CoH, Sales and a test audit

[Starsman]

OK, I am not posting this in the profit thread because it's a bit of a separate thing. I decided to download all the profit reports from NCSoft since 2005 and enter all CoH sales numbers into a neat spreadsheet, then compare year-to-year changes.

Here is what I got so far:


Now, there are a few things that just don't make sense to me. In 2011, Q2, CoH went F2P. It is no secret that everyone at NCSoft and Paragon have stated they started making a lot more money at this point, but my data entry does not show this. On the contrary, I see a pure drop of 20% year over year... it's almost the kind of thing that you would expect to happen if the game went F2P but added no shop...

Next quarter is worse; an even bigger dive year over year (although to be fair, that same quarter the previous year was strangely exceptional, release of GR and extra box sales?)

Anyways, this has be troubled. Either the values are entered wrong, meaning I F-ed up, or for some reason the quarterly reports never gave credit to City of Heroes for their Cash Shop sales... Anyone around here can shed some light on this?

Even with those low values, the last quarter showed a small year over year increase and the game was headed for a 10-11 billion won year, something that seems to still have been profitable. My wory here is:

A) Conspiracy: Investors were intentionally blinded to cash shop revenue
B) Incompetence: I am an idiot and missed something.
C) Lies: someone lied to us about the positive impact of F2P, but I highly doubt it. Would be the first game to not at minimum double revenue by going F2P.

[Terwyn]

It had been "suggested" to me that NCSoft was playing games with their accounting - under-reporting CoX so that they could inflate the numbers from other properties, among other things. This fits nicely with that suggestion.

[Starsman]

It had been "suggested" to me that NCSoft was playing games with their accounting - under-reporting CoX so that they could inflate the numbers from other properties, among other things. This fits nicely with that suggestion.

Maybe, but would love to see people poke holes at my numbers to make sure I didn't mess up. Maybe CoH cash shop was listed somewhere else in the reports...

[FatherXmas]

Freedom came out for existing subscribed players on Sept 13th and open for new and returning players Sept 27th.

First July to Sept is 3rd quarter not 2nd and only for the last 4 days of of the 3rd quarter.  That's why you see the sales surge in the 4th quarter.

Also the 3Q 2010 surge was due to Going Rogue hitting the shelves, which is why YoY in 3Q 2011 was off by over 50%.

Lastly and most important.  Those aren't profit numbers.  Those are sales numbers.  NCSoft never released any profit numbers on a per game basis.

[Osborn]

OK, I am not posting this in the profit thread because it's a bit of a separate thing. I decided to download all the profit reports from NCSoft since 2005 and enter all CoH profit numbers into a neat spreadsheet, then compare year-to-year changes.

Here is what I got so far:


Now, there are a few things that just don't make sense to me. In 2011, Q2, CoH went F2P. It is no secret that everyone at NCSoft and Paragon have stated they started making a lot more money at this point, but my data entry does not show this. On the contrary, I see a pure drop of 20% year over year... it's almost the kind of thing that you would expect to happen if the game went F2P but added no shop...

Next quarter is worse; an even bigger dive year over year (although to be fair, that same quarter the previous year was strangely exceptional, release of GR and extra box sales?)

Anyways, this has be troubled. Either the values are entered wrong, meaning I F-ed up, or for some reason the quarterly reports never gave credit to City of Heroes for their Cash Shop profits... Anyone around here can shed some light on this?

Even with those low values, the last quarter showed a small year over year increase and the game was headed for a 10-11 billion won year, something that seems to still have been profitable. My wory here is:

A) Conspiracy: Investors were intentionally blinded to cash shop profits
B) Incompetence: I am an idiot and missed something.
C) Lies: someone lied to us about the positive impact of F2P, but I highly doubt it. Would be the first game to not at minimum double profits by going F2P.

I think your findings sort of assume that City of Heroes is the only thing to effect NCSoft's profits though. Aion tanked for a while by a margin larger than all of City of Heroes, period. I'm sure that would change some stock numbers more than City of Heroes could, period.

NCSoft hasn't really released the information to needed to really evaluate any of this data properly, so it's all speculation.

[Starsman]

Freedom came out for existing subscribed players on Sept 13th and open for new and returning players Sept 27th.

Hmmm I got the wrong date from the wiki then, looked at the issue release... just went back and realized I looked at the beta release date, not the actual release.

First July to Sept is 3rd quarter not 2nd and only for the last 4 days of of the 3rd quarter.  That's why you see the sales surge in the 4th quarter.

That surge is of only 6% YoY, though... almost everyone that does the switch to F2P tends claims anything between 300% and 700% jumps. Also, I think words like "insanely more" or "way more we would ever be able to do with subscriptions" have been used do describe the CoH bump in sales. 6% is very far from such a description.

Also the 3Q 2010 surge was due to Going Rogue hitting the shelves, which is why YoY in 3Q 2011 was off by over 50%.

Yea that's what I guessed.

Lastly and most important.  Those aren't profit numbers.  Those are sales numbers.  NCSoft never released any profit numbers on a per game basis.

Yea I know, it's sales not "profits", I realize it. That was mostly a typing error not a logic one, will edit my post. But so far it still does not look like they accounted for the F2P sales in these numbers, they still seem like subscription based revenue...

[Starsman]

I think your findings sort of assume that City of Heroes is the only thing to effect NCSoft's profits though.

No, NCSoft itemizes the games. I only entered above revenue directly accredited to City of Heroes in the quarterly reports.

Maybe I should do this again for Aion, to see how that one reflects the F2P jump...

[Codewalker]

Well, one theory that might explain some of the discrepancy was alluded to in another thread, and that's that reportedly, point purchases go directly to corporate and don't get accounted to individual games until those points are redeemed for items in the in-game store.

When Freedom released, a lot of people spent a large amount of money to jump to Tier 9 VIP. If the above is true, unless they immediately turned around and spent those points (and I don't think there was even enough physically in the store yet for some of them to be able to do that), then all that cash they dropped wouldn't show up on the COH sales reports for quite some time, if ever.

[Mistress Urd]

Heh, this made me think how much of a difference would have been if Paragon Studios just came out and told the playerbase that NCSoft would shut the game down if they didn't see a bigger increase in money coming in. Given the response to the shutdown, I'm fairly sure players would have spent more knowing the game was on the line.

[Starsman]

[dwturducken]

I think we've established that money wasn't going to keep the game open. The numbers and tables are just trying to make that more readily, visually apparent.

[chasearcanum]

not sure how much it matters, but did you account for fluctuation of KRW to dollar over this timeframe?

[Starsman]

not sure how much it matters, but did you account for fluctuation of KRW to dollar over this timeframe?

That table is just in krw. I didnt convert anytying to dollars (for the exception of Q1 2005, for some reason the number in the report was in USD and I had to find a converter that allowed me to enter a year so I could convert that one year into KRW)

[Starsman]

I think we've established that money wasn't going to keep the game open. The numbers and tables are just trying to make that more readily, visually apparent.

This is not so much about saving the game, but find out how full of it NCSoft's statement about the game not being profitable was. So far, if it was not profitable it likely wasn't for about 2 years, maybe 3.

[Little Green Frog]

Heh, this made me think how much of a difference would have been if Paragon Studios just came out and told the playerbase that NCSoft would shut the game down if they didn't see a bigger increase in money coming in. Given the response to the shutdown, I'm fairly sure players would have spent more knowing the game was on the line.

The community would most likely react with a backlash, unless it was done with extreme caution, possibly only hinting at it through unofficial channels. Otherwise the ethics of such statement would be questioned and people would assume (and they would be right), they are being blackmailed into spending more on the game or else.

[Starsman]

The community would most likely react with a backlash, unless it was done with extreme caution, possibly only hinting at it through unofficial channels. Otherwise the ethics of such statement would be questioned and people would assume (and they would be right), they are being blackmailed into spending more on the game or else.

I think he means on actually using up the points they purchased.

[Codewalker]

Hmmm that does not make much sense... not with the cash shop structure in use here. Not saying its' impossible, just that it would not make sense.

Perhaps, though I can also seeing it making perfect sense to an executive. "That's how we do it for NCCoin in Korea, so that's how we're going to do it for Paragon Points, too!"

[Starsman]

Perhaps, though I can also seeing it making perfect sense to an executive. "That's how we do it for NCCoin in Korea, so that's how we're going to do it for Paragon Points, too!"

Yea, but they actually share NCCoin in Korea accross multiple games. Besides, if true they still got to somehow report that collected money somewhere in the report...

[Valjean]

I think he means on actually using up the points they purchased.

It depends on if the revenue was recognized on points purchased or points spent.

[TimtheEnchanter]

Wasn't there already a thread about potential money-laundering through the lack of transparency regarding micro-transactions? In short, nobody but NCsoft knows what % of store purchases is attributed to each of their titles. So with a F2P game, they can more or less make up whatever numbers they like.

[FatherXmas]

not sure how much it matters, but did you account for fluctuation of KRW to dollar over this timeframe?

On one hand, converting it to dollars is useful in the pre-Freedom days to help estimate subscription population.  On the other NCSoft is a Korean company and what matters to their bottom line is KrW so a strong dollar, like when it was in early 2009 when it averaged over 1400 KrW to $1 USD during that 1st quarter actually helped the game.

[chasearcanum]

That table is just in krw. I didnt convert anytying to dollars (for the exception of Q1 2005, for some reason the number in the report was in USD and I had to find a converter that allowed me to enter a year so I could convert that one year into KRW)

I'm more looking at how the fluctuation of currency over time may affect the profitability.

Take 3 months, all with the same US Dollar revenue.  In one month, the KRW is weak against the dollar.  The next, its stronger.  The next, stronger still.  Although the actual us revenue is flat, when measured in KRW, it would look differently.

[FatherXmas]

OK, I am not posting this in the profit thread because it's a bit of a separate thing. I decided to download all the profit reports from NCSoft since 2005 and enter all CoH sales numbers into a neat spreadsheet, then compare year-to-year changes.

Here is what I got so far:


Now, there are a few things that just don't make sense to me. In 2011, Q2, CoH went F2P. It is no secret that everyone at NCSoft and Paragon have stated they started making a lot more money at this point, but my data entry does not show this. On the contrary, I see a pure drop of 20% year over year... it's almost the kind of thing that you would expect to happen if the game went F2P but added no shop...

Next quarter is worse; an even bigger dive year over year (although to be fair, that same quarter the previous year was strangely exceptional, release of GR and extra box sales?)

Anyways, this has be troubled. Either the values are entered wrong, meaning I F-ed up, or for some reason the quarterly reports never gave credit to City of Heroes for their Cash Shop sales... Anyone around here can shed some light on this?

Even with those low values, the last quarter showed a small year over year increase and the game was headed for a 10-11 billion won year, something that seems to still have been profitable. My wory here is:

A) Conspiracy: Investors were intentionally blinded to cash shop revenue
B) Incompetence: I am an idiot and missed something.
C) Lies: someone lied to us about the positive impact of F2P, but I highly doubt it. Would be the first game to not at minimum double revenue by going F2P.

This is what I got from NCSoft's various quarterly reports, CoH sales in millions of KrW, average exchange rate for that quarter, CoH sales as millions USD

Q2 2004   11135   1161.21      $9.589
Q3 2004   9403   1153.77      $8.150
Q4 2004   10937   1084.59      $10.084
Q1 2005   6341   1020.28      $6.215
Q2 2005   5806   1006.62      $5.768
Q3 2005   6412   1027.84      $6.238
Q4 2005   15706   1029.57      $15.255
Q1 2006   6523   961.633      $6.783
Q2 2006   5532   935.032      $5.916
Q3 2006   7429   940.203      $7.901
Q4 2006   5532   924.872      $5.981
Q1 2007   5954   924.36      $6.441
Q2 2007   6370   922.454      $6.905
Q3 2007   5721   924.968      $6.185
Q4 2007   5401   919.505      $5.874
Q1 2008   5416   952.842      $5.684
Q2 2008   5743   1015.58      $5.655
Q3 2008   6193   1060.2      $5.841
Q4 2008   6835   1355.91      $5.041
Q1 2009   6837   1409.81      $4.850
Q2 2009   6673   1283.09      $5.201
Q3 2009   5471   1236.44      $4.425
Q4 2009   3928   1164.46      $3.373
Q1 2010   3348   1140.89      $2.935
Q2 2010   3491   1160.81      $3.007
Q3 2010   5709   1180.94      $4.834
Q4 2010   3239   1130.23      $2.866
Q1 2011   3051   1117.46      $2.730
Q2 2011   2787   1081.89      $2.576
Q3 2011   2812   1079.47      $2.605
Q4 2011   3435   1144.09      $3.002
Q1 2012   2890   1129.19      $2.559
Q2 2012   2855   1149.05      $2.485

Edit to include exchange rate and estimated sales number is USD.

[dwturducken]

I'm more looking at how the fluctuation of currency over time may affect the profitability.

Take 3 months, all with the same US Dollar revenue.  In one month, the KRW is weak against the dollar.  The next, its stronger.  The next, stronger still.  Although the actual us revenue is flat, when measured in KRW, it would look differently.

Just from a layman's perspective, this is actually valid. The change in exchange rate between the US dollar and the Canadian dollar had a significant impact on film and television production in Vancouver.  I have to wonder if exchange rates are a factor.

[Victoria Victrix]

My memory of this is very foggy, but I do recall that Q1 and Q2 were full of stories about how every electronic game across the board had lost massive amounts of money--stories often headlined with things like "The End of Electronic Games?" and "Games No Longer 'Recession-Proof'".  Even WoW supposedly lost millions of subscribers.  Given that, the drop in CoH revenues is miniscule.

[ukaserex]

There is no question that exchange rates were a factor. That is an undeniable truth. What is questionable is to what extent.
All in all, a very interesting time reading the Titan Network forum today!

[FatherXmas]

Why do I have a feeling that I'm on a number of ignore lists?  I posted the average exchange rate for every quarter.  You all now have the data to draw your own conclusions from.

[Tanglefoe]

Freedom came out for existing subscribed players on Sept 13th and open for new and returning players Sept 27th.

First July to Sept is 3rd quarter not 2nd and only for the last 4 days of of the 3rd quarter.  That's why you see the sales surge in the 4th quarter.

Also the 3Q 2010 surge was due to Going Rogue hitting the shelves, which is why YoY in 3Q 2011 was off by over 50%.

Lastly and most important.  Those aren't profit numbers.  Those are sales numbers.  NCSoft never released any profit numbers on a per game basis.

I look at sales and P&L a lot where I work and our quarters are divided up Q1 Feb-April, Q2 May-July, Q3 Aug-Oct, Q4 Nov-Jan.  I'm sure each company has its own timeline figured out to reflect pretty much whatever makes them look the best if this is not standard (I have no idea, I've honestly worked where I work since I was 17 and now I'm 31).  Maybe their timeline is different?  I don't know, just throwing in my 2 inf.

[Little Green Frog]

Why do I have a feeling that I'm on a number of ignore lists?  I posted the average exchange rate for every quarter.  You all now have the data to draw your own conclusions from.

Hey, i do read and enjoy your posts, for what it's worth!

[Copper Cockroach]

The community would most likely react with a backlash, unless it was done with extreme caution, possibly only hinting at it through unofficial channels. Otherwise the ethics of such statement would be questioned and people would assume (and they would be right), they are being blackmailed into spending more on the game or else.

Sounds like the MMO Industry in general... "Give us more money or we'll shut down your game and trash your community." And the MMO Industry wonders why it's not universally loved.

[Starsman]

My memory of this is very foggy, but I do recall that Q1 and Q2 were full of stories about how every electronic game across the board had lost massive amounts of money--stories often headlined with things like "The End of Electronic Games?" and "Games No Longer 'Recession-Proof'".  Even WoW supposedly lost millions of subscribers.  Given that, the drop in CoH revenues is miniscule.

I really doubt that Matt or anyone in Paragon Studios would actually claim drastic change in numbers if there was just a 6% increase, though, even considering economy issues.

Why do I have a feeling that I'm on a number of ignore lists?  I posted the average exchange rate for every quarter.  You all now have the data to draw your own conclusions from.

Just a note: any conversion you do now is going to be wrong, since revenue will be over a period of time of 3 months or so for each quarter, and any calculator that takes into account historical rate changes will at best get you just the average for the window, not an accurate translation. The discrepancies can be significant during the entire window, with a big impact generated by high and lows that you cant fairly average out.

I would asume any money transfer would be done on a regular period and only those that know the exact date of the transfers can provide an accurate USD conversion.

Still don't think conversion rate had anything to do with the "disappointing" F2P jump. I really expected those numbers to have at minimum a 50% jump for the first quarter of the F2P model change.

[houtex]

Why do I have a feeling that I'm on a number of ignore lists?  I posted the average exchange rate for every quarter.  You all now have the data to draw your own conclusions from.

I see you.  And I read you loud and clear.  Just didn't have anything to say, until now. *waves*

--

I'm not terribly sure the previous year quarter comparison is a valid comparison in the first place.  It's the last few quarters, and the overall, but previous year Q1 to this year's Q1?  That's... odd.

Meh, I guess it's some sort of comparison, but it's not something I would trust as a trend in any way... just an interesting byproduct.

[Starsman]

I see you.  And I read you loud and clear.  Just didn't have anything to say, until now. *waves*

--

I'm not terribly sure the previous year quarter comparison is a valid comparison in the first place.  It's the last few quarters, and the overall, but previous year Q1 to this year's Q1?  That's... odd.

Meh, I guess it's some sort of comparison, but it's not something I would trust as a trend in any way... just an interesting byproduct.

Comparing Q1 of one year to Q1 of the next year is THE way you do business. Reason is that every quarter has special characteristics to it, from holidays, school out time. Q4 is historically the most profitable quarter of the year, for instance. If you just compare month to month revenue, the whole of NASDAQ would collapse every January.

[dwturducken]

Why do I have a feeling that I'm on a number of ignore lists?  I posted the average exchange rate for every quarter.  You all now have the data to draw your own conclusions from.

Did somebody hear something? What? No?

Just kidding. I will admit that I don't always read through everything, so, if I missed something, I apologize. I tend to skim when it comes to numbers, for reasons that don't bear exploring at this juncture. It's not always perfect, as I may have just demonstrated. I'll try to do better next time.

[FatherXmas]

Comparing Q1 of one year to Q1 of the next year is THE way you do business. Reason is that every quarter has special characteristics to it, from holidays, school out time. Q4 is historically the most profitable quarter of the year, for instance. If you just compare month to month revenue, the whole of NASDAQ would collapse every January.

The spreadsheet I made back when the closing was first announced, which is where I quickly got those numbers I posted, included a running 4 quarter total every quarter which also helps to eliminate seasonal spikes and dips.  For what it's worth it showed the games "annual" earnings plateauing for the 7 quarters in USD, it would have been a few quarters longer if it wasn't for the GR spike.

[houtex]

Comparing Q1 of one year to Q1 of the next year is THE way you do business. Reason is that every quarter has special characteristics to it, from holidays, school out time. Q4 is historically the most profitable quarter of the year, for instance. If you just compare month to month revenue, the whole of NASDAQ would collapse every January.

I get the seasons, but there's whole years of reasons the entire set of quarters would be different.

This isn't a retail store, like a Wallyworld, after all, that sells the same goods, albiet maybe different styles, year in and year out.  Yearly quarter comparison makes sense there.  This is a service, and, well, steady ship should be the expected desire, not quarter bouncing.

I get your point... Just... I dunno, doesn't seem the thing to do for a game service, as it would seem to me novelty and/or repetitiveness, coupled with spikes due to release content driving people back to check things out... quarterly can't ever be a steady report unless you had a steady spike system setup for the releases.  EVERY June 1st, a release.  EVERY September 1, a release. 

We all know that it was always "Soon(tm)" with the Issues, and that, friends, is why I think the Qs being compared is bunk.

But then, I'm just an ordinary average guy.  *dit dit dit de de da da dat dat dat daaaaah...*  Ordinary average guy (average guy (average guy....) )

/How do I put music symbols in here again?

[Starsman]

I get the seasons, but there's whole years of reasons the entire set of quarters would be different.

This isn't a retail store, like a Wallyworld, after all, that sells the same goods, albiet maybe different styles, year in and year out.  Yearly quarter comparison makes sense there.  This is a service, and, well, steady ship should be the expected desire, not quarter bouncing.

Consumer behavior actually changes over the periods, though. Especially with any kind of micro-transaction system in place, but not exclusively.

It is more common than you may think to have college or high school students only play during summers and winters breaks, for instance. CoH is a service, but it's an entertainment service that is very susceptible to player available time, not to mention available budget. You can actually look at the chart I set up there and you will notice the game indeed always had it's biggest year-quarter in Q4.

Anyways, it's not entirely intuitive until you sit down and see reports for various companies and realize how apparently every type of business has similar seasonal changes.

[Tiger]

What I would like to know, is someone's opinion, that actually worked at  NCSoft. Are the people that work there even gamers or strictly business people, that might not even speak English, and never posted on message boards their entire life. It seems like there is a strong disconnect between the developers and NCSoft. But apparently at least some people from NCSoft, doctored their Wikipedia as here is a direct quote from it, under the section called "customer satisfaction":

"NCsoft and RightNow Technologies were both recognized in 2006 with the "Beagle Research 'Whiz Kids' Award for Innovative Embedded Customer Service Solution."[9] for NCsoft's integration of RightNow's customer support software.

Since August 2010, NCsoft's North America publishing branch has been rated as "A+" by the Better Business Bureau.[10] This rating is based on a number of factors, including its history of resolving customer complaints filed with BBB."

I personally think, that NCsoft, is itself is not one of the best publishers, despite it having published good games. I do not think people when looking to play games, specifically look for NCsoft published games. I do think though that at least for single player games, most games would rather buy say an EA Sports game, vs say a generic sports game. Or when deciding between two games, you might notice, "hey it has the Rockstar Games logo".

[Kallandra]

What I would like to know, is someone's opinion, that actually worked at  NCSoft. Are the people that work there even gamers or strictly business people, that might not even speak English, and never posted on message boards their entire life. It seems like there is a strong disconnect between the developers and NCSoft. But apparently at least some people from NCSoft, doctored their Wikipedia as here is a direct quote from it, under the section called "customer satisfaction":

"NCsoft and RightNow Technologies were both recognized in 2006 with the "Beagle Research 'Whiz Kids' Award for Innovative Embedded Customer Service Solution."[9] for NCsoft's integration of RightNow's customer support software.

Since August 2010, NCsoft's North America publishing branch has been rated as "A+" by the Better Business Bureau.[10] This rating is based on a number of factors, including its history of resolving customer complaints filed with BBB."

According to the BBB website itself they are rated A+. No wikipedia doctoring involved, unless you're counting the possible corruption of a website that has been proven to (at least in the past) upgrade ratings when they received payments to become accredited with them. NCSoft are not accredited with the BBB.

[TimtheEnchanter]

According to the BBB website itself they are rated A+. No wikipedia doctoring involved, unless you're counting the possible corruption of a website that has been proven to (at least in the past) upgrade ratings when they received payments to become accredited with them. NCSoft are not accredited with the BBB.

I don't think it takes much to get on their good side. And I highly doubt that the BBB is still on the side of the consumer.

Decided to try the most obvious comparison. Oddly, EA isn't even rated.

[FatherXmas]

I get the seasons, but there's whole years of reasons the entire set of quarters would be different.

Yes but the point is at least the seasonal variables have been accounted for so now you can look for other reasons why the change, for good or bad.  Retailers go one step further and report same store sales so expansion or contraction of total stores doesn't hide overall growth (or shrinkage).

[P51mus]

I don't think it takes much to get on their good side. And I highly doubt that the BBB is still on the side of the consumer.

Decided to try the most obvious comparison. Oddly, EA isn't even rated.

Riot games and Valve, two very excellent companies, have F ratings by the BBB.  So, it makes me wonder what the heck their ratings are based on.

[dwturducken]

Let's take a moment to review the existing threads on the BBB before going further down that road. The discussion was fairly comprehensive.

[Starsman]

[FatherXmas]

Yes, with the release of GW2, GW1's numbers are also now lumped into the "Others" category.  As an aside they only broke out Tabula Rasa's numbers for four quarters where it started at around 5,000 million KrW and dropped to around 1/3 of that the remaining three quarters it was reported.  The game actually lasted six quarters with the last two swept under the rug for Aion's glowing sales.

I also had looked at GW1's numbers and how they relate to CoH's a few months ago.



This shows the trailing twelve months of sales of both games in USD, CoH in blue, GW in orange.  It shows the difference between a game that is subscription + box sales based versus one that's just box sales with paid expansions and an item store.  ArenaNet announced GW2 development in March 2007.  NCSoft publicly announced at the end of 2009 that GW2 would be ready in 2011 so that may have impacted some GW sales.



This shows the accumulated sales of each game, again CoH in blue and GW in orange.  GW had greater sales in less time than CoH.  In the first 3 years it's sales were 50% higher than the first 3 years of CoH.  And while it's sales dropped off after the last expansion, they potentially had a big enough nest egg to finance most of the GW2 development.

[Kuriositys Kat]

Yes, with the release of GW2, GW1's numbers are also now lumped into the "Others" category.  As an aside they only broke out Tabula Rasa's numbers for four quarters where it started at around 5,000 million KrW and dropped to around 1/3 of that the remaining three quarters it was reported.  The game actually lasted six quarters with the last two swept under the rug for Aion's glowing sales.

I also had looked at GW1's numbers and how they relate to CoH's a few months ago.



This shows the trailing twelve months of sales of both games in USD, CoH in blue, GW in orange.  It shows the difference between a game that is subscription + box sales based versus one that's just box sales with paid expansions and an item store.  ArenaNet announced GW2 development in March 2007.  NCSoft publicly announced at the end of 2009 that GW2 would be ready in 2011 so that may have impacted some GW sales.



This shows the accumulated sales of each game, again CoH in blue and GW in orange.  GW had greater sales in less time than CoH.  In the first 3 years it's sales were 50% higher than the first 3 years of CoH.  And while it's sales dropped off after the last expansion, they potentially had a big enough nest egg to finance most of the GW2 development.

One thing that sticks in my memory is the sale promotion banners/posters and stickers in the game shops here in OZ for both Aion and GW 1/2. CoH not a glimmer, yep marketing pays.

[Little Green Frog]

One thing that sticks in my memory is the sale promotion banners/posters and stickers in the game shops here in OZ for both Aion and GW 1/2. CoH not a glimmer, yep marketing pays.

Yes, there was never any serious effort at marketing the title beyond the launch of City of Villains, I think. And then the charts seem to indicate that the abrupt closure happened as City of Heroes' revenue stabilized indicating that it could go on like it is for a few years - not being very lucrative, but pulling its weight. It makes me wonder whether the management didn't count on the game slowly fading away and intervened when it became apparent it probably won't in a foreseeable future.

[Mazz vs The World]

Funny you mention marketing. The first time I even saw COH was in Wal-Mart and the word Hero made me pick up the box which then led me to buy it and play it. This was long ago of course and it may have even been before NCSoft. With that said, alot of people have no idea about this game so yeah they suck at marketing when it comes to COH of course.

[FatherXmas]

A constant stream of boxes in stores pay.  It's the freest advertising.  How many people have purchased a game after reading the back of a box?  Tough to do that when it's not in the store or have been reduced to a dangling card next to dangling cards of proxy currency. 

And in the case of MMOs, not being on the shelf (or time cards) may suggest to some who had heard of the game that the game may no longer be around.  Even worse would be one beat up dusty box lumped in with the other old and unpopular titles.

It always bugged my that Going Rogue got filed under G in stores that bothered to alphabetized and not C because the staff would simply look at C and say they don't have City of Heroes.

[Starsman]

Made a revision to my original chart with some events added in. My timing may be off, let me know if you notice I put something in the wrong quarter.

First big drop the game got is the expected one a year after the CoV release, given the unatural spike due to box sales, it was just expected there would be a Year over Year drop that quarter.

Anyways, if I get this right, seems the biggest "bad" thing to happen to CoH was the release of Champions Online. Didn't half the comunity but it did steal a lot of players.

It seems every box release was very good for the game, and that things started also going downhill with the cancelation of the Top Cow comic book, and the box did not have to be a full fledge expansion like GR, any box in the shelves did enough to pump new blood into the game.

I also added I13 in there just because many villified the PvP rebalance as hurting the game, if true, it seems no one noticed until Champions launched 3 quarters later.

[Valjean]

Keep in mind that there was a double blow to COH, Champions Online AND Aion came out right on top of each other. If one didn't pull customers away, the other would have.

[Absolute]

I also added I13 in there just because many villified the PvP rebalance as hurting the game, if true, it seems no one noticed until Champions launched 3 quarters later.

The opposite actually. PvPers left -before- issue 13 came out. Word got out before open beta. Some quit, some more quit and once the rest could try it in open beta, almost everyone was gone.

Remember BaB's argument for power customization? Issue 13 was the opposite of that. A lot of people PvPed casually, and the PvP changes would have reduced player retention. It's not a specific figure you can really point to.

2 years before the issue 13 changes (Issue 7), I believe it was War Witch who mentioned 10% of the population and PvP. That would have dwindled down before issue 13, and then only a certain percentage of those players only PvPed. I don't think that segment lost was great enough alone to cause a decrease in revenue (Although PvPers would regularly have 4 accounts).

Issue 13 didn't destroy the game (It was the lack of marketing), but Issue 13 didn't exactly help, and probably decreased the health or reputation of the game.

A lot of people thought the game would die with issue 13 because of the choices of the developers. They said if the same changes were going to be applied to PvE (and people thought they were), the game would die. That's true. Luckily that didn't happen.


Edit: /e Facepalm  Well it did happen, but not because of that.

[Starsman]

[Absolute]

I asked Posi in person about the PvP population at PAX 2011. That was right before issue 21.

He said it was 1% right then. That would have been the lowest it had ever been (It's not like anyone was joining PvP). If it was 1% -after- issue 13, then at issue 12, it had to have been much higher.

The population was small if you only count the people who only PvPed. Like I said, even a lot of people on these forums would have enjoyed PvP at one time or another (Casually, with friends, base raids etc.). In fact, you couldn't even PvP decently until you had logged enough PvE hours to get to level 50.

Those kinds of people didn't leave because of the i13 PvP, they just stopped playing PvP. You can't see the shift in revenue because they didn't lose money. It was just a huge quality of life fail. The lose of revenue would be seen over time as, until Incarnates, PvP was the only end-game for players.

Incarnate came out Q4 2010. The drops right after Champions came out was obviously caused by Champions, but I would confidently say a lot of people had no problem changing games because the lack of end-game (and lack of PvP). They were getting bored with their level 50s, PvP might have solved that for some of them.

Besides, I don't even know how anyone can measure the amount of people with PvP. What qualifies someone who PvPs? If they spend a certain amount of time in a zone? How many events they do in a week? I had a group of RPers that never PvPed but loved watching me duel people. What about them? We've had people wander into PvP zones and have no idea what's going on. Why aren't players told about PvP and where the zones are, the zone levels etc. There's a generic contact standing there that just tells players to get ready to be attacked.

Not only that, let's talk about PvP's potential. If we had 10% with a neglected game type, imagine if they talked to the PvPers and spent some more time on it.

I think the PvP population was actually bigger, just like the base building community was bigger. I hated building bases, but I enjoyed looking at other SG's bases. It helped me stay with CoH and helped CoH get my money, while I couldn't build a base for the life of me. I wouldn't leave the game if bases were taken out though. Some people would, but a lot of others would think "That really sucks", then move back to PvE.

That's what happened with PvP. As for our real population numbers? I'd have to see their parameters for the data mining, and I doubt they were all inclusive.

[Illusionss]

[srmalloy]

I still think "flagged" PvP might have worked. What really put me off was calmly trying to collect badges and then being jumped unexpectedly. That REAAALLLLLLLYYY put me off. That put me off from here all the way to Alpha Centauri.

At least we had zones that PvP was confined to; one of the things that turned me off of Aion was open-world PvP and the number of times I was out grinding one of the gathering skills and suddenly found myself the target of three or four characters from the other faction twenty or more levels higher than I was, who seemed to think that the MMORPG equivalent of stepping on ants proved how '1337' and skilled they were.

[Starsman]

[WildFire15]

I would have liked to have seen a team based bank robbery for PvP, with one team robbing and the other team defending. Could have been interesting and rewards could have been dished out depending on how well the teams did.

As for the 'duel' mechanic in Champs and several other MMOs, I think, it would be nice if you could set an auto decline for duelling if you're not participially interested in doing it. Or maybe if someone keeps spamming duel requests on players who aren't interested, say 10 in a row, there's a cool down period of about half an hour or so before you can request a duel again yourself.

*edit*
Additional thought on the team bank robbery, the team's wouldn't be locked to alignment, but if a hero works on the 'robbers' team then they could have an option to reduce their reward and gain a point to change alignment.

[Kuriositys Kat]

Made a revision to my original chart with some events added in. My timing may be off, let me know if you notice I put something in the wrong quarter.

First big drop the game got is the expected one a year after the CoV release, given the unatural spike due to box sales, it was just expected there would be a Year over Year drop that quarter.

Anyways, if I get this right, seems the biggest "bad" thing to happen to CoH was the release of Champions Online. Didn't half the comunity but it did steal a lot of players.

It seems every box release was very good for the game, and that things started also going downhill with the cancelation of the Top Cow comic book, and the box did not have to be a full fledge expansion like GR, any box in the shelves did enough to pump new blood into the game.

I also added I13 in there just because many villified the PvP rebalance as hurting the game, if true, it seems no one noticed until Champions launched 3 quarters later.

There are some other factors in there too,  US side the troop surge in 2010 and ramp up to it in late 2009.  I know that folks I ran with  went overseas and had to leave the game for that reason.
Half my global list disappeared at that time. I can discount the ones that went to try CO because they came back after  the 30 days was up  if not before. Anecdotal evidence and just IMHO but it  is what I noticed.

[srmalloy]

There are some other factors in there too,  US side the troop surge in 2010 and ramp up to it in late 2009.  I know that folks I ran with  went overseas and had to leave the game for that reason.
Half my global list disappeared at that time. I can discount the ones that went to try CO because they came back after  the 30 days was up  if not before. Anecdotal evidence and just IMHO but it  is what I noticed.

I wound up moving characters from Pinnacle to Guardian because of that; deployments and transfers hit the group I played with pretty hard, and I found myself soloing by default far more than otherwise, so I moved characters to a server that I'd already found a new group on.

[Illusionss]

At least we had zones that PvP was confined to; one of the things that turned me off of Aion was open-world PvP and the number of times I was out grinding one of the gathering skills and suddenly found myself the target of three or four characters from the other faction twenty or more levels higher than I was, who seemed to think that the MMORPG equivalent of stepping on ants proved how '1337' and skilled they were.

I dont think I woould be willing to play a game like that. I just find that sort of thing not fun AT ALL.

I remember once I had a level 50 fire/fire Blaster in Bloody Bay, hunting Shivans for the badge. During an encounter with a group of Shivans I noticed that I seemed to be taking more damage than I should. I pan the camera down (my squishy ranged characters always took Hover) and what do I see but a level 15 right underneath me, blasting away with a Nemesis staff to get my attention.

I dont hold with that kind of level disparity, so flew about a half mile off and commenced hunting. Lo and behold, there Nemesis Staff was again, blasting away at me. I laughed and exited the zone. I dont know what he thought that was going to get him, except flattened.

I miss the game so bad.

I miss it so bad that I think I am going to try and get into the Marvel Heroes beta. NO I dont want to be Iron Man or whatever, but I miss flight so damn bad. I need something to occupy me till we can make some headway with Plan Z, and GW2 is not really doing it for me. Im still THERE, but this trotting everywhere on foot is OLD.