New efforts!

[hurple]

if you had several hundred thousand dollars tied up in a deal - would you keep trying to make the deal if they were saying no?

Except... We have absolutely no idea that this is in any way true or accurate.  What exactly is "keep trying to make the deal," anyway?  Is it sit back and wait for NCSoft to call again (even though they haven't for 8 months?) Is it, daily contact with a representative from NCSoft?  Or, is it smoke signals and/or carrier pigeons?

Personally, I agree with the others... the deal is dead.  It isn't gonna happen.  We just haven't been told.  And, it sounds like the buyer group hasn't either.

[CrimsonCapacitor]

I think most people that haven't gone through business negotiations before view this as, more or less, akin to buying a used car.  It's there, sitting, we've made an offer for said car.  It's essentially rusting away.  Yes or no to my offer?

That's NOT what is involved with this kind of deal. 

As Arcana, I believe, pointed out, this is, essentially, negotiation by committee.  So the salesman doesn't have to just get his manager's approval.  He has to get six people to sign off on the sale of the car.  And, oh, yeah, Joe's with another customer right now.  And Ed's on vacation.  Bill?  He was here just a minute ago.  Does anyone know where Bill is?  From this standpoint, it truly is like herding cats to get all necessary people to sign off on the deal.

Now, that said, I would assume that there are multiple deals going here.

1)  What's the business plan?  (In other words, how does NCSoft know that Nate and Co can run/manage the game?)  Note that this doesn't just include, "Show us what you got," but were I in NCSoft's shoes, I'd want to know things like projected income/expenses associated with setting up and running the game, where they'd host, how will the store work, will there be a store, justification of these decisions, etc.  And if any of those issues NCSoft didn't like?  It would be a discussion about how NCSoft thought there was a better way to do it, or pointing out perceived flaws in the plan and having to rework it. 

2)  I'd assume that Nate and Co want to see a working image of the game.  Going back to the car analogy, this would be like taking the car for a test drive.  Just because a "car" is sitting on the lot doesn't mean it can start and drive.  Again, the engineering resources NCSoft may be willing to apply to making that disk image work may be low, so it may be taking time for them to untangle the spaghetti code.  While it may be being worked on, again, I'm betting that any engineer working on this part of it is not spending a lot of his time on it, as they probably have a lot more pressing issues.  Put another way:  His/her annual review probably relates to current live games.  If they let this game slip a bit, it's probably not going to hurt their review as much as resurrecting a game image instead of fixing those bugs in Aion would. 

3)  What rights are associated with the game?  Can Nate and Co change splash screens?  Does NCSoft's logo have to be plastered all over things?  Can they hold annual events, like the ski chalet?  Do they have the tools to open the chalet?  To turn on 2xp?   Even if they do, are they allowed to?  Or is the game actually set in stone at I23's normal state?

4)  Licensing agreements?  Does NCSoft have any input on that at all?  Can the holding company license things to anyone they want without any input from NCSoft?  Does NCSoft retain any rights?  What rights do they retain?  Can NCSoft use Statesman, etc. if they so decide, once the sale goes through, without contacting the holding company?

5)  Terms.  What's the up front payment?  What are the periodic payments, if any?  What happens if the cash flow set up in part 1 isn't there?  How long will the contract be in effect?  Is this a lease or a purchase?

6)  Other things I'm not thinking of

That's a whole lot of stuff to get consensus on.  Each one of those things not only has to be agreed to by the people Nate is talking to, but I guarantee that NCSoft's corporate lawyers are involved.  And that's another layer of things dragging on the timeline.  Even if the managers, etc. say, "Sure," the lawyers could, and probably are, coming back saying, "Giving up the rights to those characters is not in the best interests of the corporation.  We've made edits to the contract." and the whole process starts over again.

There's a LOT more to this than just buying a car.  It's more like buying a NASCAR, showing the sponsors you can drive at 200 mph and have a decent pit crew, and figuring out not only who the sponsors will be but also where their logos will be placed on the car.

This isn't a sprint.  It's a marathon.  That's why no news is good news.

[Tubbius]

This isn't a sprint.  It's a marathon.  That's why no news is good news.

This isn't a Sprint.  Most people want it to be a Super Speed instead! 

[kaaduu1280]

I presume this is all happening via email, but let's say the negotiations are happening in person.  I don't send The Man to the negotiations.  That's an amateur move.  I send the negotiators.  So you make them a proposal.  They ask you a bunch of questions.  Many of them you won't be able to answer off the top of your head.  Good bye, let's schedule another meeting for next week Tuesday after you get those answers.

Ok, now you have those answers.  We have follow up questions.  See you next week.

OK, now you have questions.  We'll need to review those with management and get back to you.  See you after the holidays.

Ok, now we have a complete proposal.  We will need to review this with management.  See you after the end of the quarter.

The thing you have to realize is that you can spend hours talking about something you might naively think should just take minutes, just because of the combination of formality and ironically casual conversation that happens in such meetings (there's a formality to negotiations, and the reason why we send people instead of robots is because 90% of the talking is designed to put the other side at ease and willing to show their hand; how's the kids, crazy weather we're having, how was that concert you were going to last week?).  But that's not what takes up most of the time.  Its the back and forth that is all but deliberately designed to slow the pace of things so that everyone who has any sort of say or input has some say or input, and to make sure neither party can trap the other into giving a quick yes or no to anything.

I wrote a one page memo for a customer to review last month, and it took three weeks for them to get six people to read and review it.  And that was for something *they* wanted me to do for them, not the other way around.  Do you think that was because of their reading speed?  Some guys read it that day.  Some put it off until the end of the week.  One guy didn't touch it until the following week.  Several wanted to talk to each other about it.  One guy went on vacation in the middle.  One of the guys who read it on the first day forgot to respond, and had to be reminded to read it again.

How many one page memos do you think it takes to buy the intellectual property of a defunct video game from a Korean company in the middle of merger negotiations?  Thirty?  Fifty?  How many of them will be internal, and you won't even see any activity at all while they are happening?  How much time is happening between things happening that if you try to accelerate the process, you'll be perceived as impatient, and thus an annoyance?

Lotta stuff to think about, thanks.

[downix]

I think most people that haven't gone through business negotiations before view this as, more or less, akin to buying a used car.  It's there, sitting, we've made an offer for said car.  It's essentially rusting away.  Yes or no to my offer?

That's NOT what is involved with this kind of deal. 

As Arcana, I believe, pointed out, this is, essentially, negotiation by committee.  So the salesman doesn't have to just get his manager's approval.  He has to get six people to sign off on the sale of the car.  And, oh, yeah, Joe's with another customer right now.  And Ed's on vacation.  Bill?  He was here just a minute ago.  Does anyone know where Bill is?  From this standpoint, it truly is like herding cats to get all necessary people to sign off on the deal.

Now, that said, I would assume that there are multiple deals going here.

1)  What's the business plan?  (In other words, how does NCSoft know that Nate and Co can run/manage the game?)  Note that this doesn't just include, "Show us what you got," but were I in NCSoft's shoes, I'd want to know things like projected income/expenses associated with setting up and running the game, where they'd host, how will the store work, will there be a store, justification of these decisions, etc.  And if any of those issues NCSoft didn't like?  It would be a discussion about how NCSoft thought there was a better way to do it, or pointing out perceived flaws in the plan and having to rework it. 

2)  I'd assume that Nate and Co want to see a working image of the game.  Going back to the car analogy, this would be like taking the car for a test drive.  Just because a "car" is sitting on the lot doesn't mean it can start and drive.  Again, the engineering resources NCSoft may be willing to apply to making that disk image work may be low, so it may be taking time for them to untangle the spaghetti code.  While it may be being worked on, again, I'm betting that any engineer working on this part of it is not spending a lot of his time on it, as they probably have a lot more pressing issues.  Put another way:  His/her annual review probably relates to current live games.  If they let this game slip a bit, it's probably not going to hurt their review as much as resurrecting a game image instead of fixing those bugs in Aion would. 

3)  What rights are associated with the game?  Can Nate and Co change splash screens?  Does NCSoft's logo have to be plastered all over things?  Can they hold annual events, like the ski chalet?  Do they have the tools to open the chalet?  To turn on 2xp?   Even if they do, are they allowed to?  Or is the game actually set in stone at I23's normal state?

4)  Licensing agreements?  Does NCSoft have any input on that at all?  Can the holding company license things to anyone they want without any input from NCSoft?  Does NCSoft retain any rights?  What rights do they retain?  Can NCSoft use Statesman, etc. if they so decide, once the sale goes through, without contacting the holding company?

5)  Terms.  What's the up front payment?  What are the periodic payments, if any?  What happens if the cash flow set up in part 1 isn't there?  How long will the contract be in effect?  Is this a lease or a purchase?

6)  Other things I'm not thinking of

That's a whole lot of stuff to get consensus on.  Each one of those things not only has to be agreed to by the people Nate is talking to, but I guarantee that NCSoft's corporate lawyers are involved.  And that's another layer of things dragging on the timeline.  Even if the managers, etc. say, "Sure," the lawyers could, and probably are, coming back saying, "Giving up the rights to those characters is not in the best interests of the corporation.  We've made edits to the contract." and the whole process starts over again.

There's a LOT more to this than just buying a car.  It's more like buying a NASCAR, showing the sponsors you can drive at 200 mph and have a decent pit crew, and figuring out not only who the sponsors will be but also where their logos will be placed on the car.

This isn't a sprint.  It's a marathon.  That's why no news is good news.

^
^
This

[Zombie Hustler]

Silly American Earthlings... do not despair. I am quite sure that if they had no intention of selling the IP, the executives at NCSoft would not want to be bothered with the communications from the team. It might have been funny to string them along for a little while, but not this long. I feel like it's a yes simply because we should have had a no by now.

When I was much younger, we had this neighbor that was kind of annoying and we didn't like to play with much. We started playing a game with him; when he'd come around, we'd hide and pretend like we weren't home until he stopped knocking at the door. As he started to leave, we'd pop out and say "Hey, we're home!" and go back inside. He'd come back and knock and we wouldn't answer.

Looking back, it was pretty mean but it was funny at the time. I can't say what was funnier to us- that we kept doing it or that he kept coming back in spite of what would seem to be (obviously) an attempt to screw with him.

(I don't think they're doing it, and I agree with Arcana and others on their many points vis a vis corporate negotiations, particularly cross-cultural ones. I am not an alarmist and think something will happen one way or another in its due time. But after reading this post I just had this vision of the guys at NCSoft playing this game. Sitting around in their shirts and ties and saying "Yes! We'll sell to you!" then hiding and tittering madly as they refuse to answer the door until we go away.  )

[Solitaire]

I think most people that haven't gone through business negotiations before view this as, more or less, akin to buying a used car.  It's there, sitting, we've made an offer for said car.  It's essentially rusting away.  Yes or no to my offer?

That's NOT what is involved with this kind of deal. 

As Arcana, I believe, pointed out, this is, essentially, negotiation by committee.  So the salesman doesn't have to just get his manager's approval.  He has to get six people to sign off on the sale of the car.  And, oh, yeah, Joe's with another customer right now.  And Ed's on vacation.  Bill?  He was here just a minute ago.  Does anyone know where Bill is?  From this standpoint, it truly is like herding cats to get all necessary people to sign off on the deal.

Now, that said, I would assume that there are multiple deals going here.

1)  What's the business plan?  (In other words, how does NCSoft know that Nate and Co can run/manage the game?)  Note that this doesn't just include, "Show us what you got," but were I in NCSoft's shoes, I'd want to know things like projected income/expenses associated with setting up and running the game, where they'd host, how will the store work, will there be a store, justification of these decisions, etc.  And if any of those issues NCSoft didn't like?  It would be a discussion about how NCSoft thought there was a better way to do it, or pointing out perceived flaws in the plan and having to rework it. 

2)  I'd assume that Nate and Co want to see a working image of the game.  Going back to the car analogy, this would be like taking the car for a test drive.  Just because a "car" is sitting on the lot doesn't mean it can start and drive.  Again, the engineering resources NCSoft may be willing to apply to making that disk image work may be low, so it may be taking time for them to untangle the spaghetti code.  While it may be being worked on, again, I'm betting that any engineer working on this part of it is not spending a lot of his time on it, as they probably have a lot more pressing issues.  Put another way:  His/her annual review probably relates to current live games.  If they let this game slip a bit, it's probably not going to hurt their review as much as resurrecting a game image instead of fixing those bugs in Aion would. 

3)  What rights are associated with the game?  Can Nate and Co change splash screens?  Does NCSoft's logo have to be plastered all over things?  Can they hold annual events, like the ski chalet?  Do they have the tools to open the chalet?  To turn on 2xp?   Even if they do, are they allowed to?  Or is the game actually set in stone at I23's normal state?

4)  Licensing agreements?  Does NCSoft have any input on that at all?  Can the holding company license things to anyone they want without any input from NCSoft?  Does NCSoft retain any rights?  What rights do they retain?  Can NCSoft use Statesman, etc. if they so decide, once the sale goes through, without contacting the holding company?

5)  Terms.  What's the up front payment?  What are the periodic payments, if any?  What happens if the cash flow set up in part 1 isn't there?  How long will the contract be in effect?  Is this a lease or a purchase?

6)  Other things I'm not thinking of

That's a whole lot of stuff to get consensus on.  Each one of those things not only has to be agreed to by the people Nate is talking to, but I guarantee that NCSoft's corporate lawyers are involved.  And that's another layer of things dragging on the timeline.  Even if the managers, etc. say, "Sure," the lawyers could, and probably are, coming back saying, "Giving up the rights to those characters is not in the best interests of the corporation.  We've made edits to the contract." and the whole process starts over again.

There's a LOT more to this than just buying a car.  It's more like buying a NASCAR, showing the sponsors you can drive at 200 mph and have a decent pit crew, and figuring out not only who the sponsors will be but also where their logos will be placed on the car.

This isn't a sprint.  It's a marathon.  That's why no news is good news.

Thank you Crimson, that helps me understand a lot more why these things can take so long 

P.S. Hav they found Bill yet? 

[Ironwolf]

This doesn't even mention how slow things get when lawyers get involved. I work for a really big company that is like a good neighbor - we are switching our cell phones to a new platform - 18,000 cell phones.

It took our legal department 18 months to ok the plan to switch platforms with 4 vendors. 18 months.

I know if you aren't used to how multi-billion dollar companies work it seems needlessly complicated - here is the problem when you have so much money it makes you a huge target for lawsuits. NCSoft will take as long as it needs to secure their company from liability and to ensure their company name is protected. The game has their logo on it and it will remain on it.

In all honesty Nate and the new overlords could have a deal and be done with the management at NCSoft and still have a long wait for the legal folks to get done with it. If you don't work on these sorts of things you don't see what is involved.

Think it through - what if the game goes bust after a year - does NCSoft have the first purchase rights to take it back? Do they want it back? All questions they would want answered.

[Brigadine]

There's a LOT more to this than just buying a car.  It's more like buying a NASCAR, showing the sponsors you can drive at 200 mph and have a decent pit crew, and figuring out not only who the sponsors will be but also where their logos will be placed on the car.

This isn't a sprint.  It's a marathon.  That's why no news is good news.

They aren't called 'NASCARs' they are called sprint cup cars, or stock cars, or Camping world truck series trucks. Don't make me find a bag of quarters...

[Taceus Jiwede]

Except... We have absolutely no idea that this is in any way true or accurate.  What exactly is "keep trying to make the deal," anyway?  Is it sit back and wait for NCSoft to call again (even though they haven't for 8 months?) Is it, daily contact with a representative from NCSoft?  Or, is it smoke signals and/or carrier pigeons?

Personally, I agree with the others... the deal is dead.  It isn't gonna happen.  We just haven't been told.  And, it sounds like the buyer group hasn't either.

Im so grateful its Downix doing this and not you guys.  Ironwolf is right they aren't going to tie up that much money and resources and time as a passive aggressive way to say no.  Also you ARENT in the know which is why you have no idea whats happening nor do you deserve to be in the know, personally I think Downix should have lied to us and told us"No" ages ago so we kindly f*** off and the team could work in peace.  How do you know how long its been since Nate has spoken to NCSoft?  Who said its been 8 months?  I wish he was never forced to leak the sale, because now every day I have to see 

"I don't know anything about business, but this doesn't stop me from making claims that I have no knowledge or understanding of so I base my decisions based on emotional responses instead of logic or experience"

[Surelle]

... I feel like it's a yes simply because we should have had a no by now....

Well, NCSoft knows what happened the last time they said "No:"  They got bombarded with emails, capes, masks, other assorted mailings, and a whole boatload of bad mainstream gaming press.
It could very well be that they don't want that to happen again.

I too question that they're endlessly dragging things along as a way to blow us off without coming right out and saying it, to avoid yet another P.R. disaster (last time it was Wildstar launching, and now they've got Blade & Soul coming to NA shores; they don't want any more bad press).   Hopefully not, though; we'll see....  (And the buyers shouldn't leak any more info, even the tiniest bit, until it's a done-deal or a complete "NO" because it just causes too much trouble.)

You'd think that at the very least, the tenacity with which this community and the MMO gaming press keeps going after them about CoX would show them what a mistake they made, but in the end they still feel that CoX just wasn't making the profits they required of it, obviously.

I have all the respect in the world for Nate & Crew, not to mention Mercedes and everyone that has come before with pitches and offers to get CoX/the IP back (especially as they have all done it around their jobs, lives, families and in Nate's case while trying to get CoT running, too), but if NCSoft wanted to budge, they would have budged a long time ago.

No matter what happens, I still think we should have a fundraiser for Nate & Crew to help pay them back for all their phone calls and time spent on this project.

At least CoT should reap the benefits of this CoX/NCSoft attempt in the long run, because its crew will have even more knowledge and experience regarding what it really takes to get an MMO running and keep it running.

[Felderburg]

At least CoT should reap the benefits of this CoX/NCSoft attempt in the long run, because its crew will have even more knowledge and experience regarding what it really takes to get an MMO running and keep it running.

How so?

[Surelle]

How so?

Why, having to pull all that information together and make doable plans for it all as Crimson listed it or thereabouts.  The logistics of most of those things need to be planned out no matter which game is going to be run, really.

[Ironwolf]

There are people involved who have already had to do this or NCSoft would never have talked to them.

Enjoy the Paragon Chat and hang in their.

[Rejolt]

(Creates Marvel Cinematic Universe timeline of projects)

Paragon Chat: Travel Edition Christmas 2015
City of Heroes Legacy Christmas 2016
Valiance Online Summer 2017
City of Titans Christmas 2017
Heroes and Villains 2018

*All Dates Subject to Reality checks, Budgets, and Cthulu save rolls for Sanity.

[Fanta]

There are people involved who have already had to do this or NCSoft would never have talked to them.

Enjoy the Paragon Chat and hang in their.

At what point do we accept the fact they could give a shit about returning the game to us?

[Arcana]

At what point do we accept the fact they could give a pancake about returning the game to us?

You should have accepted that fact a long time ago.  If they wanted to do it, they would have done it long ago.  That's why negotiations are occurring.  City of Heroes is not a product sitting on a store shelf.  Its not a big screen TV that is either for sale or not for sale.  Its a piece of intellectual property owned by a company that would have been perfectly happy putting it in the warehouse next to the Ark of the Covenant and forgetting about.  Its the sweater your mother gave you that you no longer wear but aren't trying to give away, and makes you worried about your friend that wants it because it has your name across the front of it.  Its almost certainly the case that NCSoft has no specific motivation to sell it, and no specific motivation to not sell it.

[Fanta]

You should have accepted that fact a long time ago.  If they wanted to do it, they would have done it long ago.  That's why negotiations are occurring.  City of Heroes is not a product sitting on a store shelf.  Its not a big screen TV that is either for sale or not for sale.  Its a piece of intellectual property owned by a company that would have been perfectly happy putting it in the warehouse next to the Ark of the Covenant and forgetting about.  Its the sweater your mother gave you that you no longer wear but aren't trying to give away, and makes you worried about your friend that wants it because it has your name across the front of it.  Its almost certainly the case that NCSoft has no specific motivation to sell it, and no specific motivation to not sell it.

I did, and have. I've kept my trap shut for a better part of a year. There's no reason to think they don't want to drag this out until the interest dies. Is that not within reason?

BTW, you can save the analogy crap for the kids.

[Arcana]

There's no reason to think they don't want to drag this out until the interest dies. Is that not within reason?

Its within the realm of possibility, in the sense that its within the realm of possibility that negotiations are taking a long time because the NCSoft negotiators keep getting kidnapped by aliens and being replaced.

All you know is that it is a) taking longer than you want and b) you personally can think of no reason for it to take that long.  Those are the same reasons people use to decide a strange noise in the woods is Big Foot.  There is "no reason to think..."  because there's no reason to think anything at all.  As difficult a principle as it is to honor, information should lead to conclusions, it should not bear the burden of disproving our guesses.

Again: to believe NCSoft deliberately entered into negotiations just to stall them enough to first incite interest and then degrade that interest over time requires an extremely precise set of beliefs that an NCSoft executive is a genius in just the right way, and a complete idiot in just the right way, and cartoonishly evil in a third way, and happened to be the one person the negotiating team happened to stumble across.  This is incredibly unlikely.  No one who has asserted the belief that NCSoft is stalling negotiations because they never had any intent on selling the property has been able to provide a reasonable explanation for why someone not interested in selling wouldn't have simply ignored offers to sell instead.  At least not a serious one.

It is so unlikely that were this to happen to me in real life, my first instinct would be to perform the FAST test on myself to determine if I was having a stroke and suffering from altered mental state.

[Surelle]

Its within the realm of possibility, in the sense that its within the realm of possibility that negotiations are taking a long time because the NCSoft negotiators keep getting kidnapped by aliens and being replaced.

All you know is that it is a) taking longer than you want and b) you personally can think of no reason for it to take that long.  Those are the same reasons people use to decide a strange noise in the woods is Big Foot.  There is "no reason to think..."  because there's no reason to think anything at all.  As difficult a principle as it is to honor, information should lead to conclusions, it should not bear the burden of disproving our guesses.

Again: to believe NCSoft deliberately entered into negotiations just to stall them enough to first incite interest and then degrade that interest over time requires an extremely precise set of beliefs that an NCSoft executive is a genius in just the right way, and a complete idiot in just the right way, and cartoonishly evil in a third way, and happened to be the one person the negotiating team happened to stumble across.  This is incredibly unlikely.  No one who has asserted the belief that NCSoft is stalling negotiations because they never had any intent on selling the property has been able to provide a reasonable explanation for why someone not interested in selling wouldn't have simply ignored offers to sell instead.  At least not a serious one.

It is so unlikely that were this to happen to me in real life, my first instinct would be to perform the FAST test on myself to determine if I was having a stroke and suffering from altered mental state.

This newest pitch wasn't NCSoft's idea, and it is well within the realm of believability that they are doing as little as humanly possible involving this deal, hoping that we will quietly go away instead of causing them yet another P.R. disaster if they say all-out "No."  Even Nate mentioned that this might well be the case in his initial "Mask comes off" post.  Go read it again.

I don't believe that this is the case because Nate mentioned that it might be; I believe this is the case because after a year and a half, they could have had an entirely new CoX well underway in all the time it's taken, never mind any sort of agreement reached.  They may well keep inventing road blocks and "prove this, show that" things once every few months or so just to get us off their backs.  It really wouldn't take much effort.  Think of how long it took just to get one initial meeting; what, 6 months or more? 

They just don't care about this and want it to go away.  Sorry, I'm still very appreciative of the efforts and /em torching for that 1% chance, but I'm far beyond believing anything will ever come of this.

I even find it hard to believe that the initial financial backing is still in tact after all this time, if there were serious investors with substantial funds to begin with.

I wish them the best of luck, but I hope CoT isn't getting slowed down over this.  Probably not, because I'd be willing to bet communications with NC have always been glacially slow.  So at least there's that-- it's probably not interfering much with anything else because nothing much has really happened in so long.

Even you yourself said that it's clear they're nowhere near a real deal even after all this time, because neither you nor SCoRE has been approached about helping to get the i23 snapshot running.

Hey, at least we've got SCoRE and Paragon Chat.  It's super fantabulous, even that!