Titan Network
Graveyard => Save Paragon Retirees => Save Paragon City! => Topic started by: Quinch on September 30, 2012, 05:08:30 PM
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Not that I expect it to change anything in that particular blog, but I can probably reuse most of it in other situations.
In response to http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2012/09/not-quite-super-heroic.html
I'd like to clear up a few misconceptions, both in regards to Tobold's post, as well as some in the responses.
First, in regards to subscription numbers, and how they relate to the bottom line. A quick at Wikipedia {yes, forgive me, but let's assume it's at least mostly right} puts 200,000 subscribers as the average subscriber base of Final Fantasy 11, published by what is by and large a household name for most gamers, with publicity and developer base to match.
The running cost of a MMO is not a fixed one, not only between separate MMOs, but during their own lifetime as well. For example, at the time Paragon Studios were disbanded, they employed eighty people. However, at one point, in 2006, to be specific, it consisted of no more than fifteen. It ultimately depends on your definition of failure - and if is defined as inability to subsist by itself, to operate in the proverbial black, then by NCsoft's own revenue numbers, it was not one. This is, by and large, treated as the biggest mystery in this entire affair - why did NCsoft sever an ongoing, quantifiably positive revenue stream?
There is also an understatement of player involvement. Since the game transitioned into the hybrid free-to-play model, actual subscription numbers have been difficult to pin down, but estimates put it around 50,000 subscribed players. The Unity Rally that took place on September 8th drew five thousand people. How many games can you name that would be likely to draw one-tenth of their total population to a single server {which spilled into three as they filled} for a single, simultaneous event that had nothing at all to do with gameplay itself, but a show of solidarity for the game and its developers? Our overall population may be a drop in the bucket compared to behemoths like WoW, but the fraction of those willing to involve themselves in its survival is, I believe, far in excess.
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@moonmonster: You're assuming CoH is defunct due to its age, but its age could be compared to one of the person - one would hardly argue that an eight-year-old is inferior to a newborn. Let me illustrate - at http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Issues you will find the list of issues - free mini-expansions - that were incorporated into the game over its lifetime. During its entire existence, CoH was built on, improved and expanded with regularity. Story arcs, additional archetypes and powersets, entire zones and countless other minor additions, adjustments and improvements were implemented on top of the original foundation to the point where age equated to content and quality instead of obsolescence.
@Woody: I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that. CoH's transition to a F2P model was met with near-universal approval. With absolutely no limited resources to fight over, sidekick system that enabled vastly disparate levels to team together and almost exclusively instanced missions, CoH was the motherlode of casual play by whatever yardstick you might choose to measure it by.
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Well said.
It does sadden me when you see a game blogger trying to be all "cool and individual" and sneering at the efforts of others. I think it shows a singular lack of perspective and is symptomatic of the blinkered attitude that puts cliques ahead of the gaming community as a whole.
What gamers need to realise is that now, more than at any time in the past, we are one. In the same way that all communities based on leisure are. Artists, sportsmen...they're all one. If something threatens a part of our community, it threatens all of our community, because games, and art and sports are made up of many small pieces, all fitting together into one overarching and very human construct.
And if the edges of that construct are allowed to crumble, if they're picked at by the cold, emotionless fingers of corporate big business, then ultimately the whole community is at risk. If our community falls, then a little piece of that construct, that humanity has been lost. And the more pieces we allow to be lost, the larger the cracks in the community become, until the entire community itself simply falls apart.
I wonder how such bloggers would react if someone said "20k signatures is something to snigger at , huh? I wonder how many people read your blog? 20k? 10k A couple of hundred? So why bother writing a blog at all? And if you think your blog is worth writing, then don't criticise a community who are acting because they believe what they're doing is worth it".
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I have stopped visiting bloggers who post complete inaccuracies about CoH and #SaveCoH. If a blogger can't be bothered to do some research...I can't be bothered to increase their view count or comment on their "blog."
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Well reasoned, well written.
Now if they OP can just be bothered to actually read it...
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Also, if age was a major factor, then a whole lot of people are about to be sorely disappointed in a few months when WoW suddenly closes its doors.
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Also, if age was a major factor, then a whole lot of people are about to be sorely disappointed in a few months when WoW suddenly closes its doors.
Yeah, but then they'd have excuses by the bucket load about how THEIR game making money WAS really making money and how YOUR game making money somehow WASN'T.
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I have stopped visiting bloggers who post complete inaccuracies about CoH and #SaveCoH. If a blogger can't be bothered to do some research...I can't be bothered to increase their view count or comment on their "blog."
Actually, I think the inaccuracies make it that much more important to respond to them, because if uncontested they're much more likely to spread through those who read them and accepted as common knowledge gospel. It's not enough to simply be right, we need to stop others from being wrong, or all our efforts go down the toilet.
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Quinch, thank you for once again representing the community in a positive manner. Keep up the good work.
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Thanks for the compliments, everyone.
By the way, has anyone considered organizing a "Blog Watch" of sorts? Basically a handful of people who'd keep an eye out for CoH-related posts and link them to the forums? It might give us a better idea on how we're represented in the blogosphere {I can't believe that's a word} as well as giving us a better response time when it comes to responding to inaccuracies?
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I think someone just put forth the idea. You. :P
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You've certainly proven yourself capable of it, Quinch. Now, if your life would interfere, I understand, but I think you could do it.
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I'm not sure about how capable I would be. I believe I can put up a clear, diplomatic correction to any of the usual mistakes, and maybe - maybe - I could help organize, but I tend to steer clear of social networking which means that I don't really know where to start looking for posts and articles to address.
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That's my biggest weakness, too. That, and time, but that's probably true for all of us.
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I consider myself skilled at posting reasonable, polite rebuttals. I am not so skilled at combing for blogs. If people would like, I can volunteer to help write rebuttals for incorrect information that others find.
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What I would also make sure is that you do not overestimate your side of the argument, if anything, try to underplay the numbers (a little bit).
Stuff that I have seen out there in the wild:
The game had 100,000 active subscribers (numbers please for the number of VIP's in the game). 100K active accounts, yes i can believe that, but there is a difference between an active account and a subscriber.
The game was making 800K/month profit (yeah, we have had a lot of discussion over this one).
That this was the 1st game that NCsoft had voluntarily given refunds for. (It wasnt)
Now, to be fair, each of these have only happened once or twice, but they have been in the comments of blogs and articles that *we* (as in the playerbase) have been promoting to our cause. Infact, they have been made by people who have been supporting our cause.
Of course, if this misinformation is allowed to spread *ON BOTH SIDES*, it just makes the cause look stupid... "i shall counter your incorrect facts, with my incorrect facts". This is why I questioned VV's statement of "800K/month profit".
Each time I have had to correct someone from *our* side saying untrue things, makes me feel that it just isnt worth the effort, especially if all *some* people are going to do is correct stuff with more untruths.
I write for a political blog for a living. Part of my job is to debunk incorrect facts. If I mess up, and someone tells me so, I am grateful to them for that. I hold myself up to a higher standard than others in my field.
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I write for a political blog for a living. Part of my job is to debunk incorrect facts. If I mess up, and someone tells me so, I am grateful to them for that. I hold myself up to a higher standard than others in my field.
Whhaaaaaat a journalist that fact checks himself?
What were you frozen in some sort of glacier and only recently reanimated?
Just kidding. I'm glad to hear that at least some journalistic type person gives a crap about inaccuracies or not.
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I write for a political blog for a living. Part of my job is to debunk incorrect facts. If I mess up, and someone tells me so, I am grateful to them for that. I hold myself up to a higher standard than others in my field.
I CALL SHENANIGANS! No journalist fact-checks themselves! :P
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I CALL SHENANIGANS! No journalist fact-checks themselves! :P
Yeah. Lately, not even the fact-checkers fact-check themselves!
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I CALL SHENANIGANS! No journalist fact-checks themselves! :P
Hey! Next person that says "shenanigans" gets pistol-whipped!
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Snoogans.
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Yeah. Lately, not even the fact-checkers fact-check themselves!
Is that a fact? ;D
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Is that a fact? ;D
I fact-checked it myself! ;D
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This blogger has responded in the comments twice now. He also currently has the last comment.