Just a little added thought

[Blue Pulsar]

I often wondered why CoH/V didn't pull in the numbers that other games did. While, yes, the game was and is the best Superhero MMO, and we are the best community ever to grace the the internet (I do believe that with all my heart), for some we stayed small. I mean, the game was cheap. Only $0.50 a day before F2P. The game was VERY well put together, developed, governed, and ran by Paragon Studios. New content all the time, great variety in every aspect. So, why wasn't it bigger?

I started to notice something though. In the years I had played CoX, I saw tons of advertisements for other games. Including WoW. And I never saw any for CoH. I can't help but think that if only NCSlut had put out great commercials like WoW's new Kung Fu panda spot, we would have most likely been more in the spotlight and attracted more gamers. Then the game would have made more and perhaps wouldn't have been shut down.

Now, I bring this up in the Hail Mary section because if you look at the earnings graph for CoX, it looks like it has had a downward trend, and unfortunately, it's true. But, it's not the games fault. I mean, how many of us did it hold on to for many years? Hell, I brought friends into the game as I'm sure many of you did. Many times I was told that I was the reason that some of my friends kept playing the game. When I took a break, they did too, and they didn't come back till I did.

The game's only advertisement was it's players. I think this is a very good fact to point out to would-be buyers. It was actually a gold mine that was left untapped by it's owner. It could make MUCH more than it did if only a company actually cared about it. If you just look at the numbers, it looks fairly grim. However, if you throw in the idea that so much can be done with it and can even be a Cash cow to the right company, it might help.

Just my $0.02.

Edit: unfinished thought in last paragraph

[houtex]

This has been mentioned, the fact that for whatever reason, NCSoft and/or Paragon Studios didn't do advertising for CoH.  We don't know why. 

And you see EvE Online ads all over the place in the form of banners and such...

Yep.  Wouldn't have hurt to have more exposure, and that's hopefully something that'll come through when the game comes back... more "come on and see stuff!" ads like EvE, <TGWNSNBM> and such.

[Victoria Victrix]

This is one of the MANY reasons why we are currently going for the "top dog" part of the list of possible buyers.  In the best case scenario, we will get someone who will invest money at all levels in CoH, from updates to some serious advertising.

[Lucretia MacEvil]

I started to notice something though. In the years I had played CoX, I saw tons of advertisements for other games. Including WoW. And I never saw any for CoH. I can't help but think that if only NCSlut had put out great commercials like WoW's new Kung Fu panda spot, we would have most likely been more in the spotlight and attracted more gamers. Then the game would have made more and perhaps wouldn't have been shut down.

During the final weeks, I remarked to several people in-game that NCsoft really blew it BIG TIME in the advertising department.

Thanks to Hollywood, super heroes are POPULAR!  Why WOULDN'T they advertise this game?  Why NOT use this trend to their advantage to get more players?  Even a short ad, along the lines of "Be your own Hero: City of Heroes MMORPG" would've helped.

But NOOOOoooooo....

That's probably my ultimate beef with NCsoft; it makes it seem like they didn't even try to help the game succeed.

[BobMc]

...and I can't even tell you how annoying it is to see the wonderful badge one "The Secret World" novels we got for Christmas  saying essentially to come visit to world that gave birth to the characters in the book .... City of Heroes

How annoying it will be for an excited new reader to go to their computer and find it... gone.

Love that the book has it!.... finally advertising (Thanks VV!!!) ... wish the City was still there

[Quinch]

The comparison between Guild Wars 2 and CoH seems to be the best example of how NCsoft treated Paragon Studios in general. GW2 has run ads for GW2 in Hobbit showings {and according to anecdotal evidence, been repeatedly booed}. If they ran ads in Avengers showings {hey, you like superheroes? Well, fancy that, we have a superhero MMO where you can be just about anyone}, the ROI would have been ridiculous.

But no, couldn't be bothered.

[WildFire15]

Speaking of advertisements, where do you think Rooster Teeth's 'Captain Dynamic' fits in? Was that Paragon going to them or was it NCsoft?
first episode

[Nightmarer]

I remember talking on Skype about the CoH marketing subject with some friends. Most of them went as far as saying that if CoH had the right advertising, WoW would have been a mere anecdote.

I won't go as far as that, still, the non advertising was a real issue, I personally found out about CoH in September 2006 when II went to a shopping mall to get some DVDs and realized that the PC games section was full of the same three games, City of Heroes, City of Villains and  a 3rd box with both together. CoH and CoV were sold at € 15 and the good vs evil edition went for € 30. In any case, it was a matter of sheer luck, I highly doubt I've ever heard of the game if I had gone shopping somewhere else.

On the other hand, Cryptic also limited their expansion when they decided to put the language on the server side. Had it been on the client side they could have reached for more languages way easier. I know of many fellow spaniards who did not touch the game because they didn't speak a word of English while others did and us low who spoke English did our best to help and translate up to a certain point where we (or at least me) couldn't cope with translating any more since I reched a point where all I did was PMing translations back and forth and most of times I couldn't even play.-

Anyway, sorry for the drifting, I firmly believe that with a decent advertising budget, the game would have fared way better that it did regarding player numbers.-

[Valjean]

Speaking of advertisements, where do you think Rooster Teeth's 'Captain Dynamic' fits in? Was that Paragon going to them or was it NCsoft?
first episode

From my understanding, any advertising that was done was designed and done by Paragon.

[Victoria Victrix]

Speaking of advertisements, where do you think Rooster Teeth's 'Captain Dynamic' fits in? Was that Paragon going to them or was it NCsoft?
first episode

Since I was part of that, I can tell you that Paragon came to us and it was their idea to show off the new Mission Architect system.  They figured if a bunch of clueless non-programming creative types could make awesome mission arcs in the system, it would encourage everyone to use it.  We got a little pay, a "lifetime" sub (actually limited in the contract to 5 years) and we cross-promoted the heck out of it.  I worked directly with Sean McCann and I was the one that suggested he take Dr. Aeon as his signature character.

[WildFire15]

Since I was part of that, I can tell you that Paragon came to us and it was their idea to show off the new Mission Architect system.  They figured if a bunch of clueless non-programming creative types could make awesome mission arcs in the system, it would encourage everyone to use it.  We got a little pay, a "lifetime" sub (actually limited in the contract to 5 years) and we cross-promoted the heck out of it.  I worked directly with Sean McCann and I was the one that suggested he take Dr. Aeon as his signature character.

Ok, thanks for the explanation. I was watching something on Rooster Teeth (This one, in fact) when I noticed Gavin wearing a t-shirt from that short series. Made me wonder why some of the Rooster Teeth fans didn't at least give the game a go, but then most people only go there for Red vs Blue. No idea if he wore the shirt out of remembrance or just because it was red.

[Valjean]

I'm betting a lot of the RT folks gave the game a go. It seems like it was still popular among them, too, especially if they were going to do new videos before the shutdown.