NCSoft Stockwatch

[FatherXmas]

The stock was as low as 27,000 (10/28/2008) back when CoH was still pulling in big sales numbers.  That's down from 107,000 in Oct 2004.

Again, extreme fluctuations in stock price have little effect on a company itself.

[Kaiser Tarantula]

Again, extreme fluctuations in stock price have little effect on a company itself.

Doesn't stop me from enjoying the schadenfreude with each won their investors lose.

[Colette]

Hmm... I've watched the documentary that compares corporations to sociopaths, yes. It has points, but to be honest, it doesn't jibe with my admittedly limited experience.

I believe that corporations are made of people, people in all their diversity and fallibility. However... the personality of the person or people with decision-making powers permeates the organization. This is inevitable, and why I so disapprove of laws that make a corporation a "fictional person," and allow those in charge to evade personal responsibility for their actions.

I think we can assess the personality of Kim and his inner circle by the actions of NCSoft, as I've stated before.

As for the stock, I see its devaluation as making the replacement of the current decision-makers more probable, and with that, a re-evaluation of the old guard's actions regarding CoH. A new team stands to reverse the PR nightmare NCSoft finds itself in. Simply by selling off the IP to a better caretaker, and a kind word to the CoH community, new management would win NCSoft's good name back. As we've mentioned before, this event could also benefit the entire MMO gaming community by forcing providers to re-examine the contract they offer to their customers.

So, that is why I check NCSoft's stock, and feel so heartened by its precipitous and ongoing decline.

[Kosmos]

As for the stock, I see its devaluation as making the replacement of the current decision-makers more probable, and with that, a re-evaluation of the old guard's actions regarding CoH. A new team stands to reverse the PR nightmare NCSoft finds itself in. Simply by selling off the IP to a better caretaker, and a kind word to the CoH community, new management would win NCSoft's good name back. As we've mentioned before, this event could also benefit the entire MMO gaming community by forcing providers to re-examine the contract they offer to their customers.

So, that is why I check NCSoft's stock, and feel so heartened by its precipitous and ongoing decline.

There is virtually no chance whatsoever that Kim et al will be forced out. He still owns 10% of the stock (the 2nd largest block) and Nexon (which has the largest stock block) is owned by a holding corp run by a close friend of his. Given the reliable backing of other large stockholders close to him the rest would have to be around 80-20 against him. That's just not going to happen, even if you could get it to a stockholder vote, which isn't going to happen in the first place.

Remember, this is a young company that is still basically run by the people who started it. And they're a pretty close knit group. Until they decide to start other ventures, this is who will be running NCsoftcore. And as long as NCsoftcore has the new baseball team (another project likely to lose millions in the short term) for Kim to play with, he's not about to step down on his own. The current leadership of NCsoftcore is unlikely to change anytime soon.

[NecrotechMaster]

if the decline continues then management will be changed, however, not something i expect to see anytime soon

i think they would end up selling coh before a change in management, since that is the more obviously easy decision (although based on what we have seen, ncsoft may be looking to take the hard and shameful road to failure than the easy proposal of just selling the IP and saving their reputation)

[Aggelakis]

if the decline continues then management will be changed, however, not something i expect to see anytime soon

It would have to continue really, really low since they were down below 50k for a decent while and nobody took a walk.

[TonyV]

Still, there's a difference between being low and falling dramatically.

It's a little like if you walked into a casino with $10 in your pocket, just happy to play a few games, maybe get a free drink and to snag a few chicken fingers off the buffet.  You play some quarter slots and win $100.  Then you go to the blackjack table and turn it in to $500.  You take that to the roulette table and hit, so now you're up to $2,000.  You take that to the craps table and next thing you know, you're swimming in $50,000.  From there, you decide to enter a high-stakes Texas Hold'em game which requires the whole $50,000, and on your first hand, you draw pocket aces, and another ace comes out on the flop.  Feeling pretty good, you go all in when it looks like one of the guys across from you is trying a slow play on you.  He goes all in also, and flips over two low hearts.  One of the flop cards is a heart and the dealer then proceeds to flip over hearts on the turn and river.

Now what are you going to be thinking at this point?  A: Meh, so I'm out $10, at least I got some chicken fingers and had fun.  B: Son of a bitch, I just lost $50,000 because the most stupid, rotten luck I've ever had in my life!

If NCsoft drops anywhere near 50k, they're not going to be thinking about how that's around where it was a few years ago.  Heads will roll.

[Colette]

That's great info, Kosmos. Sources?

Despite my complete ignorance of casino terms ("flop cards?") I agree with Tony. As I wrote before, people will gamble much more to regain something they've lost than to gain something new.

And as I wrote before, at the current rate of decline, they'll be at 50 within a few months.

[FatherXmas]

Still, there's a difference between being low and falling dramatically.

It's a little like if you walked into a casino with $10 in your pocket, just happy to play a few games, maybe get a free drink and to snag a few chicken fingers off the buffet.  You play some quarter slots and win $100.  Then you go to the blackjack table and turn it in to $500.  You take that to the roulette table and hit, so now you're up to $2,000.  You take that to the craps table and next thing you know, you're swimming in $50,000.  From there, you decide to enter a high-stakes Texas Hold'em game which requires the whole $50,000, and on your first hand, you draw pocket aces, and another ace comes out on the flop.  Feeling pretty good, you go all in when it looks like one of the guys across from you is trying a slow play on you.  He goes all in also, and flips over two low hearts.  One of the flop cards is a heart and the dealer then proceeds to flip over hearts on the turn and river.

Now what are you going to be thinking at this point?  A: Meh, so I'm out $10, at least I got some chicken fingers and had fun.  B: Son of a bitch, I just lost $50,000 because the most stupid, rotten luck I've ever had in my life!

If NCsoft drops anywhere near 50k, they're not going to be thinking about how that's around where it was a few years ago.  Heads will roll.

That runs under the assumption that most investors are emotional creatures.  Most investors are equally soulless/egoless beings who move in and out of positions like Hollywood style man eating shark patrolling a popular resort beach looking for its next meal.  Only 13% of NCSoft stock are owned by individual investors.  The rest, outside of the 25% that is owned by Nexon and the CEO, are large institutions.  They've been taking their profits on the way up and looking to expand their holdings on the way down, as long as NCSoft is generally doing better in their sector than their competitors.  Relying on high speed trading to eek out microprofits from their positions at times of relative price stability.

Why blame the BoD over the stock price if the company fundamentals are still sound?  See big investors know that a stock's price doesn't reflect the actual worth of the company in the short term, it's mainly driven by the "gut" opinion of a few dozen market "analysts", the people who worship them and a lot of group think.  None of those analysts want to be "wrong" as an individual but it's okay to be "wrong" as a group.  That's why there's usually a lot of consensus among them.  Now there are usually one or two with a contrary position because if the others end up wrong, you look like a friggin genius and more people will start paying to follow you.

In the movie Trading Places, Eddie Murphy's character referred to brokers as just bookies.  To extend that analogy then market analysts are just astrologers.  The take their charts and forecasts, looking for signs and portents of what the future will hold.  And then they pronounce if the omens are good or bad.  If their wrong then they find some reason why their prognostications were in error this time around.  They make their money by being right more often then wrong and seek individuals who would pay them for private consultations or early peeks of their pronouncements.

Over the long term, as in over 3 to 5 years minimum, fundamentals win out.  But daily, monthly, quarterly?  It's all driven more by the feelings of just a hand full of people who are paid for their guesses and supercomputers built of graphic cards trying to one up each other at the microsecond level.

[Hotaru]

The stock was as low as 27,000 (10/28/2008) back when CoH was still pulling in big sales numbers.  That's down from 107,000 in Oct 2004.

Again, extreme fluctuations in stock price have little effect on a company itself.

Nexon wasn't in the picture in 2004. They didn't own the stock at 27k, so they're not going to be thinking, "Oh, we've seen it worse." It looked like they were getting a deal when they got their stock from Kim, and now that's not quite turning out to be the case. And unlike Joe Shmoe investor, they know a thing or two about the business, being as it's also the business they're in.

I've talked to someone who used to work for NCsoft, and who still has friends there. Nexon scares the crap out of those people. They're not sure how much longer they're going to have jobs. Maybe the situation is different in NCsoft Korea, but to this person I spoke to, Nexon coming in was the game-changer.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Hmm... I've watched the documentary that compares corporations to sociopaths, yes. It has points, but to be honest, it doesn't jibe with my admittedly limited experience.

I believe that corporations are made of people, people in all their diversity and fallibility. However... the personality of the person or people with decision-making powers permeates the organization. This is inevitable, and why I so disapprove of laws that make a corporation a "fictional person," and allow those in charge to evade personal responsibility for their actions.

Corporations may be made of individual people, but they operate on a larger scale where "individual" equals "insignificant".

[Quinch]

That really depends on where said individual is situated.

[Victoria Victrix]

I wonder how much it would cost me to get a Korean shaman to come publicly cast a curse on NCSoft in front of their building?

[Blue Pulsar]

I wonder how much it would cost me to get a Korean shaman to come publicly cast a curse on NCSoft in front of their building?

I'll pitch in.

[Atlantea]

I wonder how much it would cost me to get a Korean shaman to come publicly cast a curse on NCSoft in front of their building?

Miracle Max: "THAT is a noble cause. Give me the sixty-five, I'm on the job!"

[Victoria Victrix]

I'm actually going to look into this.

[Kosmos]

If NCsoft drops anywhere near 50k, they're not going to be thinking about how that's around where it was a few years ago.  Heads will roll.

And who do you imagine will do the chopping?

This isn't like an old mega-corporation where the CEO is just another (overpaid) employee serving an impersonal Board of Directors. NCsoftcore's Board consists of 5 people. CEO Kim and his friend Lee as COO are two. If you look at the other 3 you'll note lots of ties to Kim and his current wife. In the case of the latter: Park at SK Telecom, Oh at KAIST and Seo at Ewha Woman's University. Seo and Park are also part of the Texas connection with NCsoftcore; Seo went to UT and Park is TPG Capital's (formerly Texas Pacific Group) man on the board. These people have all moved in the same circles and are all friends of the Kims. Kim answers to the stockholders in principal, but to the representatives of those stockholders in practice. And those representatives happen to be Kim and his friends.

[Nafaustu]

Miracle Max: "THAT is a noble cause. Give me the sixty-five, I'm on the job!"

Is that...a shadowrun reference? D:

Edit:  Nope, that's the Princess Bride.   Took me a minute, lol!

[Little Green Frog]

Plan Ź: Buy the company for a nickel and do with its IP as you please.

[TimtheEnchanter]

If Korea is the kind of place where cops would potentially beat-down a torch rally at NCsoft, I don't think a "Witch" casting curses in public would fare much better.