Fool me Six Times!

[DrakeGrimm]

Yeah. I never got the logic here. We're a city of heroes and villains. Did they think we were just going to roll over? >.>;

[chaparralshrub]

I'm seriously wondering what kind of anti-trust legislation could be brought against NC.

[Victoria Victrix]

I'm seriously wondering what kind of anti-trust legislation could be brought against NC.

Realistically speaking, anti-trust legislation is difficult to get through the legislature in the current political climate, and would take years and years and years. 

An anti-trust suit would be...a nightmare.  Trying to sue a company headquartered outside the US, not subject to US regulations, trying to prove there was anything "anti-trust" about them shutting down a game they owned...seriously, not practical.  And they have lots of lawyers.  We have zilch.  Expensive does not even begin to describe what this process would be.  And it would take years and years and years.

Our best bet is to convince them that this is getting to be a serious, worth dealing with, PR nightmare, and the best way to get us to shut up and go away is to release the IP to someone else.

[Segev]

None. They're not engaging in monopolistic practices. You're perfectly free to make superhero MMOs to compete with or even replace CoH, as long as you don't copy their work without their permission. "Their work" includes a lot of design and feel stuff.

[ukaserex]

Well....given NCSoft's location, and it's focus is on where they make the money, the only way I see to make them listen to reason is to ask our Korean gaming friends to start expressing themselves. Sadly, I don't know Korean, nor any Koreans.

If that market were to put up a fuss, it might get their attention a little bit quicker.

However, I know this isn't a direct parallel, but didn't our European players suffer about a year ago some kind of support issue? Something about basically being grouped up with the rest of the servers and support being pulled (in their native language)- a few of us tried to help them via a small protest, but in a nutshell, it was simply economics.
Maybe if we'd put up more of a fuss then, they might have rethought this silly move. <shrug>

To the OP: you summed things up well. It would be nice to see this in a lot of different places.

[Victoria Victrix]

The ONLY anti-trust suit you could make would be (DISCLAIMER: NOBODY HAS AND THERE IS NOT A SHRED OF EVIDENCE) if someone discovered hard evidence that, say, DC or Marvel paid or exerted some other pressure on NCSoft to cancel CoH.  But that would be against the offending party, not NCSoft.  And there is not one molecule of evidence, not a hint of evidence, not a whisper of a rumor that anything of that sort took place.

No, this was NCSoft "business as usual, all games are alike, go play this one, you sheep" behavior.

[Teege]

I'm not sure how much the players in Korea worship NCsoft, but taking things to their homeland (even if online) could prove to be interesting.

[Colette]

Okay... I posted about this just last night. We have "ongoing negotiations" that are fragile. If we cross the Rubicon and start really hurting NC-Soft's reputation, it will seal City of Heroes' fate.

Believe me, I loathe NC-Soft too. I'm so mad I could spit venom. I'm just itching for us to say our fill and get it translated into Korean. Heck, I was mad the day Jack Emmert announced City of Heroes was sold overseas in the first place.

Rant here, you are warned. We likely wouldn't be in this fix if this was a Western company that gave a rat's about keeping Western customers or obeying Western business laws and practices, and to heck with all of you who think that's racist. Saying, "we wanna focus our business in our home country, don't let the door hit you on the way out, Joe. Oh, and thanks for buying Nature Mastery three days before we kicked you out..." that is racism in action! (Having said that, I've been to Korea and everyone I met there was way cool, so call off the P.C. dogs.)

There. I feel a little better now. Anyway,  this is a decision that V V and Tony need to make, not us.

Let's keep it together, people.

[Victoria Victrix]

Pressure yes.

War, no.  No war until Nov 30--or until NCSoft says "We're not selling, neener neener."

[TimtheEnchanter]

The ONLY anti-trust suit you could make would be (DISCLAIMER: NOBODY HAS AND THERE IS NOT A SHRED OF EVIDENCE) if someone discovered hard evidence that, say, DC or Marvel paid or exerted some other pressure on NCSoft to cancel CoH.  But that would be against the offending party, not NCSoft.  And there is not one molecule of evidence, not a hint of evidence, not a whisper of a rumor that anything of that sort took place.

No, this was NCSoft "business as usual, all games are alike, go play this one, you sheep" behavior.

Heh... if Disney had just bought Marvel this year, my eyebrow would be WAAAAAYYY up....

[Mantic]

Good meme. 

[Flamazing Sally]

NCsoft the MMO Killer.   OMG, this is genius.  Talk about a PR nightmare...   I have sent new letters & emails....with this slogan and the reasons for it....to NCsoft and their PR firm. 

[RogerWilco]

latter should be letter I think.

I don't think now is the time for this. If they kill CoH, then they might have rightfully earned this title. Not all of those titles can be compared although what they did with Tabula Rasa seems to have been very weird.

[Atlantea]

I respectfully disagree. Now IS the time for this.

It's time to make things UNCOMFORTABLE. They had better understand that this is only the beginning.

If they don't want to do business in the Western Market. Then fine. We'll simply slam the door on their ass on the way out and make it so that they can never come back.

We can't stop them from making money on Guild Wars 2.

We can't stop them from attempting to port Blade and Soul here. (Though I think it will fail as badly as Aion)

We can't stop Wildstar from being released (and I hope it is released someday, but not under NCSoft.)

But we CAN make things so hot for them in the Western Gaming World (WGW - there's a quick acronym for ya) that no studio will ever CONSIDER going to them ever again.

THAT is the threat.

NCSoft can end that threat. All they have to do is come out of the bunker. They think that staying in the bunker will make this all go away.

We have to disabuse them of that idea. We have to change the rules of the game. We have to let them know that staying in the bunker will cost them.

[Zolgar]

But we CAN make things so hot for them in the Western Gaming World (WGW - there's a quick acronym for ya) that no studio will ever CONSIDER going to them ever again.

You overestimate our power.
We're a grassroots movement that's reached (and gotten the attention of) somewhere around 20,000-30,000 people probably- even if we assume that 100% of those that we reach will never touch another NCSoft game, that's barely a drop in a bucket in the US. For us to be a credible threat in that department, we'd have to multiply the number of people who would actually stick to their guns and "boycott" NCSoft by at least 10 fold. We'd need several hundred thousand people who would actually never buy another NCSoft game again..

And let me tell you something about gamers when it comes to boycotting:
They talk a good talk, but maybe 10% of those that say "I am boycotting X game" (or X company) will actually stick to that for any amount of time. Right now our numbers might be higher, but if we spread in to the hundreds of thousands, then.. we're getting the mass-market gamers.

[DrakeGrimm]

You overestimate our power.
We're a grassroots movement that's reached (and gotten the attention of) somewhere around 20,000-30,000 people probably- even if we assume that 100% of those that we reach will never touch another NCSoft game, that's barely a drop in a bucket in the US. For us to be a credible threat in that department, we'd have to multiply the number of people who would actually stick to their guns and "boycott" NCSoft by at least 10 fold. We'd need several hundred thousand people who would actually never buy another NCSoft game again..

And let me tell you something about gamers when it comes to boycotting:
They talk a good talk, but maybe 10% of those that say "I am boycotting X game" (or X company) will actually stick to that for any amount of time. Right now our numbers might be higher, but if we spread in to the hundreds of thousands, then.. we're getting the mass-market gamers.

Just a point here. If CoH goes dark and can't be saved, there's going to be a large number of us, very angry, and with a ton of newly discovered free time on our hands. Wonder how big a 'splash' we can make over the course of the next six months, to a year. Look at what we've done in a few weeks.

[TimtheEnchanter]

And let me tell you something about gamers when it comes to boycotting:They talk a good talk, but maybe 10% of those that say "I am boycotting X game" (or X company) will actually stick to that for any amount of time. Right now our numbers might be higher, but if we spread in to the hundreds of thousands, then.. we're getting the mass-market gamers.

SOE still hasn't been able to get the blood of the NGE off their hands...

[Segev]

Out of curiosity, how many subscribers DOES CoH have? Can anybody give a ballpark estimate?

[Turjan]

SOE still hasn't been able to get the blood of the NGE off their hands...

This is true, and I still don't forgive them for that. But in their defence (...jeez, did I really just say that?) they're still keeping Everquest alive, and releasing updates for it. And about SWG and the SWG Emulator, Wiki's SWG page has this interesting snippet :-

[reddit] Q: Can you finally come clean about the decisions that were made regarding SWG? Mainly the CU and NGE?
[John Smedley, President of SOE] A: Sure. Stupid decisions. Complete and utter fail and I am very sorry.
[reddit] Q: How does SOE feel about SWGEmu?
[Smedley] A: Well officially I have to say it's bad. But that's officially.

-so that raises SOE waaaaaaay above NCSoft in my book. Even if they did kill SWG, and even if part of me still hasn't forgiven them for that and never will. But at least they learned from it, something I fear NCSoft never will.

TBH I fear nothing we do can change NCSoft's mind, but that doesn't mean we should stop trying. And if, at the end of the day, they bury CoH and give us the finger, then we owe it to all MMO customers, both existing and future, to warn them off this company because I don't want people to have to go through the heartache we have right now. It is our duty. And if NCSoft won't change, then it's a certainty there will be more heartache for others in the future.

[Atlantea]

Even if they did kill SWG, and even if part of me still hasn't forgiven them for that and never will. But at least they learned from it, something I fear NCSoft never will.

TBH I fear nothing we do can change NCSoft's mind, but that doesn't mean we should stop trying. And if, at the end of the day, they bury CoH and give us the finger, then we owe it to all MMO customers, both existing and future, to warn them off this company because I don't want people to have to go through the heartache we have right now. It is our duty. And if NCSoft won't change, then it's a certainty there will be more heartache for others in the future.

Well said. Well said indeed.

One thing that still amazes me - that people think that SOE killed SWG - I think they equate the NGE with the end of SWG. When in truth, based on how they've treated their other MMOs like Everquest, SOE would gladly have run it for perpetuity. It's just that Lucasarts FORCED them to pull it. They had no choice.

And yeah - a company that's willing to learn from its mistakes is leagues above one that stubbornly REFUSES to.