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"Keep NcSoft from shutting down City of Heroes" petition passes 10,000 names
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When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
CoH, GW, and one other of NCSofts games were being supported by Aion/Lineage/L2. Profits for Aion/Lineage/L2 are down. NCSoft cant afford to keep throwing money at the low performing games anymore to keep them alive. NCSoft also has a new game coming out so they are probably consolidating and putting more resources into their future products.
Them 10,000 signatures need to ask NCSoft how much would it cost to keep CoH going with no future content and no support and then pony up the $$. Or maybe ask NCSoft to sell the game to Perfect World and let them run with a cash shop.
I probably wouldn't play if it was just a freebie with a cash shop. Actually I have a totally free account in CoH, but that is really just to see how far I could go. Mainly I log in to my main account, subscribed since New Years Eve 2005. That account also spends money on costume sets, power sets, and extra game boxes with extra perks (Architect, Good vs Evil).
It was making money from official reports, not from assuming it was from loads of players playing
Also petition is near 15,000 now
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Unless they came out with exact information on how many sales were happening in the store and what their operating costs were they DID NOT give you an official report on making money. If all they said was things were going good or next year was shaping up to be one of the best ever, those statements actually mean absolutely nothing in terms of profitability.
Then there is the fact that Pargon studios are trying to persuade Nc Soft to keep it running, and encoraging players to save the game.
If the game was not profitable, they would not do that.
Star Trek Online - Best Free MMORPG of 2012
Guys, the fact is that their engine contract with Cryptic for City of Heroes is running out, and Cryptic intentionally overpriced the renewal contract in order to shunt any competition in the market against Champions Online.
You cannot save City of Heroes without a major financial push from players to pay for the relicencing.
The Theory of Conservative Conservation of Ignorant Stupidity:
Having a different opinion must mean you're a troll.
According to Zwillenger that is not the case. The licence was bought outright when Cryptic left NC Soft, there is no more licence to buy, and againh, if that was the case, Paragon studios would not be encoraging players to save it, when they know it is a losing battle
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This is untrue, pure rumor. In fact one of the Paragon Studio Devs (Zwillinger) said this was not true. Like I said earlier, if you haven't been Closely following the events surrounding CoH, don't speculate. It does more harm than good. The post I've quoted only serves to spread that false rumor.
From all accounts CoH is still profitable. So I doubt sending them money will change their minds.
NCSoft is just a bad company. They shutter games people are still playing, and they never give reasons why.
You don't have any facts to support this assertion. The idea the game is profitiable is one of the memes going around the player base, but the fact is the game's running costs are completely unknown. We only have the sales of the game, and without knowing the costs, it can't be proven one way or another whether the game was profitable.
Paragon Studios itself was most likely not profitable even if CoH was, due to the costs associated with the unannounced project they were working on. If (and that's a big if) CoH was profitable, those profits were almost certainly consumed by that new project.
The story of CoH's closing is a simple one: the Freedom business model failed to turn the game's finances around. A small bump to sales followed by the worst quarters in the game's financial history sealed the game's fate.
So many of you are hopeless. Getting on these peoples backs for trying to save there game? The hell is wrong with you. You don't like it don't come in here bitching. Its in there forum area. This is a celebration thread for reaching a goal they wanted to reach with there petition.
It doesn't matter if it is pointless or a lost cause. At least the people that are trying to save the game can say, "Hey well at least I tried." Instead of sitting back like a sheep and accepting everything that comes there way and regretting that maybe, just maybe if they would of tried it would of made a difference. If you don't want to support the cause then be gone asswhipe. But don't try and take someone down to your level because your such a negative leech.
"In the immediate future, we have this one, and then weve got another one that is actually going to be so were going to have, what we want to do, is in January, what were targeting to do, this may or may not happen, so you cant hold me to it. But what were targeting to do, is have a fun anniversary to the Ilum shenanigans that happened. An alien race might invade, and they might crash into Ilum and there might be some new activities that happen on the planet." ~Gabe Amatangelo
City of Heroes sales for the past four quarters, as reported in their quarterly release:
Q2 2012: $2,550,245 USD
Q1 2012: $2,305,940 USD
Q4 2011: $3,068,334 USD
Q3 2011: $2,511,835 USD
Owned
"In the immediate future, we have this one, and then weve got another one that is actually going to be so were going to have, what we want to do, is in January, what were targeting to do, this may or may not happen, so you cant hold me to it. But what were targeting to do, is have a fun anniversary to the Ilum shenanigans that happened. An alien race might invade, and they might crash into Ilum and there might be some new activities that happen on the planet." ~Gabe Amatangelo
That's great, but how about the operation costs?
What tells me that COH was still profitable is that Paragon Studioes were helping in saving City of Heroes, not in anything they said - actions speak louder than words.
If the game was far from being saved (ie not profitable) they would have given a speech to their customers like Brasse did for SWG. or Smedley did for EQmac (which did get saved from shut down 2 weeks later)
For Paragon Studios to lead us on in a fruitless effort to save the game is just mean, and they are not mean people. If they knew that the game was not profitable and unable to be saved, then that makes SOE better people than Paragon Studios - err NO!
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I hope CoH can be saved, but I can't help to notice the lack of clear answer in terms on how much profit CoH was obtaining. Keep in mind that even if the game was not profittable enough, it is still arguable that the game could get better in short term which could be the argument that Paragon Studios is making to NCSoft.
The current story of the mean little man shutting down CoH, a profitable game, for no reasonable cause is for me kind of hard to swallow. I can't help wonder if there is something that none of the parties is telling us. However, we might never get to know the true behid the curtain, if there is another truth. We can only hope this episode reach a happy ending.
I have seen nothing to indicate that it was not profitable, apart from outside people assuming that to be the case. All signs point to that it was still profitable.
The only thing I see why it is being shut down is that NC Soft seem to be too keen on moving forward and creating new MMOs all the time - out with the old and in with the new, instead of just concentrating on what they have got. 1 year of going to Free to Play is a joke, it may have as well shut down last year, it would have made more sense, and not left people who started playing at F2P, shafted. NC Soft shutting down COH this soon after it going F2P, just kills any secure thoughts of MMOs lasting long term as F2P. F2P has always been a profitable move
SWG had about 3k people sign its petition, and City of Heroes has nearly 20k people sign it, and still rising. Other than the extortionate IP fee for SWG which LA apparently waived the past few years, SWG was also profitable.
It seems that all MMOs are profitable when they shut down, they just shut them down before they become not profitable. Although in this case I reckon GW1 will become less profitable than City of Heroes as people take to GW2 instead, and soon that MMO will shut down as well. At the time they made their decision to shut down COH, GW1 was proabably doing better than COH. If they waited until January to decide, I bet GW1 would be shutting down instead of COH.
The only MMO that is clearly not profitable is SWTOR, as from official reports the subs is around/under 500K now, and it needs 500K to break even. From COH closure, it should be safe for a year, when it goes F2P, but if it lasts longer than that, will just be a bonus/miracle!
Star Trek Online - Best Free MMORPG of 2012
I'd say its pretty clear you have never run a business. There are plenty of reasons to close a profitable thing down. For starters, its might not be profitable enough to keep the company in a state of growth. In cases like that, a business might restructure its assets BEFORE a financial meltdown to try and use its money to create something that will generate something that will continue to push itself forward. You have to consider that operating costs for a business go up each year. You want employees that are qualified, and stick around to be an asset to you. Those people want raises, rising 401K options, insurance, ect. You also need to be able to use profits today to fund future projects. See, an MMO cannot remain on an upward trend. Eventually they grow old and lose players. If a company only has one, that means an inevitable closure for that company. So you have to keep making new games to keep the company afloat.
So the game has to make money, then make enough money to keep paying more and more for each employee each year, and also make enough money to fund new games. Most likely their portfolio is getting weak and they cannot remain in a growth state for a long time. So they restructure, taking programmers, servers, development funding, and management from one game and put them to use on new projects to strengthen their portfolio again. Guildwars 2 probably helped a ton, but its mostly a single time sale situation. There is no way its gonna generate enough F2P cash to keep the company powerful for 10 years.
Now, that doesn't mean CoH is a hopeless cause. What needs to be proven is that it can be strong again in subs. The reason that F2P seems like such a ripoff is because, for one to BE a financial powerhouse in the way it needs to be, it has to be a ripoff that robs you blind. Sub markets are stronger because the income is set in stone. If it could be proven that the game could return to subs AND encourage player growth I seriously think they would keep it around. But we all know that it can't do that, and not because its a bad game. Its probably the best game I've ever played in many respects. But its old, and its never fixed core design mistakes. Oh, they weren't that bad to be honest. But the worlds feel empty. Not of players, but of point. The cityscape is full of the same buildings, and mobs, but nothing else. There aren't actual locations, it fails to capture the feel of a city with a deep living atmostphere. But the combat was insanely good. The power pools offered lots of choice. The character creation was top notch and awesome. PvP was the most fun I've ever had in PvP.
The game needs a smaller company in charge. One that doesn't need an aggressive growth pattern. Someone to make it a labor of love, with good profits. The larger a business is, the more money its needs to make in order to justify each of its projects. Lets find CoH the home it deserves.
Actually CoH is making more money than some of their other games, it was making around 10 mil a year.
The guys at paragon didnt even know what hit them, one morning they got fired without reason and ncsoft said that they were killing the game (never said why).
Hi there if you like me to sign in on that. keep it open. Its closed. not lets figer something else can be done.
like buying a off the internet modified version of COH w/issue 24 to work with out the internet Unlimtied power ups
kill gaint monsters solo
find a way to get PVP kills on pvp zones to use elete bosses as pvp kills
buiuild my SG bases and add my own toons as members
stuff like that cool stuff
that is heck of a lot of money. lets try of f the internet game play thats cheap
pay no server compnay. I rather pay some one to do that for me