational thought and business acumen.  You might want to lower your expectations since this is, after all, NCSoft we're talking about here...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on August 15, 2013, 11:50:52 PM
That would require some degree of actual intelligence, rational thought and business acumen.  You might want to lower your expectations since this is, after all, NCSoft we're talking about here...

Intelligence? I dunno. Self-awareness, certainly.

:D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on August 16, 2013, 01:24:14 PM
And the investors have voted and they are generally not pleased.  Maybe because they had a day to think about it due to a national holiday in South Korea but the stock plummeted 6.9% to 169,000.  I'm guessing the lack of diversity as to which products had sales growth, which was none other than Grandpappy Lineage may have caused it.  Or the larger than average reduction between Operating Profits and Net Profits.

KDB Daewoo updated their forecast the day before and they are now saying Wildstar won't be released this year.  According to Massively (which I looked at after reading this) the conference call only mentioned the results of the Wildstar beta will dictate it's release schedule (well I damn well hope so, nah lets ship a broken game).  They also announced 7-8 mobile games will be released by years end.  And once again KDB suggests that a GW2 paid expansion, just now in 2014 but now I'm betting they are simply trying to bolster their forecasts.  They also believe B&S and GW2 will be in China by the 4Q.  They are sticking with their 250,000 KrW price target.  Oops.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on August 17, 2013, 05:13:52 PM
http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/08/14/ncsoft-sales-are-up-income-is-down/

"It looks as though North American sales has decreased from Q1, but an increase in Japanese and Korean sales has more than made up for the loss."

Good for NCSoft. Here's hoping they keep inching out, and then stay out.

Ditto. Go, and stay gone. Since they seem to view Western players as so many unruly barnyard animals anyway, I am not sure what motivates them to stay here at all. Do us all a favor, go to China and stay gone.

We will have "won" the day Phoenix Project launches, and not before.

Meanwhile I am pootling around in the Low-Rent District, aka as CO. Baby it is a poor substitute. But in a way, familiar. Yes, here is another dirty warehouse. Yep, here's a backlot of cargo containers. Here's a car trying to run me over as I cross the street - it seemed in CoX too, that NPC cars were programmed to try and block your way. Yup, here comes an ambush.

Familiar. But I have learned an important lesson! I don't know where PWE is based, but trust them for one instant I will not. The plug could be pulled at any moment, so I will wait to fall in love until we see PP.

Good job, NC. You created extreme distrust and paranoia amongst tens of thousands of players.... way to sell your product. Yes, focus on China. We'll all thank you in the end.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Beltor on August 20, 2013, 12:54:06 AM
I'm not sure about their international office but Perfect World was originally based in China. I played it before it went global. It was poorly translated with only one english server. The ping was over 300 like many overseas servers were, due to distance. PWE grew alot since then. They're better than NC$oft, but who isn't.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: CoyoteSeven on August 26, 2013, 11:49:10 PM
It's too bad we're not all stinking rich. We could continuously buy up NCSoft stock in an attempt at a hostile takeover.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on August 27, 2013, 01:02:40 AM
It's too bad we're not all stinking rich. We could continuously buy up NCSoft stock in an attempt at a hostile takeover.

I'm a little curious as to whether somebody has looked into the feasibility of this.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: CoyoteSeven on August 27, 2013, 01:29:12 AM
I'm a little curious as to whether somebody has looked into the feasibility of this.

Yeah, let's all chip in to the Titan Network so it can get a bank loan for an LBO. I think such an action, if it succeeded, would make the freakin' evening news.  :o
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: CoyoteSeven on August 27, 2013, 01:34:50 AM
Or heck, maybe if you could get that far, they'd make a last minute offer to release to us all rights and materials related to CoH in exchange for us getting off their backs. lol
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: CoyoteSeven on August 27, 2013, 01:43:14 AM
Of course this means that the Titan Network will have to officially become a for-profit video game developing/publishing company. But I suppose that anything could be possible!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blondeshell on August 27, 2013, 04:17:37 AM
I'm a little curious as to whether somebody has looked into the feasibility of this.

I'm not a financial analyst, but I can do math.

Judging by today's closing information (http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=036570.KS), NCsoft has roughly 22,000,000 shares outstanding, trading at roughly $150 each. That's over $3 billion left in their market cap. I don't know how much of that would need to be purchased to be considered a takeover attempt, but even 0.0001% of that is probably more than most people have to spend.

tl;dr -- Save your money to help fund a Plan Z project.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: CoyoteSeven on August 27, 2013, 04:46:52 AM
What if we used Plan Z to fund a takeover attempt?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JanessaVR on August 27, 2013, 05:13:26 AM
"It looks as though North American sales has decreased from Q1, but an increase in Japanese and Korean sales has more than made up for the loss."
I wonder what happens when they run out countries with gamers they haven't alienated yet.  Stress on yet, as they just can't seem to help themselves...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blondeshell on August 27, 2013, 10:31:31 PM
What if we used Plan Z to fund a takeover attempt?
I'd rather see Plan Z funded to bring a spiritual successor to City of Heroes to the market, but that's just me.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: CoyoteSeven on August 31, 2013, 12:52:24 AM
No I meant that once Plan Z becomes reality and goes live, we try to use it to help us get back CoH.

And I don't know, maybe if we get that far then we can integrate the two together?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on August 31, 2013, 01:26:11 AM
No I meant that once Plan Z becomes reality and goes live, we try to use it to help us get back CoH.

And I don't know, maybe if we get that far then we can integrate the two together?

While ignoring the massive expense, the amount of coding that would be required would be so massive as to make it effectively impossible.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on September 05, 2013, 01:56:35 AM
I'm a little curious as to whether somebody has looked into the feasibility of this.

Hostile takeovers occur when someone gets enough stock to get a seat on the Board of Directors and then convinces the Board to change leadership. I looked into what it would take back in Feb and wrote this...

Quote
As for the leadership getting forced out... that's also not going to happen. To do that you first need to get a seat on the board, then you need to talk the majority of the board around to ousting Kim. Getting on the board isn't easy. You'd pretty much have to buy out Nexon or TPG to do it. In any case, it would cost somewhere around $200M to get your hands on enough stock to force your way onto the board. And if you did go after Nexon's stock, for example, you'd find they're run by one of Kim's closest friends and that he'd get a better deal and first chance at the stock. But let's say you replace Byung-moo Park on the board. That still leaves you trying to talk two out of three of Kim's close friends and associates into stabbing him in the back (there are five board members, so you need your own vote plus two others). I doubt there's one chance in a billion of getting COO Hee-sang Lee to do that. Meaning you have to get both Myung Oh and Yun-seok Seo to side with you. They're both close to Kim and particularly his wife Yoon. I've said it before and I'll say it again... NCsoft is not some old megacorp being run by a group of detached investor proxies, it's a young company being run by the founders and a very close-knit group of socially connected individuals. There's just no crack for a hostile takeover effort to pry open. Kim isn't going anywhere until he feels like it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on September 05, 2013, 02:30:56 AM
Yup Kosmos.

Come to think of it, if I was asked by one new board member to get rid of a friend, that would be a very hard sell.

Imagine tables turned.

Lets say This website was a corporation with Tony as CEO, the Admin/mods as board members. And say, I don't know, Evil or someone of the likes gets on the board and she feels TonyV slighted her and thus expects the rest to stab TonyV and get rid of him. How many people would vote to do that? And how many would even blame the admin for not ridding of TonyV?

After doing some research, Kim seems to be viewed very very favorable within the board. Most of the time a hostile takeover happens when the board is looking to rid of the CEO and or head haunch anyways but don't have enough to buy em out and thus gets some outside help. And yes in a very few cases, it's the classical outside company just use brute money strength and buy and take over that way but that don't happen too often in big corporations. And NCSOFT is not a small company in the gaming business. They may not do too well relatively in the US or western gaming market but the US and western gaming market isn't the only market. And some people ding them for not making games catered to western tastes very well but to be fair, many US gaming companies like Activision don't build all of their games that cater to Asian taste, like CoD BOPs and of course some American style games do not do well over there but still say they are a worldwide company.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: CoyoteSeven on September 05, 2013, 07:32:07 AM
Well then the answer is obvious. We need to acquire something that NCSoft wants. Something they want very badly.

I have no idea what that is, but I'm willing to bet that would be a more attainable goal than the brute-force method of trying to take over the company, lol.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JWBullfrog on September 05, 2013, 11:58:38 PM
I wonder how much it would cost to buy the baseball team out from under them.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on September 06, 2013, 12:43:42 AM
I wonder how much it would cost to buy the baseball team out from under them.
Probably a pretty penny. They been trying to get into baseball overthere for years. In 2001, they tried buying a team and lost the bid. Then in 2011 created their own, NC Dinos.

Sounds strangely familiar. Made offer, lost, decided to create their own. hmmm. Anyways... to the point.

Not sure how much would they take but given this is the teams first season, they probably want to hold onto it for a bit but I have no idea how the baseball team sale/buy/creation system works there. If it works like buying a MLB team even on a small end, then it's probably pricey that even some run of the mill millionaire can just up and buy one. And seeing that each of the teams is owned by some of the largest corporations in Korea, it's probably very very  exspensive...but less than a hostile takeover  ;D. Want to start a kickstarter for it? :D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on September 06, 2013, 06:30:57 PM
Here big business is content simply having their name on the stadium.  In South Korea and Japan they actually own and run the baseball team.  It's an extension of corporate spirit/pride/ego much like your teams in high school or college.

In their first year the NC Dinos are currently #8 in a 9 team league.  There's an extinction joke in there somewhere.

Rank  Name - Games Played  Won  Tie  Loss  Runs For:Against  Win Percentage

1.    Samsung Lions - 107  61  2  44  539:469  0.589    
           
2.    LG Twins - 109  64  0  45  541:429  0.587    
           
3.    Doosan Bears - 110  62  2  46  601:529  0.582    
           
4.    Nexen Heroes - 109  59  2  48  551:511  0.560    
           
5.    Lotte Giants - 107  53  3  51  457:468  0.523    
           
6.    SK Wyverns - 104  52  2  50  465:448  0.519    
           
7.    KIA Tigers - 105  46  2  57  494:560  0.457    
           
8.    NC Dinos - 109  45  4  60  456:480  0.450    
           
9.    Hanwha Eagles - 106  32  1  73  381:591  0.311    
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on September 06, 2013, 06:32:11 PM
Probably a pretty penny. They been trying to get into baseball overthere for years. In 2001, they tried buying a team and lost the bid. Then in 2011 created their own, NC Dinos.

Sounds strangely familiar. Made offer, lost, decided to create their own. hmmm. Anyways... to the point.

Not sure how much would they take but given this is the teams first season, they probably want to hold onto it for a bit but I have no idea how the baseball team sale/buy/creation system works there. If it works like buying a MLB team even on a small end, then it's probably pricey that even some run of the mill millionaire can just up and buy one. And seeing that each of the teams is owned by some of the largest corporations in Korea, it's probably very very  exspensive...but less than a hostile takeover  ;D. Want to start a kickstarter for it? :D

The teams aren't that expensive, around $20M, but few run in the black so you have to expect to keep feeding money into them. And all are sponsored/owned by large corporations - including Samsung, Kia and LG. The KT Wiz are the next expansion team, to be added in 2015. The teams rarely change hands and - as with all such leagues - getting the OK to join is rather political.

The NC Dinos were originally going to play in Seoul, but ended up in Changwon down on the southern tip of Korea. They replaced Hyundai's defunct club there. The Hyundai club was called the "Unicorns" and folded in 2008. So NCSoft's team is the stand in for the Unicorns. The Unicorns themselves were subsequently resurrected in 2010 and are now known as the Nexen Heroes. Another mild irony for us here on Titan.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on September 06, 2013, 06:46:47 PM
The teams aren't that expensive, around $20M, but few run in the black so you have to expect to keep feeding money into them. And all are sponsored/owned by large corporations - including Samsung, Kia and LG. The KT Wiz are the next expansion team, to be added in 2015. The teams rarely change hands and - as with all such leagues - getting the OK to join is rather political.

The NC Dinos were originally going to play in Seoul, but ended up in Changwon down on the southern tip of Korea. They replaced Hyundai's defunct club there. The Hyundai club was called the "Unicorns" and folded in 2008. So NCSoft's team is the stand in for the Unicorns. The Unicorns themselves were subsequently resurrected in 2010 and are now known as the Nexen Heroes. Another mild irony for us here on Titan.

yeah  I was figuring the maintain factor and the political factor of getting it.  Money and politics go hand in hand.

Did the NC Dinos play the Nexen Heroes yet?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on September 06, 2013, 07:00:02 PM
Here big business is content simply having their name on the stadium.  In South Korea and Japan they actually own and run the baseball team.  It's an extension of corporate spirit/pride/ego much like your teams in high school or college.

In their first year the NC Dinos are currently #8 in a 9 team league.  There's an extinction joke in there somewhere.

Rank  Name - Games Played  Won  Tie  Loss  Runs For:Against  Win Percentage

1.    Samsung Lions - 107  61  2  44  539:469  0.589    
           
2.    LG Twins - 109  64  0  45  541:429  0.587    
           
3.    Doosan Bears - 110  62  2  46  601:529  0.582    
           
4.    Nexen Heroes - 109  59  2  48  551:511  0.560    
           
5.    Lotte Giants - 107  53  3  51  457:468  0.523    
           
6.    SK Wyverns - 104  52  2  50  465:448  0.519    
           
7.    KIA Tigers - 105  46  2  57  494:560  0.457    
           
8.    NC Dinos - 109  45  4  60  456:480  0.450    
           
9.    Hanwha Eagles - 106  32  1  73  381:591  0.311

yeah that tends to happen with new teams sometimes. Tampa Rays (devil Rays) didnt do well in their first few seasons either but made their championship appearance finally in 2008 but lost. But for nearly a decade came dead last most of the time in their division not even breaking the 50% win mark.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on September 06, 2013, 07:44:09 PM
yeah  I was figuring the maintain factor and the political factor of getting it.  Money and politics go hand in hand.

Did the NC Dinos play the Nexen Heroes yet?

They just had a two game series. Nexen won 2-1 yesterday. Today's game was rained out. They split the previous series 6-5, 1-6 (NC's score listed first). Back in June Nexen took 2 out of 3: 4-1, 1-2, 5-9. They split 2 in May: 4-6, 7-1. Nexen took both in April: 0-1, 2-12. And in March they split 2: 1-6, 7-4. So, Nexen leads the head-to-head season series 8-4.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on September 06, 2013, 08:34:03 PM
They just had a two game series. Nexen won 2-1 yesterday. Today's game was rained out. They split the previous series 6-5, 1-6 (NC's score listed first). Back in June Nexen took 2 out of 3: 4-1, 1-2, 5-9. They split 2 in May: 4-6, 7-1. Nexen took both in April: 0-1, 2-12. And in March they split 2: 1-6, 7-4. So, Nexen leads the head-to-head season series 8-4.
Heroes dont win all the time but they prevail most of the time. XD
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Stormsurge on September 12, 2013, 11:23:18 AM
Why waste your money trying to cause NCSoft's downfall when they'll most likely do the work for you? Sure you'll have to wait it out. I'm sure they'll attempt some kind of move that will infuriated the GW2 community, enough for those players to realize as COH players know, just what kind of publisher really supports the game. At least, that's what I hope will happen.

Even so, until they decide to actually release the rights to COH or what have you, there is nothing much we as players can do other then not play their games and not give them money.

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: CoyoteSeven on September 12, 2013, 06:45:37 PM
The focus should not be on the demise of NCSoft. The focus should always been on acquiring all rights, data and material regarding City of Heroes. If that means giving them money, then so be it.

I dream of the day when all of that gets delivered to the Titan Network, and TonyV takes many pictures and shares it with us.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on September 13, 2013, 06:10:23 AM
Why waste your money trying to cause NCSoft's downfall when they'll most likely do the work for you? Sure you'll have to wait it out. I'm sure they'll attempt some kind of move that will infuriated the GW2 community, enough for those players to realize as COH players know, just what kind of publisher really supports the game. At least, that's what I hope will happen.

Even so, until they decide to actually release the rights to COH or what have you, there is nothing much we as players can do other then not play their games and not give them money.
Yeah.

But you can replace COH in your statement with any game they closed and replace GW2 with COX and that is probably what more than a few players said then. Well I know for a fact and seen quite of few players or rather ex-players of Tabula Rasa say something of the sort.

The sad part is that even if NCSOFT falls, the ones that will suffer for it wont be the ones that made the decision. It will be the players and the employees. The people that make the decisions will still have golden parachute and probably walk away in some cases with more money then they were making keeping the company running. Then when they get bored of counting the millions, they might start a new venture and repeat process.

COH players always knew the type of publisher they were dealing with. But it was merely words on the screen at the time of a "disgruntled ex-player salty about their game being closed" and as some put it at the time, came to COX to whine. Now we see what they saw feel what they felt. And hopefully more understanding now of what they were saying and trying to warn us about.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: damo2113 on September 27, 2013, 12:17:44 AM
Hi guys, im new to the thread, but iv been following it for some time. I didnt play COH, but understand your pain, it sucks when something you love it taken from you. My personal opinion is expect aggressive ralliesfor NCSOFT as GW2 goes to china and Wildstar releases next year spring. Also dont forget Lineage Eternal which is looming.

The main reason on im posting is becuase there is a really really decent presence of market knowledge about NCSOFT here and their stocks. I really enjoy listening to all your feedback especially Father Xmas's.

So im curious. we just had a strong rally from 179 500 to 194 000 over the last 2 days. Does anyone know the reason, I personally was expecting to see more Investor Risk sentiment kick in after the lack luster Q2 report we had last month, we had it about 15% drop but now we have seen an aggressive rally in the last few days.

I suspect this is just that inevitable correction you guys where talking about.
I have looked around and short of GW2 releasing a new content patch and 7day free trial, there is little else on the Radar.

Currently my theory is it could be to do with the report "Online, Social and Mobile Games Publishers and Market in Asia" that was just released that had NCSOFT in the report. I cant confirm this, as its locked behind a $3000 paywall. But short of that is this just a correction, or do expensive reports like this cause rallies of over 10% in 2 days?

Cheers
Damo
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: NecrotechMaster on September 27, 2013, 03:55:36 AM
ive still been following this thread as well but not as closesly as ncsoft stocks are stable and not complete nosedive like they were around the time of the shutdown

i was one of the many hoping that they were crashing and burning from the negative publicity (regardless of the actual chance they would have burned out), but obviously that ended up not happening and they seem to have recovered almost completely

so ive not been following their stocks as closely since its not as relevant due to them recovering (the discussion about it still makes sense since if they do happen to somehow crash and burn then would be likely our time to pounce)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on September 27, 2013, 07:42:26 AM
Hi guys, im new to the thread, but iv been following it for some time. I didnt play COH, but understand your pain, it sucks when something you love it taken from you. My personal opinion is expect aggressive ralliesfor NCSOFT as GW2 goes to china and Wildstar releases next year spring. Also dont forget Lineage Eternal which is looming.

The main reason on im posting is becuase there is a really really decent presence of market knowledge about NCSOFT here and their stocks. I really enjoy listening to all your feedback especially Father Xmas's.

So im curious. we just had a strong rally from 179 500 to 194 000 over the last 2 days. Does anyone know the reason, I personally was expecting to see more Investor Risk sentiment kick in after the lack luster Q2 report we had last month, we had it about 15% drop but now we have seen an aggressive rally in the last few days.

I suspect this is just that inevitable correction you guys where talking about.
I have looked around and short of GW2 releasing a new content patch and 7day free trial, there is little else on the Radar.

Currently my theory is it could be to do with the report "Online, Social and Mobile Games Publishers and Market in Asia" that was just released that had NCSOFT in the report. I cant confirm this, as its locked behind a $3000 paywall. But short of that is this just a correction, or do expensive reports like this cause rallies of over 10% in 2 days?

Cheers
Damo

Honestly don't know.  Haven't seen any news from Asia that would have spurred the market that much, just some standard PR from NCSOFT.  But that price surge had 5-6x the usual number of shares traded.  Some big event in Lineage announced a few days ago.  Aion released V4.5 (or maybe info on 4.5, Google Translate garbles) and B&S is having a population upswing in Korea with the V2.0 release but that announcement was two weeks ago.  B&S play test server is up in China but that was the end of August, something between closed and open beta.  Except for that Lineage bit everything was more than a week old.

What might have happen is someone decided the bad news about the Wildstar delay, which caused all the analysts to lower their estimates, along with the 2Q numbers that hammered the stock in August was an overreaction. 

Or there was a leak, a good juicy positive leak that isn't quite public yet.

Definitely had nothing to do with the baseball team.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Pinnacle Blue on September 27, 2013, 10:55:25 AM
I wonder how much it would cost to buy the baseball team out from under them.

If I could afford to, I'd certainly buy it right out from under them.

And then I'd shut it down.  I'd cite "a realignment of focus" as my reason.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: TonyV on September 27, 2013, 02:46:16 PM
In their first year the NC Dinos are currently #8 in a 9 team league.  There's an extinction joke in there somewhere.

Rank  Name - Games Played  Won  Tie  Loss  Runs For:Against  Win Percentage
1.    Samsung Lions - 107  61  2  44  539:469  0.589    
2.    LG Twins - 109  64  0  45  541:429  0.587    
3.    Doosan Bears - 110  62  2  46  601:529  0.582    
4.    Nexen Heroes - 109  59  2  48  551:511  0.560    
5.    Lotte Giants - 107  53  3  51  457:468  0.523    
6.    SK Wyverns - 104  52  2  50  465:448  0.519    
7.    KIA Tigers - 105  46  2  57  494:560  0.457    
8.    NC Dinos - 109  45  4  60  456:480  0.450    
9.    Hanwha Eagles - 106  32  1  73  381:591  0.311

I don't know about you guys, but I just became a Hanwha Eagles fan.   ;)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Merseine on September 27, 2013, 03:09:46 PM
I don't know about you guys, but I just became a Hanwha Eagles fan.   ;)

As a Cubs fan, I can totally relate.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on September 27, 2013, 11:06:57 PM
I don't know about you guys, but I just became a Hanwha Eagles fan.   ;)

NC Dinos have moved into 7th, by one win and one tie.

http://www.sportstats.com/baseball/south-korea/kpb/standings/

As for news, and I don't know why I missed it, there was the big Korean Games Conference going on.  I didn't see any NCSOFT news specifically but maybe the outcry of PC online games are dead, mobile games are the future was talked about and proven ToD was called a tad soon?  If MMOs aren't going the way of the Dodo, or even subscription based games in the west,  then a company like NCSOFT with their portfolio isn't in a bad position for future growth.

I'm grasping here.  Maybe it was just generally positive industry news related to the KGC that raised interest in all the game company stocks there.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Twisted Toon on September 28, 2013, 01:05:59 AM
NC Dinos have moved into 7th, by one win and one tie.

http://www.sportstats.com/baseball/south-korea/kpb/standings/

As for news, and I don't know why I missed it, there was the big Korean Games Conference going on.  I didn't see any NCSOFT news specifically but maybe the outcry of PC online games are dead, mobile games are the future was talked about and proven ToD was called a tad soon?  If MMOs aren't going the way of the Dodo, or even subscription based games in the west,  then a company like NCSOFT with their portfolio isn't in a bad position for future growth.

I'm grasping here.  Maybe it was just generally positive industry news related to the KGC that raised interest in all the game company stocks there.

Your guess is as good as the execs' at NCSoft...probably even better.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on September 28, 2013, 05:16:49 AM
It's also the end of the quarter so, there could have been some leaks about how they thought the quarter went.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: damo2113 on September 28, 2013, 12:15:05 PM
Isnt the Financial Quarter ending early November? Also i just wanted to point out that i was watching the stocks when Wildstars delay was confirmed which occured i think several days prior to the earning release. Interestingly the stocks didnt move. So honestly not sure how closely investors are even eyeing wild star yet. Same thing when they announced the payment model, no movement. Which for me was the biggest news ever, had it gone free to play i would have thought investors would have gotten nervous.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on September 28, 2013, 05:40:56 PM
usually investors that get too nervous and worry about day to day movement end up losing the most money instead of focusing on the big picture over all.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on September 28, 2013, 10:29:49 PM
Isnt the Financial Quarter ending early November? Also i just wanted to point out that i was watching the stocks when Wildstars delay was confirmed which occured i think several days prior to the earning release. Interestingly the stocks didnt move. So honestly not sure how closely investors are even eyeing wild star yet. Same thing when they announced the payment model, no movement. Which for me was the biggest news ever, had it gone free to play i would have thought investors would have gotten nervous.

Quarter ends Sept 30th, we don't hear about it until mid November.  That's why a leak can be profitable if you get in front of it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: damo2113 on September 30, 2013, 01:37:36 AM
Oh, ok well that explains alot. Not sure how anyone would get a hold of the leak though, must be high level stuff i suspect.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on September 30, 2013, 09:25:42 PM
It could be as simple as an offhanded comment on how things are going, overheard at the conference.  Analysts tea leaf reading popularity numbers at PC Cafes or even web traffic, they find someone from the company that might know something, say a comment in passing like "it sure looks like XYZ did really well this quarter" and gauge the expression on that person.  They could say something negative and a furrow of the brow can imply "what are you talking about, we did great".  Heck even old fashion eavesdropping (or high tech parabolic mike) of those people having lunch can yield hints.

If an analyst can call it then they get more people paying him to get his incites ahead of the curve.

Anywho I expect the stock to drift down as others sell some of their stock to cash in on the rise until mid Nov.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on October 01, 2013, 07:28:44 PM
If an analyst can call it then they get more people paying him to get his incites ahead of the curve.

Another nice typo; I think NCSoft may well have been paying Daewoo's guy for some incites last year.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: damo2113 on October 02, 2013, 12:39:38 AM
I tend to agree fatherXmas, we should see some pullback before the next earnings release, but after this unexpected rise, and the fact there has been another rise this morning so far leads me to think this quarter could turn out alot better than expected.

Im not even sure blade and souls will be released in china this quarter which i was hoping to support prices. Should be an Interesting 4th Quarter.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on October 02, 2013, 07:06:45 AM
I tend to agree fatherXmas, we should see some pullback before the next earnings release, but after this unexpected rise, and the fact there has been another rise this morning so far leads me to think this quarter could turn out alot better than expected.

Im not even sure blade and souls will be released in china this quarter which i was hoping to support prices. Should be an Interesting 4th Quarter.

But this rise didn't have the same spike in trade volume.  So it's more of a traditional rebound after profits taken.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on October 02, 2013, 07:08:31 AM
Another nice typo; I think NCSoft may well have been paying Daewoo's guy for some incites last year.

Oops.  I think the first time I typed incest, also an interesting typo.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Tubbius on October 02, 2013, 03:35:04 PM
Santa knows about stocks, as well he should.  :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on October 19, 2013, 08:59:54 PM
Missed this a from last week.  KDB Daewoo posted a month ahead of time guesstimate about 3rd quarter numbers as well as how the rest of the year should go.

No real big shifts other than slight tweaks in their L1 and royalty income numbers, down slightly.   They've puffed up the news the B&S is closer to release in China which they say well happen by year's end.  But I wouldn't hold your breath, things always move slower than one expects.

In the end 3Q sales numbers and profits will likely be down year over year which means the stock price will likely drop when the official numbers do.

For 4Q they are expecting a big kick in L1 sales due to the cash shop and B&S recovering a bit in Korea but the expected royalties from B&S in China, poof, mostly gone.  In the end, 2013 sales will be flat but KDB is still expecting higher profits, in the 30% range (optimistic much?).

Most interesting but not surprising fact in the document is how LoL is swamping Korean games in the PC Cafes.  NCSOFT's best game in PC Cafes is Aion with around 9 million hours a month played.  LoL is around 90 million hours.  Meet the WoW of MOBAs.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: damo2113 on October 23, 2013, 10:15:23 PM
Yeh its crazy, if you go to a site called Gametrics(in korean), it gives you a fantastic breakdown of the top 10 games being played. LOL is doing crazy well, wow and SC2/SC1 arnt even on the list anymore interestingly.

Hmm, so you suspect NCSOFT will start losing a bit of ground over the next few quarters huh? Cant say i fault that logic if we dont get B&S in china anytime soon.

What did you mean by "For 4Q they are expecting a big kick in L1 sales due to the cash shop and B&S recovering a bit in Korea" Kick as in bad or good :P?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on October 24, 2013, 04:27:14 AM
Have Gametrics site bookmarked but a lot of the details are behind a paywall.  But I find the breakdown of PC Cafe hardware interesting.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on October 24, 2013, 05:29:31 AM
Yeh its crazy, if you go to a site called Gametrics(in korean), it gives you a fantastic breakdown of the top 10 games being played. LOL is doing crazy well, wow and SC2/SC1 arnt even on the list anymore interestingly.

Hmm, so you suspect NCSOFT will start losing a bit of ground over the next few quarters huh? Cant say i fault that logic if we dont get B&S in china anytime soon.

What did you mean by "For 4Q they are expecting a big kick in L1 sales due to the cash shop and B&S recovering a bit in Korea" Kick as in bad or good :P?

Think SC2/SC1 refers to StarCraft,


StarCraft 1 is on there right below Blade and Soul (5) in the number 6 slot.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: damo2113 on October 28, 2013, 10:02:45 PM
Yeh its a shame about the pay wall thing. Even worse non koreans cant sign up for their services without a citizens code. Kinda lame.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on October 28, 2013, 11:14:47 PM
Yeh its a shame about the pay wall thing. Even worse non koreans cant sign up for their services without a citizens code. Kinda lame.
Yeah heard about that change. Back when I was in Korea, the game cafes were the hot spot for many soldiers. No citizen code needed then. Times seemed to have changed.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: damo2113 on October 29, 2013, 05:16:14 AM
Must suck for businesses trying to work abroad. No one can by their goods and services! Im sure there is a way around it for those businesses, there would have to be.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on October 29, 2013, 08:40:19 AM
The citizen code is so age can be verified since they passed a law that kicks 18 and under off all online games, including consoles,  from midnight to 8am.  And I think the current government is looking to expand it to 21 and under starting at 10pm.  And they were looking to tax online game companies to fund internet addiction centers. 

"Think of the children" works for politicians world over I guess.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on November 13, 2013, 12:42:03 AM
The citizen code is so age can be verified since they passed a law that kicks 18 and under off all online games, including consoles,  from midnight to 8am.  And I think the current government is looking to expand it to 21 and under starting at 10pm.  And they were looking to tax online game companies to fund internet addiction centers. 

"Think of the children" works for politicians world over I guess.
hey politicians are like soap operas. different language but same plot.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on November 13, 2013, 06:21:20 AM
hey politicians are like soap operas. different language but same plot.

But the Spanish ones have so much more cleavage.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on November 13, 2013, 06:30:53 AM
But the Spanish ones have so much more cleavage.
indeed
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: healix on November 13, 2013, 06:43:29 AM
'Cleavage'...doesn't that mean one of the many phrases coined by June Cleaver"

"Ward, I think you were a little hard on The Beaver last night..."
 (https://i.imgur.com/f7sbPfT.jpg)  (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_FDMZkuGgWBA/TUmfTGgopeI/AAAAAAAAARI/G4jpc8hCnms/s320/June+Cleaver.jpg)
 (https://i.imgur.com/MdprRTwl.jpg)
 (https://i.imgur.com/snmhkjW.jpg) 
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on November 15, 2013, 02:28:10 AM
3rd quarter numbers are up ... FINALLY!

Short version, down, down, down.  Sales down quarter over quarter and year over year, same with profits.

All titles had lower sales except B&S which had good numbers due to a major update, if I followed Google Translate, was woefully late enough that the devs publicly apologized.

Lineage  - down 26.5% QoQ but up 62.7% YoY
Lineage 2 - down 8.7% QoQ, down 1.8% YoY
Aion - down 2.8% QoQ, down 16.1% YoY
B&S - up 43.5% QoQ, down 37.8% YoY
GW2 - down 15.3% QoQ, down 46.6% YoY
Other - up 26.0% QoQ, up 67.6% YoY
Royalties - down 24.4% QoQ, down 34.0% YoY

Overall sales, down 11.6% QoQ, down 6.8% YoY

They blame the drop in royalties to Lineage in Taiwan and Aion in China.  Also "Other" (I assume mainly their new mobile games) had higher sales than Lineage 2.

That's one half of the equation, the other half, expenses went up.  Culprits include higher royalties to the baseball league, more marketing for Wildstar, costs associated to the new building being finished and relocating to it.

Expenses up 7.1% QoQ, but down 4.4% YoY.

Which combine leads to profits down 23.1% QoQ and down 44.2% YoY.

So since the last report the stock climbed back above 200,000 KrW.  As of this moment the stock price is meandering around 208,500 which is where it closed yesterday.  No real big moves either way yet.

As for company news, the last closed but non-DB wipe closed beta is going on in China with the open beta soon to follow.  They have a Korean female idol group heavily promoting the game in China.  However it looks that the game will be F2P with a F2P style cash shop which I assume they are use to in China.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: DarkCurrent on November 15, 2013, 03:40:53 AM
You mean their lemonade stand business plan is failing?   :o

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=asset.100.ggftw.net%2Fgallery%2Fimages%2F296%2F1_blade___soul_art_1.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JanessaVR on November 15, 2013, 03:47:57 AM
Well, excellent news, FatherXmas.  Thanks for keeping us up to date.  A plague on their house.  I'll sleep well with visions of their sweet, sweet suffering...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on November 15, 2013, 04:17:51 AM
3rd quarter numbers are up ... FINALLY!

Short version, down, down, down.  Sales down quarter over quarter and year over year, same with profits.

All titles had lower sales except B&S which had good numbers due to a major update, if I followed Google Translate, was woefully late enough that the devs publicly apologized.

Lineage  - down 26.5% QoQ but up 62.7% YoY
Lineage 2 - down 8.7% QoQ, down 1.8% YoY
Aion - down 2.8% QoQ, down 16.1% YoY
B&S - up 43.5% QoQ, down 37.8% YoY
GW2 - down 15.3% QoQ, down 46.6% YoY
Other - up 26.0% QoQ, up 67.6% YoY
Royalties - down 24.4% QoQ, down 34.0% YoY

Overall sales, down 11.6% QoQ, down 6.8% YoY

They blame the drop in royalties to Lineage in Taiwan and Aion in China.  Also "Other" (I assume mainly their new mobile games) had higher sales than Lineage 2.

That's one half of the equation, the other half, expenses went up.  Culprits include higher royalties to the baseball league, more marketing for Wildstar, costs associated to the new building being finished and relocating to it.

Expenses up 7.1% QoQ, but down 4.4% YoY.

Which combine leads to profits down 23.1% QoQ and down 44.2% YoY.

So since the last report the stock climbed back above 200,000 KrW.  As of this moment the stock price is meandering around 208,500 which is where it closed yesterday.  No real big moves either way yet.

As for company news, the last closed but non-DB wipe closed beta is going on in China with the open beta soon to follow.  They have a Korean female idol group heavily promoting the game in China.  However it looks that the game will be F2P with a F2P style cash shop which I assume they are use to in China.

yeah things are down. It was bound to happen. Not the first time not the last time. Things been down from time to  time before with COX alive and probably will be down from time to time after COX.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: healix on November 15, 2013, 11:18:49 AM
(https://i.imgur.com/O6GyUiq.gif)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Randomvector on November 15, 2013, 10:36:32 PM
just 4-5 more years of this and maybe they will have to sell our game!

Next year in Paragon!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JanessaVR on November 15, 2013, 10:59:54 PM
just 4-5 more years of this and maybe they will have to sell our game!

Next year in Paragon!
No, they never will.  The stars will fade and the universe will die of heat death before they ever consider loosing it from their bony grasp.  That's why SCoRE is so important - we will never, ever get the game back except by reverse engineering and community servers.  Count on it.  There is no Option B here.  There are no circumstances under which NCSoft will ever sell CoH.  Because they're evil and uncaring - end of story.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on November 15, 2013, 11:10:58 PM
possible, but thye probably just simply shrink their expendures first. Only way they probably will sell if they do something stupid like take out a bunch of loans that involve a lot more than the cash they have and income declare bankruptcy and lot of the stuff is disolved. Remember GM had worse and yet Pntiac Hummer, Oldsmobile and etc no longer made but still GM property that if they would have sold it probably would have held off bankruptcy for about a day or two except now they just lost assests.

And there probably are not many people lining up with premium money that is itching to buy an 8 year old defunct game that need a major engine over haul, and hope to make some sort of money from it that during it's time barely made 2 million a quarter in the end and hit peak about 7 years ago and sldie ever since. Then the small companies that probably would do it probably dont have that type of cheddar, the know how, and the inside to get it done. especially in bankrupt preceedings where it isnt like normal people going broke. They take everything and you go sell off stuff at public auction. Many times it's invite only meaning that even if COX end up being sold, it probably will be presented to Asian game makers of the area and a few american big dogs.  Most american big dogs if they wanted NCSOFT and it's stuff they probably would have done it by now in one way or another.  So that most,y leave the asian market hoping that one of them buys a game that didnt even do well at all in that market. Some may just buy it for the name but it's probably a best bet that if that happens, it would be maybe COX in name only if even that. Maybe a mecha online game or something. Seen some pretty bad ass mecha games in my times korea that didnt/dont even exist in the states. Either way the worse possible thing that probably could happen to COX IP is that it sinks with the ship, then things would be even slimmer of it coming back than if NCSOFT is alive. Best thing is for them to do well, then they wont need to hold on to COX IP for a rainy day. Or do well so they make more games and eventually do some house cleaning and probably sell at very good deal. Because even with bankruptcy, as much as many wish for it, doesnt mean they immediately sell everything and anything like normal people do. Normal people go broke, they sell the house and downsize in many cases, the car, and etc. D. Trump declare bankrupcy about every ten years and barely sell a toe nail to make ends meet.

It's like a credit wipe by american standards. Now being Korean company, many times when a korean company goes down, they do not allow foriegn investors come in and buy stuff or part of the company. Meaning in Korea, COX would more than likely stay in Korea if they did sink (more than likely an internal friendly deal loan that never have to be repaid by Nexon). Kind of like what happened to Kia. They had trouble, GM wanted to buy them, Ford was interested. Got blocked, both of the two biggest world giant inthe car industry, and a friendly deal with Hyundai to buy them out for a lot less than what GM and Ford was each offering.  As long as NCSOFT is alive, there is a chance that it can come back to the states. If NCSOFT dies, then might as well forget it coming back. Especially now with the three games coming, the reverse engineer thing. Quite frankly it would be financial suicide to even bring COX back at this point under a big name company. Many people of ex-coxer fame said they dont trust big corporations anymore and thus will bolt as soon as CoT and the other games come out, Then some people that moved on, then some that probably will leave at the slightest change to COX, and with the reverse engineer thing it wouldnt even be worth it to be honest as there is even less of a player base for NCSOFT COX than it was even in it's lowest last days. 

Like JanessaVR said, the reverse engineering is probably the best bet for getting COX back.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: srmalloy on November 16, 2013, 04:11:02 PM
Apparently NCSoft's financial issues are a big enough deal to be reported on Massively (http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/11/15/ncsoft-takes-a-financial-hit-in-q3-2013/).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on November 16, 2013, 07:22:57 PM
It's a matter of putting things in context.  Last 3rd quarter in 2012 they had income for one month of box sales from GW2.

Year over year costs have actually declined.  While old timey Lineage, the WoW of Korea, surged to all time highs last 2nd quarter.

No next quarter, 4Q 2013, if you don't look at context will appear disastrous.  Without a new MMO in the west driving box sales, due to WildStar being delayed, the huge sales influx that GW2 had last year simply won't be there.  Conservatively I expect a 90-95,000 million KrW reduction in sales for GW2 with little to make up for it.  Even if B&S is somewhat successful in China it's still not out yet there beyond beta with 1/2 the quarter gone.  And seeing how Aion sales are off in China it makes me wonder if B&S there will do to Aion as it appeared B&S did to Aion in Korea, pull Aion players into B&S leading to very limited change to overall royalty income from China.  GW2's release is also delayed in China.

So if you think the press thinks it looks bad this quarter, wait until Feb 2014, it'll look as if it is the end times.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on November 17, 2013, 05:37:38 PM
(https://i.imgur.com/O6GyUiq.gif)

*snerk*

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch, I say.

I am frankly delighted that they are already ticking off GW2 fans by not releasing new content for that game. Way to go! Everyone's like "GW2 needs this, GW2 needs that." Newsflash, people: NCSOFT DONT CARE. They just quite simply do not care! They do not care about GW2 or any game in their stable, or their customers, get used to the idea.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: microc on November 17, 2013, 10:10:54 PM
anyone read this??
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/game-534492-carbine-people.html
taken a long time and almost 50 million for wildstar and it still not ready.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: damo2113 on November 18, 2013, 12:22:15 AM
Hey guys. Any of you know how to download the conference call for the earnings report?

For the life of me i cant seem to get that damn thing to either download or stream.

Cheers

Im also suprised that the stock prices havnt tumbled yet. We had a worse result than last quarter, and the response to that release was pretty immediate.

Any ideas why investors arnt selling up in anticipation for the likely poor report coming in Feb?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on November 18, 2013, 03:00:03 AM
Hey guys. Any of you know how to download the conference call for the earnings report?

For the life of me i cant seem to get that damn thing to either download or stream.

Cheers

Im also suprised that the stock prices havnt tumbled yet. We had a worse result than last quarter, and the response to that release was pretty immediate.

Any ideas why investors arnt selling up in anticipation for the likely poor report coming in Feb?

Major professional investors don't panic and sell as soon as they lose a few bucks. Many actually buy more when the price drops. It's about long term. Many of those guys been in it since 2009 and prior. And some of those people are actually still way ahead from when they first started. Many pay attention to business news, trends, past trends, future projections, other professionals, and stuff before making a decision. Right now, it's in "hold" status. Long term is talking about 5-10 years and beyond.   

Then you have some people in it for the short term. Flippers. They probably already sold before they lost money while they are still on top. These guys watch stocks by the minutes live feed usually, and buy and sell with the swings by the hour.

Then you have your amateurs, they sell when they lose money panic and sell and end up losing money. then try to rebuy when the price go up and end up further in the hole.

Right now for some trying to get in, many people wait for the prices to get low then they buy anticipating an upswing in a few quarters.

All stock charts look like roller coaster to experienced stock buyer it's normality. To a newbie, panic sets in and they end up prematurely selling.

Apple stocks also recently dropped a couple of quarters ago even though the new iphone came out and sold like hot cakes.. I think they went up since then. Now those people that got scared and sold, lost out of potential gains. The old investors didn't bother or bought more.

Walmart had a few bad quarters this year too. Facebook (didn't even stay at it's projected opening price for even a day when it went public but still worth billions and still making more money than it was prior to it going public), ATT, GM even though they had record sells), Microsoft, it happen. Experienced stocker expect the less experienced to sell and drive the price down a bit so they can buy.


Remember it's like COH market. Buy low sell high.


When a company is doing truly bad, it usually can be seen from miles away if one know what to look for, which is another skill a lot of amateur stockers don't know how to spot. Usually by then, a straight nose dive, not the usual up and downs, nose dives are spotted. That is sure sign that people are hopping ship and usually there are also a lot of news and red flags even in business publications long before that that says, "Heads up this company is going down."

A friend of mine said it was expected with the drop because NCSOFT isn't really realizing nay games, and with the new consoles coming out and new games getting it in for Christmas season, sales will be lower next quarter report.


Remember stock prices alone are not the heart beat of how well a company is doing. There are many factors to get a good pulse. Stock prices is more like trying to judge a pulse by pressing on the gallbladder.

Plus majority of the stockholders probably never played COX and some probably never heard of it beyond in a financial report. Even here, majority us, actual players, probably don't or never had ncsoft stock even when COX was alive. Thus their decision probably have nothing to do with the plight of COX. Or what they say. But I'm trying to do my part in changing that but don't have much to present that would reach them on their level and mindset. Like I said the heart warming stuff, that is cool, but these stock holders are mostly business and wouldn't give their own mother $10 if it look like bad investment. Not to mention the language barrier of those that control majority of the stuff and power. 

Nexon in 2012 bought 685 million shares worth of NCSOFT stock. That only put them at a little over 14%, the largest single entity owner. Kim owns about 10%, 9% are treasury shares, rest are others. For a sense of how large NCSOFT is.
 
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on November 18, 2013, 04:24:59 PM
It has been almost a year since our game closed, and NCSoft's stock has for the most part headed down and down and down. This is not really about the concept of their company not doing well because they hurt us in particular, although that is delicious icing on the cake. This is about the idea that they cannot run a company to save their lives.

This is no flash in the pan, their stock has been trending down for almost a year now.

On top of that, they are plainly telling us that they have learned nothing from the CoX debacle. They still don't care about their customers, nor do they care about their stable of games. They are not really interested in even keeping the customers they have, they want to release the New Shiny, skim those profits then move on. Are they alienating people with this strategy? Too bad so sad. Its all about the immediate buck and to hell with the future.

Delicious. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JanessaVR on November 18, 2013, 06:08:18 PM
Indeed.  I can't help but want to channel Eric Cartman in this instance - "Yes! Yesss!!  Oh, let me taste your tears, NCSoft!  Mmm, your tears are so yummy and sweet.  Oh, the tears of unfathomable sadness!  My-yummy."   ;D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Illusionss on November 18, 2013, 07:53:14 PM
See, me I would be all about the "this thing here cost a million dollars to make. So! let's make this pony trot for just as long as he will trot. Then we put him out to pasture - gently - and concentrate on our other ponies which are still trotting fast. This pony served us well and he deserves respect."

Nope, its all "this pony isn't trotting as fast as he used to. Oh well! I'll go get the bolt-pistol and you wrangle him into the killing chute, ok? And never mind about the pony's loving owners I mean customers, lined up along the corral wall watching with tears in their eyes and their jaws on the ground. To hell with them, they don't matter anyway. We can replace them in a minute. No biggie!"

That is just what they did.

WOW.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on November 18, 2013, 07:57:47 PM
well actually between the closing of COX and now, about 1 year their stock are actually over all, went up. When COX closed, it was at about 156,000 won a share (Nov 16 2012 closing). Right now it's about 215,000 won a share.

It dipped down in the first few days of Dec 2012 to about 147,000 won a share, then went back up to closed at 165,000 Dec 14 2012. It hit it's lowest within the past year Feb 6 2012 at 128,000 and been over all climbing up since then.

5 year trend
Nov. 20 2008, it's stock closed at 39,000won.  Nov 18th 2013 closed at 215,500. (keep in mind it's about Tuesday 4 am odd 19 Nov. 2013 in Seoul, Korea.)

So overall, their stocks haven't been going down since the closing. Their stocks actually started dropping overall in 2011 about oct 24 2011 from 369,000 won a share to 299,000 by nov 25 2011 and down ever since until recently starting uptick overall after going down to 128,000 in feb 2013. Basically the down turn of their stock prices started before the announcement and while COX was well and alive. The down turn is not because of the closing of COX, although it may or may have not have helped. Overall whether COX was alive or dead seemed to have miniscule effect on the stock prices unless it could also be said that  it caused their down turn too way back in 2011 COX did indeed have a major effect and and they are now recovering from the damage.  But more than likely, the case is that COX didn't have hardly any type of effect and the closing didn't have much effect either. Because even their lowest since COX closed is above their lowest when COX was alive and way prior to the announcement.

If someone recently purchased a substantial amount of stock, in feb 7th, now they would have made a decent sized profit for such a short amount of time.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: damo2113 on November 19, 2013, 02:28:33 AM
Yeh, hate to say it but COH was not a big factor in Ncsofts dip in share price. It was their overall performance the year prior, of which Coh was one of the smaller aspects in that poor performance.

You will note that ever since the record figures of GW2 Box sales last year the selling took a sudden halt and since we have been climbing back.

And from what im seeing on the charts currently, the share prices are testing a key reistance level from the fall of 2012 after the initial freakout over lackluster GW2 numbers.
And currently it looks to be making a break to the up side. Could 250 000 krw be on the tables now?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: damo2113 on November 22, 2013, 01:10:57 AM
Stocks Just shot up again. I see no fundamental reason to think the stocks should be gaining momentum. What do you guys think? Are the markets looking forward and seeing the stocks as oversold?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on November 22, 2013, 01:21:27 AM
Stocks Just shot up again. I see no fundamental reason to think the stocks should be gaining momentum. What do you guys think? Are the markets looking forward and seeing the stocks as oversold?
probably normal fluctuation.

Stocks go down, many investors sometimes buy (unless the fish hit the shan). The prices go up, some collect their profits others hold.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: damo2113 on November 22, 2013, 02:41:54 AM
Maybe, it just seems very interesting that alot of volatility is occuring after such a average quarterly report. I could expect a hold or a sell off, but a consolidated buy signal suggests something more, if you look at the trend over the past year, ncsoft is experiencing unusual buying over the last month. I suspect a sell off soon to pull the stocks back within its trend line, but if that doesnt occur, then i suspect we wont see one any time soon.

Maybe im just naive, but i think this might be the beginning of a proper recovery going into 2013
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on November 22, 2013, 02:51:08 AM
Maybe, it just seems very interesting that alot of volatility is occuring after such a average quarterly report. I could expect a hold or a sell off, but a consolidated buy signal suggests something more, if you look at the trend over the past year, ncsoft is experiencing unusual buying over the last month. I suspect a sell off soon to pull the stocks back within its trend line, but if that doesnt occur, then i suspect we wont see one any time soon.


Indeed.

Don't worry many corporations have volatility after average and in many cases below average quarterly reports. It's not as unusual as it seems on the surface. Sometimes there are big dips and dismal sales and the stock prices still rise and sometimes stock prices drop even though they had record sales and growth.  While sometimes they can affect each other they don't always go hand in hand. Many times they go in opposite directions.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: damo2113 on November 22, 2013, 03:45:01 AM
Heh, seems as if then the price is practically up to chance :P Maybe its wishful thinking to think there is a method in the madness :P
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JaguarX on November 22, 2013, 05:18:29 AM
Heh, seems as if then the price is practically up to chance :P Maybe its wishful thinking to think there is a method in the madness :P

There is a method, but lot of chance too.

There will be the basics out there for the method part  but not too advanced because if everyone knew too much, then lot of wall streeters would be out of a job. :p
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on November 22, 2013, 05:42:17 AM
The reason is Blade & Soul will be going to open beta in China next week and the company running it there announced they are expanding the number of servers from 19 to 33.  Plus this open beta isn't IP blocked.  If you can read Mandarin/Simplified Chinese then you can join in, the game is F2P and accounts will not be wiped when it goes live.

KDB Daewoo pushed out another doc that says this last CB of B&S also opened the cash shop (since it wasn't going to have an account wipe) so they should see some income from B&S in 4th quarter 2013 as well.  Plus they, KDB, says GW2 in China will also be 1Q 2014 and WildStar in 2Q 2014 in NA and EU.  On top of the B&S cash shop royalties, there is a Lineage cash shop event in December so KDB expect 4Q profits to be higher than this miserable 3Q. 

So all this "good" news means buy, buy, buy.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on November 23, 2013, 07:34:25 PM
There is a method, but lot of chance too.

There will be the basics out there for the method part  but not too advanced because if everyone knew too much, then lot of wall streeters would be out of a job. :p

Which is why I wish they would teach finance in High School.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: LadyShin on November 24, 2013, 06:22:06 PM
Coming up on the holidays... And I can only imagine what's going on at NCSoft HQ...

hmm...

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=assets.diylol.com%2Fhfs%2F578%2F5de%2Fbb7%2Fresized%2Fscrooge-meme-generator-city-of-heroes-bah-city-of-humbugs-7bc4bc.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: healix on November 26, 2013, 02:05:48 AM
My faves...

(https://i.imgur.com/ciwXlcG.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/s1GZ9WM.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/4drQ3C9l.jpg)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: OzonePrime on November 27, 2013, 02:22:40 PM
My faves...

(https://i.imgur.com/ciwXlcG.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/s1GZ9WM.jpg)

(https://i.imgur.com/4drQ3C9l.jpg)
Love! :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: damo2113 on January 17, 2014, 04:32:18 AM
Soo, apparently the Korean Gov is at it again.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/south-korea-considers-law-to-classify-online-gaming-as-a-potentially-antisocial-addiction-8998538.html

This goes in front of the parliment early next month (Feb), and is already causing some panic amongst stock holders.

Thoughts?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JanessaVR on January 17, 2014, 04:42:12 AM
My thoughts?  Maybe we could pass the plate around and try to bribe...uh, "lobby," yeah, that's it...some Korean politicians to pass this bill.   ;)

Anything that could hurt NCSoft even a little is a good thing.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Drauger9 on January 17, 2014, 05:56:55 AM
Quote
Anything that could hurt NCSoft even a little is a good thing.

Then what if the EU and America follow suit?

From the Article:
Quote
However, gaming companies have argued such a bill would be a death sentence for the industry. In a statement, the Korea Internet and Digital Entertainment Association, which represents game companies said: "The 100,000 people employed in the game industry are not drugmakers."

Though I doubt it'd be a "death sentene". I do think companies like NCSoft would be less willing to take risk on "niche" markets like super heroe MMOs.

So if the South Korea does pass this law. Then maybe companies like NCSoft would be interested in the western markets again. Unless the EU and America decide that video games are a virtual Meth lab. LOL!

I know that this probably wont pass but when I see stories like this. I try to look at the big picture, since gamers here are still considered outside the norm.

Wonder what the StarCraft community thinks about this? And didn't South Korea have a government StarCraft team?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 17, 2014, 09:02:55 AM
On one hand you can say it's a tax grab disguised as a "for the children" protection program.  The current ruling party wants to include online gaming, internet use in general, with alcohol, drugs and gambling addiction.  This way they can insist that game companies must "contribute" 1% of the earnings toward prevention and treatment clinics.  But they don't want to ban it just as they don't ban alcohol.

They also want to restrict youth's access to online play by both increasing the age restrictions (to 21) and forced offline time (to 10p till 8a) in an effort to "keep the youth excelling in school and college" because it's believed that's how South Korea can flourish and it's the fear of the ruling party that the technological growth of South Korea is coming to an end.  It's become their "comic books cause juvenile delinquency" coupled with "look at all that money".

It's funny that the story called out Nexon via Maplestory because even though Nexon started in South Korea, it's now a Japanese company with it's main office in Tokyo, traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange and reports it's earnings in yen.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: damo2113 on January 17, 2014, 11:53:14 AM
Yeh, i found that funny too, nexon wont really be anywhere as affected.

FatherXmas, do you think the bill is likley to pass? And if it did, how bad do you reckon the damage would be?
They say "14 members of parliment" already support it, but i googled it quickly and there are 300 members.

14/300, well you can do the math on that passing..
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on January 17, 2014, 02:50:27 PM
So if the South Korea does pass this law. Then maybe companies like NCSoft would be interested in the western markets again. Unless the EU and America decide that video games are a virtual Meth lab. LOL!

That'll only be true once the Breaking Bad video game comes out.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on January 18, 2014, 05:29:29 PM
Another large factor that applies really only to South Korea is the gaming culture in that country. Some gamers, particularly in Starcraft, are like professional athletes, at least in terms of salary and popularity. It's not a perfect analogy, but it is something kind of unique to that country. The likelihood of a law like that being even proposed in the US or EU is slim to none, unless we see a rash of kids in either region dying of malnutrition because they're gaming to the exclusion of all else. You'll notice that any news piece about truly bad behavior focuses on someone in SK or China.

On the other hand, I will always rub my hands together and cackle like a bad cartoon villain at the mere prospect of fiscal harm coming to NC$oft, because @#$% them...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Randomvector on January 28, 2014, 02:17:04 AM
Whats been fueling the big drop the last few days?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 28, 2014, 04:27:11 AM
No idea but a 20% loss in value in about 20 trading days is ... interesting.  Nothing sticks out in the news over there.  There is a general malaise in the world stock markets this month with declines everywhere.  Maybe it's a reaction to the gaming sector in general.  WoW subscriptions are down, EA still has various problems, the mighty Nintendo is losing money.  Could be jitters over the government getting a bit further along in it's "online gaming is bad let's tax it as well as keep the young people (under 21) off when they should be sleeping and studying" legislation.

NCSOFT did announce a number of promotions within the company today, but that's today.  All the news I'm seeing about B&S from China is very positive.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Randomvector on January 28, 2014, 08:24:15 PM
Thanks Father Xmas.
I hadn't seen anything so was curious if there was something I missed.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Beltor on January 29, 2014, 01:40:33 AM
I've noticed alot more of hacking, bot post, cyber crime and cyber scams than usual recently. It seems to be mostly aimed at the US but has went up globally. I wonder if the stock market drop is related. Best to be paranoid on the web for a while.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: LaughingAlex on January 29, 2014, 01:45:03 AM
Another large factor that applies really only to South Korea is the gaming culture in that country. Some gamers, particularly in Starcraft, are like professional athletes, at least in terms of salary and popularity. It's not a perfect analogy, but it is something kind of unique to that country. The likelihood of a law like that being even proposed in the US or EU is slim to none, unless we see a rash of kids in either region dying of malnutrition because they're gaming to the exclusion of all else. You'll notice that any news piece about truly bad behavior focuses on someone in SK or China.

On the other hand, I will always rub my hands together and cackle like a bad cartoon villain at the mere prospect of fiscal harm coming to NC$oft, because @#$% them...

Thing is though, you do not see mmorpgs being used in professional gaming circles simply because even seeing a good player play, is very, very boring and unentertaining.  MMORPGs are generally very bad for competitive gaming, because of that, I would not be surprised if NCSoft doesn't have much following if any in the competitive circles, even in South Korea.  Their following tends to be those who enjoy working in their games, rather than actual gamers.\
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 29, 2014, 03:53:58 AM
But PvP tournaments in MMOs can be entertaining to watch.  The original GW had a couple of PvP tournaments in Asia featuring teams from various countries competing.  But now the new thing is MOBAs like LoL or DOTA 2.  It's not just Starcraft 1 + 2 anymore.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Drauger9 on January 29, 2014, 05:55:07 AM
Quote
I've noticed alot more of hacking, bot post, cyber crime and cyber scams than usual recently. It seems to be mostly aimed at the US but has went up globally. I wonder if the stock market drop is related. Best to be paranoid on the web for a while

True, I had my Runes of Magic account hacked recently and to be honest it's so old. I don't even care to get it back LOL!

Quote
But PvP tournaments in MMOs can be entertaining to watch.  The original GW had a couple of PvP tournaments in Asia featuring teams from various countries competing.  But now the new thing is MOBAs like LoL or DOTA 2.  It's not just Starcraft 1 + 2 anymore

Agreed, I love watching PVP matches in WOW but haven't really checked out an other games pvp. I've even watched some StarCraft matches. The thing about those are they can start really slow but the end of the match can be pretty intense.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: damo2113 on January 29, 2014, 11:49:30 PM
Yes, this drop in the last month has been quite dramatic. I suspect its a combination of 2 factors. First we had the legislation scare, second was the global market scare, in the last few days the majority of the drops have been due to the emerging market woes, and last nights FOMC Taper in the US. I suspect things will stablise rather soon, dont forget the earning call in the 13th of Feb too.

Right now i think the question left unanswered us whether the stock market globally will continue to fall, or rally at support like the historically have, and whether Korea passes this anti gaming bill.

BTW, anyone know when the Bill is expected to be voted on?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on January 30, 2014, 05:21:18 AM
Last I heard it got approval to be discussed in committee.   I have no idea how their national legislature is set up but it sounds a lot like having the pre weekly status meeting meeting to determine what will be discussed in the weekly status meeting which will have a post weekly status meeting meeting to discuss what was decided on the weekly status meeting.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: damo2113 on January 30, 2014, 10:07:49 PM
Any idea where i could find a disclosure of the minutes of the meeting?
If such a thing exists.

Would be interested in reading it.

Cheers
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Twisted Toon on January 30, 2014, 11:39:12 PM
Last I heard it got approval to be discussed in committee.   I have no idea how their national legislature is set up but it sounds a lot like having the pre weekly status meeting meeting to determine what will be discussed in the weekly status meeting which will have a post weekly status meeting meeting to discuss what was decided on the weekly status meeting.
I wonder if they'll ever have pre/post weekly meetings discussing how much money their pre/post weekly meetings waste and how they can increase the waste generated by useless meetings.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 13, 2014, 05:30:48 AM
Well the 4Q and year end numbers are out.

Saddest quote; "Labor cost rose 10% QoQ due to one off year-end incentives, but decreased 4% YoY thanks to the impact from the downsizing in 2012."

Yeah, thanks.

Order in overall income
-------------------------------
Lineage 1 up 40.3% (now 38% of total income)
GW2 (NA/EU) down 25.2% but still 2nd in income to Lineage 1 (now 16.3%)
Aion down 32.2%
B&S (Korea) up 10.8%
Royalties up 2.9% (royalties up 328% from 3rd quarter due to B&S China starting)
Other up 13.8%
Lineage 2 down 12.2%

Total Income up 0.4%
Profit up 3.2%

To summarize, overall year sales was flat with profits up slightly.  Costs were down due to 16.3% reduction in labor costs and a 30.5% reduction in marketing costs (big surprise there).

I see that the stock bounced since the start of February.  Might mean the price drop in January was just profit taking.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 13, 2014, 05:45:26 AM
Oh, and digging in a little further.  B&S is officially coming off open beta and going live any day now and, sadly, there is going to be an anime show based on B&S aired in Tokyo on TBS this spring in hopes to prime that market next.  Not surprisingly it's being animated by Gonzo.

US and EU versions are still in limbo.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Sajaana on May 07, 2014, 01:57:37 PM
This just in, "Korean Stocks Fall in Longest Losing Streak Since November 2008":

https://finance.search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=A0LEV1fOOWpTAGsADKJXNyoA?p=ncsoft&fr=yfp-t-320&fr2=piv-web


"NCsoft, a developer of online games, sank 5.9 percent."
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 09, 2014, 05:41:15 AM
Yeah.  May 2nd it closed at 202,500 KrW per share.  Next trading day, May 7th, it closed at 191,000, a 5.68% drop.  It's "ringing" now.  Went up to 198,000 on May 8th and back down to 193,000 on May 9th.

Basically all the big Korean game companies are reporting declines in sales.  The assumption is when NCSOFT announces their 1Q 2014 numbers, it too will be underwhelming.  Of course they will play up the improved royalties for B&S in China, the B&S anime series (it's on Cruchyroll if anyone cares) in Japan to prime that market for the game there and GW2 is entering Open Beta/Soft opening at the end of May, mid May for those who bought one of the 500K (sold out) early access spots, in China.

No idea how well their new mobile gaming games are doing.  This is important because in the eyes of some media, PCs are dead (again!).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 09, 2014, 09:37:13 PM
Poking around some more I found potentially another reason for the industry wide downturn.

The Constitutional Court of Korea just ruled that the system, that had been in place since Nov 2011 that kicks minors (under 16) off online games between midnight to 6am is legal and more importantly that Internet gaming addiction is a real thing and therefore the system is justified.

This bolsters the support for expanding the kick off system to under 19 from 10pm to 7am, taxing game companies 1% to fund Internet Addiction prevention/treatment and a bill that classifies Internet gaming as an addiction along side drugs, alcohol and gambling and therefore a social ill that needs plenty of government intervention/supervision.

News article was dated May 7th, same day as the big dip.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JanessaVR on May 11, 2014, 01:31:41 AM
Couldn't happen to nicer people!   ;)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 12, 2014, 10:44:18 AM
Couldn't happen to nicer people!   ;)

The entire Korean online gaming industry?  What did they do?

Over the following three days, NCSOFT stock recovered over half of that one day loss.  Still up over 50%since their all time low back in Jan 2013.  Bullish analyst still think it'll go back up to 300K.  :roll:

Oh BTW, WildStar goes live June 6th I think.  I still have my doubts about the subscription model for a new MMO.  TESO was unimpressive and buggy as anything.  And I find WildStar overly complex.

1Q numbers later this week.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JanessaVR on May 12, 2014, 06:24:59 PM
The entire Korean online gaming industry?  What did they do?
Collateral damage.  As long as NCSoft was hurt, even briefly, I cheer.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Aggelakis on May 12, 2014, 06:50:33 PM
*shakes head*
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: malonkey1 on May 13, 2014, 01:07:18 AM
I disagree. We can't rejoice in the destruction of a national industry just because a company we hate dies with it. Collateral damage is a bad thing, remember?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Twisted Toon on May 13, 2014, 01:14:32 AM
I'm guessing any one particular person's viewpoint on that would depend on whether they were more Red-side or Blue-side.

Personally, I'm more Blue-side that Red-side.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Beltor on May 15, 2014, 10:16:14 PM
The changes to SK gaming could have interesting repercussions. If it severely damages the income of SK gaming companies, they may be forced to focus on their overseas branches. NC$oft has a bad habit of ignoring and neglecting their western branch. Now they might need to focus on it more to offset losses. Maybe they're even thinking of resurrecting COH. Not likely, but severe losses can make a company try desperate things. Their bad actions of the past may still be too bad an image to fix though. The irony ;D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: microc on May 16, 2014, 10:11:50 PM
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2014/05/123_157346.html
down 20 percent from a year ago :)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: chuckv3 on May 17, 2014, 12:46:49 AM
The changes to SK gaming could have interesting repercussions. If it severely damages the income of SK gaming companies, they may be forced to focus on their overseas branches. NC$oft has a bad habit of ignoring and neglecting their western branch. Now they might need to focus on it more to offset losses. Maybe they're even thinking of resurrecting COH. Not likely, but severe losses can make a company try desperate things. Their bad actions of the past may still be too bad an image to fix though. The irony ;D

Oh, please don't let it be them that revives the game. PLEASE NO.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JanessaVR on May 17, 2014, 03:06:28 AM
Oh, please don't let it be them that revives the game. PLEASE NO.
Unless they sell it, no one else could, unfortunately.  Not that it will actually happen, they love our pain far too much.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Nyx Nought Nothing on May 17, 2014, 03:00:09 PM
Unless they sell it, no one else could, unfortunately.  Not that it will actually happen, they love our pain far too much.
Nah. Setting aside that the NCsoft management lineup has changed up a fair bit since the shutdown, they've never really cared about making CoH fans suffer. Unless there's money in it, and the opposite is rather obviously true. (Not that it's likely to have lost them a very large amount of money, but it's still a net negative.) i wouldn't be surprised if there were at least a couple people on the NCsoft board currently who didn't look at CoH and wonder "Why the hell did we shut this down?" in private at the very least when considering how big superhero properties have become in international pop culture as well as the advantages to maintaining goodwill and a foothold in more markets outside Korea. CoH may not have been a cash cow, but it was profitable even without much of a promotional budget or efforts to tie into the popularity of superheroes.
To be fair the decision to shut CoH down did make sense in the context of NCsoft's general policies and business strategy at the time. In hindsight it might not have been the best move, but it seems pretty clear that NCsoft management was perhaps a bit too insular and out of touch with the demographics that their products are aimed at, which is why the volume of the outcry over the shutdown surprised them at the time. Not that this is even slightly unique to NCsoft or the MMO industry, it's common in every industry.
In any event as long as they can get a deal that they're happy with i'm pretty confident NCsoft would much rather sell CoH and make money off it than hold onto it and get nothing. The company is made up of an ever-changing group of people all hoping to make money, not some eldritch entity that feeds on emotions. While emotions like embarrassment might figure into being reluctant to go back on a decision money and changes in the management lineup do a lot to offset that.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 20, 2014, 03:18:34 AM
Been meaning to update 1Q14 numbers.

Yes, net income is off 30% year over year while overall income is off only 4%.

Income sources by region.  Percentage before is contribution from that region, percentage after is change year over year.

(53.0%) Korea down 20.8%
(13.1%) NA down 5.4%
(2.9%) EU down 64.9%
(4.6%) Japan down 36.4%
(1.3%) Taiwan down 6%
(25.0%) Royalties up 314.9% (B&S in China saves the day)


Income sources by game, excludes royalties.  Percentage before is contribution from that game, percentage after is change year over year.

(23.0%) Lineage down 37.9%
(6.5%) Lineage II down 18.5%
(12.5%) AION down 21.4%
(10.8%) B&S (Korea) up 16.5%
(14.1%) GW2 down 30.9%
(8.1%) Other up 13.1%

Overall this is down 23.9%

The missing 25%of income in the 2nd list is from previously mentioned royalties and is not broken down by game.


GW2 launched in China May 15th.  B&S in Japan May 20th.  WildStar launches June 3rd in NA and EU.

Stock took a hit as income from games was the lowest in 21 months.

KDB Daewoo, an analyst/cheerleader, reduced it's target price from 310,000 to 280,000 (stock currently at 186,500, down 9.5%).  They also mention that Lineage will introduce a new class, first time in six years on June 11th which may boost it's income.  They also mention the stock is heavily shorted, meaning people are expecting it to go down.  If unexpected good news crops up and the stock starts to rise, it may cause a short squeeze which will cause a quick rise in price as investors cancel their short positions.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JanessaVR on May 29, 2014, 07:08:17 PM
The company is made up of an ever-changing group of people all hoping to make money, not some eldritch entity that feeds on emotions.
Considering that their behavior is indistinguishable from an eldritch entity that feeds on emotions, I believe my confusion can be forgiven.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Little David on June 01, 2014, 11:16:53 PM
In any event as long as they can get a deal that they're happy with i'm pretty confident NCsoft would much rather sell CoH and make money off it than hold onto it and get nothing. The company is made up of an ever-changing group of people all hoping to make money, not some eldritch entity that feeds on emotions. While emotions like embarrassment might figure into being reluctant to go back on a decision money and changes in the management lineup do a lot to offset that.

Considering that their behavior is indistinguishable from an eldritch entity that feeds on emotions, I believe my confusion can be forgiven.

That's a fair point, though corporate culture can inform and normalize the actions taken by new blood in the executive positions, I think. It would take some radically new leadership to consider selling dead IPs; it's more apparent from NCSoft's past that they're more committed to sitting on the IPs they kill in order to prevent a Ray Kroc scenario (that's the guy who bought McDonald's from their original owners and made it into the global conglomerate that it is today).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Whyaylooh on August 14, 2014, 12:25:51 AM
The 2Q14 earnings report was released today.  In summary:

On news of this, NCSoft stock immediately jumped 10,000 won, to 154,500, from yesterday's close of 144,500, though that jump seems to be leveling back off a bit.

As always, the reports can be found here:  http://global.ncsoft.com/global/ir/earnings.aspx

That is all.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on August 14, 2014, 10:34:14 PM
I was out when this came out.

For those wishing schadenfreude on NCSOFT, well their stock did hit a yearly low just before this came out.  Last two days it bounced up 7+% but still down 37+% from their yearly high and 36+% since the start of the year.

The WildStar numbers only represent a month.  Since it's a subscription game the 3Q numbers will show how well it's growing and retaining players.  In comparison, GW2's first month's numbers were better two years ago.  It's next quarter was explosive but it's B2P rather than P2P.

China's numbers should be included under the Royalties information and they are down from last quarter even though GW2 opened there.  But GW2 required players in China to buy the game first and that may have seriously impacted the number of players playing.  It's normally a F2P MMO environment in China.  The reduced royalties may also be a negative indicator how well B&S is holding on in China.

B&S is now available to play in Japan and is 13% of B&S's income outside of China.  NCSOFT took the interesting tack of commissioning an Anime series to promote the game.   You can catch it on Crunchyroll.  Still nothing about B&S coming to NA/EU anytime soon.

All 5 games they call out in their quarterly report last year are down year over year.  Combined, by 21%.  WildStar and increased royalties allowed both income and profits rise year over year.  Hence the stock rebound.

Don't worry, investors and analysts can be a pessimistic lot.  Even KDB Daewoo, one of their biggest cheerleaders were unhappy with NCSOFT in a report a month ago, asking for a dividend boost and cut their target to 220,000 KrW.  That's below where the stock price was 5 months ago instead of being absurdly unheard of, but still 40+% higher than today.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JanessaVR on August 18, 2014, 05:51:35 PM
Actually, if the efforts by Ironwolf's friends/contacts eventually come out in our favor, I have no further quarrel with NCSoft.

No intention of ever trying out any of their other games (once burned, twice shy, and I can't trust that they'll be there tomorrow), but I will wish them no further ill if we get our city back.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Beltor on August 21, 2014, 10:13:41 PM
Actually, if the efforts by Ironwolf's friends/contacts eventually come out in our favor, I have no further quarrel with NCSoft.

No intention of ever trying out any of their other games (once burned, twice shy, and I can't trust that they'll be there tomorrow), but I will wish them no further ill if we get our city back.


Same for me.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Thunder Glove on August 22, 2014, 08:40:25 AM
I have no intention of playing anything else by NCSoft, but mostly becuase I'm not really interested in the whole Elves-and-Wizards-generic-fantasy setting.  If I want that, I can go play WoW.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Kosmos on August 22, 2014, 09:38:58 AM
Don't worry, investors and analysts can be a pessimistic lot.  Even KDB Daewoo, one of their biggest cheerleaders were unhappy with NCSOFT in a report a month ago, asking for a dividend boost and cut their target to 220,000 KrW.  That's below where the stock price was 5 months ago instead of being absurdly unheard of, but still 40+% higher than today.

I thought KDB Daewoo's projections of nearly 400k were either an attempt at comedy or someone trolling the regulators.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on August 22, 2014, 02:37:49 PM
I thought KDB Daewoo's projections of nearly 400k were either an attempt at comedy or someone trolling the regulators.

They had a target of 600K after 3Q2011 numbers hit.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Scendera on August 24, 2014, 09:52:58 AM
Actually, if the efforts by Ironwolf's friends/contacts eventually come out in our favor, I have no further quarrel with NCSoft.

No intention of ever trying out any of their other games (once burned, twice shy, and I can't trust that they'll be there tomorrow), but I will wish them no further ill if we get our city back.

I said I would, so I will. I'm a BIG believer in financially rewarding companies that do something to my liking by spending money with them when I have some to spend. I frequently hear Wildstar described as "if Borderlands was a MMO" and since I like Borderlands, that's an appealing prospect. That plus my sister's been trying to force a GW2 key on me for a bit now, and I've only dodged it thus far because it turned out I didn't have enough room.

Now how I'll find time for either once COH is back...well, that's a problem I'll be happy to have.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Beltor on August 25, 2014, 02:49:22 AM
I was a beta tester for Wildstar. It's like Borderlands crossed with Ratchet and Clank with bits of every other MMO thrown in, the good bits. Some say the graphics are bad but they're actually quite good. It just has an art style that's different from other MMO's. The cinemas on their website were made with game graphics and are a good example of the games overall feel. A turn off at first but damn fun after played for a small bit with plenty to see and do, and great replay with a different character. For me it's the only NC title i'd consider playing now. But COH is still my #1 choice. If NCsoft does right on the COH deal and gives Wildstar proper treatment, I may buy Wildstar and bounce between Wildstar and COH every few months.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Randomvector on October 04, 2014, 08:39:13 PM
NCsoft Stock is down to its lowest in years. Even lower than after the close. Is wildstar tanking that badly?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: microc on October 04, 2014, 09:15:59 PM
http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/10/03/ask-massively-dancing-on-wildstars-grave/
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: LaughingAlex on October 04, 2014, 09:53:56 PM
http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/10/03/ask-massively-dancing-on-wildstars-grave/

I had a feeling it would do badly when it went to the holy trinity.  I immedietly thought "ok so this is going to be a generic mmorpgs".  I also watched some of the live feeds and I was left thinking "so, your doing the same thing but added only one thing to keep players moving?  Your not really doing anything innovative here."  Secret world already made players move regularly, :/.  Thing was they listened to the players who asked for the exact same thing everyone else already did, it was a sore case of just listening to the wrong people or even asking the wrong people.

Thats the conclusion I can draw from talking to people who'd participated in the testing during a heated debate on facebook and also having watched the live feeds they had pre-launch.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: LaughingAlex on October 04, 2014, 10:20:53 PM
Thinking on it, I feel that, the real problem mmorpg developers and publishers have, besides doing the same thing over and over, is the article is right in targetting the developers attitude.  It is totally hubris.  They believe they are superior and invincible guys who because they know the code and numbers that the game is amazing due to the numbers.  They'd spent the time they had playing WoW developing that mindset in approaching the development of the game, that numbers is what people want to see.  The reality is they want gameplay.  They want it to play well and they want it to be balanced in terms of time vs reward and whatnot.  People want a game to feel that way within a reasonable time frame to and they want the game to draw them in.

The other real killer of mmorpgs in a way, is probably actually games like Skyrim and fallout new vegas.  Skyrim seriously draws you in.  Right off the bat some assholes are about to cut your head off but then a dragon shows up and ruins those assholes days, and also continues ruining yours after.  Your fleeing for your life as a dragon just raises havoc everywhere and suddenly one of those same guys who was just following orders tries helping you, all the while someone else who was a fellow prisoner also helps out and your torn right away between a guy just following orders and a rebel.

In new vegas?  Your shot in the head and find yourself waking up at a doctors bed while trying to get a chip back.  Why are you trying to get it back?  Revenge is certainly one valid reason, a guy tried to kill you and nearly succeeded.  But then other groups come in to try and sway you to their goals on your way and as you recover it.  What do you do with it?  And the same time you see guys dressed like romans attacking everything in sight, soldiers who seem to be good intended but under equipped and plagued with so many problems and showing signs of ineptitude and incompetence(the NCR prison facility breakout, inability to deal with the roman wannabes) and general tendency to use force first alongside miscomunication problems leaves you wondering whos really the good guys.

You don't see things develop in mmorpgs all that often, they don't really draw you in very well.  I never felt drawn in in guild wars, for sure.  I tried secret world, and still didn't really feel it.  Nore did I notice it in CO much(and felt they were trying to treat me like a mary sue, :S).  The article certainly speaks of not wanting mmorpgs to dry up.  I really hope the deal makes it for CoX actually cause really I'm now thinking that, mmorpgs need to get the "rpg" back in mmorpg.

Edit: Cause otherwise, well, mmorpg developers will continue thinking numbers rather then substance is the be-all-end-all.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Surelle on October 05, 2014, 10:22:37 PM
NCsoft Stock is down to its lowest in years. Even lower than after the close. Is wildstar tanking that badly?

Yes.  The game underwent server mergers right off the bat, the higher-ups at Carbine have mostly all left or are leaving, and additional content and even holiday content has all been cancelled.  Between Wildstar's performance and NCSoft's horrible reputation in NA and EU as "Keeeeeel youuuuuu naowwwwwww!" knee-jerk game killers, I'm surprised their stocks aren't even lower.  I mean, how many old-school gamers would have loved Wildstar's raid-centric, harcore attitude, but wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole because it's published by the NCSoft?  The old-school crowd are the ones that have been through Tabula Rasa's closing, CoX's closing, or may have played the other games they've shut down (not to mention have probably tried Aion and Lineage 2, which are so overrun by gold farmers, botters and lag they're practically unplayable and have been since their betas).

This is the main reason I think NCSoft hasn't just slammed the door in Team Hail Mary's face-- they could desperately use some positive press, and it would go at least a ways toward restoring some good faith with MMO gamers in general.  After all, even if someone hadn't played NCSoft's other MMOs and wanted to play Wildstar, what would happen when their guildies or family and friends who had been victimized by NC in the past resoundingly said "No way?"  Of course, that one person would probably move to whatever MMO all those other people they wanted to play with were playing instead.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Taceus Jiwede on October 06, 2014, 05:04:03 PM
Yes.  The game underwent server mergers right off the bat, the higher-ups at Carbine have mostly all left or are leaving, and additional content and even holiday content has all been cancelled.  Between Wildstar's performance and NCSoft's horrible reputation in NA and EU as "Keeeeeel youuuuuu naowwwwwww!" knee-jerk game killers, I'm surprised their stocks aren't even lower.  I mean, how many old-school gamers would have loved Wildstar's raid-centric, harcore attitude, but wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole because it's published by the NCSoft?  The old-school crowd are the ones that have been through Tabula Rasa's closing, CoX's closing, or may have played the other games they've shut down (not to mention have probably tried Aion and Lineage 2, which are so overrun by gold farmers, botters and lag they're practically unplayable and have been since their betas).

Wildstar wasn't really focused on Endgame though, that was their problem.  They promised massive amounts of content, and a team that would only work on endgame content.  Then released a game that only had 3 dungeons 1-50.  A handful of annoying skirmishes that felt like a disorganized mess.  And 1 25 man raid.  Then they release a patch 1 month into, and it has nothing worth while in it,  then another patch.  Again nothing worth while in it.  They released a swimming pool after promising an ocean.  Which is a shame I really, really enjoyed my time in Wildstar.  And I think it had the potential to be a great game but it had the smallest amount of content I have ever seen in an MMO.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: LaughingAlex on October 07, 2014, 03:40:31 AM
Wildstar wasn't really focused on Endgame though, that was their problem.  They promised massive amounts of content, and a team that would only work on endgame content.  Then released a game that only had 3 dungeons 1-50.  A handful of annoying skirmishes that felt like a disorganized mess.  And 1 25 man raid.  Then they release a patch 1 month into, and it has nothing worth while in it,  then another patch.  Again nothing worth while in it.  They released a swimming pool after promising an ocean.  Which is a shame I really, really enjoyed my time in Wildstar.  And I think it had the potential to be a great game but it had the smallest amount of content I have ever seen in an MMO.

Geesh, almost as bad as CO, change that even CO got more stuff in it's first year.  At least, from the way your describing it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Burnt Toast on October 09, 2014, 04:15:38 AM

The President of Carbine is NOT stepping down due to anything game related... let's make that perfectly clear. He has had A LOT of personal issues including a lot of family members dying in the past year as well as being diagnosed and treated for cancer himself. He truly is stepping down to focus on life...instead of work. If you were a cancer survivor...or know one... you would know that when someone goes through such a traumatic experience...and survives...they tend to re-evaluate what they are doing with their lives....


They canceled the holiday content because... they are focusing on the current game and a pretty fair amount of bugs. Trust me there are times I wish Cryptic/Paragon had done the same thing. There were bugs in CoH that had been known issues for years, but went ignored in lieu of new content.


FYI I am not a WildStar player or fanboi, but I wanted to clarify a few things you stated. I have never played WildStar... I was going to but friends told me how buggy it was...and I decided not to waste my money. Maybe if they do some significant fixes to these bugs... I MIGHT try it out. I am not really an MMO person... the only MMO I ever liked was CoH.



Yes.  The game underwent server mergers right off the bat, the higher-ups at Carbine have mostly all left or are leaving, and additional content and even holiday content has all been cancelled.  Between Wildstar's performance and NCSoft's horrible reputation in NA and EU as "Keeeeeel youuuuuu naowwwwwww!" knee-jerk game killers, I'm surprised their stocks aren't even lower.  I mean, how many old-school gamers would have loved Wildstar's raid-centric, harcore attitude, but wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole because it's published by the NCSoft?  The old-school crowd are the ones that have been through Tabula Rasa's closing, CoX's closing, or may have played the other games they've shut down (not to mention have probably tried Aion and Lineage 2, which are so overrun by gold farmers, botters and lag they're practically unplayable and have been since their betas).

This is the main reason I think NCSoft hasn't just slammed the door in Team Hail Mary's face-- they could desperately use some positive press, and it would go at least a ways toward restoring some good faith with MMO gamers in general.  After all, even if someone hadn't played NCSoft's other MMOs and wanted to play Wildstar, what would happen when their guildies or family and friends who had been victimized by NC in the past resoundingly said "No way?"  Of course, that one person would probably move to whatever MMO all those other people they wanted to play with were playing instead.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: LaughingAlex on October 09, 2014, 05:28:29 PM
The President of Carbine is NOT stepping down due to anything game related... let's make that perfectly clear. He has had A LOT of personal issues including a lot of family members dying in the past year as well as being diagnosed and treated for cancer himself. He truly is stepping down to focus on life...instead of work. If you were a cancer survivor...or know one... you would know that when someone goes through such a traumatic experience...and survives...they tend to re-evaluate what they are doing with their lives....


They canceled the holiday content because... they are focusing on the current game and a pretty fair amount of bugs. Trust me there are times I wish Cryptic/Paragon had done the same thing. There were bugs in CoH that had been known issues for years, but went ignored in lieu of new content.


FYI I am not a WildStar player or fanboi, but I wanted to clarify a few things you stated. I have never played WildStar... I was going to but friends told me how buggy it was...and I decided not to waste my money. Maybe if they do some significant fixes to these bugs... I MIGHT try it out. I am not really an MMO person... the only MMO I ever liked was CoH.

I'll only say CO's dev team(originally cryptic, to) had done that and ultimately made the mistake of just introducing more bugs and further imbalancing the game.  The sore lack of new content has ultimately doomed CO.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Cailyn Alaynn on October 10, 2014, 04:24:11 AM
They canceled the holiday content because... they are focusing on the current game and a pretty fair amount of bugs. Trust me there are times I wish Cryptic/Paragon had done the same thing. There were bugs in CoH that had been known issues for years, but went ignored in lieu of new content.

Unless you're talking major game breaking bugs, New Content is always going to be a priority for the simple reason that it's what draws in and keeps players. There's also the problem that a lot of the bugs the devs could never figure out what was causing them. The code base was simply too much of a mess, and a lot of it was undocumented.

When you're talking new content keep in mind as well that bug fixing is a programmer issue, so that does leave your art department, SFX, writers, and everyone who's not hunting bugs to work on new content.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Mentalshock on October 10, 2014, 08:06:19 AM
The stock is getting low enough I'm actually considering picking up a few shares as soon as financially feasible.   Even if it goes up by 5% by this time next year, that'd still be a reasonable profit.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Teikiatsu on October 10, 2014, 02:20:08 PM
Buy all the stocks!  Corporate takeover!

... how much are they right now?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Burnt Toast on October 10, 2014, 11:14:15 PM

**Auction house not recognizing certain items...so no one can buy them.
**Not receiving reward at end of raids.
**Crafting quests will not complete at certain levels so you cannot craft high tier items
**Mail causing FPS problems... yep in game email.
**Sound loops causing hard crashes
**Many land/ground items cannot actually be placed on the ground.
**Multiple mission complete objectives do not finish the mission (Some cannot be completed because you can't even click the object needed to complete the mission)...when they do... no mission complete bonus given.
**Major lag issues
**Not gaining any reputation to earn achievement towards crafting items.


Just to name a few. And THIS is why I refused to play even though I have friends who do play. WAY too buggy. These would be akin to:


**Purples not being available on WentWorths because no one can craft them or trade them
**Itrials/TFs not giving end bonuses (Could you imagine completing a Keyes and not getting a badge or incarnate component...grr!)
**Not being able to modify your base because floor items won't go on the floor
**Badge progression not working at all
**Major lag whenever you have any in game email
**Frequent hard crashes (PC reboots) due to sound loops in certain TFs.
**Not getting mission complete XP after missions or TFs


So I consider these pretty game breaking and in need of attention right away instead of giving the players a Halloween and/or Christmas event. From the friends I do have who play WildStar...they are not upset about the events...they would rather the game...work.







Unless you're talking major game breaking bugs, New Content is always going to be a priority for the simple reason that it's what draws in and keeps players. There's also the problem that a lot of the bugs the devs could never figure out what was causing them. The code base was simply too much of a mess, and a lot of it was undocumented.

When you're talking new content keep in mind as well that bug fixing is a programmer issue, so that does leave your art department, SFX, writers, and everyone who's not hunting bugs to work on new content.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Burnt Toast on October 10, 2014, 11:15:43 PM

Or the crappy graphics and game-play doomed CO. Also didn't help they did a HUGE nerf right off the bat after going live... angering MANY players who bought lifetime subs. 

I'll only say CO's dev team(originally cryptic, to) had done that and ultimately made the mistake of just introducing more bugs and further imbalancing the game.  The sore lack of new content has ultimately doomed CO.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Power Gamer on October 10, 2014, 11:18:13 PM
I just never got what was supposed to be so appealing about WildStar. :roll:
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: houtex on October 12, 2014, 09:51:14 PM
Buy all the stocks!  Corporate takeover!

... how much are they right now?

As I type this, from this website ( http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=036570.KS ), the shares are worth 127,500 KRW, which is about $119 USD per share right now at current exchange levels.

There are 21.93 million shares outstanding.  That's $2,587,784,000 ($2.588 Billion) to buy out all shares.

In case that helps anyone. :)

Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: rebel 1812 on October 12, 2014, 11:10:34 PM
You don't need to buy all the shares to have controlling interest in a company.  Usually 30-35% would be enough.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Rejolt on October 12, 2014, 11:53:56 PM
I just never got what was supposed to be so appealing about WildStar. :roll:

WoW ... In spaaaaaaaaaace! With fluffy bunny girls.

And maybe some more recent tech to make it more action oriented.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Power Gamer on October 13, 2014, 01:57:02 AM
WoW ... In spaaaaaaaaaace! With fluffy bunny girls.

And maybe some more recent tech to make it more action oriented.

lol

Exactly my point!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Cailyn Alaynn on October 13, 2014, 06:21:41 PM
You don't need to buy all the shares to have controlling interest in a company.  Usually 30-35% would be enough.

That's still in the area of 900 Million. :P
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: LaughingAlex on October 13, 2014, 06:56:22 PM
WoW ... In spaaaaaaaaaace! With fluffy bunny girls.

And maybe some more recent tech to make it more action oriented.

Exactly why I was left thinking "Haven't we seen this before for the millionth time?". :)

MMORPGs....to me, it's like i'm the employer and i'm asking the hopeful "what separates you from your competition?".  And the MMORPG says "Well, I still require healers and I'm just like.......WoW!  You like........WoW, don't you?"  Even said in a way that, creeps me out....

No, I am not an employer in real life.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Teikiatsu on October 13, 2014, 07:08:44 PM
That's still in the area of 900 Million. :P

Quick!  To Kickstarter!
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: rebel 1812 on October 13, 2014, 09:22:55 PM
Quick!  To Kickstarter!

or to the banks or selling shares for a shell corporation with the intent to buy controlling interest in ncsoft.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Rejolt on October 13, 2014, 10:31:53 PM
or to the banks or selling shares for a shell corporation with the intent to buy controlling interest in ncsoft.

Sorry, I'd rather start a company from scratch and say: "Build me Heroes of the City and play like the modern version of CoH for 50 million. I'll then spend 30 million to advertise for it, 50 million to insure it stays running for 10+ years and the rest I'll cure world hunger."

I love CoH but if I could raise a billion I'm buying everyone on the forums a new gaming PC, a steak dinner and curing cancer with the rest of it.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on October 14, 2014, 01:11:46 AM
WildStar quickly got a rep that a lot of content is locked up behind hard core raids.  Just hard core players can not support a subscription MMO.  I know hard core players are the most boisterous on forums but the pool of MMO players are tapped out, so it's either stealing, attracting them during their churn or expanding the potential player base by making it easier.  Also a lot of those teen/20 somethings that made WoW as big as it was 10 years ago are now starting families and simply don't have the time for "hard core" raiding anymore.

I played WildStar during the last open beta and it was alright but aspects seem overly complex.  The only innovative, if you call it that, thing they added to the MMO experience is the lack of tab targeting by highlighting where your attack will so you can turn/charge to get the critter in range.

As for the stock price, we're talking 5 year low.  China isn't the loot cave NCSOFT promoted it to be with B&S and GW2 but they are bringing in money, just not enormous amounts.  WildStar didn't have the launch that Guild Wars 2 had in terms of income, but that's the difference between P2P and B2P.  Also MMO players in the west are now conditioned to wait for the conversion to F2P (thank you SW:TOR).

So to summarize, China isn't bringing in $100+ million USD a year, WildStar isn't the next WoW, no new MMOs on the horizon, just a D3 like Lineage Eternal and a MOBA like Master x Master.  And in Korea the government is still trying to gum up the whole online gaming industry there.

And from what I heard the NA/EU version of B&S will be based on the edited Chinese version and not the Korean/Japan lewd and lascivious version.

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=i.kinja-img.com%2Fgawker-media%2Fimage%2Fupload%2Fs--gvzTfjmD--%2Fgpjm6embcvnxprop19y4.gif)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JanessaVR on October 14, 2014, 01:41:12 AM
And from what I heard the NA/EU version of B&S will be based on the edited Chinese version and not the Korean/Japan lewd and lascivious version.
Ugh.  Not that I was inclined to try it anyway, but I despise that kind of "kid-friendly" censorship on general principles.  If there's an NC-17 version of the game out there, then darn it, that's what gamers should get, not some Disneyfied knock-off version.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Aggelakis on October 14, 2014, 06:28:45 AM
Ugh.  Not that I was inclined to try it anyway, but I despise that kind of "kid-friendly" censorship on general principles.  If there's an NC-17 version of the game out there, then darn it, that's what gamers should get, not some Disneyfied knock-off version.
Personally, I like the look of the Chinese version. The lemon boobs are gone, for one thing. I don't know about you, but I don't know ANY women who have giant lemons stuffed under their shirts.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Thunder Glove on October 14, 2014, 09:22:02 AM
The edited version is hardly "Disney-fied" or "kid friendly".  It's just slightly more stylish and slightly less blatant. (Emphasis on "slightly")

I don't plan to play it, but after watching this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkQjw46Ok5A), I like the "censored" versions of most of the outfits better.  (I can't stand their "look at my boobs" pose or the little dance they're doing as an idle pose, though, in both versions)
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Brightfires on October 14, 2014, 04:01:44 PM
I just can't get past the whole "boob-a-palooza mature body with the face of an eight year-old" thing. It's creepy, no matter how she's dressed.  :o
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JanessaVR on October 14, 2014, 04:48:15 PM
Personally, I like the look of the Chinese version. The lemon boobs are gone, for one thing. I don't know about you, but I don't know ANY women who have giant lemons stuffed under their shirts.
That bad?  Ouch.  Maybe the edited version would be better.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Jorge Firebomb on October 14, 2014, 04:59:52 PM
So out of curiosity I checked out that linked video for the "censored" vs "uncensored" versions of the outfits, and wow the Korean versions are pretty terrible. I mean, unless the game is a prostitute simulator? Then the outfits would be about what you would expect. If those ladies are supposed to be fighting anything in those outfits, yeah that just wouldn't work. The Chinese versions are also fairly unrealistic, but a few of them actually look like something you could theoretically move around in at least.

Besides, all characters should be wearing spandex anyway.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Codewalker on October 14, 2014, 06:02:23 PM
The outfits in the Korean version make no sense, to fight in or not. Who wears copious amounts of material on their arms and legs but leaves a big hole cut out on their torso leaving just underwear (late-night lingerie aside)? It just looks... bizarre.

A tiny bikini that their boobs would pop out of at the slightest movement also seems to be a very poor choice to try to fight in.

Maybe in the expansion they'll all get slaughtered by the invading hordes wearing practical armor.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JanessaVR on October 14, 2014, 06:26:19 PM
The outfits in the Korean version make no sense, to fight in or not. Who wears copious amounts of material on their arms and legs but leaves a big hole cut out on their torso leaving just underwear (late-night lingerie aside)? It just looks... bizarre.

A tiny bikini that their boobs would pop out of at the slightest movement also seems to be a very poor choice to try to fight in.

Maybe in the expansion they'll all get slaughtered by the invading hordes wearing practical armor.
I've always said it was easy to spot the 14 year-old boys in CoH - they had female avatars dressed in bikinis with max-slider breasts.  ;D

Personally, I actually did have body armor outfits for my characters (for when in combat) as well as some sensible casual clothing for when I was just hanging out or marketeering.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: dwturducken on October 14, 2014, 09:01:36 PM
I'm 42, and every one of my female characters (except for the "child" cheerleader with the machine gun) had max boobs and max butt. However, I also had about half a dozen characters that I took well into the 30s on level whose costumes made the Ambiguously Gay Duo look butch. And one who was a reasonable facsimile of Captain Sunshine. I was an equal opportunity offender... :D
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: microc on November 14, 2014, 02:19:35 AM
http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/11/13/ncsofts-third-quarter-report-is-glowing-wildstars-revenues-ar/
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on November 16, 2014, 09:03:05 PM
Another 3 months and another example of buy on rumor and sell on fact for the stock price.  First rumors of a not so stellar quarter drove the stock down to a 3 year low in October.  Then positive rumors drove the price up some 36% right before the 3Q numbers were posted.  Then the selloff began so it's now down 6% since the numbers came out.

I'm not going to bother breaking it all down.  Just list some highs and lows.

+ A surprise, to me, AION had a spectacular quarter.  Some new update/event/store change reinvigorated sales, up 79.5% QoQ, 45.7% YoY.

- Royalties, a large chunk being B&S and GW2 in China are down 40.7% QoQ but up (due to B&S and GW2) 125.9% YoY.

- WildStar with it 1st full quarter of income being off 42.9% from it's previous single month sales.  That's box/game sales for you.

+ Lineage recovered from it's 2Q doldrums, up 20.4%.

While overall sales are down roughly 1% QoQ, profits are up 43% due to not hawking and making boxes for any new games.  YoY 3Q is up 24.7% while profits are up 187.9%.

NCSOFT did announce a week or two ago that next week(?) at some gaming convention that they will outline all of their mobile platform plans as well as talk about the next set of games coming out in Korea.  Korea is still 65.5% of their total income last quarter.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Taceus Jiwede on November 17, 2014, 08:06:20 PM
Personally, I like the look of the Chinese version. The lemon boobs are gone, for one thing. I don't know about you, but I don't know ANY women who have giant lemons stuffed under their shirts.

I do.....but they all died in battle because their armor was TOTALLY ineffective.  And only covered the areas a swim suit would.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JanessaVR on November 17, 2014, 10:37:20 PM
I do.....but they all died in battle because their armor was TOTALLY ineffective.  And only covered the areas a swim suit would.
And again, I'm reminded of this hilarious exchange from Robotech:

"Why would they give her such skimpy armor that can only protect such a small portion of her body?"
"How would I know? Maybe those are the only parts of her that are vulnerable!"
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on November 21, 2014, 04:29:23 AM
I feel sorry for Carbine Studios.  KDB Daewoo is projecting only 1/2 the income 4th quarter that WildStar had in the 3rd.  Ouch.  Good thing that KDB's estimates can be wildly inaccurate.

NCSOFT announced an FPS called Project HON.  Looks cool.  Sadly it'll likely not be available outside of Korea for a time.  Here's a link to the trailers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV5OxuihF3A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvO8UPoy8fU
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Surelle on November 21, 2014, 10:07:02 PM
I feel sorry for Carbine Studios.  KDB Daewoo is projecting only 1/2 the income 4th quarter that WildStar had in the 3rd.  Ouch.  Good thing that KDB's estimates can be wildly inaccurate.

NCSOFT announced an FPS called Project HON.  Looks cool.  Sadly it'll likely not be available outside of Korea for a time.  Here's a link to the trailers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV5OxuihF3A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvO8UPoy8fU

I notice a lot of devs and publishers are going into MMOFPSs, or hybrid MMOs with shooting.  There's Destiny (half MMORPG/half FPS), Blizzard's new 2015 game "Overwatch" (half MOBA/half FPS), etc.  I think the MMORPG genre is just totally oversaturated, and in NCSoft's case, they have such a bad reputation for being game killers that people avoid their MMORPGs over that as well.

What they really need to do is learn how to run their games properly and how to respect their customers.  Their players are not brainless savants who will just blindly shut one game launcher down for the last time as they shutter a game, and then open up the next launcher as NC launches a new title.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on November 22, 2014, 02:44:41 AM
I notice a lot of devs and publishers are going into MMOFPSs, or hybrid MMOs with shooting.  There's Destiny (half MMORPG/half FPS), Blizzard's new 2015 game "Overwatch" (half MOBA/half FPS), etc.  I think the MMORPG genre is just totally oversaturated, and in NCSoft's case, they have such a bad reputation for being game killers that people avoid their MMORPGs over that as well.

What they really need to do is learn how to run their games properly and how to respect their customers.  Their players are not brainless savants who will just blindly shut one game launcher down for the last time as they shutter a game, and then open up the next launcher as NC launches a new title.

I disagree with the notion that NCSOFT are game killers.  With the exception of CoH, every other western MMO they killed performed poorly under anybody's criteria and compared to their home titles in Korea, vastly under performed.  GW2 is still going strong, with income in 3rd quarter nearly twice CoH's last reported entire year.  WildStar may still be successful now that management has been beaten about the head and shoulders that Raids and hard core content doesn't convince players to pay a monthly fee.  They canceled their holiday events (Xmas is cancelled and so was Halloween) to work on revamping the play and rewards as well as stomping out bugs.

I agree that MMORPGs are a saturated market.  There's WoW and everyone else.  But it's like 500 channels and nothing's on.  Nearly all are hybrid/F2P which means we have enough annoying things that you will feel compelled to subscribe monthly, unless you have the patience of a saint.  Or they are P2W kind of F2P like ArcheAge.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: LydiaFrost on November 22, 2014, 09:40:28 AM
Im currently playing BnS on a russian server.

You can play the censored or the uncensored version. I use the uncensored Version, but right now, the differences arent so great.
It is really good looking, and has a nice combat system, but. its a railroad with one questline for all chars. I enjoy the quest, but i dont think there is much to hold me in game, when its done.

At least you can Glide, and thats very nice with the scenery :)

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=imageshack.com%2Fa%2Fimg674%2F5835%2FGKQZ5X.jpg)

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=imageshack.com%2Fa%2Fimg537%2F9898%2FtvFzao.jpg)

Lydia Frost MM
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Razy on December 26, 2014, 12:58:30 AM
I disagree with the notion that NCSOFT are game killers.  With the exception of CoH, every other western MMO they killed performed poorly under anybody's criteria and compared to their home titles in Korea, vastly under performed.  GW2 is still going strong, with income in 3rd quarter nearly twice CoH's last reported entire year.  WildStar may still be successful now that management has been beaten about the head and shoulders that Raids and hard core content doesn't convince players to pay a monthly fee.  They canceled their holiday events (Xmas is cancelled and so was Halloween) to work on revamping the play and rewards as well as stomping out bugs.

I agree that MMORPGs are a saturated market.  There's WoW and everyone else.  But it's like 500 channels and nothing's on.  Nearly all are hybrid/F2P which means we have enough annoying things that you will feel compelled to subscribe monthly, unless you have the patience of a saint.  Or they are P2W kind of F2P like ArcheAge.

 I agree Wildstar may be doing great for now. PvP issues remain unsolved. And trying to become another WoW in my opinion is a mistake. They will need some yrs before they can actually be competition for wow. WS concentrate to much in raids, and group content, even tho they know 60% of their population are solo players. Lvl 50 tunnels into 5 man missions, and 20 man raids. Not to mention the tedious task of atonement before you can raid. Drop 4 rewards are mostly for those to team up, once again forgetting the solo player and the people who enjoy teaming in little groups of 2-3 ppl.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on December 27, 2014, 09:27:50 PM
I agree Wildstar may be doing great for now. PvP issues remain unsolved. And trying to become another WoW in my opinion is a mistake. They will need some yrs before they can actually be competition for wow. WS concentrate to much in raids, and group content, even tho they know 60% of their population are solo players. Lvl 50 tunnels into 5 man missions, and 20 man raids. Not to mention the tedious task of atonement before you can raid. Drop 4 rewards are mostly for those to team up, once again forgetting the solo player and the people who enjoy teaming in little groups of 2-3 ppl.

When you say "become another WoW" I hope you mean in style with vanilla WoW style raids because if you mean "WoW killer" or WoW sized player base.  I don't think anyone expected that, not one bit.  You also knew that the Carbine Studio founders left Blizzard after WoW launched right?  They were looking to do a SciFi version so of course the similarities with WoW is strong.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Safehouse on December 31, 2014, 03:04:36 PM
Im currently playing BnS on a russian server.

You can play the censored or the uncensored version. I use the uncensored Version, but right now, the differences arent so great.
It is really good looking, and has a nice combat system, but. its a railroad with one questline for all chars. I enjoy the quest, but i dont think there is much to hold me in game, when its done.

At least you can Glide, and thats very nice with the scenery :)

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=imageshack.com%2Fa%2Fimg674%2F5835%2FGKQZ5X.jpg)

(https://images.weserv.nl/?url=imageshack.com%2Fa%2Fimg537%2F9898%2FtvFzao.jpg)

Lydia Frost MM


Holy cow! Dat axe :P

Joking aside, it's a pretty looking game. Although I have heard the complaints about the questline - literally a line
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: microc on February 02, 2015, 12:13:32 PM
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2015/02/133_172863.html
looks like ncsoft payed a lot for a online payment company.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blondeshell on February 02, 2015, 11:36:40 PM
That article reads like it was written by Dilbert's pointy-haired boss. So many buzzwords.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 07, 2015, 07:14:09 AM
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2015/02/133_172863.html
looks like ncsoft payed a lot for a online payment company.
$40 million isn't a lot if they become THE way to handle all online transactions in gaming in Asia.

http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2015/02/129_172863.html
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: microc on February 12, 2015, 02:35:17 AM
http://global.ncsoft.com/global/ir/earnings.aspx
wildstar took a big hit...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: saipaman on February 13, 2015, 12:21:38 AM
http://massivelyop.net/2015/02/12/nexon-pressures-ncsoft-as-largest-shareholder/

What are the odds that the CoX IP is one of the 'non-core' assets that Nexon wants NCSoft to sell?

Dare we dream?
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Blackout on February 13, 2015, 12:34:40 AM
Considering its not actually in use, I would Imagine it is a non core asset. Could be wrong of course, but it seems fairly likely.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JanessaVR on February 13, 2015, 01:14:12 AM
http://massivelyop.net/2015/02/12/nexon-pressures-ncsoft-as-largest-shareholder/

What are the odds that the CoX IP is one of the 'non-core' assets that Nexon wants NCSoft to sell?

Dare we dream?
Wow.  Indeed, could this actually work out to be in our favor?  I'm kinda doubting that CoH currently counts as a "core asset."
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: rebel 1812 on February 13, 2015, 02:51:01 AM
Wow.  Indeed, could this actually work out to be in our favor?  I'm kinda doubting that CoH currently counts as a "core asset."

Well standard business procedure is to search the market looking for the best price.  I don't think there has been any other buyers in the 2 years since it shut down.  So that would be any offer would be the best one.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: microc on February 14, 2015, 01:11:42 AM
http://www.whowired.com/406687.htm
this may be why nexion want to control ncsoft.
looks like ncsoft on a buying bing with no real plan on what it buying.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: microc on February 17, 2015, 02:47:10 AM
http://www.whowired.com/406699.htm
looks like the stock war is heating up.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Drauger9 on February 17, 2015, 03:01:42 AM
What kind of company is Netmarble I wonder?

I'll have to look them up....
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 17, 2015, 07:48:00 PM
I've been remiss by not posting about this.

Basically Year over Year, NCSOFT Income is up 10.8% while profits are up 43.4%. 

The biggest mover income wise for the year was royalties, some 70.9 billion KrW, likely from China so that strategy started to work.  Next biggest positive change in income is, well, WildStar, bringing in some 49.5 billion KrW.  Then B&S which is now in Taiwan as well as Japan and Korea (China's revenue from B&S is in royalties and not broken out by game) with 13.9 billion KrW.

The downers are lead by GW2, down some 37.7 billion KrW.  That may have contributed to the push of an expansion now than earlier.  The original Lineage is also down some 24.8 billion KrW even though it had the best quarter ever in 4Q.

As for Nexon's "demands", NCSOFT gave them the polite middle finger during the conference call when asked about them.  The old Korean noncommittal meaning no answer on some.  But they did say they weren't going to close out their Treasury Stock, stock that isn't traded currently that they can use to buy stuff.  They said that dividends will reflect how well the company is doing and will go up along with the company's fortune.  They also said they will invest their money where they think will do the most good.  That said they did invest in a toy drone company as well as buying several small mobile game developers.  They also invested in a payment processing company used in Asia.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Drauger9 on February 17, 2015, 10:08:10 PM
Thanks for the update FatherXmas.

It's going to be interesting to see how this all plays out and what it means for us. On how to get our game back, hopefully things are far enough along in the negotiations that it wont add more time to the finish line.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JanessaVR on February 17, 2015, 10:14:29 PM
I'm honestly unsure who to root for here, but as NCSoft is actually dealing with us now on the IP sale, I'm inclined to think the devil we know is better than the one we don't.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: saipaman on February 18, 2015, 01:06:38 AM
I don't know, as time goes by, the devil we don't know looks more appealing.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Drauger9 on February 18, 2015, 02:29:26 AM
I'm honestly unsure who to root for here, but as NCSoft is actually dealing with us now on the IP sale, I'm inclined to think the devil we know is better than the one we don't.

Agreed, I'm worried that if Nexon takes over we'll lose all the progress we made with NCSoft. Especially if there's hard feeling between the two. Cause I think Nexon wouldn't want to work with us for the simple fact NCSoft was willing to give us a deal.

Either way we'll have to wait and see....
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on February 19, 2015, 05:46:40 AM
Well I think it has absolutely nothing to do with us or any of the "western" MMOs as some on various other boards have suggested.  NA/EU has always been looked at as small potatoes compared to Asia.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on March 13, 2015, 01:35:16 AM
Now I find this interesting.  Ra-Ra analyst KDB Daewoo kept their mouths shut until today to discuss last month's 4th quarter and yearly numbers.  I bet they were keeping their heads down until the Nexon/NCSOFT fight got resolved or at least reached a stalemate.

There recomendations, buy low in the first half of 2015, sell high during the 2nd half.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Drauger9 on March 13, 2015, 08:03:18 AM
Now I find this interesting.  Ra-Ra analyst KDB Daewoo kept their mouths shut until today to discuss last month's 4th quarter and yearly numbers.  I bet they were keeping their heads down until the Nexon/NCSOFT fight got resolved or at least reached a stalemate.

There recomendations, buy low in the first half of 2015, sell high during the 2nd half.

I was just thinking about this today. I was wondering if things settled down between them two. If I had to guess, I'd say it's a stalemate for now but eventually Nexon will win. The higher ups of NCSoft will branch out into other related areas and eventually leave the company.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: saipaman on March 13, 2015, 07:18:19 PM
Today's NCSoft news from Massively:

http://massivelyop.net/2015/03/13/embezzlement-scandal-rocks-ncsoft/

The short version is that several employees were caught embezzling money.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on March 15, 2015, 01:27:03 PM
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Rejolt on March 16, 2015, 01:59:45 AM
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JanessaVR on March 16, 2015, 04:02:55 PM
If this happens, I will laugh and laugh and laugh...

I've always hated the idea of lockboxes.  At least with the Super Packs, even your "lowest draw" was typically something good.  As I've said before here, I bought lots of Super Packs, but at least from what I hear from people here the loot from lockboxes in Champions is a real crapshoot, and you're more likely to get junk than not.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on March 16, 2015, 07:41:19 PM
It may simply become illegal in South Korea or restricted on how much can be bought per account per month.  Korea has mandatory exclusion of minors during certain hours, which they were talking about expanding.  Obviously we don't see that here in the US so no reason to expect any ban there on blind-boxes peculating over here.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: JanessaVR on March 16, 2015, 08:17:10 PM
Obviously we don't see that here in the US so no reason to expect any ban there on blind-boxes peculating over here.
Alas...
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: P51mus on March 17, 2015, 06:54:32 AM
It may simply become illegal in South Korea or restricted on how much can be bought per account per month.  Korea has mandatory exclusion of minors during certain hours, which they were talking about expanding.  Obviously we don't see that here in the US so no reason to expect any ban there on blind-boxes peculating over here.

Well, even if they wouldn't be outright banned here, there probably wouldn't be anymore in games developed in Korea that have NA servers.  I'd consider that a win.
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 01, 2015, 05:20:34 AM
Minor news blip on NCSOFT.  Rankings of public game companies in terms of income.  NCSOFT is 21st.

http://www.newzoo.com/free/rankings/top-25-companies-by-game-revenues/
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 14, 2015, 05:54:04 AM
1Q 2015 results.

Year over Year, total income up 5.6% for the quarter.  Profits down 2.6%.

Lineage up 61.0%
Blade & Soul up 39.2% due to strong Taiwan sales.

WildStar looks like it's on life support with only 2,593 million KrW in sales for the quarter.  That puts subscriptions at roughly 50,000- 60,000.  I can see them giving them a full year but unless there's a F2P option in the near future it looks as if Carbine fumbled badly at judging what MMO players will pay for.  It's still doing better than Tabula Rosa did.  But we'll see if Carbine has any white knights in Seoul to keep the game going.

For once NCSOFT stock surged on the news, near a 52 week high at 219,500 a share (~$200).
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: Solitaire on May 14, 2015, 07:02:12 AM
1Q 2015 results.

Year over Year, total income up 5.6% for the quarter.  Profits down 2.6%.

Lineage up 61.0%
Blade & Soul up 39.2% due to strong Taiwan sales.

WildStar looks like it's on life support with only 2,593 million KrW in sales for the quarter.  That puts subscriptions at roughly 50,000- 60,000.  I can see them giving them a full year but unless there's a F2P option in the near future it looks as if Carbine fumbled badly at judging what MMO players will pay for.  It's still doing better than Tabula Rosa did.  But we'll see if Carbine has any white knights in Seoul to keep the game going.

For once NCSOFT stock surged on the news, near a 52 week high at 219,500 a share (~$200).

Apprently Wildstar is coming to Steam in August as F2P, so I've read on Massively Overpowered.
http://massivelyop.com/2015/05/13/rumor-wildstar-is-coming-to-steam-and-might-be-going-f2p/
Title: Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
Post by: FatherXmas on May 20, 2015, 09:12:54 PM
Looks like last week they announced a few things.  First B&S is coming to NA/EU as a F2P likely this winter. 

Also their Project HON, which looked like a great mech game, got canceled due to lack of "local" interest.  :(

Sadly that makes my "but does it play in Busan" comment years ago seem more true than ever.