Wake the Media (might this be a good idea?)

[Mura]

Hey everyone,

I am not sure if this is really a good idea and I apologize in advance if something like this has been discussed before here. I simply had this idea one day and didnt wanted to just ignore it, so I thought I at least post this here so people can think about it.

I just realised something: When the closing of coh was announced Ncsoft took quite along time to even say anything about it.
After we sent them letters and even masks and capes we got a small reply saying that all things they have tried to save coh just failed.
BUT after the Korean Times is bringing one article about the closure of COH being 'unethical' we get a response fom ncsoft saying that "the fate of coh hasnt been decided yet" almost immediately. So i think the one thing NCsoft fears even more then making a loss is bad publicity (especially as a gaming company)?

And I may be wrong but I also think we actually have a very good story?
- Its about the topic online computer games which would make the media appear 'modern' reporting about it.
- Its about a big company against just normal people.
- And its about people around the world getting to know each other over a computer game, now fighting all together for a thing they love?

So i thought maybe we should do more then just thank the media? Maybe we should try to actively get the medias attention (and not just online media but  newspapers, tv stations, etc...)

So here is my suggestion:
1. We prepare a small form with questions like "Name?", "Age?",  "Country?"  but also questions like "Why do you played COH?", "What made COH so special in comparison to other MMOS?" ...
2. We publish the form over the internet and try to get as many people as we can to fill them out. Even with the game closed, there are still lots of chats on facebook or other games to reach a lot of people?
3. We collect all the forms. Of course i dont want any any rude comments or something like that, so we may need people to look over the forms before we collect them.
4. We also prepare a small declaration about why we are doing this, what has happened so far and so on...
5. We could also add the contact data of some people who speak for us, so people are able to ask questions.
6. We then simply collect the E-Mail addresses of a lot of newspapers, tv stations and news sides from around the world and sent all we have together to all of them on one single day.

I dont think this can be considered spam, since we only sent ONE E-Mail to every address?

So we practically  deliver them a whole story (including the opinions of thousands of people, they could quote) for free?

Now, if the media just ignores this we tried and havent lost anything by it?
BUT if the media actually "wakes up" and are starting investigating what this is all about, I dont think NCsoft is looking very good by explaining the closure of a profit making game with "structural changes" when there are thousands of people on the other side telling about how much they loved this game and how much it hurt them to loose it?

To make this clear: This is NOT to make NCSoft look bad or to take revenge on them. This is just bring our true story to the medias attention and NCSoft could easily avoid any bad publicity by just saying "Oh, we didnt know that this game meant so much to the people, we will bring it back" or if they dont want it just give it free/make it open source?
Even better: If the media really report about this, a company like Disney would get a huge publicity by just saying "We care about those people and are wiling to buy it"?

Now Im not a media expert in any way and i really may be naive but i dont see any way the whole thing could end bad for us?
And again im not sure myself if this really is a good idea. I just got the idea and wanted at least make the suggestion here so people could talk about it.

So what do you think?

[Sajaana]

These publishers do not, under any circumstances, want consumers to think about how long the game will last when they are trying to sell a new MMORPG on them.  They want to distract them from that possibility.

So I think the best course of action will be to ask questions, really simple questions, whenever they are promoting Guild Wars 2, Wildstar, Blade and Soul, Aion, or whatever:

"How long is this going to last before you take it away?"

Put the question out there.  Given the history, it's a valid question.

[Lily Barclay]

I'm pretty sure something very similar to this has been done with the testimonials thread and what not. There was no official form or anything, but they got people's stories and tried to get attention. We've had a journalist sending out press releases to everyone and even had someone attend an actual press event. The Korea times picked up the story because of the journalist's efforts.

[houtex]

We prepare a small form with questions like "Name?", "Age?",  "Country?"

Nice try, internet survey maker to sell our information, you subtle person you...

---

I keed.  Honest!

I'm sure that there is so much information that is available here, via the wayback machine for the CoH forums, and other places.  Just search for "Why" and "City of Heroes" and they'll just pop rightup.

But I agree with Sajaana, that question "How long do you expect it before NCSoft kills your game?" needs to be just about everywhere, ya ask me.

[Quinch]

Heh. Maybe start a NCsoftDeadpool.com site, with speculations and an open poll/listing/whatnot where every visitor can enter a date when they think each of NCsoft's MMOs will get shut down?

{probably a lame idea, but thought about it since forever}

[johnrobey]

Re: the OP, I think NCSoft makes itself look bad, with hardly any effort from us.  As far as I know we're just calling attention to their actions, such as closing 5 MMO's and thus far keeping the IP and the MMO's dead.  I'm not sure exactly what value your idea(s) has, since I feel like most of what you're suggesting has been done re:  soliticing the media/journalistic interest.

[Rae]

Hi Mura,

As some of the others have said here, I've been sending out a few bits and pieces when we do something particularly news-worthy - winning the MMOsite polls was the most recent one, but also the money raised by Real World Hero, job losses at Paragon Studios for local Californian newspapers, the Extralife campaign, we got a few journalists into COH so they could report on the sunset, the Korean Times article, the unity rally and of course, the Hail Mary Disney pitch.

I know that we also have had a lot of support from Maressa, who is a Titan who writes for a major gaming website, as well as Bree and Eliot from Massively. The Editor of Starburst has also been in contact with us and very supportive, let alone the contacts I made through the Save campaign, and the work I've done with TF Hail Mary and The Phoenix Project.

I just realised something: When the closing of coh was announced Ncsoft took quite along time to even say anything about it.
After we sent them letters and even masks and capes we got a small reply saying that all things they have tried to save coh just failed.
BUT after the Korean Times is bringing one article about the closure of COH being 'unethical' we get a response fom ncsoft saying that "the fate of coh hasnt been decided yet" almost immediately. So i think the one thing NCsoft fears even more then making a loss is bad publicity (especially as a gaming company)?

I'd say that their Achilles heel is more likely the Korean press, and they're probably concerned more about publicity there than they are in the West - potentially because that's where much of their investors, business associates and so forth are.  NC Soft refused to comment on anything in the press up until the Korean Times article, until Lincoln Davis piped up for the MMORPG article (and appeared to lay the blame at the door of Paragon Studios.)

And I may be wrong but I also think we actually have a very good story?
- Its about the topic online computer games which would make the media appear 'modern' reporting about it.
- Its about a big company against just normal people.
- And its about people around the world getting to know each other over a computer game, now fighting all together for a thing they love?

We /do/ have a very good story, but I think part of the problem is that it's not 'new' anymore - the sunset was announced on August 30, we fought it for three months, and COH has been closed for well over a month now. Secondly, this isn't a game that many people have heard of - if we'd had the population of WOW, I'm pretty sure that people would have fallen over themselves to cover it, but because NC Soft hadn't put COH 'out there' in terms of marketing and advertisement, it isn't an MMO that your average newspaper/TV editor would have been aware of.

Unfortunately, for these reasons, plus the American election, the story never really hit mainstream media, and it seems very unlikely that now, more than a month after closure that it will do. (Short of some incredibly newsworthy event, although what that would be, I'm really not sure.)

So i thought maybe we should do more then just thank the media? Maybe we should try to actively get the medias attention (and not just online media but  newspapers, tv stations, etc...)

So here is my suggestion:
1. We prepare a small form with questions like "Name?", "Age?",  "Country?"  but also questions like "Why do you played COH?", "What made COH so special in comparison to other MMOS?" ...
2. We publish the form over the internet and try to get as many people as we can to fill them out. Even with the game closed, there are still lots of chats on facebook or other games to reach a lot of people?
3. We collect all the forms. Of course i dont want any any rude comments or something like that, so we may need people to look over the forms before we collect them.
4. We also prepare a small declaration about why we are doing this, what has happened so far and so on...
5. We could also add the contact data of some people who speak for us, so people are able to ask questions.
6. We then simply collect the E-Mail addresses of a lot of newspapers, tv stations and news sides from around the world and sent all we have together to all of them on one single day.

So we practically  deliver them a whole story (including the opinions of thousands of people, they could quote) for free?

Now, if the media just ignores this we tried and havent lost anything by it?
BUT if the media actually "wakes up" and are starting investigating what this is all about, I dont think NCsoft is looking very good by explaining the closure of a profit making game with "structural changes" when there are thousands of people on the other side telling about how much they loved this game and how much it hurt them to loose it?

I'm not saying that it'd hurt, because you never know, but with my journalist head on (instead of my 'WaaaaaaahbutImissCOH' head on) I'm trying to work out what the story is, and why my readers/audience would be interested in it. In a world with 24-hour news and the internet, everything moves so fast, the story was probably out of date for their interests by the second week in September, and again by December 1 when they finally pulled the plug.

http://www.courses.vcu.edu/ENG-jeh/BeginningReporting/Prewriting/natureofnews.htm has some good information on what is considered newsworthy, and that's what you need to think about if you decide to put this together.

You need to find a way to make someone care about a game which he's never heard of and has been closed for over a month enough to tell other people about it and have them think it's relevant to them, and that's obviously going to be very hard to do at this stage.  That's going to be more of a challenge than collecting the information (I'm sure you'd have no shortage of volunteers, honestly )

I hope this helps a little, if you decide to go ahead with it. What is really needed at this stage is something either quirky enough that it'll make a news editor think it'll get people's attention and make them talk about it, or spectacular/shocking/outrageous enough that they can't ignore it, or a huge publicity drive/stunt something that they'll HAVE to take notice of.

[Ironwolf]

I agree Rae, it is old news now and the average gamer will say - what they still sadly trying to bring that thing back?

NCSoft has played it well in the press - they said nothing long enough for the new shiney objects to gain our attention. Unless we can get an investor to make and offer we don't even know NCSoft will sell.

[Lucretia MacEvil]

the average gamer will say - what they still sadly trying to bring that thing back?

Could that in itself be a story? 
Our community is apparently very rare among game communities if it would provoke such a reaction.  Perhaps a story about what made this game so special that it attracted such a solid, supportive group of people who are still banding together even though their game has been down for more than a month?  Maybe the OP's survey idea should include a "why are you still here after so long?" question.

[Little Green Frog]

We /do/ have a very good story, but I think part of the problem is that it's not 'new' anymore

It may not be new for a newspaper or a TV channel, but what about magazines of opinion such as TIME or The New Yorker? Not really hopeful that they would think of us as a worthy subject at all, but we could try to pitch to them an essay on the emotional impact an abrupt closure of a healthy online community has on its players or a reportage about how, despite odds, said community is still trying to fight for its preservation.

[Mura]

Hey again .)

First off: thx for all the feedback! especially to Rae!

Im not sure if this is really old news? The game might be gone but the community certainly is still there?
And i agree with Lucretia that the fact that we are able to do something like this even with the game closed for more then a month makes this even more impressive?

But even more I think its original? At least i never heard of a group of people around the world fighting together for a computer game?

The idea was to try to approach the media with the whole community instead of just representatives. And i think(hope!) that it can make a huge difference if someone just says "btw, we have 20.000 peolpe signing our petition" or if they actually see a personal feedback(form) from every single one of them?

I also wanted to deliver them a half finished story already. So they can find the whole backstory in the Mail, they have lots of "interviews"(form) of people as well and, if we can, even some phone contacts they can easily question if they want.
All reporters also have a newspaper/show to fill. And if they get a half finished, entertaining and original story right there for them, they might report about it just out of lazyness?

Again, all this was only my first idea and I at least wanted to share it instead of just ignoring it and im happy for any suggestions/alternatives.
But i think trying to actively approach the media in general is something where we have nothing to loose and a lot to win? (IF we are able to do this in a mature and serious way?)

[Quinch]

I agree Rae, it is old news now and the average gamer will say - what they still sadly trying to bring that thing back?

We all knew from day one that NCsoft won't part with CoH willingly and that, by extension, means that if CoH is to live again, it must part with it unwillingly. This is where the need for persistence comes in - unlike us, NCsoft needs to move forward, as any company does. And whenever it does, whatever new product they put out, we need to be there and putting their history, present and future into the spotlight, killing off their playerbase simply by informing them. The goal is to be enough of a PR nuisance that NCsoft would change its ways out of its own self-interest simply by denying us the arguments we're using to tarnish it - its own callous behavior toward its customers.

[Rae]

It may not be new for a newspaper or a TV channel, but what about magazines of opinion such as TIME or The New Yorker? Not really hopeful that they would think of us as a worthy subject at all, but we could try to pitch to them an essay on the emotional impact an abrupt closure of a healthy online community has on its players or a reportage about how, despite odds, said community is still trying to fight for its preservation.

Being a non-US resident, I can't really say whether or not it's the sort of thing they'd be interested in, since I've never laid eyes on copies of either If this is the sort of thing they tend to look into, then it's possible they'd look into it in this case, too. I do at least know that both publications are pretty much 'up there' in terms of national coverage, and I'm not sure how often they publish (weekly? monthly?).

A publication will always be working one or two editions in advance (i.e if it's a monthly publication and the January edition is currently out, they'll be working on February and March right now.)

All reporters also have a newspaper/show to fill. And if they get a half finished, entertaining and original story right there for them, they might report about it just out of lazyness?

We /are/ lazy, it's true. We're big fans of anything that makes our life earlier.

the game might be gone but the community certainly is still there?
And i agree with Lucretia that the fact that we are able to do something like this even with the game closed for more then a month makes this even more impressive?

It's an angle, at least. If you're going this route, I'd suggest aiming for an 'anniversary' piece (i.e Three months after the closure of..), maybe?

[Knightslayer]

We /are/ lazy, it's true. We're big fans of anything that makes our life earlier.

Journalists are early birds then? 

[Rae]

Journalists are early birds then? 

Case in point: Spellcheck

[dwturducken]

Time is weekly, New Yorker is monthly. Time deals in aggregation of news with a feature piece or three dealing with more depth on something that they see as big. New Yorker used to be more high-brow stuff. It's been a few years since I read one.

For the moment, our best shot at "main stream" is getting into a print version of an industry pub like Game Informer or the like. My outsider's perspective is that we have a better chance of that if we actually produce something visible. The "Take the Devs to Lunch" was a good start down that track. Hell. It should have earned at least a mention. I'll check recent back issues at the library, today.

[Victoria Victrix]

To get in Boing Boing (which would REALLY make a splash and probably make print media) Cory Doctorow has only one edict.  "I don't give damn.  Make me care."

[Mura]

Hey again,

We all knew from day one that NCsoft won't part with CoH willingly and that, by extension, means that if CoH is to live again, it must part with it unwillingly. This is where the need for persistence comes in - unlike us, NCsoft needs to move forward, as any company does. And whenever it does, whatever new product they put out, we need to be there and putting their history, present and future into the spotlight, killing off their playerbase simply by informing them. The goal is to be enough of a PR nuisance that NCsoft would change its ways out of its own self-interest simply by denying us the arguments we're using to tarnish it - its own callous behavior toward its customers.

Yeah, I think thats a very good point? Even if the whole think is not successfull and just gets ignored by the media it could at least show NCSoft that we are still here, and that the whole City of Heroes community is not something that will just resolve itself?
Another idea might even be to sent the whole think two weeks in advance to NCSoft, telling them we plan to sent this to the media soon. Even if it probably wont make the big news, why take that chance and risk any bad publicity over a game they obviously dont care about anymore, when they can for example just make it open public and be done with it?

We /are/ lazy, it's true. We're big fans of anything that makes our life earlier.

Just for the record: I never meant to say reporters are especially lazy But we all are a little bit lazy, and none of us would protest if we see someone doing our work for us?

It's an angle, at least. If you're going this route, I'd suggest aiming for an 'anniversary' piece (i.e Three months after the closure of..), maybe?

Good idea! There is also the "birthday" of COH by the end of April (where there definetly should happen something big?). But i think we should do some things before this well (just to keep the PR Nuisance thing going ) so, yeah, if we decide to do this, three months after the closure might be enough time to collect the queries and prepare everything for this?

Time is weekly, New Yorker is monthly. Time deals in aggregation of news with a feature piece or three dealing with more depth on something that they see as big. New Yorker used to be more high-brow stuff. It's been a few years since I read one.

For the moment, our best shot at "main stream" is getting into a print version of an industry pub like Game Informer or the like. My outsider's perspective is that we have a better chance of that if we actually produce something visible. The "Take the Devs to Lunch" was a good start down that track. Hell. It should have earned at least a mention. I'll check recent back issues at the library, today.

Also, remember that every big newspaper has an online version nowadays. Even this is not big enough news to get printed, it might still be something to be published online at least?

I actually agree that we would have a better chance to get into the "main stream" media by producing something visible. I just have no idea what that could be :-( (how about starting a crowd funding project to make our own tv commercial? ) . But there is no need for us to make just one big event? The more things we try/do the better are our chances?

The one big question i still have is:
Do you see any way this could backfire to us (especially with sending an E-Mail to so many medias at once)? Or do you agree that we have nothing to loose and can only benefit from this? Because if we have nothing to loose then why not try at least?

[Mura]

Not saying that anything has been decided yet, but to give you a better impression, here is a first suggestion for questions for the form that we could send around. Happy for any suggestions/corrections. Im also happy for any help with the words (as you may have noticed, english is not my mother language )


Name:

Age:

Country:

How long have you played City of heroes?

What did City of Heroes meant to you?

What made City of Heroes so special in comparison to other MMOs?

How do you felt when you heard about the closing of City of Heroes?

What do you wish from NCSoft?

[Rae]

The one big question i still have is:
Do you see any way this could backfire to us (especially with sending an E-Mail to so many medias at once)? Or do you agree that we have nothing to loose and can only benefit from this? Because if we have nothing to loose then why not try at least?

The only thing that might irritate them is that..well, obviously IF you're the paper running a story, you want to be the only people who have it, so if they know that it's been blanket sent to however many outlets, it's not exclusive to them. It probably wouldn't be enough of an issue that they wouldn't run the story, though.

The newspaper I work for is a local one, covering about a 10 mile area, and we get hundreds of press-releases a week. So as far as bothering them goes, it's pretty much your job to get bombarded by people wanting you to cover their story. I don't think you'd be harming COH or it's legacy, or the SaveCOH campaign to try and place a story somewhere