Being heard

[Thunder Glove]

To be fair, there is evidence that NCSoft was looking at profitability falling and decided to cut out sooner rather than later.

This is what I don't get.  If the game was becoming less profitable, it would have made sense to streamline things, cut down on Paragon's size, slow down the rate of updates, and things like that aimed at bolstering the profit-to-cost ratio.  I'm sure that we (by which I mean the playerbase) still would have been unhappy, but we wouldn't be anywhere near as unhappy as we are now.

But since the game was still profitable, all killing it outright accomplished was lowering their profits.  (Well, in theory.  In practice, GW2 more than took up the slack, but they could have had GW2's profits and CoH's profits instead of just one or the other) 

Killing the game entirely only makes sense from a financial standpoint if the game was losing money, and by all accounts it wasn't.  (Maybe it wasn't VERY profitable, but profit is profit, and there's certainly no gain in lowering their profit and further damaging their reputation in the West, the very market they keep saying they want to break into)

It's all water under the bridge at this point, of course, but I'm still baffled, and NCSoft still isn't providing any real answers (and probably never will).  Mostly I feel helpless, and above all angry.  I just want the game back, but I've got no clout, no connections, no massive bags of money, and no way to make NCSoft acknowledge me, let alone respond.

[Mistress Urd]

The thing is though, both War Witch and Positron have publically stated the game was doing very well, paticularly after going free to play. Then looking at how they were supporting the game through development and future planning, doesn't jive with the idea that the game was bleeding players, nor does it match up with the "official" financial records.

While I'm not quite convinced there was doctoring of the finances put into the records (though it wouldn't suprise me, I've seen it happen in 2 of the 3 multi-million dollar companies I worked for, one of them operating in the hundreds of millions), I'd be more understanding if it were said the game was profitable, but the studio wasn't. That I can see happening, with the devs seeing CoH's revenue, but not necessarily the operating costs of the entire studio.

Also, on several websites, when a game industry analyst publically puts their name and reputation out there and states all of his research into the closure doesn't add up that the game was indeed turning a suitable profit, then something is up.

So yes, in the end the servers went dark, but not for the reason's many people think, the subject is profit, but not necessarily the lack thereof. It could be VPs no longer thought the game was going to hit its target numbers, but never bothered to associate that issue with the nearly $0 marketing dollars Black Pebble had to work with to promote the game with. It could be NCSoft leadership decided it only wanted to focus on games with "more potential profit", and anything beneath whatever benchmark they had is being cut. When looking at the entire MMO industry, CoH apparently was still successful game, but not necessarily in the areas of the industry NCSoft wants to be in.

I'm ok with any of those reasons. But claims that the game was bleeding players and such just don't sit well with me when talking about the game prior to the notice of shut down, and it's not the rose colored glasses that I'm wearing either.

If the game was in fact gaining paying players every month, I doubt we would be here talking about the game being shutdown.

Black Pebble is a pretty funny guy, I got to talk with him during the meet and greets. I kept getting questions from various devs on how to spice up the pvp zones. The easy fix to fill a pvp zone was for Zwill, Black Pebble or some other dev to enter a pvp zone and go "I am here, come get me!"

I guess we will have to agree to disagree on the "bleeding of players" then. The current MMO I play publicly lists number of players online.  :P

[dwturducken]

I guess we will have to agree to disagree on the "bleeding of players" then. The current MMO I play publicly lists number of players online.  :P

The only MMO I can find verifiable population numbers on is an order of magnitude higher than the population estimate for GW2. And they use that population in their ads. :)

Even on a F2P model, 100K accounts is nothing to sneeze at. It's like a network show being cancelled for "only" having 8 million viewers, where it would thrive on cable with half that. It's a matter of realistic expectations, and we're seeing lamentation that the MMO is dying as a game format, instead of publishers and development studios shooting for 100K or 200K. Maybe the Plan Z projects can be the catalyst to shake up the genre. When the "pros" see what a rag-tag bunch of misfits can turn out on the cheap. :)

[Cobra Man]

If the game was in fact gaining paying players every month, I doubt we would be here talking about the game being shutdown.

Black Pebble is a pretty funny guy, I got to talk with him during the meet and greets. I kept getting questions from various devs on how to spice up the pvp zones. The easy fix to fill a pvp zone was for Zwill, Black Pebble or some other dev to enter a pvp zone and go "I am here, come get me!"

I guess we will have to agree to disagree on the "bleeding of players" then. The current MMO I play publicly lists number of players online.  :P

No one has claimed that CoH was gaining players every month.

You appear to be moving the goalposts in your overall assessment of what happened to our game.

Perhaps a more consistent point of view would be more appropriate?

[JaguarX]

The only MMO I can find verifiable population numbers on is an order of magnitude higher than the population estimate for GW2. And they use that population in their ads. :)

Even on a F2P model, 100K accounts is nothing to sneeze at. It's like a network show being cancelled for "only" having 8 million viewers, where it would thrive on cable with half that. It's a matter of realistic expectations, and we're seeing lamentation that the MMO is dying as a game format, instead of publishers and development studios shooting for 100K or 200K. Maybe the Plan Z projects can be the catalyst to shake up the genre. When the "pros" see what a rag-tag bunch of misfits can turn out on the cheap. :)

And I think that is the root of this. Expectations more than whether or not it was making a profit. Hell, to some $1 million a year in profits would be excellent while to another it's small potatoes not even worth the bother. I think many studios are expecting too much while doing so little. They want the multi million players but not doing anything to advertise and get word out to attract that amount, then call it failure when the game "only" reaches 100k even while pulling in profit so the plug is pulled because of not reaching expectations.

[Nebularian]

I am willing to try and find out the cost of advertising on a few websites. I will post what I find and if we then can get a serious buyer - like Cryptic - we can put the pressure on. Until we have again as I posted an end to our war - we can't fight.

I personally would be willing to buy an add depending of course on the price. I am not good with making the ad however so I would come here for ideas - all credit freely given for the artwork.

Another thing to think about.  Some people here probably have their own websites, blogs, etc.   Now obviously we could not ask them to put up ads in inappropriate places.   I mean, an ad for saveCOH would probably not be appropriate on a person's professional/business website.

Some of us, however, DO have websites where such ads WOULD be appropriate.  I run a fan-fiction site called the Continuum Worlds...and I already have banners for both Plan Z projects among my rotating banners.  It would not be hard at all to stick a save COH banner with a link in there. (hmmm...come to think of it...I should probably have a link/banner to the Titan Network there....gotta get that done)  Or, since I have a section on the front page which shows links to Super Hero MMO's, I could stick it there (where I now have an inactive link to COH...sigh)

Now my site is a low volume site (since the writers have all slowed down their output over the last several years)  But I am sure that there may be some here on Titan that have sites with higher volume.  But high or low volume,   That is a way some of us can help....simply by volunteering a tiny part of our site front pages for such an ad!

Just a thought.

[TonyV]

This is what I don't get.  If the game was becoming less profitable, it would have made sense to streamline things, cut down on Paragon's size, slow down the rate of updates, and things like that aimed at bolstering the profit-to-cost ratio.  I'm sure that we (by which I mean the playerbase) still would have been unhappy, but we wouldn't be anywhere near as unhappy as we are now.

This is exactly my line of thought.  When people try to say that the game wasn't doing well financially, this is what I keep coming back to:

1) I didn't notice any appreciable decline in player numbers while I was online.  Sure, over the course of time, we didn't have the numbers we did in October 2006, but it's not like the servers were empty.  Especially during peak hours, I never had any trouble getting groups to do things with, and during events, the place was pretty full.  I know, anecdotal evidence and all, but there you go.

2) If the game were actually doing poorly, the management at Paragon Studios would have had to have known, and would have tried to do things to compensate.  For one thing, I think there would have been a lot more nickel-and-diming going on, not the hybrid subscription model that we got.  Plus, they would have looked pretty foolish getting up in front of god and country and declaring that the game was continuing to be successful at the Player Summit.  Or for that matter, even having Player Summits.  I mean, there's being positive about your product, and there's outright lying about its performance.  I never--not one single time--got any whiff of the game doing poorly from any of the devs or business managers.  Either they're really good liars in lockstep with each other, or they really believed what they were telling us.

3) If the game were actually doing poorly, why the heck didn't NCsoft do something about it sooner?  Why didn't they force Paragon Studios to pare down their staff?  Why would they have given them the money to invest in another second project and actually staff up with more developers?  This is the most damning bit of evidence of all in my mind, why when I compare the two versions of events, the version in which Paragon Studios was losing money or not as profitable as they should have been just doesn't hold water.  No company would let the first sign of trouble be shuttering the game and its development studio completely.

4) NCsoft's first version of what happened, straight from the horse's mouth, was that it was purely a business decision.  There was no indication that it was based on financial motives whatsoever until an anonymous inside source called them out on why they shut down the game, and then all of a sudden, they started retconning the reason of the shutdown.  It doesn't work that way.  Also, NCsoft has never in the past made any kind of issue over saying that a game wasn't performing well financially when they shut it down, so I find it hard to believe that this was just some weird exception.

To this day, and unless I get some new information that proves me wrong, I will always believe that THE reason the game and studio was shuttered was because NCsoft is working diligently to consolidate all of their operations to the home office in Seoul, South Korea.  I don't know exactly why, they used to be fine with having subsidiaries and studios wherever, but apparently, someone high up in the company has decided that they don't like that strategy.  They've had at least a couple of big rounds of layoffs even since City of Heroes shut down, and it's only four months later.

That's also why if I were ArenaNet and/or Carbine, I'd be extremely worried about my future with NCsoft.  I've heard that one or both of them might have deals that would let them have an "out".  I don't know if that's true or not, but for their games' sakes, I sure hope so.  Even if the studios continue on with their respective projects, I just don't think that they'll be operating with the same level of independence and freedom that game studios traditionally operate with, and I think that a lot of their operations and management will come out of South Korea now instead of locally.

But I honestly don't believe, nor have I ever believed, that City of Heroes was losing money or doing worse than they were for the past couple of years.  I honestly believe that the game was doing moderately well, that Freedom was a success, and that the management and employees of Paragon Studios were caught completely off-guard at NCsoft closing the studio and the game and doing everything in their power to acquire and save it.

[LT. Couper]

My thinking is that the people who say the servers were empty, didn't have any global chat channels, weren't in a SG and hung out in solo mission caves. That's all I can think of that would make the game seem empty. I played on Champion and was tuned into at least 3 channels just for forming TF/SF/Trial groups, and a channel for my SG. It was almost constantly buzzing! I never got the feeling that the world was empty.

[Mistress Urd]

I certtainly have some sympathy for the folks at Arenanet/Carbine. NCSoft did what they did and it wasn't pretty.

[JaguarX]

This is exactly my line of thought.  When people try to say that the game wasn't doing well financially, this is what I keep coming back to:

1) I didn't notice any appreciable decline in player numbers while I was online.  Sure, over the course of time, we didn't have the numbers we did in October 2006, but it's not like the servers were empty.  Especially during peak hours, I never had any trouble getting groups to do things with, and during events, the place was pretty full.  I know, anecdotal evidence and all, but there you go.

I dont know, certain servers seemed to be less populated as time went on. But at the same time Virtue, Freedom, and one other server that escape me at the moment seemed to get more populated. While I think overall the population got slightly smaller, I think most people just shifted to the main two servers. Even during peak hours outside virtue and freedom I had trouble finding 8 man groups for certain things. I never had opportunity to do Eden trial, STF, LRSF, and no shard TFs on a server like victory because I could never get on a team or form one larger than 5-6 or find people interested in doing those. Virtue it was easy. Villian side was even more empty on servers outside Virtue and Freedom and that one other server I still cant think of where it nigh impossible to form or join a team of more than 4 and during peak maybe 6 here and there only on weekends. During the week, My last few months of playing on victory server I did not run into a single other player villain side playing every single day for that month. And that is playing at peak times. So in all outside of Virtue and Freedom and that one server name I will think of soon, I had major trouble getting on a good sized team to get most of the team tasks done. But I figured it was just mostly population shift instead of major decrease.

2) If the game were actually doing poorly, the management at Paragon Studios would have had to have known, and would have tried to do things to compensate.  For one thing, I think there would have been a lot more nickel-and-diming going on, not the hybrid subscription model that we got.  Plus, they would have looked pretty foolish getting up in front of god and country and declaring that the game was continuing to be successful at the Player Summit.  Or for that matter, even having Player Summits.  I mean, there's being positive about your product, and there's outright lying about its performance.  I never--not one single time--got any whiff of the game doing poorly from any of the devs or business managers.  Either they're really good liars in lockstep with each other, or they really believed what they were telling us.

Yup. But just recently I seen where employees even management thought they was doing very good but then suddenly get cut. Even certain parts of the government is ran by profits. The management put out at the financial meeting that they was reaching their goal, and their service was grade A good and they was bringing in more money than they was spending, beyond the threshold that was set for them. Two weeks later, DoD let them all go and furloughed the four they let stay stated that they was trying to save money and that was an area that was under performing. Yet a couple of weeks ago, it was put out that they was exceeding expectations. Right now, there is a big internal fuss about it and I'll see what come of it soon. It seems it's not only NCSoft that does that.

But generally I always thought at least upper management or at least out of professional courtesy to let the upper management of those under you know how they doing. If it's poor work, say it's poor work and tell them to and or fix it. But giving false hope saying things are well and they repeat that then turn around and close doors because stuff wasnt going well? Hard to say as in reality they never said either or. Just realignment.

3) If the game were actually doing poorly, why the heck didn't NCsoft do something about it sooner?  Why didn't they force Paragon Studios to pare down their staff?  Why would they have given them the money to invest in another second project and actually staff up with more developers?  This is the most damning bit of evidence in all in my mind, why when I compare the two versions of events, the version in which Paragon Studios was losing money or not as profitable as they should have been just doesn't hold water.  No company would let the first sign of trouble be shuttering the game and its development studio completely.

Because I think overall COX was doing well, but probably they figured they had to or wanted to cut something and what better to cut something that is overseas, wont affect the home market, and going by some of the graphs, was near the bottom of the earning although still making a profit. I still think it was a bonehead move as a business man once told me, "Never burn your bridges with customers. Because you never know when you going to need or want them back." If they would have closed a Korean game, I think it had the potential to have much more damaging effect than a few dozen thousand of players half way across the world in a side show part of their target market.

4) NCsoft's first version of what happened, straight from the horse's mouth, was that it was purely a business decision.  There was no indication that it was based on financial motives whatsoever until an anonymous inside source called them out on why they shut down the game, and then all of a sudden, they started retconning the reason of the shutdown.  It doesn't work that way.  Also, NCsoft has never in the past made any kind of issue over saying that a game wasn't performing well financially when they shut it down, so I find it hard to believe that this was just some weird exception.

Honestly I dont think it even mattered what they would have said at that point. After the first reason, after the realignment thing, they could have said they was going to release all financial graphs of what actually happened and many people will still think it's fabricated or a ploy by NCsoft. I think after that instead of digging themselves deeper, they just clammed up about the situation. Because really, I dont think at that time, many people was willing or in the mood to listen to anything NCsoft had to say anyways if it wasnt "Sorry" and turning the game back on. So what would be the point of trying to explain if it was going to be taken as pure BS anyways and probably make things worse? In a way I think the smartest thing they did was shut up about it. Now, of course I preferred an explanation why. And I seen people wanting or rather demanding a reason why, but truthful, inside, was many people really ready to listen or looking for something they say to take and add fuel to their fire? Hell, now there is even word going around they might have made up the financial sheets, when in 2010 and 2011, it was taken as final word in anything about the final situation of COX, even when people was saying, Hey, look, people are leaving the game. And then sure enough someone would post a graph from NCSOft as solid factual evidence to show that while COX was in a decline, it was in no downfall and anyone who questioned those graphs during that time got flamed something awful. Now they are fabricated or possibly fabricated. Fabricated or not, I think it dont have anything to do with finance for reason of closing. So even if proof arises that the game was losing money faster than Titanic was taking on water after hitting the iceberg or proof arises that COX was making 3 billion a month, it would be irrelevant in the end as the points Tony V and others made are about right on point. It's too many plot holes to be about profits.

[Harermuir]

3) If the game were actually doing poorly, why the heck didn't NCsoft do something about it sooner? 

They do something. They just stop the localization a few month before closing the game. Which may have a huge effect on french and german speaking player. Which may explain the accelerated loss of player in the last few months of a game ... In France, we say "When you want to kill your dog, you accuse it of rage". I think it fit here.

[TonyV]

Because I think overall COX was doing well, but probably they figured they had to or wanted to cut something...

This just doesn't make sense.  Companies don't just cut products for the hell of it, they have to have a reason--and that reason doesn't always have to be financial, which I am 100% convinced is the case here.  Sometimes products are cut for political reasons.  Sometimes they're cut for internal organizational reason, which I think is the primary reason City of Heroes was cut and Paragon Studios was shuttered.  The thing is, though, if you do that, you should really make sure that it's a really good reason, and I don't think it was.  Still, it's their right to make dumb choices, and I don't particularly take issue with that choice.  However, keeping the IP locked up so that someone else can't acquire it is, in my humble opinion, compounding the stupidity of the situation.

Honestly I dont think it even mattered what they would have said at that point.

Actually, there was a much better way of handling this.  What should have happened is that the powers-that-be should have called or come and seen Brian Clayton and explained that for business reasons, they want to dump City of Heroes and Paragon Studios.  They should have given him and the other business managers an opportunity to acquire the game and IP for a reasonable cost from them so that it could continue and 80+ people wouldn't have to be out of a job.  (I'm not saying there wouldn't be any layoffs; they were overstaffed for just City of Heroes for working on the other project.)  Then in August, they either announce that Paragon Studios is spinning off as an independent studio and publisher, or they announce the shutdown with Paragon Studios completely on board with what was happening and why--because the business simply wasn't there to continue the game.

Because really, I dont think at that time, many people was willing or in the mood to listen to anything NCsoft had to say anyways if it wasnt "Sorry" and turning the game back on. So what would be the point of trying to explain if it was going to be taken as pure BS anyways and probably make things worse? In a way I think the smartest thing they did was shut up about it.

Saying they were sorry and turning the game back on was never an option.  As soon as I heard the announcement on August 31, I knew that would never happen.  Companies very, very, very rarely make a decision like that and change their mind.  If the smartest thing they did was to shut up about it, I'd hate to see what their idea of dumb is.  The smart thing to have done would have been to either spin off Paragon Studios or sell the IP to another publisher or investor willing to acquire Paragon Studios.  That would have avoided a lot of hurt feelings and not turned a contingent of loyal, dedicated players against the company.  It would have been win-win-win.  NCsoft wins by generating positive PR about caring about their players and collecting a nice payout in the process that could be used to support their other products.  Paragon Studios wins by not going out of business and a bunch of people get to keep their jobs.  The players win because we'd still be playing City of Heroes and probably arguing over stupid stuff like how good or bad the new Incarnate trial is.

Instead, NCsoft has effectively made a lose-lose-lose situation.  They've lost credibility to the gaming community and their reputation has suffered almost irreparable harm, some Paragon Studios employees are still looking for work four months later, and a subgenre-defining game and the product of millions of hours of creativity and hard work on the part of developers and players has been snuffed out for no good reason.  If that's not the height of dumbness, I just don't know what is.

And I seen people wanting or rather demanding a reason why, but truthful, inside, was many people really ready to listen or looking for something they say to take and add fuel to their fire?

I honestly don't care very much why.  Sure, as a point of curiosity, it would be nice to know for sure.  If they took steps to keep the game and Paragon Studios alive, I wouldn't care if Taek-Jin Kim just didn't like the shape of Brian Clayton's nose and that's why.  I do care, however, when they lie to us and the gaming press, especially while trying to quell the outcry that is a direct result of their own stupidity.

[Quinch]

This is exactly my line of thought.  When people try to say that the game wasn't doing well financially, this is what I keep coming back to:

Point 1)
Point 2)
Point 3)
Point 4)

Quick note, if you don't mind, I'm going to quote those when the topic of profitability comes up in offsite discussions - it covers the points better than I can, and it's very, for lack of a better word, pasteable.

[TonyV]

Quick note, if you don't mind, I'm going to quote those when the topic of profitability comes up in offsite discussions - it covers the points better than I can, and it's very, for lack of a better word, pasteable.

Sure, have at it.  I even stealth edited out some typos.  :)

[Nitekilla]

My thinking is that the people who say the servers were empty, didn't have any global chat channels, weren't in a SG and hung out in solo mission caves. That's all I can think of that would make the game seem empty. I played on Champion and was tuned into at least 3 channels just for forming TF/SF/Trial groups, and a channel for my SG. It was almost constantly buzzing! I never got the feeling that the world was empty.

One thing that everyone seems to be forgeting is that if you logged onto City of Villains side, it was a complete ghost town.  It did not matter what server or time of day but the CoV streets were completely empty.  I don't know if this had a part in the shutdown but when I started seeing this I was thinking something is very wrong here.

[Quinch]

The Coh/CoV populations were very... lopsided. I don't know whether it was because of predilection to play good guys, zone design or better-but-less content, or a combination of all three.

[Triplash]

Sure, have at it.  I even stealth edited out some typos.  :)

Ooooh. Assassin's Spellcheck. Nice.

[Ironwolf]

My problem with City of Villains is that the various locations were just - wrong.

What does a City look like when it is all villains all the time?
In some locations I could see the controlling factions causing the area to be complete chaos and it to look like Boomtown.
In other locations the powers above impose a harsh ordered existense where a step out of order could mean death. It was a place of darkness and gloom.

Villainy is not always about chaos - it can be order imposed without excuse. Praetoria was the perfect example of a villainous ordered society.


In my eyes I blame whoever decided Praetoria was a good idea for the game closing. Praetoria had all this fanfare and yet it was a zone you worked to LEAVE! I couldn't wait to get to 20 and get out of there. No teams - or very few as the more difficult enemies meant more difficulty at low levels.

[Lightslinger]

My problem with City of Villains is that the various locations were just - wrong.

What does a City look like when it is all villains all the time?
In some locations I could see the controlling factions causing the area to be complete chaos and it to look like Boomtown.
In other locations the powers above impose a harsh ordered existense where a step out of order could mean death. It was a place of darkness and gloom.

Villainy is not always about chaos - it can be order imposed without excuse. Praetoria was the perfect example of a villainous ordered society.


In my eyes I blame whoever decided Praetoria was a good idea for the game closing. Praetoria had all this fanfare and yet it was a zone you worked to LEAVE! I couldn't wait to get to 20 and get out of there. No teams - or very few as the more difficult enemies meant more difficulty at low levels.

Praetoria was definitely a very expensive flop. Extremely good content, but locking players away for 20 levels kept people away.

[Kaos Arcanna]

My problem with City of Villains is that the various locations were just - wrong.

What does a City look like when it is all villains all the time?
In some locations I could see the controlling factions causing the area to be complete chaos and it to look like Boomtown.
In other locations the powers above impose a harsh ordered existense where a step out of order could mean death. It was a place of darkness and gloom.

Villainy is not always about chaos - it can be order imposed without excuse. Praetoria was the perfect example of a villainous ordered society.


In my eyes I blame whoever decided Praetoria was a good idea for the game closing. Praetoria had all this fanfare and yet it was a zone you worked to LEAVE! I couldn't wait to get to 20 and get out of there. No teams - or very few as the more difficult enemies meant more difficulty at low levels.

Praetoria was beautiful, but I think the biggest problem with it is that some missions were solo only ... and some of those were rather tough. The mobs were awfully huge for characters that only had a couple of attacks at a time.

That, and they really should have made Loyalist have the option to be more heroic than it turned out.