Hey all, sorry I haven't replied sooner, but man, these forums are exploding and I've been trying my best to keep up with e-mails, PMs, and threads like this that explode kind of get really hard to keep up with. Sorry if I ramble a bit incoherently; this is the seventh straight day I've gone to bed after 5:00am and had to get up at 9:00am the following morning. (But I do get to sleep late tomorrow, friggin' YAY!)
I did want to say, though, that when I say "get the word out," I mean, get the word out to
everyone.
What do I mean, "everyone"?
EVERYONE!!!If I had my way, we'd top a million signatures on that petition. The only thing I ask is that you not try to fudge the numbers; don't sign it multiple times, don't sign it "Mickey Mouse", etc. But people from other communities signing it? Oh hells, yeah. I want NCsoft to realize that people are watching. It's not about how many may or may not pay for City of Heroes; if the game is shut down, that's a moot point. It's about a metric multitude of people turning their eyes collectively to NCsoft and saying, "We want you to do the right thing."
If they do, and they allow the game to continue, especially if they express willingness to work with another company or organization to keep the game alive, they have the potential of scoring a major positive PR victory. I'm not being facetious when I say that if NCsoft works with us to save City of Heroes, I'll have a lot of gratitude for the company in helping the community continue on even when a game doesn't fit into the long term goals of the company. It's a sign of maturity and respect, one that would impress me greatly. If they don't and they allow City of Heroes to die, then I want players across other communities to see what can happen to them if they pour their hearts into an NCsoft game.
So... Yeah. Share the petition with your friends. Share it with your neighbors. Encourage anyone who is passionate about something--and that's pretty much everyone--to sign it and provide them updates with what's going on.
Also, I've seen a few references in this thread about the game becoming unprofitable. I really, really, really, really,
really wish we could nix this rumor once and for all.
City of Heroes was well in the black. The game wasn't unprofitable, it was going strong. There seems to be this misguided belief that if a company kills off a game and closes a studio like it did, then the game
must have been sucking air, right? I mean, if it were making a profit, then why would they close it down? That wouldn't make sense!
TL;DR version: Yes, it very well might.
I could post a wall of boring business-speak text here, but what it boils down to is that Paragon Studios has a bunch of liabilities, things that are sunk costs no matter how well the game does. Things like Matt Miller's salary, Andy Belford's health insurance, that copy of whatever artistic wizardry software that David Nakayama uses, and any other corporate resources allocated to the studio and the game, such as engineers, accountants, marketers, human resources goobs, etc. It's making money, but if you're an investor, you can't assume that its revenue stream will continue unscathed; it's a variable. That variable income matched with fixed liabilities results in an element of risk, and that means that you might be a little reluctant to pour as much money into a company than they're asking for.
Right now, NCsoft is working hot and heavy on other projects, the most obvious of which is Guild Wars 2. Paragon Studios,
even if it's profitable, could very well be presenting a problem in cash flow to NCsoft. If NCsoft closes Paragon Studios and shuts down Paragon Studios, all of a sudden, look what happens: you've shed your fixed liabilities, which even with the simultaneous shedding of your variable income, means that there's no risk there. By sloughing off Paragon Studios and City of Heroes, NCsoft has a consistent record of making money but without those pesky liabilities. Now, as sad as it sounds, banks and investors are more likely to put money into the company and enable a much more flexible cash flow to support its other projects.
I know that conspiracy theories are enticing, and that it doesn't seem to make sense to shut down a profitable studio, but sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and this kind of organizational restructuring is exactly what I think NCsoft is going through right now.
...But I still don't think the game is dead yet. I've REALLY got to go to bed, so I can't expound on this, but I don't think that NCsoft had a grasp of how invested in the game we are. I honestly think that they thought they'd make the announcement, the players would grouse a little bit about it, and move on. They would have had to invest in lawyers and complicated business plans to do something like split off Paragon Studios or sell off the game property to another publisher or studio. That would take valuable resources that, frankly, aren't really worth pouring into doing something that no one will really care about in a few months anyway.
Our mission, our goal, is to make sure that we make NCsoft understand that it is in their best interest to pursue spinning off Paragon Studios or releasing the property to be acquired by someone else; to pay for those lawyers and the inconvenience of letting go of City of Heroes.
