NCSoft's past behavior

[darkquill]

This may have already been done, but here it is again. I wanted to see how NCSoft behaved in the past when it closed games. Tabula Rasa's announcement was in 2008 and Exteel's was in 2010. Ours, obviously, is 2012.


When Tabula Rasa's closing was announced on Nov 21, 2008:
http://web.archive.org/web/20081220184340/http://eu.playtr.com/en/news_article/message_from_the_tabula_rasa_team

the reparations for paying subscribers was announced the same day (by our own Avatea):
http://web.archive.org/web/20081220045357/http://eu.rgtr.com/en/news_article/information_for_our_subscribers

So in 2008, subscribers knew the same day what was going to happen.

Closer to the current date, we see it took three weeks for Exteel in 2010:

When Exteel's closing was announced on July 27th, 2010:
http://web.archive.org/web/20100801105744/http://www.exteel.com/us/news/archives/2010/07/all_good_things.html
Things were a little bleaker, but there was still a promise of news about rewarding customers in the future. It was delivered on August 18th, 2010:
http://web.archive.org/web/20100821110439/http://www.exteel.com/us/news/archives/2010/08/loyalty_rewards.html
Three weeks.

In 2012, we're two weeks in, but we haven't even been told that we're going to be told anything. Zwill has just said he'll pass anything along that he gets, but that he hasn't gotten anything.

These are just facts. Interpret them as you will. I'm holding out hope.

[Zolgar]

Also noteworthy, they shit-canned Dungeon Runners (free to play Diablo-esque game), it's been a while and I may be mistaken.. but there was as I recall maybe a couple weeks notice, everyone got premium accounts for the duration.. don't know if there was any form of refund though.

Wasn't NCSoft also responsible for Auto Assault?

[TonyV]

Wow, nice search-fu, darkquill, and very informative background.  Thanks for posting this!

One of the messages that I've been trying to convey to NCsoft is that it is gaining a reputation for shutting down games and killing off communities.  This is a golden opportunity for them to shed that reputation, to let gamers know that even if a game is not in its long term plans, it cares enough about the communities that it is building for titles like Guild Wars 2 and Blade and Soul that gamers should be interested in investing their time and effort into those games.

One of the things that separates City of Heroes from the other games is how well it was doing.  Unlike some of the other games, the property still has monetary value, and the player fan base is such that releasing it for another company to acquire would score major PR points with the gaming community.

[Thirty-Seven]

Also of note, is that Zwill said there will be a Twitch Broadcast this Wednesday... but that the one last week was canceled.  Wonder if that will have any intel?

Also of note is the huge gulf between the tone of the Tabula Rasa closure and the way in which our community was addressed.  How is it that a game that never reached critical mass was given such a positive and rather well-worded address and we (a game that wasn't booming, but certainly not failing) got a "don't ask questions" you guys are closed... so sad!

[Hyperstrike]

Again,

If there are things going on "behind the veil", potentially something that could save the game for the community, the murky silence is understandable.

[Tiberian Fiend]

Wasn't NCSoft also responsible for Auto Assault?

Yeah, but we could see that closure coming even in beta.  The game wasn't fun or close to being finished when they decided to go gold.  I didn't bother investing any time in it, even though I pre-ordered.

[beveri8469]

yeah. i tried AA and it was very boring and the controls imo were not that good.
graphics were ok but the playstyle of the game just wasnt good enough to keep interest imo.

[Riff]

The links in this thread on the official forum may have something to tell us

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=297371

I'm wondering if we're not missing a wider picture.

[emu265]

Nicely researched, my friend.  I had been meaning to get around to doing something like this, but you beat me to it!  Saved me a lot of time, too :P 

It's interesting though, NCsoft has quite the history in this.  They've never handled it particularly well, it seems.  I am hoping they realize they picked the wrong community to mess with this time around.  Still, if it says anything it's that it's too early to know very much.  It looks like NCsoft isn't going to talk until they have something to say. 

[Zolgar]

Yeah, but we could see that closure coming even in beta.  The game wasn't fun or close to being finished when they decided to go gold.  I didn't bother investing any time in it, even though I pre-ordered.

My point though is that they have a long standing track record of canning games, CoH may be the exception where the game actually still had a strong fan base and was making money.

Since August 2007 these are the games they have shut down:
Auto Assault
Dungeon Runners
eXteel
Tabula Rasa
Dragonica (Korean Dragon Saga, under different publishers for other countries)
Point Blank (Only the Korean server- it appears to be under a different publisher in the US)

In 5 years they have completely canned 4 games, and canned the versions of 2 others they had any control over.

And here's an interesting thing for you, in Wikipedia's list of MMOs, there are only 14 that have shut down.

[emu265]

My point though is that they have a long standing track record of canning games, CoH may be the exception where the game actually still had a strong fan base and was making money.

Since August 2007 these are the games they have shut down:
Auto Assault
Dungeon Runners
eXteel
Tabula Rasa
Dragonica (Korean Dragon Saga, under different publishers for other countries)
Point Blank (Only the Korean server- it appears to be under a different publisher in the US)

In 5 years they have completely canned 4 games, and canned the versions of 2 others they had any control over.

And here's an interesting thing for you, in Wikipedia's list of MMOs, there are only 14 that have shut down.

And NCSoft has almost half of them?  I'm afraid that might point to them just not caring.  Hopefully we can get through to them.

[Zolgar]

And NCSoft has almost half of them?  I'm afraid that might point to them just not caring.  Hopefully we can get through to them.

Well, technically only about a third, because it doesn't count Point Blank or Dragonica as shut down, since only the Korean versions were canned.

[emu265]

Well, technically only about a third, because it doesn't count Point Blank or Dragonica as shut down, since only the Korean versions were canned.

Ah okay.  Still, that isn't exactly a number to brag about >.>

[darkquill]

I played DungeonRunners and beta'd Auto Assault, so I lived through both of those, too. Dungeon Runners was so free (or close to free) that I didn't bother to research it.

As far as Auto Assault goes, the closing was announced on July 2, 2007:
http://web.archive.org/web/20070702054250/http://www.autoassault.com/news/

The service will close at midnight on August 31, 2007. As of today, any player currently in the service with an active billed account will not be billed again. If players have previously purchased time via multi-month billing or time cards that extends their service past July 31, NCsoft will reconcile these accounts appropriately. There will be more announcements coming soon regarding the shut down of Auto Assault and its impact on current accounts. Please check back at www.autoassault.com for more information.

The promised reconciliation apparently happened via email (according to Wikipedia, but it's unsourced, of course):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_Assault#Shutdown

Offers to continue to run servers by various parties were denied, but additional "Parting Gifts" were sent via e-mail with, "...opportunities to take a part in some of our other products, including Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa and City of Heroes..."

There's forum talk that they got free time in both of those, if one needs confirmation:
http://biomek.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=504
It's curious to note that there's no actual indication of anyone getting emails about that free time. Players had to go check their NCSoft accounts.

AutoAssault has plenty of info about the closing. After all, NCSoft was only the publisher. NetDevil was a separately-owned  studio, and they remained open afterward. Here's a Warcry article about how they talked to NCSoft about getting the IP rights but failed:
http://www.warcry.com/articles/view/interviews/4745-Auto-Assault-NetDevil-Reacts-to-Closure-Exclusive-Interview-with-Scott-Brown
Note that the article is only 3 days after the official announcement from NCSoft. Presumably NetDevil had more warning than Paragon Studios had. Here's the key info:

"We talked about it and sort of left it where it is," Brown told WarCry in a phone interview late Thursday. "We just couldn't come to an agreement."

NCSoft owns the intellectual property that is Auto Assault. This means they own the name, the story, the idea, the art and anything that directly relates to the game. The code-base and engine that power the game remain the property of NetDevil.

The petitions to save AutoAssault were kinda sad:
http://www.petitiononline.com/aa4evaa/petition.html only got 494 signatures.
http://www.petitiononline.com/aa4evaaa/petition.html only got 415 signatures.
So we're doing much better than that!

[uninventive]

Also noteworthy, they shit-canned Dungeon Runners (free to play Diablo-esque game), it's been a while and I may be mistaken.. but there was as I recall maybe a couple weeks notice, everyone got premium accounts for the duration.. don't know if there was any form of refund though.

Wasn't NCSoft also responsible for Auto Assault?

Dungeon Runners was behind the scenes in trouble for a long time and the team was vocal about that at the end.  From NCSoft's end of things, planning for that shutdown was easy in the timeframe considered, as well as the low player numbers involved.

From Wikipedia - - "Dungeon Runners just isn't cutting the mustard," Nichols said on an announcement on the Dungeon Runners forum. "If she were a ship, she'd be taking on water. Yeah, she's been taking on water for a long time now. Are my cryptic references too hard to decipher? The game just isn't profitable. And, the first rule of business is to be profitable!" 

Unlike Tabula Rasa and COH, there weren't enough players to make it work.  Sunsetting that title was probably long in consideration.

As for Tabula Rasa, Richard Garriot claimed that NCSoft forced him out and planned on the closure of the game well before the spaceflight he was planning to take in 2008, with the dev team posting while he was in space in November that the title was going end of life in February 2009.  He later sued NCSoft for $24 million for wrongful termination and won in 2010.  (Naturally, NCSoft appealed, and after missteps, the amount rose to $32 million a year later from interest and legal fees.)  Still, the team had a sunset plan, and made an end-of-the-world scenario for the last day of in-game play.

From those cancellations for titles that never had a popular foothold or return on investment, it's appalling that NCSoft treats the City of Heroes end-of-life period as "After eight years of operations, we're just shutting it off in three months.  Thanks for playing."  Nothing in the time since June when NCSoft was hinting towards trouble has shown any consideration or deliberate thought put into things considering our termination, except the financial end of things: the layoff, and the in-game freeze of purchases and subscriptions.  That's about it.  Everything about this reads as hasty and just plain slapdash.

[Tiberian Fiend]

Since August 2007 these are the games they have shut down:
Auto Assault
Dungeon Runners
eXteel
Tabula Rasa
Dragonica (Korean Dragon Saga, under different publishers for other countries)
Point Blank (Only the Korean server- it appears to be under a different publisher in the US)

In 5 years they have completely canned 4 games, and canned the versions of 2 others they had any control over.

You... *ahem*... forgot one.

[dwturducken]

You... *ahem*... forgot one.

We live in hope.  :)

[DrakeGrimm]

You... *ahem*... forgot one.

We ain't dead yet. FREE PARAGON! *pumps fist*

[The-Hunter-JLJ]

We ain't dead yet. FREE PARAGON! *pumps fist*

I feel like dancing!

[Zolgar]

You... *ahem*... forgot one.

Technically City of Heroes isn't shut down yet.
I am going by ones that the service that NCSoft provided is no longer available to those whom they had provided the service to.

Yes, they have announced the closure of City of Heroes, but it's not occurred yet. There is the posibility (however unlikely) that something will change.