MMORPG - COH profitability

[Arcana]

I will say my theory of cultural differences influencing the outcome we see now are every bit as possible as your utopian dreams of bunnies and ponies make everyone happy theories of NCSoft just saving us from being sold to a meanie company who just wanted to make money.

As a matter of fact, that's a very accurate characterization.

[JaguarX]

I do believe everyone is suffering from CoX Detox.
They closed the game, we want it back. Keep your eyes on the prize and stop trying to point fingers as to why. That does not matter anymore, what does matter is that we find a way to get CoX back.

There are times like this where I wish there was a simple "like" button.

Many may not agree, but these are thoughts that I share too.

[Knight Light]

I believe it is perfectly reasonable, even necessary, to consider cultural differences as a potential factor in international business relations, and it is entirely possible to do so without being offensive.  To dismiss this differences as a factor altogether, especially to the point that they cannot even be discussed without accusations of "racism" is willful ignorance, for which I have no tolerance.

I think we can say NCSoft being Korean had some contribution to the decision in so much as one's own culture influences one's manner of thinking and that's as far as we should take the argument of cultural differences, to what degree it influenced the decision is irrelevant. They did what they set out to do; they unceremoniously kicked us out of a place where we feel we belong. It's done.

I'm much more inclined to believe that the factor that most heavily contributed in the decision to shut down City of Heroes is that the whole of NCSoft's leadership is attempting to operate in the world on a single lonely brain cell.

That said, day after day, the why of things becomes less and less important. We don't know precisely why this happened but we have enough information to state with a reasonable degree of certainty that this mockery of a situation never had to occur and that this shutdown was unethical.

The ridiculous amounts of hyperbole in the thread where you have someone who questions the motives of NCSoft and suddenly becomes evil is not the community I wish to be a member of. Good luck saving the game as the community appears to be already gone.

If you feel you you need to go simply because we seemingly can't agree to disagree, that's entirely your prerogative. I believe everyone who cares about CoH has a place here but a subject as sensitive as race should be pushed aside considering that the likelihood of anything positive stemming from discussions of that nature is extremely low. Without more data, it will just lead to running in circles.
If you have to go, you are wished well, however we are stronger in numbers.
If we're to have any hope of rescuing our beloved City, we need to work together despite our differences of opinion.

[Arcana]

I think we can say NCSoft being Korean had some contribution to the decision

Being Japanese almost certainly had some sort of contribution to my deciding to post this message.  However, that's not a particularly useful thing to know or debate.

What if being Korean caused NCsoft executives to hold off making this decision until much later than American executives would have?  With nothing but idle speculation to go on, you can't even say in what *direction* that influence was operating in.  That's what makes that discussion basically fruitless.

[Starsman]

Being Puerto Rican had a lot to do with my tuypos throughout my posting in the thread. 

[TimtheEnchanter]

Being an American probably has a lot to do with me hating large corporations.

... most of them anyway.

[Knight Light]

Arcana, please do not quote me out of context.

"I think we can say NCSoft being Korean had some contribution to the decision"

is not what I said.

"I think we can say NCSoft being Korean had some contribution to the decision in so much as one's own culture influences one's manner of thinking"

has a different meaning.

The sentence was longer than that for a reason.

[chasearcanum]

Being Japanese almost certainly had some sort of contribution to my deciding to post this message. ...

And being a mutt that can trace my family heritage back to practically every side of every major European conflict in the last 600 years has led me to live in constant internal conflict.  Fortunately, over the years, one particular slim piece of my heritage has risen to dominance, becoming the main voice that guides me.  Unfortunately, that's my Scot blood, and anyone that's tried to understand a scotsman on a tirade knows why that's a problem.   The "everything must be organized and efficient" German in me, in particular, is practically frothing at the mouth. 

I won't mention the others, but trust me:  it bears more than a passing resemblance to hetalia in there.

[Knight Light]

What if being Korean caused NCsoft executives to hold off making this decision until much later than American executives would have?  With nothing but idle speculation to go on, you can't even say in what *direction* that influence was operating in.  That's what makes that discussion basically fruitless.

I did not infer which way they where influenced and I'm not going to start now.

What you say is something that is not outside the realm of all possibility, however given their track record, the way they have treated us, reports from their own employees and just plain being involved in this for 5 months; I'm not inclined to entertain that theory for even a fraction of a second. I don't believe there is any kind of benevolence that exists at NCSoft.

NCSoft cost me something very dear to me and I'm not talking about the game. My personal life is lessened as a direct result of their stupid decisions and I hate them with every fibre of my being but where they are geographically located has nothing to do with with why I will hate them for the rest of existence.

[Arcana]

Arcana, please do not quote me out of context.

"I think we can say NCSoft being Korean had some contribution to the decision"

is not what I said.

"I think we can say NCSoft being Korean had some contribution to the decision in so much as one's own culture influences one's manner of thinking"

has a different meaning.

The sentence was longer than that for a reason.

Actually, I see no context that was lost with my quote.  While the part I dropped qualifies the prefix, it does not alter its meaning in any way.  It specifies in what way the first part is true, whereas my response is to the prefix statement irrespective of in what way it might be true.  The longer sentence doesn't have a different meaning, it simply has more information about that meaning.  Which is not relevant to my response.

Here's my response with no quoted passage at all:

Anyone who states that its reasonable to state that culture had some influence, no matter in what way that influence might be expressed, is making a statement that is both a truism, and valueless to the discussion, as it cannot even be deduced what direction that influence took, much less its magnitude, much less its distinguishing properties from all other cultural influences.

[Knight Light]

Anyone who states that its reasonable to state that culture had some influence, no matter in what way that influence might be expressed, is making a statement that is both a truism, and valueless to the discussion, as it cannot even be deduced what direction that influence took, much less its magnitude, much less its distinguishing properties from all other cultural influences.

I believe I said that already.

"I think we can say NCSoft being Korean had some contribution to the decision in so much as one's own culture influences one's manner of thinking and that's as far as we should take the argument of cultural differences, to what degree it influenced the decision is irrelevant."

And, yes, all context was lost in your quote as it seems you initially focused on the wrong part. Regardless, we're saying the same thing.

[TimtheEnchanter]

I think my bigger concern with possible cultural issues isn't the shutdown, but the lack of interest in selling.

The term "xenophobic" has been tossed around a lot but apparently this doesn't just involve non-Koreans. "Allegedly" many Korean businessfolk don't like doing business with people they don't already know, unless they're introduced to the outsider by someone that they do know. If this is accurate, it would mean that the only company that NCsoft would have bothered to talk to AT ALL is Paragon Studios.

But that was something I found while reading all the external links on the infamous Kibun thread, so who the heck knows how accurate that bit of info is. I brought it up at some point but it got completely ignored.

[FatherXmas]

I think my bigger concern with possible cultural issues isn't the shutdown, but the lack of interest in selling.

The term "xenophobic" has been tossed around a lot but apparently this doesn't just involve non-Koreans. "Allegedly" many Korean businessfolk don't like doing business with people they don't already know, unless they're introduced to the outsider by someone that they do know. If this is accurate, it would mean that the only company that NCsoft would have bothered to talk to AT ALL is Paragon Studios.

But that was something I found while reading all the external links on the infamous Kibun thread, so who the heck knows how accurate that bit of info is. I brought it up at some point but it got completely ignored.

Except Paragon Studios isn't an outside company, it's a group within NCsoft.  Employees.  Underlings.  People by definition NOT equivalent to those above them in the corporate food chain.

Also came across a list of things not looked upon well by other cultures and the one thing they listed for Korea was smiling at people you don't know.  It's a sign you think they are stupid.  No idea if that's correct at all.

[dwturducken]

My particular use of the word "xenophobic" was irrespective of any particular culture or nationality. It has been posited that NCSoft felt burned by the experience they had with the management at Destination Games (ie, the Garriots), and that caused them to circle the wagons, so to speak. Perhaps "xenophobic" was the wrong word, but the fact remains that, culture, nationality and race aside, NCSoft is pulling back all control decisions to the home office. If it's going to offend someone if I specify the city where they make their home, so be it, but that is the "cultural" issue that I see as a problem, not one nationality having a problem with another.

[Arcana]

the fact remains that, culture, nationality and race aside, NCSoft is pulling back all control decisions to the home office.

That presupposes it was ever the case that this was not true.  The Garriott case itself suggests it was always true, that his leash was always extremely short, and that at no time did material corporate control ever exist outside of the executives within or with direct ties to the parent corporate executive staff.

[Segev]

The only reason cultural considerations are being examined is in an attempt to find some context, some manner of thinking, that could make the behaviors witnessed make sense.

To claim that it's somehow racist, or that it's attempting to say "all Koreans behave this way," is silly, and actively detrimental to any genuine attempt to understand other cultures. In finding something in underlying cultural assumptions that gives explanation for their behavior, it is not saying that Koreans are all robots who make stupid decisions. It is saying that we now have some additional context to understand that these decisions were not made by some sort of bad idea generator with no context.

It is an effort to find context.

If you were to say that somebody standing up to his boss and telling him off is rude and destructive to his own career, and wonder what could possibly lead a man to behave so insanely, and then you learned that Americans value straight-forwardness and consider business superiors not to be inherently social superiors, you are not painting all Americans as idiots who will insult "their betters" for no reason other than to be insulting. You are, instead, attempting to find how, to the man who behaved in that strange fashion, his behavior seemed reasonable.

It's not racist to say "Oh, Americans have these values baked into their culture. And that makes his behavior make at least a little more sense."

[Little Green Frog]

It is an effort to find context.

That effort is fundamentally flawed for two reasons:

• You have too limited amount of data to extrapolate from. It's mostly suppositions.
• You lack necessary distance. The subject has emotional significance to you and as such causes you to make ruling first, then to look for a fitting cause. Taking that into consideration it is really no wonder the whole cultural angle looks so attractive to you.

Disclaimer: by saying you, I mean people defending the need to use cultural context in discussions about the game closure, not you in particular.

Edit: wording.

[Arcana]

The only reason cultural considerations are being examined is in an attempt to find some context, some manner of thinking, that could make the behaviors witnessed make sense.

To claim that it's somehow racist, or that it's attempting to say "all Koreans behave this way," is silly, and actively detrimental to any genuine attempt to understand other cultures. In finding something in underlying cultural assumptions that gives explanation for their behavior, it is not saying that Koreans are all robots who make stupid decisions. It is saying that we now have some additional context to understand that these decisions were not made by some sort of bad idea generator with no context.

It is an effort to find context.

If you were to say that somebody standing up to his boss and telling him off is rude and destructive to his own career, and wonder what could possibly lead a man to behave so insanely, and then you learned that Americans value straight-forwardness and consider business superiors not to be inherently social superiors, you are not painting all Americans as idiots who will insult "their betters" for no reason other than to be insulting. You are, instead, attempting to find how, to the man who behaved in that strange fashion, his behavior seemed reasonable.

It's not racist to say "Oh, Americans have these values baked into their culture. And that makes his behavior make at least a little more sense."

News reports from reporters actually in Korea appeared just as unable to explain the situation as we were.  The fact that Koreans did not understand the situation means anyone else trying to do so will either a) come to no conclusions or b) come to the wrong conclusions.  There is no c).

[CG]

Sometimes people are just jerks. 

[Crindon]

Being an American probably has a lot to do with me hating large corporations.

... most of them anyway.

I thought being an American meant we are just lazy to finish what we......