This has to be an insane idea, but is it worth a shot?

[Mentalshock]

Seeing as Disney has just bought Lucasfilm and all of its subsidiaries, I have to ask:


     Have we thought about reaching out to them regarding the City of Heroes IP?   Since it is a very family-friendly game, it might be worth a shot.

  Except, I just remembered one word that makes this a problem:  Marvel.

[Victoria Victrix]

Disney has not done an MMORPG; I don't know that they would be interested in running one.

NCSoft is simply not interested in letting go of the IP either.  There were two offers they turned down, and two more investor groups didn't even get a reply.

[Quinch]

Disney has not done an MMORPG; I don't know that they would be interested in running one.

Actually...

[pandora114]

Disney owns Marvel.

[Quinch]

Disney owns Marvel.

That might be a plus - less competition if it's in their hands.

[Mentalshock]

Disney owns Marvel.

I mentioned that in the OP, actually.

[Victoria Victrix]

Actually...

Uh....that's not what I would call an MMORPG, Quinch.

[Quinch]

Well, it's browser-based, instead of using a dedicated client, but from what I've dug up, it is technically an MMO.

Then again, it's three AM and I might be missing something.

[P51mus]

They also have Toontown Online


Which is interesting, because it seems to be based around fighting off a corporation that wants to suck the fun out of the toons.

According to the story of 'Toontown', the Cogs are joyless robots who only think of business and never of jokes, bent on forever changing Toontown to a gray place where no fun exists. Cogs come in four types: Bossbots (wear brown suits, symbol is a tie), Lawbots (wear gray suits, symbol is a gavel), Cashbots (wear dark green suits cobered in dollars, symbol is a dollar sign), and Sellbots (wear maroon suits, symbol is a bar graph)

[JWBullfrog]

NCSoft is simply not interested in letting go of the IP either.  There were two offers they turned down, and two more investor groups didn't even get a reply.

I generally agree but there are only a few companies in the world with the money/influence to make people the proverbial 'offer they cannot refuse'. Disney is one of those companies.
 
If this happens, it will be based on two major assumptions.
 
The first is the one we all know. NCSoft has a history of never letting go of an IP. Unless they are willing to change that, nothing the Mouse can do will have an effect.
 
The second is whether or not Disney is willing to buy the property. For those of you not familiar with their corporate style, they are no longer among the most innovative of companies. In fact, they have developed the reputation of being very conservative (not politically) and waiting to let others prove a concept before they dip their toes in.
 
Part 2a is whether Disney is willing to make an offer big enough to catch NCSoft' attention. Having said that, they do have the ability to buy up NCSoft stock and make themselves a major influence but, once again the question is, would they?
 
Disney is known for running themeparks and an MMO is the ultimate in virtual themeparks. They even have a few online games under their control (Club Penguin, Marvel Online, <sort of> SWTOR) so they already have some experience. That may increase their willingness to do so.
 
City of Heroes is an already established property so they minimize their risk and it's already a family friendly property (no worse that the PoTC franchise) so it could fit into their established niche.
 
If they were able and willing to buy the property, the most ideal situation would be that they let it operate as a semi independant entity like Pixar and Marvel.
 
I would not mind if Disney did buy the property. The question still is, can they and would they?
 
/em ramblingthoughtsoff
 
 

[JaguarX]

Believe it or not, Disney is also behind some "not so family friendly" endeavors but usually dont display thier logo on those products because Disney is usually associated with family friendly and they dont want to inentionally messup that image.

The only downside I see to this idea is that Disney tends to buy big ticket items that are proven big money makers. As mentioned earlier, they dont take as many risks as they used to, especially after the John Carter fisaco and word on the street is that was suppose to be a relative sure bet.

The upside, you never know until the question is asked. We have a community here, they have the finance to ensure the game hasa proper budget and alot of times, they let the aquired property run the buisness and leave them alone as long as they are making money.

I say go for it. What's the worse that can happen? They say no. 

[pewlagon]

The one problem here is if Diney buys the IP they may do it for the characters created for the game and nothing more. And since properties that originate elsewhere usually suffer a lot of early hype, unless you have a decent writer the series will last only about 2-3 years tops. As for the game, they are near launch with Marvel Heroes, so its doubtful they would be interested in CoH as a game.

[Quinch]

Let's backtrack a little.

The primary question is, do we want Disney in charge of CoH? If that's a favorable outcome, then we have nothing to lose by trying to pitch it - at least nothing but time, effort and expectations, something we've been investing heavily into the rescue efforts since Black Friday anyway. By the looks of it, there are several reasons why Disney might not want to commit to it, but if we focused our efforts only on avenues that gave us a good chance of success, we would have packed up and went home from day one.

So, yeah. I say we keep throwing things at the wall until something finally sticks. Besides, with VV's fame in the fantasy and superhero writing genre and her open endorsement of the game, someone's eyes are going to light up with dollar signs, especially is the pitch is put forth by her in the first place. {disclaimer, I'm not trying to shanghai you into anything, but PR-wise, you're still our biggest gun}.

[P51mus]

They'd probably at least be decent.

By the way, Toontown online is a year older than City of Heroes is.

[Mentalshock]

As I've said, it's worth a shot.

   Who'd be best for contacting them, anyway?

[Terwyn]

Actually, Quinch, in regards to PR, our biggest gun is what it has always been. The honest truth.

NCSoft cannot eliminate the evidence that continues to mount accusation after accusation in regards to their activity.

[Quinch]

Well, I consider truth to be more along the lines of ammunition, whereas individuals act as delivery mechanisms.

[Rotten Luck]

Side idea what if it's not CoX that someone buys but PlanZ.  What if we find a Producer to market our idea.  Okay we don't have the name but Titan Network proof we have the community aka player interest. 

Plan Z has no IP to buy from someone else.  Plus we are still in the early EARLY design stage easier to add in ideas and concepts that a Producer might want. A fiancee backer would move us from Fans/community trying to keep our community together.  To a group with the backing to go into a true Studio production outfit.  Heck I can see the Incredibles making a guest appearance at the Mall!

[Segev]

Plan Z has to be extremely careful who we accept as a sponsor/backer/buyer. ESPECIALLY a buyer. Because the purpose of the enterprise is not just to produce a game in the short term and not just to make money (though both are goals), but rather is to preserve this community and, above all else, ensure that we never find ourselves in the position the CoH community now occupies (that is, still eager and willing to play in an active and healthy game that is closing for reasons we neither know nor understand), we need to be sure that the community-based-developers have sufficient control over its future to ensure that it can't and won't shut down just due to the whim of somebody who happens to have ownership rights.

I hope to establish a backup non-profit foundation which would "inherit" the game should Plan Z Studios ever find it could no longer afford to operate it. The foundation would run it and maintain it at its then-current state as long as it had the funds to do so, only shutting down when they ran out of money. Should it ever look to be turning profitable again to the point that a non-profit can't keep it up, then a for-profit will be licensed the rights to update and take over running it, as that's a more desirable state of health for said game than "maintenance mode." But the foundation will exist to preserve the community and its home, just in case. It's a final fall-back.

Getting a major corporate sponsor would be helpful; getting a major corporate OWNER could prevent such things. It might not be the end of the world; it could be nothing but good. Corporations are not inherently evil, and well-run ones recognize value and preserve it. But corporate politics can get in the way of corporate self-interest when what's good for the company is not as good for an individual in a place of power as something he could do to misuse his position to profit himself. Ethics are well and good, but systems are imperfect and corruptible people will make corrupt choices at times.

Since the response of Plan Z is specifically to a case where seemingly-bad corporate decisions are killing CoH, we have to be careful not to stumble into a duplicate situation, even if we have every reason to trust our NCSoft-analog now. Who's to say whoever made the decision at NCSoft wouldn't get hired by Disney in six years and make the same decisions again? (Unlikely, but not outside the realm of possibility.)

So, if we're going to get a corporate owner, we have to have the setup in place to protect the original goal of the project in case things go sour.

[wolfbeast]

My $0.02 in here is that NCSoft simply will not let go of the CoX IP, period.
Consider what they have already turned down: two offers that would, in every sense of the word, not earn themselves back in revenue for the buyer unless they manage an enormous upswing in player base or other income. I'm talking about long-term returns here, as CoX will inevitably reach the end of its life some day; even with those taken into account, the offers were already pushing what was feasible with how CoX was running on the current user base.

Meaning: they have been purposefully pricing themselves out of the market. This means that it precludes any reasonable offer for the buyer, and I don't think Disney or any other company with enough assets to be the big player that they have to be to buy this will have such a lapse in sense that they offer a stupid amount of money in an investment they are never getting their ROI on.