Deja Vu

[Codewalker]

What is this post for?

Tony realized that Guy and eabrace both have higher post counts than him, and needed to do some padding.

[eabrace]

I wonder how much of a profit NCsoft could post in a single quarter if they only sold the IPs for every game they've buried so far to other developers.

Tony realized that Guy and eabrace both have higher post counts than him, and needed to do some padding.

Bwahaha!

[Piledriver]

CoH is something of an anomaly in that respect, having such a loyal core player base. The average maturity level seems to be quite a bit higher as well. It's a shame NCSoft didn't seem to recognize that or know what to do with it.

Most MMO games have a loyal and moderately mature "core." City of Heroes, unfortunately, was in a position that this was almost all we still had, due to having all the flighty players lured away by Champions Online and DCUO while Paragon were not given additional advertising to attract new players.

Free to play brought in more players, but maybe not many willing to pay at all. That just made it harder for us all to see how small our paying player base may have been, even as quite a bit more was being spent on development than before.

Don't get me wrong, I don't blame F2P or the Paragon Market. I blame shortsighted executives who did not realize that the F2P model in City of Heroes was building up a future cash cow. All the money invested in 2012 would have come back to the company many times over from the sale of those same items in coming years.

For anyone wanting to purchase City of Heroes, this is a good selling point. Long-term, the "Freedom" version of the game has great income potential.

[eabrace]

Most MMO games have a loyal and moderately mature "core." City of Heroes, unfortunately, was in a position that this was almost all we still had, due to having all the flighty players lured away by Champions Online and DCUO while Paragon were not given additional advertising to attract new players.

Oddly enough, I never considered that to be "unfortunate". 

[SithRose]

100% behind this statement... hell, there is a World of Darkness MMO in development but CCP that i want to try out, not to mention as well Cyberpunk (CD Projekt RED). Now, if a Shadowrun/Earthdawn (more the former than the latter) MMO came out, oh yes... it is one of my favorite RPG's out there, and is one that I would love to see done. Yes, I know that Shadowrun Returns and Shadowrun Online are in development, and I *will* be playing them. Hell, Outland is game that is interesting me, along with a passing interest in Firefall.

Don't hold your breath on the WOD MMO. It's been licensed to a dreamware studio - one that's never actually finished making a game. I think it's going to wind up in the same place as the Stargate MMO did. (I may have mentioned that I don't actually think some elements of the World of Darkness will WORK in an MMO at all, specifically Thaumaturgy, Vicissitude, and the entire Mage: The Ascension line, among others.)

[Segev]

The unfortunate thing is the lack of new players to replace them. A community that grows content to have only its old guard because newbies are unknown/immature is a dying community.




I have to confess, I've been deeply curious how they're going to try to implement the oWoD Mage mechanics in any sort of videogame ever since I heard of the project. Curious...and pessimistic.

[SithRose]

The unfortunate thing is the lack of new players to replace them. A community that grows content to have only its old guard because newbies are unknown/immature is a dying community.

I have to confess, I've been deeply curious how they're going to try to implement the oWoD Mage mechanics in any sort of videogame ever since I heard of the project. Curious...and pessimistic.

Color me VERY pessimistic on that one, really. I just can't think of a way to do dynamic magic in an MMO. Not in the "I'm going to use some Entropy on the car's tires to accelerate the rubber decomposition...Ooops, was that a coincidental flat tire?" sort of way. Or in the "I'm spilling some oil out the back of the car and putting a Forces spell on it to make it even MORE slippery" way.

Part of me wonders if that's not part of the reason that it's languishing...Dedicated Mage players will get very irked if they don't have the dynamic flexibility of OWOD Mage. (Creative players are an ST's nightmare in Mage. Creative players can take a shopping trip to Walmart and Home Depot and come out with the tools to totally destroy a Technocracy base...using nothing but coincidental magic.)

[Segev]

Particularly creative powergaming players can do that with nothing but a single Sphere of their choice, too. And get any effect they want out of it, phrased cleverly enough to force it through their chosen Sphere. (I've watched it done.)

[Atlantea]

Under no circumstances do I want NCSoftcore put out of business.  I don't want more people kicked out of their jobs.  I don't want to see anyone else's game shut down.  I merely want them to become so uncomfortable with our cattleprod to their backsides that they sell CoH to someone who will care about it--and I want every game developer to finally "get it" that they are responsible to their customers and stop treating us like hummingbird-brained sheep that will just wander off to the next shiny.

This definitely. I agree.

What I would say is this - If they are SO provincial minded that they misunderstand and mismanage the western market so VERY badly as to close a profitable game like CoH just to bring in another "grinder" like Boobs and Shame** that will undoubtedly fail like Aion and others like it. If the rumors and reports from the Glass Door are accurate and that they are retreating from the Western market to concentrate on their Korean games. If they decide to not sell the COH IP and continue to kill other games like Wildstar and even Guild Wars - not allow them to go to the players, but just KILL them as they've been doing...

Then I am all for SLAMMING THE DOOR on their sorry asses on the way out and LOCKING it so that they NEVER enter this market to do business here again!

More importantly, I want to keep spreading the word and educating the gamer world about NCsoft's practices so that this NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN. Not in this way. I want NCSoft's modus operandi as the MMOKiller to be so well known in the gaming world that they never get any studio to work with them again.

Or at BARE MINIMUM if a developer studio does work with them - to not allow themselves let NCSoft get their grubby hands on their IP and to keep their studios INDEPENDENT of them.

Developer studios like Cryptic, Arenanet and Carbine have to be allowed to remain as independent studios that own their OWN IP and only...

Okay bear with me... I'm not sure of the terminology, my knowledge of business practices begins to break down beyond a certain level - but what I'm trying to say is - allow a publisher like NCSoft (or SOE, or Perfect World, etc) whatever limited license or lease it needs to publish the game and THAT'S ALL. You DON'T get to own the IP, you DON'T get to own the studio and the creators!

Am I wrong? Is there some massive flaw in my thinking here? Or is this a goal and a sea-change in the industry that is worth working towards?

If I'm right, then I think we are just the motivated sorts of (mostly) mature level-headed people to get it started.

(**And despite the ridiculous objectification of the females and the general misogyny on display, I do think it will be the gameplay of the game itself that will ultimately do it in - though I am more than willing to mock it and give it a "push" in that direction via the social networks.)

[Codewalker]

Is Carbine actually independent though? Every time I've tried to find some information about the actual structure of the studio, I end up not finding anything relevant about them beyond some PR info.

[SithRose]

Question:

How comparable with the small studio vs publishing company model of video gaming is the movie publishing model?

Are they remotely similar? Because you see a lot of "Wingnut Films" distributed by New Line Cinema type things out there...

[Atlantea]

Tony, can you enlighten me on the purpose of this post? Are you reporting this somewhere > Is it going into an article ?

If there is one - I think it's sufficiently answered below.

The thing that puzzles me the most is not the similarities between previously closed NCSoft titles and CoH, it's the differences.

In every case prior to CoH, NCSoft MMOs were closed on simple grounds of profitability. The Dungeon Runners team even said as much directly, same with Exteel. And given the many years and many, many millions of dollars Tabula Rasa cost to develop, there's simply no way it was ever going to claw that back (ironically, when it closed, it was pretty much perfected IMO, but that was definitely too little, waaaaay too late in business terms).

City of Heroes though...every bit of info we have says the game was profitable. Just chugging along perhaps, not breaking any records, but definitely PROFITABLE. So for that reason alone, the closure of CoH can't be lumped together with the other MMO bodies buried in NCSoft's back yard.

Being brutally honest, I can see - and sympathise (despite all my Mars Attacks and Yongary cartoons) - with NCSoft closing down Auto Assault, Exteel, Dungeon Runners and Tabula Rasa...and for me, THAT'S what makes me so angry about CoH. It's not the same situation at all.

And I suppose that's why I chose to use the Mars Attacks "shooting Congress" scene as the basis of that "total support - no, wait - you're all FIRED!" gag because to me it's the same : basically, "we come in peace...shoot to kill!". It's irrational, out of the blue, a complete 180, bipolar madness

Indeed. And I think that's part of the point of Tony's post. To not only point out the practices of NCSoft and to establish their proven record of not just allowing games to "go away" but to KILL them outright by sitting on the IPs - but to ALSO point out how DIFFERENT the situation with City of Heroes is compared to those other games. And I totally agree, the behaviour of NCSoftcore is SO VERY STRANGE and NONSENSICAL even in a purely business sense that that is the reason we have been desperately trying to unravel that logic by going as far as researching Korean culture (the Kibun thread and other theories about "face-saving").

In each previous game murder, the fig-leaf of "well the game wasn't profitable anymore" could be applied. And most people - even players of the games themselves - would likely shrug and think along the lines of "I hate this, but it does make sense to a degree."  And just move on with their lives and to another game.

But that's NOT THE CASE with City of Heroes! In all 8+ years of operation, the game has NEVER been non-profitable to the best of anyone's knowledge or analysis! Does a developer studio like Paragon Studios stay as upbeat and positive and crank out the amount of content that they have been if they had ANY inkling that things were bad? No! War Witch (Melissa Bianco) said it best - "But we were doing so WELL!"

City may not have been as profitable as it could have been, but you look at the fact that with ZERO BUDGET for advertising over the last few years and depending almost ENTIRELY on word-of-mouth and the general good will of the gaming community at large (who EVEN NOW still hold City of Heroes as the STANDARD by which other superhero MMOs should be done!) and the fact that it was still in the black despite being an "old" game is nothing short of ASTOUNDING.

So yes - it is the DIFFERENCES as well as the similarities to other NCSoftcore MMO murders that are causing such shock and dismay.

If we aren't already making prominent mention of  these factors in our media outreach then we should be.

[Atlantea]

Is Carbine actually independent though? Every time I've tried to find some information about the actual structure of the studio, I end up not finding anything relevant about them beyond some PR info.

Unfortunately no. Carbine like Arenanet is wholly owned by NCsoft. Those were just studio names I could think of right off the top of my head while I was getting my thoughts down.

I should be clear - I use Arenanet and Carbine as an example of the way business and the licencing of IPs should NOT be done in the future so as to avoid what happened to City of Heroes and all the other games NCSoft has killed.

I am hoping that in the future they will find that no studio is willing to be "bought" by them for the reason of their track record. And that the best they will be able to do is negotiate for publishing the game and taking a percentage of the profits of doing so.

A better example of the way things can and should be done is this - The Secret World is made and developed by Funcomm. They have a publishing arrangement with EA (boo hiss!) where EA takes a percentage of the profits from actual retail box sales. That is - if you pick up the game and buy the physical product - the software disc and manual in the box - at your local Wal-Mart or game store, then EA gets some of that money.

But Funcomm is still an independent studio and ALSO has an arrangement to distribute the game via Steam download. If you buy and download the game through Steam, EA gets nothing at all! Which is the way I'll do it if I ever try out TSW - after the Mass Effect 3 debacle, Electronic Arts is ANOTHER game company that gets no money from me! In fact I had a bit of a scare when I saw the EA logo come up in the preview on Steam, but found out later about the actual state of things between Funcomm and EA (and Steam).

[Blackbird71]

Color me VERY pessimistic on that one, really. I just can't think of a way to do dynamic magic in an MMO. Not in the "I'm going to use some Entropy on the car's tires to accelerate the rubber decomposition...Ooops, was that a coincidental flat tire?" sort of way. Or in the "I'm spilling some oil out the back of the car and putting a Forces spell on it to make it even MORE slippery" way.

Part of me wonders if that's not part of the reason that it's languishing...Dedicated Mage players will get very irked if they don't have the dynamic flexibility of OWOD Mage. (Creative players are an ST's nightmare in Mage. Creative players can take a shopping trip to Walmart and Home Depot and come out with the tools to totally destroy a Technocracy base...using nothing but coincidental magic.)

Just an FYI, from everything I've read from CCP on the WoD MMO, it will only be including (at least at launch) aspects of the Vampire:  the Masquerade game; that is you will only be able to play as a vampire.  Werewolves and mages *may* be added later, but not with the intial game.

Sorry for the slight veer off topic!

[Flashtoo]

Just an FYI, from everything I've read from CCP on the WoD MMO, it will only be including (at least at launch) aspects of the Vampire:  the Masquerade game; that is you will only be able to play as a vampire.  Werewolves and mages *may* be added later, but not with the intial game.

Sorry for the slight veer off topic!

And as an additional aside for which I also apologize, if there's any company I trust to not fuck up vampires, it's CCP.

[SithRose]

I've heard different things regarding it. They may be wrong. I'll note that it's Eddy's job to be positive about things. He's very good at being positive about things. Even when he's dealing with complete twits arguing over minor, stupid rules calls. He's also a very good storyteller. He is a vast improvement over some of the people from White Wolf I could name. (I've played more than a few LARPs with Eddy. And had more than a few drinks with him. And late-night sleep-deprived plot-writing sessions...Some of our best plots came out of those, too.)

I'm not holding my breath on the MMO at any rate - if I want to play OWOD, I'll go to one of our local games. *grins* MUCH more fun, and I get to make pretty costumes for people.

[dwturducken]

Tony realized that Guy and eabrace both have higher post counts than him, and needed to do some padding.

Epic!

[SithRose]

If only there were people withing easy distance for me to get to do that now... hell, due to the GF's poor health, we have had to stop going to her friends RP group, and that is just 10 minutes drive away!

(Hell, I only manage to get to go to 4 LRP weekends a year, and that is with a lot of wangling, and I can still get called back at a moments notice).

We've only been able to get babysitting on a regular basis recently...before that, there wasn't much in the way of LARP going on at all. My husband and I switched off, which meant we both missed a lot of games.

We should probably try to get this thread back on the rails...Somehow...

[Victoria Victrix]

Well one thing I really would like to see...the artist responsible for those Boobs and Shame atrocities run down by angry beotch feminists and sewn permanently into a Jelly Woman suit and see how HE likes it.  I honestly would not be unhappy if my couple dozen forwards to feminist bloggers put him into a world of trouble in the US.

[Victoria Victrix]

No offence, but wrong thread?

No, I was just sort of expanding on "I don't want to see anyone from NCSoftcore lose their jobs."  The Boobs and Shame "artist" is someone I actually would like to see lose his job.  The more I look at his "art" the more furious I get on general principles.