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A response to NCsoft

Started by TonyV, October 04, 2012, 02:43:45 PM

Rejuvenatrix

TonyV...once again, I applaud you!  You are a special kind of awesome, and we are most fortunate to have you spearheading this effort.  Very well said! *standing ovation*

P51mus

Quote from: Victoria Victrix on October 05, 2012, 05:16:37 AM
Or Nexon will sell it to us.

Right, something.  If we can't negotiate with current leadership, then perhaps we can hurt them enough to force new leadership of some sort that will.

Getting the notice of shareholders and getting noticed in Korea would help with that.  And just spreading awareness in general.

aerom13

Thank you!  I've linked this on my tumblr.

MacGuyver

I am uncomfortable about the idea of hurting them big and then expecting to get CoH out of it at the end. We are not talking about a U.S. company. There are numerous intercultural and international issues potentially at play. Of course U.S. businesses buy and kill competitors and/or their products all the time.

Not to mention if you tick someone off they might just shelve the CoH IP indefinitely just to spite everyone.

DrakeGrimm

Quote from: MacGuyver on October 05, 2012, 07:14:18 AM
I am uncomfortable about the idea of hurting them big and then expecting to get CoH out of it at the end. We are not talking about a U.S. company. There are numerous intercultural and international issues potentially at play. Of course U.S. businesses buy and kill competitors and/or their products all the time.

Not to mention if you tick someone off they might just shelve the CoH IP indefinitely just to spite everyone.

On the flip side...NCSoft has to be careful, lest they rouse a sleeping giant.


(Yes, I know, it was Japan who said that in WWII. The point sticks.)
We are the crazy ones, the mavericks, the dreamers, the forgotten sons. We color outside the lines for fun. We are the crazy ones! - "The Crazy Ones," Stellar Revival

"We put ourselves in "the attitude of heroes"--and we all became a little more heroic." - VV

P51mus

Quote from: MacGuyver on October 05, 2012, 07:14:18 AMI am uncomfortable about the idea of hurting them big and then expecting to get CoH out of it at the end.

They're already in the process of killing CoH.  Really, it can't get worse.

eeek

Quote from: sabbatha251 on October 05, 2012, 04:39:46 AM
I think it would be great if we went old school. Get a full page add in a major korean paper "Dear NCsoft, You forgot an option! The City of Heroes community would like to buy their game back."  :P

HAHAHA!  I would totally donate money to this fund!   In my imagination, I'm seeing full-page ads coming out every 3 days or so:

2nd ad:  REWARD FOR SAFE RETURN!
              City of Heroes game last seen in vicinity of NCSoft.  No questions asked upon safe return!

3rd ad:  Dear NCSoft, apparently your reply to us has been lost in the mail.  Please resend to... (copy list of 20,000+ signatures.)



(Ok, my imagination apparently doesn't continue much further than a week at 6:48 am)

Vulpy

Quote from: Segev on October 05, 2012, 04:48:15 AM
My memory for names is bad to begin with, so forgive me for not recalling...

Does anybody remember who was doing the "1000 cranes" project? THAT might be best sent to Nexon, in Japan, rather than to NCSoft, if we're going to double-prong this next effort.

Good thinking! Unfortunately, I only make origami snowballs.

Edit: Found the post in question.
@Vulpy
Protector Server

OzonePrime

Quote from: DrakeGrimm on October 05, 2012, 07:15:30 AM
On the flip side...NCSoft has to be careful, lest they rouse a sleeping giant.


(Yes, I know, it was Japan who said that in WWII. The point sticks.)

Yes, they could fill them with a terrible resolve!

Manga

Quote from: Victoria Victrix on October 05, 2012, 05:16:37 AM
Or Nexon will sell it to us.

I believe the tactic you and P51 are referring to could be a *hostile takeover* - the forced buyout or replacement of board and/or management by stockholder vote.  Usually just the threat of it will change the behavior of a publicly traded company; the risk is that their behavior will become worse in order to poison the stock.  Since they've already done the worst to us CoH players, though, it's not likely to affect us badly at all.  But whether or not it affects the stockholders badly is what would drive that kind of decision.

In short, that kind of threat could lead to NCSoft selling CoH to anyone just to get rid of its toxicity.  Or if they're illogical and stubborn enough, it could lead to them digging in even more, and clinging to it as it drags them to destruction, just to prove that they're still right.  The risk is, if they're willing to go that far to prove they're right, they will drag all their other titles down with them.

Segev

If they went the route of dragging their other titles down with them, the problem for them becomes that the "poison pill" strategy only works if the hostile takeover force wants them in good health. If the hostile takeover force wants a particular property that they can't make any worse, it just makes them all the cheaper to forcibly buy out.

Atlantea

#91
Quote from: TheManga on October 05, 2012, 12:33:13 PM
The risk is, if they're willing to go that far to prove they're right, they will drag all their other titles down with them.

Well then, that's THEIR fault, not ours.

And the observation that we would be able to pull the COH IP out of the wreckage applies to all the OTHER games they've killed as well!

*DING*

*/em LIGHTBULB!!!!*


I wonder... I'm not sure if it's been mentioned before. But has anyone thought of contacting Richard Garriott?.

The guy got 32 MILLION dollars from NCSoft over the whole Tabula Rasa debacle. But he didn't get his GAME back.

I wonder if he'd be willing to join with our cause?

What level of involvement would be best for him? Would he be most useful as a vocal supporter of the cause who can provide a cautionary tale that dovetails with our own?

Would he be willing to provide FUNDING for efforts at Public Relations for our efforts? 32 Million dollars - surely he has at least half of that money after taxes? Assume he's got at least 5-10 million he can use towards interesting projects... like - oh, say, gleefully putting a stick in the eye of the company that killed Tabula Rasa? Or putting enough money in the hands of people like us that we can have a bigger stick (bigger stick = HUGE advertisements in newspapers and gaming magazines in both America and Korea, or maybe enough money for those stock options? )

Assume one of our arguments in contacting him would be the possibility of getting Tabula Rasa back at some point as alluded to above? Or at the very least, in making himself look good by being a "White Knight" that makes sure what happened to T.R. doesn't happen again? Hey - the man's a wacky dude with a wacky size ego. Enlightened self-interest after all DOES make the world go around!

(In Bill Murray Voice)

"If we're wrong, nothing happens! We go to other games - peacefully, quietly. We'll enjoy it! But if we're *right*, and we *can* stop this thing...  Richard... Lord British... you will have saved the characters and accounts of hundreds of thousands of paying customers...



(Yes, yes, I know that it would mostly be TonyV who got the ball rolling on this whole thing and no implied disrespect intended etc. Instead, think of the above as an example of the "appeal to ego" I was talking about. As well as combining humor with inspiration. ^_^ )
"I've never believed in the End Times. We are mankind. Our footprints are on the moon. When the last trumpet sounds and the Beast rises from the pit — we will KILL it."
— Gen. Stacker Pentecost

TonyV

Quote from: MacGuyver on October 05, 2012, 07:14:18 AM
I am uncomfortable about the idea of hurting them big and then expecting to get CoH out of it at the end. We are not talking about a U.S. company. There are numerous intercultural and international issues potentially at play. Of course U.S. businesses buy and kill competitors and/or their products all the time.

To be blunt, we've tried playing nice.  I have repeatedly told them that we neither want nor need for NCsoft's reputation to be harmed during this ordeal, and to date, everything I have suggested we do and every press release I have put out has been at worst neutral toward NCsoft and at best complimentary for the support they've shown City of Heroes in the past.  They really could have had a major PR win out of this situation--visible members of the very community they are kicking to the curb extolling the virtues of their company, even a notable best-selling author helping to pitch their products.

That clearly has not worked, so it is time to shift tactics.  We are not aiming to "hurt them big," but apparently they are unwilling to listen as we have repeatedly explained why selling City of Heroes is a good idea.  At this point, we are explaining why not continuing to negotiate to sell City of Heroes is a bad idea.  If the carrot of good PR doesn't get the job done, then we really don't have much left other than the stick of bad PR.  We didn't make that choice, NCsoft did.

How much bad PR?  Well, as much as it takes I suppose.  At this point, I personally really do view the company as the MMO Killer.  Five games in five years, and each time they have been unwilling to budge on allowing the game to be sold so that their respective communities could continue.  And now, they've shown that they're even willing to do it to games that are pulling their weight (and then some!) for reasons that apparently on they know and won't share.  The way I see it, NCsoft has taken our money, used it to fund other titles like Guild Wars 2 and Blade and Soul, and now that they have their new shinies and don't need us any more, they're kicking us to the curb.  To me, that is not the way to run an MMO publishing company.  It's extremely disrespectful to us, the very people who have been unwavering in our support of them for eight and a half years.

At this point, the best case scenario is that NCsoft finally realizes that not selling City of Heroes is more damaging to their reputation than letting it go.  The worst case scenario is that they don't incur the bad PR that they deserve over this situation and unwitting players continue buying NCsoft games, unaware that after it uses their money to fund whatever new shiny project is in the works that it thinks will be the Next Big Thing™, they will also be kicked to the curb just like we are.  Even if we're not successful in acquiring City of Heroes, I aim to make sure that as many people as possible don't make that mistake.

Quote from: MacGuyver on October 05, 2012, 07:14:18 AM
Not to mention if you tick someone off they might just shelve the CoH IP indefinitely just to spite everyone.

They've made it pretty clear that as things stand now, that is their intention.  I don't really care whether the reason is "just to spite everyone" or "because [whatever weird reason they're using internally to justify this decision]."  The end result is the same.  Like I said, what we've been doing hasn't worked, and we need a different result, so we're going to be trying something else instead.

Segev

Alright. If we're going a bit more aggressively negative, then we have VV's letter in another thread which we should make sure has a sort of "time bomb leak" built in so they're aware it will get published in, say, a major Seoul or national S. Korean newspaper as a full-page ad.

The suggestion of contacting Richart Garriott in conjunction with the idea of buying enough stock to "make ourselves heard" made in another thread could have some traction, but those who participated in THAT action would have to be willing to risk the stock plummeting in value and even gaining a 1% voting bloc would still get ignored. Though admittedly, a unified 1% voting bloc would be enough that other shareholders might at least pay attention. (I should note that, using some very rough guestimates and a few numbers I had available, it would cost 20,000 people an average of $3,800 or $7,600 each to obtain that 1% share, which I'd bet most of the 20,000 petitioners can't afford.)

But it's something to consider.

Quinch

Quote from: Atlantea on October 05, 2012, 02:51:33 PM"If we're wrong, nothing happens! We go to other games - peacefully, quietly. We'll enjoy it! But if we're *right*, and we *can* stop this thing...  Richard... Lord British... you will have saved the characters and accounts of hundreds of thousands of paying customers...

Does anyone know if there's ever been a point in history that didn't have an appropriate Ghostbusters quote?

Rae

Quote from: Atlantea on October 05, 2012, 02:51:33 PM

I wonder... I'm not sure if it's been mentioned before. But has anyone thought of contacting Richard Garriott?.

The guy got 32 MILLION dollars from NCSoft over the whole Tabula Rasa debacle. But he didn't get his GAME back.

I wonder if he'd be willing to join with our cause?

I did think about it, and I got as far as finding a contact page for him, and no further. Hope this helps.

http://richardgarriott.com/contact/

Yes, I googled. I am both useful AND technologically awesome.
--
@Vandellia
Virtue - Vandellia / Unseen Scarlet

Twitter: @Skybloopink

Atlantea

Quote from: Quinch on October 05, 2012, 03:05:52 PM
Does anyone know if there's ever been a point in history that didn't have an appropriate Ghostbusters quote?

If there is, I haven't found it yet. :D
"I've never believed in the End Times. We are mankind. Our footprints are on the moon. When the last trumpet sounds and the Beast rises from the pit — we will KILL it."
— Gen. Stacker Pentecost

Segev

Quote from: rae on October 05, 2012, 03:06:03 PM
I did think about it, and I got as far as finding a contact page for him, and no further. Hope this helps.

http://richardgarriott.com/contact/

Yes, I googled. I am both useful AND technologically awesome.
Thank you! This could be quite useful.

Atlantea

*DING*

*/em Lightbulb!* (yes - again)

Would it help in contacting Richard Garriott if we got our own wordsmith Mercedes Lackey to lend her talents putting together an intro letter to him? TonyV is no slouch in that department AT ALL, in fact he's fantastic! But hey - a little celebrity never hurts either!

(Maybe if we're lucky he or some of his family or friens have read her books?)
"I've never believed in the End Times. We are mankind. Our footprints are on the moon. When the last trumpet sounds and the Beast rises from the pit — we will KILL it."
— Gen. Stacker Pentecost

Atlantea

Oh darn... Just saw in the other thread -

QuoteAlthough he got paid $32million back from NCsoft, he apparently had to borrow monies during the court case.

Quote
In December 2008, NCsoft informed Garriott that the company classified his departure as a voluntary resignation, rather than a forced termination.   This distinction impacted the stock options contract, which provided that if Garriott voluntarily resigned he must exercise his options within 90 days.   Although Garriott had intended to hold his options until after NCsoft released a game called Aion to the market, the 90–day period required Garriott to exercise his options by a new date imposed by the company, which he did in January 2009.   To meet this deadline, Garriott scrambled to raise enough money by obtaining loans from family members and business colleagues, liquidating personal holdings, and borrowing from his IRA

Linkage to quote

Although he might have assets worth quite a bit, i honestly doubt that he has that much money laying around available to spend at a moments notice. More than likely, he also has a fair bit tied up in Portalarium as well.

This is a good point. So maybe he's not worth as much monetarily as I thought. Still - I think the point about him lending his voice to the cause might still be worth looking into. His personal story dovetails with ours. And the PR possibilities alone are very interesting.
"I've never believed in the End Times. We are mankind. Our footprints are on the moon. When the last trumpet sounds and the Beast rises from the pit — we will KILL it."
— Gen. Stacker Pentecost