NCSoft Stockwatch

[Turjan]

I prefer mentioning how I can't trust NCSoft anymore.

That, and the blade and soul female characters are so exaggerated they're the opposite of attractive to me.

Indeed. As a caricaturist myself (a profession which relies on visual exaggeration of course), the word I use to describe B&S is this :-

grotesque
1 : odd or unnatural in shape, appearance, or character; fantastically ugly or absurd; bizarre; (horribly) distorted.
2 : a piece of work in this style

Caricature is one thing, but the art of caricature is knowing when exaggeration crosses a line. If you step over that line, what you create is no longer a caricature, but a grotesque. The figure art style in B&S has crossed that line. I find it visually repellant. The landscapes and scenery however should be commended - they're actually rather pretty and atmospheric.

It's interesting, this whole notion of 'outrage advertising' of course - saying something is 'disgusting' or 'obscene' has always been a trick to get folk curious. In the case of something like B&S however, such a bloom of interest could actually ultimately work in our favour. If the game got a boost of players from 'outrage advertising', that would look good for the company...but only until 90% of those players left once they'd seen what the fuss was about, and realised the game is actually so culturally alien to them that there's no reason to stick around. And then that sudden drop in playerbase looks bad for the company.

Time will tell I guess.

I think the message we need to get across is one of BETRAYAL. CoH is chugging along nicely for 8 years, there's no indication of anything different...then suddenly, bang, goodbye and goodnight. Our loyalty disregarded, 8 years worth of financial support for NCsoft cast aside, our wishes ignored. In short, we have been betrayed. And it is our right to let everyone know that, both because we're aggrieved and to hopefully prevent other people from suffering as we have.

And if that affects NCsoft stock price, then perhaps they might not be so hasty to betray their customers again in the future.

[Victoria Victrix]

That might work for some fraction of the overall gaming population...but the fraction is probably not very large. The players of CoX are somewhat different from those in other MMOs I have tried, which is one of the reasons I like it. Consider also that B&S is presently NCsoft's most popular title in Korea. The majority of MMO gamers are probably male, like myself, and have little or no aversion to innocent T&A. In fact, I consider the idea of fantasizing about killing another human being (PvP) to be orders-of-magnitude more offensive than animated titillation. Why not start a crusade about that? Such topics can rapidly polarize people into religiously-devoted camps and could ultimately hurt the aims of the save-CoH crowd more than help it.

I'm taking a cue from modern marketing here. For instance, did you know that Budweiser has ads that are ONLY placed in gay magazines?  The rest of the public never sees them.  Many other products do the same.  I'm suggesting a targeted approach, so that we send specific messages to specific groups.  Feminists will be offended by the objectification of women in Bits and Tits; parents will be outraged at the T and A.  Gamers?  Never mention it.  Target them with a message that they will consider relevant.  The whole idea is for anti-NCSoft messages to be hitting cyberspace and hopefully the news from every possible angle, and for reactions to be coming from places NCSoft never anticipated.

[Undercat]

I'm suggesting a targeted approach, so that we send specific messages to specific groups.
...
The whole idea is for anti-NCSoft messages to be hitting cyberspace and hopefully the news from every possible angle, and for reactions to be coming from places NCSoft never anticipated.

I see. That's a somewhat safer strategy. On the other hand, consider that products like beer can be marketed to antagonistic groups with relative safety because their native social domains tend to be non-intersecting: the patrons of redneck bars are not likely to be found in bath houses, and vice-versa. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about online games. There, the communities are merged into a single cauldron under one rule system and implementation. To the extent that a game is explicitly tailored to suit one extreme of a social dipole, a sacrifice is inevitably made with respect to the other extreme.

Still, different groups will tend to focus on different things, even in relatively neutral environments, so I agree that the subgroup-targeting tactic is perfectly reasonable and probably quite effective in the general case. It is, at any rate, less polarizing than blanketing the earth with messages tailored to one particular creed (unless they are your intended customers, of course).

There is, however, still one other thing to consider. The videos that people have seen of B&S are almost exclusively those of the Korean version, and Asian cultures have rather recently acquired a comical fixation with exaggerated female proportions. I've been a big anime fan for many years, and you can trace the trend quite easily in that medium. It may be risky to draw conclusions about the expressive possibilities for avatars in B&S from the few existing examples we have access to---perhaps the players responsible for those videos explicitly chose to make their toons look ridiculous, whereas a more moderate player might be able to use the same tools to produce anatomically neutral renderings. This disregards NPC appearances, of course, since such things might be tweaked to suit cultural preferences, as so many other things are, when a game is localized.

And frankly, CoX isn't much different when it comes to avatar variability. Strip a female toon down to bikini briefs and move the proportion sliders to one extreme or the other and you can wind up with a character that looks just as bad as the ones I've seen for B&S, though admittedly they will look bad in different ways. Fortunately, most CoX players are not enamored with that particular look, but it certainly can be done. I think it's kind of risky to take an anti-T&A stance when CoX isn't exactly squeaky clean itself.

As for the "objectification of women" argument, I truly shuddered when I read that. Why stop there? What percentage of the male population do you suppose fits the image of a hulking and muscle-bound übermensch? Certainly not me. Also, while I may not be a spring chicken, I'm not quite yet a wizardly gray-beard...nor am I a tiny flaming lizard-man, a metallic android mastermind, an anthropomorphic stone monstrosity, a soldier with mechanical spider legs sprouting from my back, a tiny pixie-like sylph, or a dangerously-built and suggestively-clad, fire-blasting femme fatal. Yet I play all those characters, and more. I've probably had nearly as much fun in the character creator as I've had in the game, and the various costume contests that always seem to have been running on Virtue suggest that others shared the sentiment.

So why invite the Nazi PC-police to the party? I came to this little paradise to escape the insanities of the real world; the instant said insanities rematerialize in a world, I tend to pull a stealth maneuver.

I say this not as an attack on you personally, nor even on your suggested methods in general. Like me, you obviously are pretty pissed off about how the CoX closure came about and the fact that a whole world of lore is being snuffed out without recourse. I said elsewhere that one of the things I like least about the MMO genre is that it has no intrinsic durability. Unlike other video games, you cannot stash them away for a rainy day, to drag out years later for a little reminiscing. Once they close up shop, the art is destroyed. Forever. That may not be criminal to the fat-wallets who dominate our legal system, but it damned sure seems criminal to me.

Other promising MMOs have been acquired by third parties when their parent companies went under, though with even a slightly profitable userbase, such closures might not come about at all. Just look at Anarchy Online. Even the extraordinarily-niche game "Myst Online" managed to reopen in 2010 after suffering a financially-driven shutdown that led their extremely tight-knit community to exactly the same kind of quandary that CoX now faces, right down attempts to create alternative implementations. Sociologist Celia Pierce even wrote a book about it ("Communities of Play").

It's offensive that we should have to fight to resurrect a profitable game against a company that is financially solid. While the red-side player in me might want to indulge in fantasies of driving NCsoft into liquidation, just to shake them loose of their IP, the blue-side player realizes that it is categorically impossible and probably not even desirable, as it would only inflame other groups who enjoy their remaining titles (at least for the moment). The odds are definitely against us. Hopefully, if we squeak loudly enough, Dumbo might lift his foot to see what he stepped on.

[malonkey1]

You mention Redside/blueside, but that seems to be a narrow interpretation of it. Plenty of vigilantes would see NCSoft fall, and plenty of villains (Xanatos, anybody) would simply do whatever was most pragmatic.

[Artillerie]

Just saw this on Facebook - a sudden drop for NCSoft :

http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS

Apparently the lowest price in 2 years according to comments there.

[eabrace]

Just saw this on Facebook - a sudden drop for NCSoft :

http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS

Apparently the lowest price in 2 years according to comments there.

https://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y38/eabrace/th_Motivator-Schadenfreude.jpg

[Quinch]

Y'know, looking at this, the word I'm getting is less of a "drop" and more like, well... this.

And it is positively delightful.

[Terwyn]

Blood in the water.
Consequences are dire.
Give us our game back.

^_^

[Kaiser Tarantula]

Look out, NCsoft.  I just saw Captain Mako circling around your stock options.

[eabrace]

Look out, NCsoft.  I just saw Captain Mako circling around your stock options.

"Are you outta your MIND? You're in SHARK territory now, NCsoft!"

(Fresh in my mind after documenting Infernia last week.)

[Atlantea]

Just saw this on Facebook - a sudden drop for NCSoft :

http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS

Apparently the lowest price in 2 years according to comments there.

Not that I'm not heavily enjoying the schadenfreude here -- MUAHAHAHAHAHA!! *ahem*  ;D

but...

What the HECK just happened????   :o

[TimtheEnchanter]

Not that I'm not heavily enjoying the schadenfreude here -- MUAHAHAHAHAHA!! *ahem*  ;D

but...

What the HECK just happened????   :o

Maybe just tied into the election? Thought I saw a headline this morning online somewhere that there was a bit of a stock panic today.

[Atlantea]

Ahhh yes of course. Stands to reason that Wall Street are in a panic that Obama's been re-elected. He's about the most anti-business chief executive this country has ever had.

I was hoping it was more due to the Starburst article (though I thought that was a long shot). But this makes more sense.

[Terwyn]

Why would a stock panic in the US effect a company on the Korean market? I think there's something else in play.

[Atlantea]

Well consider - it's all connected - if U.S. Stocks tumble, then that's affecting the western market. Less value for the stocks = less value for the companies = less disposable income = less willingness to hire people = fewer jobs = more people under-employed = less disposable income for things like games and entertainment.

And the fact that this is heading into the Christmas Season is just doubly bad.

EDIT: So yeah - that's going to affect NCSoft because that means fewer people are willing to buy their games.

Of course we could be having a small effect even with all of this. If people have less disposable income, they're going to want to be much more careful of their purchases. They may actually be researching the games ahead of time. And a google search on NCSoft might just be turning up a few negative things here and there...

[Terwyn]

Well consider - it's all connected - if U.S. Stocks tumble, then that's affecting the western market. Less value for the stocks = less value for the companies = less disposable income = less willingness to hire people = fewer jobs = more people under-employed = less disposable income for things like games and entertainment.

And the fact that this is heading into the Christmas Season is just doubly bad.

I am aware of that, I just don't think the effect is that great.

[Atlantea]

Ooooh...


Just as a "for example" I just now did a basic "News for NCSoft" search on Google and Look what just floated to the top! 

http://my.mmosite.com/2281165/blog/item/ncsoft_killing_them_softly.html

(Gonna go do a quick crosspost on this up in the "Thank the media" thread.)

[TimtheEnchanter]

I am aware of that, I just don't think the effect is that great.

Sadly, it doesn't usually take much. You can make a million jokes about it. I used to make a crack that there was a perk to living in the Middle East during the wars, because any civilian could influence global gas prices just by making an obscene gesture at an occupying soldier.

More recently, one on the Onion that was absolutely priceless. "Dow Jones plummets due to rumors of Dow Jones plummeting."

[Turjan]

If the US economy tanks, then the world has a good chance of following it... and that markets reflected that.

Indeedy. This article in the Korean Times today shows what happens when the Korean won gains strength against the dollar -

Soaring won squeezes companies

The majority of exporters here have seen their bottom lines deteriorate as a result of the steep appreciation of the Korean won against the dollar and other major foreign currencies over the past few months.

- an effect that would be doubled should the dollar start to slide globally as well as the won strengthening of course.

Whether this is enough to have the sudden drop impact we've just seen on NCsoft's share prices is anybody's guess of course - their market is still mostly domestic, and their overseas products are digital rather than physical exports for the most part. Personally I'm going with what gangrel and Tim say about 'ripple effects' from small point sources disturbing the market.

[The White Rager]

 A simple 'NCSoft news' google gets nothing but 'they've closed CoH articles,' varying in tone from the merely reporting to the outright condemning. No Guild Wars II articles, just all about our fight. Way to go!