Current position/Update

[Turjan]

He seems like the kind of guy who likes power and would love nothing more than to dig in his heels if it hurts those who have become his enemies. As evidenced by his handling of previous game closures, he's even willing to completely absorb enormous financial losses rather than give comfort to his enemies by liquidating for fractional recovery.

He's certainly willing to absorb huge financial losses, but not necessarily always to spite his enemies. Don't forget that in 2005 he gave away a 3.84% stake in NCsoft to his wife at the time, Eui-jeong Chung, as part of a divorce settlement. If there's any larger conclusion to be drawn from that though, I don't know what it is - I merely mention the fact for the record.

Divorce, wherever it happens in the world, does tend to follow at least some logical parameters in terms of settlement. But the share deal Kim made with Nexon is less logical...at least on the face of it :-

Speculation mounts over NCsoft

But the more I ponder it, the more I'm thinking Kim's personal "realignment of focus" may be leaning towards taking a backseat, more sort of executive consultant role in the NC-Nexon behemoth. I think he's trying to cash himself out as gracefully as he can while still retaining that needlessly melodramatic 'kibun' culture mask apparently so important in Korean business.

His transfer of power from NCsoft to Nexon earned him $685million from the sale of 2/3 of his personal stock directly to to Nexon...at $16 per share less than the market price, it should be pointed out. A quick calculation shows that in doing so, Kim netted himself $51million less than he would've got if he'd simply sold the same number of shares on the stock market.

So you're talking here about a man who's content to lose $51million as part of some long term scheme. Perhaps he wants to move his attentions to running the company's pro-baseball team - Korean pro-baseball teams do usually run at a loss, so maybe he needs the extra cash in pocket to indulge that particular fancy.

But if he's backing out of running NCsoft, he also wants his legacy to remain...and I think that's where retaining the IPs comes in. Those IPs are his great creative assets of the past - sure, all but one of the ones he's closed were failing financially, but each was its own creative world after all, and I believe he wants to keep them just because of that - they are his 'Trophy Intellectual Properties'.

[Quinch]

And as long as he has the IPs still in NCsoft's hands, he can wander down his MMO Hall of Fame, looking at the IPs frozen in their display cases, and he can live vicariously through the work of others, thinking to himself "I made these worlds!".

Frankly, the more I think about it, the less I see it as a Hall of Fame, and more as a collection of ears on a string.

But I might be feeling just a little bit hostile.

[Undercat]

His transfer of power from NCsoft to Nexon earned him $685million from the sale of 2/3 of his personal stock directly to to Nexon...at $16 per share less than the market price, it should be pointed out. A quick calculation shows that in doing so, Kim netted himself $51million less than he would've got if he'd simply sold the same number of shares on the stock market.

Equity trading prices are determined at the margins, not by core investors. Dumping 15% of a company's outstanding shares at once would unquestionably have exceeded elastic demand for the stock, causing its price to tank. It's unlikely, in other words, that he would even have made $680 million if he had tried to sell the stock through the open market mechanism. However, I tend to agree with your point about Kim possibly distancing himself from the day-to-day operation of the company, and that might well be a good thing.

[Mister Bison]

Mr. Taek-Jin Kim... hopefully it's not an anagram of Mender Silos, or people would really begin to overthink things :-)

[Quinch]

All I've got is Knit Maim Jerk .

[jabiggers]

This is all just my speculation, but perhaps they are closing City of Heroes to lower the overall operating costs of the company, trying to recoup their loses and development costs when B&S hits stores.

I have a feeling the merger with Nexon is happening in order to re-enter the US market(since they will now have more resources to do so) and with better success. They don't have the right recipe to make a great US game, but maybe Nexon does..

just my 2 cents

[Quinch]

There's nothing to recoup, really. With the IP not for sale, and the game having operated at profit, the only assets they actually free up are what, some server banks?

[dwturducken]

Not sure about anyone else, here, but I would not lose a minute of sleep if, whatever the cause, NCSoft goes down like the Hindenburg. Is it what I'm here for? Of course not.  Am I actively pursuing it? Absolutely not. But my most developed characters are red side.

[jabiggers]

There's nothing to recoup, really. With the IP not for sale, and the game having operated at profit, the only assets they actually free up are what, some server banks?

I'm talking about Tabula Rasa and Auto Assault, there's a lot of money that was lost there that they would love to make back

but it still would make sense to actually sell the CoH IP to help make up for the lost money, but maybe they don't want to be shown up by another company making CoH more profitable than they did

[Turjan]

I have a feeling the merger with Nexon is happening in order to re-enter the US market(since they will now have more resources to do so) and with better success. They don't have the right recipe to make a great US game, but maybe Nexon does..

Exactly - which is precisely why closing CoH makes less than zero sense. Nexon are better at marketing and advertising than NCsoft, always have been. Put CoH in their hands and it would've done better than it was when NCsoft announced it closure.

Keeping 20+k loyal western customers happy by running CoH even at just a maintenance level makes better business sense than closing it with no alternative game on offer, thereby losing those customers and making the climb back up to regain the PR high ground for a merged company that much harder.

And remember, Nexon recently replaced their US CEO (Daniel Kim went back to Korea "to spend more time with his family" etc etc type explanation - the usual corporate language we associate with 'fired'). New CEO Min Kim is a guy who's very pro-active and gung ho about the western market. He even said this in an interview about his new job :-

"We have been in the shadow of the game consoles for many years in the U.S.," Kim said. "But now the PC is where the excitement is."

That flies in the face of the smartphone-o-centric casual game mindset being touted by both NCsoft and Nexon back in the Korean press. Min Kim is his own man and evidently has his own ideas about what direction Nexon US needs to take - and that direction seems to centre around the PC.

And the closure of CoH was announced by NCsoft just 5 days after the news stories came out detailing Min Kim's appointment as Nexon US's CEO...

It's tinfoil hats and conspiracy theory time again folks.

From that perspective it looks for all the world like CoH was closed to actually STOP Nexon running it! :o

(link to interview with Min Kim in case anyone wants to read it - Min Kim takes over as Nexon's chief executive in North America )

[Jordan_Lee]

Exactly - which is precisely why closing CoH makes less than zero sense. Nexon are better at marketing and advertising than NCsoft, always have been. Put CoH in their hands and it would've done better than it was when NCsoft announced it closure.

Keeping 20+k loyal western customers happy by running CoH even at just a maintenance level makes better business sense than closing it with no alternative game on offer, thereby losing those customers and making the climb back up to regain the PR high ground for a merged company that much harder.

And remember, Nexon recently replaced their US CEO (Daniel Kim went back to Korea "to spend more time with his family" etc etc type explanation - the usual corporate language we associate with 'fired'). New CEO Min Kim is a guy who's very pro-active and gung ho about the western market. He even said this in an interview about his new job :-

That flies in the face of the smartphone-o-centric casual game mindset being touted by both NCsoft and Nexon back in the Korean press. Min Kim is his own man and evidently has his own ideas about what direction Nexon US needs to take - and that direction seems to centre around the PC.

And the closure of CoH was announced by NCsoft just 5 days after the news stories came out detailing Min Kim's appointment as Nexon US's CEO...

It's tinfoil hats and conspiracy theory time again folks.

From that perspective it looks for all the world like CoH was closed to actually STOP Nexon running it! :o

(link to interview with Min Kim in case anyone wants to read it - Min Kim takes over as Nexon's chief executive in North America )

This is all so very far over my head. Does this mean I also need a Boycott Nexon pic on my facebook? Anyone got one of those?

[P51mus]

This is all so very far over my head. Does this mean I also need a Boycott Nexon pic on my facebook? Anyone got one of those?

Well, according to this conspiracy theory, Taek-Jin Kim(Of NCSoft) killed CoH so Min Kim(Of Nexon) wouldn't be able to run City of Heroes, I think  Seems a bit weird to think that they'd shut down a game so a new business partner wouldn't be able to use it.  I suppose people have done more insane things, but seems unlikely.  Then again, I did think a profitable mmo was extremely unlikely to get shut down, and here we are.

Nexon tends to have pretty shitty customer service (with Tickets taking weeks to resolve at times), the free nexon points stuff is really shady(I'm pretty sure most of the surveys are scams), and they really agressively push their cash shop stuff, but they do make some interesting games that tend to have you fighting large amounts of enemies at once (as opposed to the player equals 1 mob mmo style, which I believe NCSoft games other than CoH follow).

[Knightslayer]

(as opposed to the player equals 1 mob mmo style, which I believe NCSoft games other than CoH follow).

Hmm, the only exception there would be GW1 I think - but then again, you have either a party of NPCs with you, or other players to help you fight the (sometimes large) groups of mobs.
You might be able to in Lineage 2 as well, since I remember fighting multiple enemies in the first game too.
Aion is generally one or two mobs at a time.

[cygnata]

Just be careful that after the shutdown, all copies of the server code and anything else related to the engine might "disappear" with a reformat. "Oh, sorry, we *can't* bring it back, it all got deleted!"

[Terwyn]

Just be careful that after the shutdown, all copies of the server code and anything else related to the engine might "disappear" with a reformat. "Oh, sorry, we *can't* bring it back, it all got deleted!"

They do that, there shall be no mercy. Ever.

[The Fifth Horseman]

Unlikely, it's almost always archived somewhere (until all copies eventually go extinct to media failure or corruption).

[DrakeGrimm]

The complete deletion of all related materials would result in a maelstrom so potent the resulting backlash would make their ancestors quake in fear.

[Mistress Urd]

Heh, I see that Valve is joining forces with Nexon.   :P Ouch!

[Aggelakis]

Currently only for Dota2.

[NecrotechMaster]

at least nexon is still making some smart decisions to promote some of their games

im not 100% sure if its nexons fault that the coh closure decision was made, but of course theres still quite a lot of ambiguity in whats going on that anything could be possible, nearing an episode of conspiracy theories lol