Hey there. Press releases are away - thanks to Rae - and I believe we could use a dedicated thread to help keep everyone posted on the coverage the TF receives. I'll try to keep the OP updates as I can, and any contributions to the list would be more than welcome {a search for "City of Heroes" and "Disney" should be a good start}, just send me a PM or post a link in this thread. Furthermore, I
strongly recommend taking part in discussions or leaving feedback in the comments section if one exists, even if it's just to thank the journalists for covering the topic - let's make ourselves heard, but politely and maturely as always.
New links as of 2012-11-28, 14:00 GMThttp://www.playerattack.com/news/2012/11/27/city-of-heroes-players-look-to-disney-for-salvation/http://www.tentonhammer.com/coh/news/city-of-heroes-fans-make-final-push-to-save-game?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rsshttp://rpgpro.com/2012/11/save-city-of-heroes-disney-rescue/http://www.starburstmagazine.com/gaming-news/4085-gaming-news-city-of-heroeshttp://www.dealspwn.com/save-city-heroes-campaign-turns-disney-hail-mary-122806http://www.gamerzines.com/mmo/heroes-target-disney.htmlhttp://www.incgamers.com/2012/11/save-city-of-heroes-campaign-appeals-to-disney/http://www.mondespersistants.com/news/city-of-heroes-les-fans-tentent-une-derniere-fois-de-sauver-le-jeu%3A24504/
http://mmofallout.com/2012/11/28/save-city-of-heroes-reaches-out-to-disney/
Links added 2012-11-29, 02:00 GMThttp://www.mmoculture.com/2012/11/city-of-heroes-sos-call-sent-to-disney-interactive/http://www.gameindustry.com/ih/item.asp?id=4386http://lorehound.com/news/when-rejected-the-savecoh-campaign-looks-for-another/
Links added 2012-11-29, 14:30 GMThttp://www.onrpg.com/MMO/City-of-Heroes/news/Metas-Verse-The-Last-Week-of-CoHhttp://my.mmosite.com/2342910/blog/item/dedicated_city_of_heroes_fans_call_disney_to_save_the_game.htmlhttp://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-11-29-waiting-for-the-end-of-the-world-city-of-heroes-retrospectivehttp://news.cheatcc.com/articles/389768#.ULdkG4VD4vwhttp://www.holdtheline.com/threads/campaign-save-coh.3891/
Side note - Rae has put together a great
FAQ regarding the Disney pitch you should probably check out if you have any Qs that have probably been frequently A'd. Also, before the Disney campaign, a lot of arguments about CoH repeated themselves, so I took the liberty of putting together a quick "cheat sheet" to cover the common ones and the counter-arguments to them. Don't use them as copypaste material {and for god's sake, don't repeat them if you disagree} since using your own words is much better than a boilerplate response.
1} CoH wasn't making a profit.
A quick look at NCsoft's own earnings report will show that right before the shutdown, CoH was pulling in around 2,8 billion won quarterly, or 0.86 million dollars each month. While NCsoft has stopped publishing exact subscriber data after Freedom, that amount is roughly equal to 58K monthly subscribers.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/33551029/CoH/NCsoftReportGameBreakdown.jpg2} Maybe it was making a profit, but for a measly 2% of their total income, they could just ignore it.
True, two percent is almost a rounding error in large-scale accounting. And twice that is their entire North American market.
Over seventy percent of NCsoft's total income came from Korea alone, with another twelve from miscellaneous royalties. So that two percent is almost half of their entire non-Asian market, especially since Europe dropped from last year's three percent share to below one. Q3 changed that for now, due to the GW2 sales, but I suspect it will revert once the release frenzy dies down.
3} It was old.
Correction - it was mature. Point out that throughout its eight-year lifetime, it constantly improved and added - a quick glance at
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Issues should serve to illustrate the point nicely. There are very few aspects of the game that weren't tweaked even built from scratch {power customization, for example} in spite of the original game engine not being built to support it. Another example would be the LUA scripting -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knCvNsPERlQ - that was supposed to roll out with I24.
4} You can go to another superhero game like CO or DCUO
You can probably answer that one better than me, since this point is entirely subjective. Good points to bring up would be the degree of customization, the scope, variety and depth of content, variety of archetypes, propensity for altoholism, adaptability, lack of gear grind, ease of playing and the kind of community those things foster.
A note on NCsoft - it's unlikely to come up in the first wave of discussions, but since it's the one bent on killing CoH, it always surfaces sooner rather than later.
5} Stock and concurrency. Checking their stock chart -
http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/chart?symbol=036570.KS - shows the release of GW2 making barely a bump in stock value. It begins to rise sharply after CoH's shutdown announcement, and that peak goes into a dive a week later, immediately following the Unity Rally.
Theory: Since the rally attracted media attention, it also probably attracted the attention of investors as well, which took a closer look at how NCsoft performs abroad and decided to get out while the getting's good. No proof, but the evidence fits. The chart jumps off a cliff on the same day NCsoft releases their Q3 earnings report - while we may all be armchair analysts here, seeing people making their living off it abandon ship en masse corroborates the theory that, even following the release of two blockbuster-budget games, NCsoft still has no future.
6} Profitability and survival. Tying into the argument of CoH's continuing profitability, NCsoft has demonstrated that it's not only willing to shut down games that make enough money to sustain themselves, but do so without offering any kind of explanation or reason. Therefore, buying into any NCsoft game is a risky prospect, at least for anyone with intention to commit - because all the effort and time you'd be willing to sink into it would be committed to a game of Russian Roulette.
7} Tabula Rasa and spite. Undercat investigated that angle much better than me - here -
http://www.cohtitan.com/forum/index.php/topic,5250.msg73319.html#msg73319 - and it draws some very, very unpleasant conclusions.
