Titan Network
Graveyard => Save Paragon Retirees => Save Paragon City! => Topic started by: Rae on October 17, 2012, 10:32:50 PM
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So. I'm a journalist by trade. On October 4, I emailed H&K Strategies to ask them for comment for an article I was hoping to place in a magazine with some questions for NC Soft about the sunset of City of Heroes.
This is..reasonably standard fare in journalism. You get someone who comes to you with a story, and then you contact the other side of the argument for their side of the story to keep it unbiased. Here's the email I sent them.
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Sir/Madam,
My name is (deleted) and I am a freelance journalist, working on an article for (deleted) Magazine, the UK's (deleted) magazine. I apologise if I have sent this to the wrong person, and I'd be grateful if you could pass this email on, if you are not the right person to address these queries to.
We have been covering the story of the ongoing campaign to save the MMO City of Heroes, after the games publisher, NC Soft announced it was to close. I have enclosed links to two articles we have previously run on the campaign.
(LINKS WENT HERE)
Following the official statement issued by NC Soft, a number of people from the Save campaign have contacted us, questioning the content of the statement.
The statement says that NC Soft have 'exhausted all the options including the selling of the studio and the rights to the City of Heroes intellectual property, but in the end efforts were not successful.
The Save campaign say that Paragon Studio was closed the same day of the announcement, with no attempts made to sell the studio. They claim that Paragon Studios were unaware of the closure of both the game and the studio and were unaware of any attempts to sell them. I would be grateful if you could confirm when these attempts were made, who the interested parties were, and why the sale did not happen.
The save campaign also say no attempt was made to sell the rights to the intellectual property and that they are aware of a number of potential investors who came forward to try and buy the rights, who did not receive a response of any kind from NC Soft.
They believe the announcement of 'exhausted all the options' are more than a little premature, given that the game is not due for closure until November 30, and taking into consideration that is has been only 32 business days since the announcement of the 'sunset' of the game.
They are demanding to know why closure was the first thing considered by NC Soft, instead of combining servers, putting the game in maintenance mode and keeping it running without further developments or updates, allowing people to create their own, private servers, or selling the game to other, interested parties.
The campaigners are also calling on NC Soft to publically name a price that they would be willing to accept for either Paragon Studios, or City of Heroes itself.
They are demanding to know why a game that was running 'well in the black' and had seen an increase in players in the months leading up to the announcement is being closed down, while games such as Guild Wars which are running at a loss, are being kept alive.
They also want to know why NC Soft did not respond to an invitation from players to play the game with them, or a letter from best-selling author Mercedes Lackey to endorse NC Soft products, free of charge, for a period of five to ten years, for free, if they would be willing to work with players to keep the servers online.
My deadline for this article is October 14 and I would be grateful if you could provide me with a statement addressing those points as soon as possible.
Kind regards,
Me.
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HK Strategy didn't acknowledge my email, until I tweeted them from my work account 7 days later and added the HKSTrat hashtag, so all their customers could see that I was chasing them and they'd ignored me. They sent a DM asking how they could help, then ignored me again.
I gave them another three days, but with no response I tweeted HK Strat London, thinking maybe the US branch was ignoring me because I was trying to place the article in a UK magazine, and asked if they could help. They said they'd try, so I forwarded them the email I'd sent the US office (which I CC'd in, in case it'd got lost.)
This is now October 16, and two days /after/ my original deadline.
I asked them the same questions, and added in:
"If you no longer represent NC Soft, I'd be grateful if you could let me know so I try to find out who I should be talking to.
If I am sending this to the wrong person, I'd be grateful if you could let me know who the right person would be, so I can contact them directly.
If NC Soft do not wish to issue a response to these queries, I'd be grateful if you could let me know.
If I don't get a response by Friday afternoon, I will be submitting the article to my editor, saying that NC Soft and HK Strategies did not respond to requests for comment, and did not take the opportunity to put their side of the story across."
Tonight (Oct 17 - 13 days after my original email, three days after my deadline) I had a response from NC Soft in Seattle. Their response was:
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"I wanted to let you know that we will be declining your interview request as it relates to the sun setting of City of Heroes."
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I'm honestly completely confused. For one thing, I didn't ask for an interview, but still. That's neither here nor there.
I've been a journalist for eight years, and I've written thousands of articles in that time, both as a reporter on my local newspaper, and freelance for other publications. This is the first time anyone has ever refused to answer my questions.
Sure, I've had "We can't get you a comment in time," or "We can't comment on individual cases, but...we strive hard to make sure that our customers get the best service but sadly sometimes we fall short on that..." I've had people lie to me, I've had people try to spin me (most memorable was our local council who reported me that they were setting aside a bunch of money to buy a new skatepark, hurrah! With a bit of digging, it turned out it was because they'd gone in and demolished the old one in the middle of the night without notice, on International Skateboarding Day, no less.)
But I've honestly never had anyone point blank refuse to give a response to questions.
If any journos out there want a copy of the correspondence, PM me and let me know. It might make the basis for a 'why won't NC Soft answer questions' piece. I'll try and pitch that to a few of my contacts too, but some of you in the gaming press may be better placed than I am to get something out there quickly.
It's ridiculous for them not to answer these questions. They're not unreasonable. I was basically giving them the opportunity to shut us up and send us packing with our tails between our legs.
I really need the rest of the press to put pressure on them now. If they won't answer the questions, I need you guys to help me find out why they won't answer these questions. Why they won't discuss the sunset of City of Heroes.
I'm pretty sure that it's because they didn't do anything that they said they did in their press release, and I want people to know that they lied to their customers. I need for the rest of the press to call 'em on this.
Please.
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Hey Rae--I now am "officially" "NYT Bestselling author." Came in this week at #20 on the NYT Bestsellers List. :) So you can add that if you want.
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That definatly seems odd.
Another thing for the 'Hmmm, that's interesting' file.
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*facepalm* :-[
I am now officially adding "Area 51" as an idea for NCsoft memes. 8)
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This is par for the course, and it bodes poorly for the company.
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Hey Rae--I now am "officially" "NYT Bestselling author." Came in this week at #20 on the NYT Bestsellers List. :) So you can add that if you want.
Congratulations, VV! You must be stoked!
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From NCSoft, the deafening silence makes a mild amount of sense; they're bunkering down and hoping it will blow over.
From H&K Strategies, a professional PR firm, no attempt to even spin it is...yes, I think I'll go with Mentalshock's "interesting."
I am particularly fascinated by the phrase, "as it relates to the sun setting of City of Heroes." If I'm reading the clause dependency correctly, that is being given as the reason they will not speak with you. (The other possible reading is that they will not speak with you on anything relating to it, but aren't refusing to speak at all, but it amounts to a similar thing in this particular case.)
There is only one circumstance I know of where PR goes deathly silent regarding a specific issue and will refuse to speak on anything related to it. It's when lawyers tell them to. (Now, there could be others of which I am unaware or not thinking, but this is the one I CAN think of.) That generally means something law-related, very often civil or criminal, is going on surrounding it. However, given the lack of any leaks surrounding investigations or charges or actions filed in court, I think law suits or criminal cases are not so likely.
That leaves one other area of legal concern: there is some high-powered, high-finance deal in the works that somehow involves this and could be damaged severely if so much as a whisper leaked out. What that deal is, who the parties are, what it means for CoH (aside from its sunsetting on Nov. 30), we obviously cannot know at this time. But it's got my speculations running hard. Particularly because it is related strongly enough to the sunsetting of CoH that NCSoft is clamming up completely on that issue.
This also tells me that they're scared of something. Maybe not us, but we're probably at least a little worrisome since we're not going away and we're at least making motions to try to rock the boat. But something has them worried, and they're hoping silence will weather them through until whatever it is they're waiting for happens.
I don't expect Nov. 30 to be the end of this, at this point. We might see the information dam crack as early as Nov. 1, but if it doesn't immediately cause a firestorm and a bombshell, don't expect anything too substantive. NCSoft is not just playing a waiting game; they're doing something. And it's something that is big enough to warrant super-silence to make sure it doesn't get monkey-wrenched. And delicate enough that knowledge of it going public could shatter it.
...either that, or NCSoft is micro-managing their PR firm, or their PR firm thinks they're being so stupid they literally can't think of a way to spin it positive and is taking the "if you can't say something nice..." attitude.
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Hey Rae--I now am "officially" "NYT Bestselling author." Came in this week at #20 on the NYT Bestsellers List. :) So you can add that if you want.
Bravo!! (Or... gratz on dinging 50?) Didn't notice that on the first read of the thread.
This also tells me that they're scared of something. Maybe not us, but we're probably at least a little worrisome since we're not going away and we're at least making motions to try to rock the boat. But something has them worried, and they're hoping silence will weather them through until whatever it is they're waiting for happens.
Or just hoping the silence will erode us. Given this is an entertainment company that knows all about using the power of shiny to attract attention, maybe they're just using the exact opposite to get rid of us. Logically, the more 'nothing' we get, the more people will lose interest in the campaign. It's quite possible that we're under a psychological siege. From a PR standpoint, that sounds foolish, but this is NC we're talking about. Perhaps they think that eliminating us is worth a little short-term damage?
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Perhaps, but that doesn't explain H&K unless NCSoft is micromanaging.
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Perhaps, but that doesn't explain H&K unless NCSoft is micromanaging.
All NCSoft has to do is contact HK and go "We have no comment on anything." and that's that. :-/
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All NCSoft has to do is contact HK and go "We have no comment on anything." and that's that. :-/
Wouldn't that be a paradox, due to the fact that even saying such is in itself a comment? :P
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I confess I am baffled. H&K is a US based and run company. NCSoft may be under the impression that if they hide in the bunker we will go away, but at this point H&K's bots have brought them all our posts and they have to know better. They have to know that after Nov 30, the gloves come off and the playing dirty starts. They have nothing to gain and everything to lose by remaining silent.
The only explanation I have is that NCSoft has ordered silence on their part--they can advise otherwise, but NCSoft is the client, and if the client says "Wall of Silence," no matter how ill-advised you think it is, you do what the client says if you want to keep the account. Just as you cannot keep a client from launching a monumentally stupid ad campaign if he insists on it, a PR firm in the end has to do what the client orders.
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It just sounds like NCSoft is holding their hands over their ears and saying " LALALALALA I CANT HEAR YOU LALALLALA"
They know they hold all the cards. They know they don't have to say a word.
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I have no idea. In my experience, I've never approached a press agency (in this case, HK Strat) and then had a response from the company directly.
Usually, I contact the PR person/agency, the agency contacts the business/person, who tells them a response, the PR agency then spins the response so it's media-friendly, and then sends it on to me, and I'd print it. So to get a response (of sorts) from an actual person in NC Soft, rather than from HK Strat isn't what I'd expect to happen.
And the actual response, what there is of it, was just completely baffling. They could easily have taken the opportunity to explain that the game wasn't in profit and we were all rubbish at maths, or how the various deals fell apart, or that they really wanted to come and play with us, but they were washing their hair that day, and that their response to VV must've got lost in the mail, because they /totally/ sent it.
I was expecting some puff that'd make me annoyed - or even worse - something that showed we'd got it all wrong and they actually weren't the bad guys in all this and that it was perfectly reasonable for them to shut us down. Or maybe even "we can't really talk about this, because it's financially sensitive information relating to our business and we wouldn't disclose that sort of information," which would be frustrating but..you know..kind of fair enough, at a stretch.
It's just the weirdest thing.
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So. I'm a journalist by trade. On October 4, I emailed H&K Strategies to ask them for comment for an article I was hoping to place in a magazine with some questions for NC Soft about the sunset of City of Heroes.
This is..reasonably standard fare in journalism. You get someone who comes to you with a story, and then you contact the other side of the argument for their side of the story to keep it unbiased. Here's the email I sent them.
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Sir/Madam,
My name is (deleted) and I am a freelance journalist, working on an article for (deleted) Magazine, the UK's (deleted) magazine. I apologise if I have sent this to the wrong person, and I'd be grateful if you could pass this email on, if you are not the right person to address these queries to.
We have been covering the story of the ongoing campaign to save the MMO City of Heroes, after the games publisher, NC Soft announced it was to close. I have enclosed links to two articles we have previously run on the campaign.
(LINKS WENT HERE)
Following the official statement issued by NC Soft, a number of people from the Save campaign have contacted us, questioning the content of the statement.
The statement says that NC Soft have 'exhausted all the options including the selling of the studio and the rights to the City of Heroes intellectual property, but in the end efforts were not successful.
The Save campaign say that Paragon Studio was closed the same day of the announcement, with no attempts made to sell the studio. They claim that Paragon Studios were unaware of the closure of both the game and the studio and were unaware of any attempts to sell them. I would be grateful if you could confirm when these attempts were made, who the interested parties were, and why the sale did not happen.
The save campaign also say no attempt was made to sell the rights to the intellectual property and that they are aware of a number of potential investors who came forward to try and buy the rights, who did not receive a response of any kind from NC Soft.
They believe the announcement of 'exhausted all the options' are more than a little premature, given that the game is not due for closure until November 30, and taking into consideration that is has been only 32 business days since the announcement of the 'sunset' of the game.
They are demanding to know why closure was the first thing considered by NC Soft, instead of combining servers, putting the game in maintenance mode and keeping it running without further developments or updates, allowing people to create their own, private servers, or selling the game to other, interested parties.
The campaigners are also calling on NC Soft to publically name a price that they would be willing to accept for either Paragon Studios, or City of Heroes itself.
They are demanding to know why a game that was running 'well in the black' and had seen an increase in players in the months leading up to the announcement is being closed down, while games such as Guild Wars which are running at a loss, are being kept alive.
They also want to know why NC Soft did not respond to an invitation from players to play the game with them, or a letter from best-selling author Mercedes Lackey to endorse NC Soft products, free of charge, for a period of five to ten years, for free, if they would be willing to work with players to keep the servers online.
My deadline for this article is October 14 and I would be grateful if you could provide me with a statement addressing those points as soon as possible.
Kind regards,
Me.
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HK Strategy didn't acknowledge my email, until I tweeted them from my work account and added the HKSTrat hashtag, so all their customers could see that I was chasing them and they'd ignored me. They sent a DM asking how they could help, then ignored me again.
So then I tweeted HK Strat London, thinking maybe the US branch was ignoring me because I was trying to place the article in a UK magazine, and asked if they could help.
I asked them the same questions, and added in:
"If you no longer represent NC Soft, I'd be grateful if you could let me know so I try to find out who I should be talking to.
If I am sending this to the wrong person, I'd be grateful if you could let me know who the right person would be, so I can contact them directly.
If NC Soft do not wish to issue a response to these queries, I'd be grateful if you could let me know.
If I don't get a response by Friday afternoon, I will be submitting the article to my editor, saying that NC Soft and HK Strategies did not respond to requests for comment, and did not take the opportunity to put their side of the story across."
Tonight I had an email from NC Soft in Seattle. Their response was:
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"I wanted to let you know that we will be declining your interview request as it relates to the sun setting of City of Heroes."
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I'm honestly completely confused. For one thing, I didn't ask for an interview, but still. That's neither here nor there.
I've been a journalist for eight years, and I've written thousands of articles in that time, both as a reporter on my local newspaper, and freelance for other publications. This is the first time anyone has ever refused to answer my questions.
Sure, I've had "We can't get you a comment in time," or "We can't comment on individual cases, but...we strive hard to make sure that our customers get the best service but sadly sometimes we fall short on that..." I've had people lie to me, I've had people try to spin me (most memorable was our local council who reported me that they were setting aside a bunch of money to buy a new skatepark, hurrah! With a bit of digging, it turned out it was because they'd gone in and demolished the old one in the middle of the night without notice, on International Skateboarding Day, no less.)
But I've honestly never had anyone point blank refuse to give a response to questions.
If any journos out there want a copy of the correspondence, PM me and let me know. It might make the basis for a 'why won't NC Soft answer questions' piece. I'll try and pitch that to a few of my contacts too, but some of you in the gaming press may be better placed than I am to get something out there quickly.
It's ridiculous for them not to answer these questions. They're not unreasonable. I was basically giving them the opportunity to shut us up and send us packing with our tails between our legs.
I really need the rest of the press to put pressure on them now. If they won't answer the questions, I need you guys to help me find out why they won't answer these questions. Why they won't discuss the sunset of City of Heroes.
I'm pretty sure that it's because they didn't do anything that they said they did in their press release, and I want people to know that they lied to their customers. I need for the rest of the press to call 'em on this.
Please.
Alright, not to knock your questions, but reading what you said you sent to them, they probably turned it down for a number of reason. Being in a position I'm in, and sometimes crap hits the fan at high speed and people come with questions, sometimes, it's best to answer and respond to those that do not seem to already pass a judgement or demand specific things and probably use your words against you.
From the looks of it, Remember I'm coming from the PR side of when I recieve stuff like this, so again no offense is meant, but it seems you are relaying demands from the other side more so than being interested in what they have to actually say. If I received an email like that, I'd refer you to government PR hell, aka, the department where stuff like this goes and get passed along until you lose interest. A letter like that would put most PR departments on the defensive or to give out the usual "no comment" statement.
And I would of omited the last thing as it comes off as "Better reply or else." Now I know that is not what you meant but to a PR that what it seems. PR usually assume that if they refuse to comment that you will put something like "So and So company has been contacted but refused to comment at this time." any ways but stating it makes it seem more like a demand than an actual friendly request.
I think I'll leave it with that example as I really dont want to seem like I'm here to rip the request apart and seem like a butt as I dont think you meant to come off in that manner and the information you requested is reasonable, but could've worked a little better in your favor to get the information you seeked with a little rewording. One angle PR like is making it look like you contacted them first for clarification and will take their word as final. (Then of course get the other side or already have the other side of the story).
I doubt they are totally oblivious to what has been going on the forums and probably here and when a reporter shows up with the exact same issues and questions that the players have been demanding, it seems a little fishy to PR department.
But dont think it as a total loss, either way they have refused to comment so you must report the facts you do have, which are the SAVE COX facts. And sometimes when a company refuses to comment, it sometimes backfire. Well, alot of times, and sometimes they everntually release a statement covering the information you requested in the first place. People tend to judge things by the information they are presented with, and what information they have.
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"I doubt they are totally oblivious to what has been going on the forums and probably here"
I agree 100%. It would be dumb not to know what strategies the opposition plan to use.
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JaguarX -
To be fair the last statement was issued only after 10 days of them not responding to my original email.
(sorry - I've edited my OP to make that clearer, as I realised I didn't actually explain that.)
I knew the questions I was asking weren't the things that couldn't be answered quickly, so I wanted to give them plenty of time to get the information and prepare a response, as well as meet the deadline put forward by the editor in question to get the article proofed and subbed for the November edition of the magazine. If he had to hold it over for the December edition, obviously, it wouldn't be current anymore.
(It's a lot different to my day job. The amount of time I call people and have to add apologetically '..er...I'm really sorry, but we go to press in an hour and a half...' on the end..)
It's interesting seeing things from the other side, though :) thanks!
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It sounds like NCsoft has already told H&K to zip it. If so, they may have forwarded your request for comment on to NCsoft to ask if they can respond. In typical bungling NCsoft fashion, they seem to have responded directly to you instead of telling H&K to reply with "no comment".
If I were H&K, I'd have a clock on the wall counting down to the minute their contract with NCsoft expires.
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JaguarX -
To be fair the last statement was issued only after 10 days of them not responding to my original email.
(sorry - I've edited my OP to make that clearer, as I realised I didn't actually explain that.)
I knew the questions I was asking weren't the things that couldn't be answered quickly, so I wanted to give them plenty of time to get the information and prepare a response, as well as meet the deadline put forward by the editor in question to get the article proofed and subbed for the November edition of the magazine. If he had to hold it over for the December edition, obviously, it wouldn't be current anymore.
Ah I see.
Yeah it's about close to that Nov deadline for sure. As they say, the show must go on.
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I think you now might have something to interest a major news organization. Before I go on I would ask that everyone put aside their political opinions and not attack the idea solely on that merit (as was done when someone suggested this on the forums).
Contact Foxnews. You have a Korean company shutting down a profitable studio and taking jobs out of California, the Senate Minority Whip's state, after state tax increases there and upcoming increased federal tax burden on business. Workers lost their job with no warning and kicked to the curb.
That's news no matter what your politics.
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Hey Rae--I now am "officially" "NYT Bestselling author." Came in this week at #20 on the NYT Bestsellers List. :) So you can add that if you want.
You've always been bestselling for my bookshelf (and Kindle). NCSoft is insane not to want you in their corner.
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I think you now might have something to interest a major news organization. Before I go on I would ask that everyone put aside their political opinions and not attack the idea solely on that merit (as was done when someone suggested this on the forums).
Contact Foxnews. You have a Korean company shutting down a profitable studio and taking jobs out of California, the Senate Minority Whip's state, after state tax increases there and upcoming increased federal tax burden on business. Workers lost their job with no warning and kicked to the curb.
That's news no matter what your politics.
Well, this close to elections, maybe not so much. A Dem-biased agency might not cover it, because it makes the President look bad. And really, either way if they do it as a political piece, it may not work out well for us. The report will end up being a footnote in a story about why businesses are leaving the U.S., rather than about what we want them to talk about. They won't be asking, "What's up with NCsoft." They'll just be asking, "Whose fault is it that our country isn't good enough for NCsoft?"
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Well, this close to elections, maybe not so much. A Dem-biased agency might not cover it, because it makes the President look bad. And really, either way if they do it as a political piece, it may not work out well for us. The report will end up being a footnote in a story about why businesses are leaving the U.S., rather than about what we want them to talk about. They won't be asking, "What's up with NCsoft." They'll just be asking, "Whose fault is it that our country isn't good enough for NCsoft?"
Hi, excuse me for coming in new to a conversation already in progress. :)
Actually Fox leans very far to the right, as in typically close to tea party right. Of course they also post video of protesters in front of palm trees and try to tell you that it was filmed in Wisconsin, but that's beside the point. ;D If they found this info in any way interesting they would definitely run it. I believe you're right however in the idea that it would just end up being a political piece. Right now, EVERYthing is a political piece.
Oh, and a huge congrats to VV. I take a knee in your honor m'lady. :)
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Thanks very much for the effort Rae. This is indeed the most baffling behavior I think I've ever seen in any company, gaming or otherwise.
What kind of an article are you going to go with, now that you essentially have nothing to go on from NCSoft but this?
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Hi, excuse me for coming in new to a conversation already in progress. :)
Actually Fox leans very far to the right, as in typically close to tea party right. Of course they also post video of protesters in front of palm trees and try to tell you that it was filmed in Wisconsin, but that's beside the point. ;D If they found this info in any way interesting they would definitely run it. I believe you're right however in the idea that it would just end up being a political piece. Right now, EVERYthing is a political piece.
Oh, and a huge congrats to VV. I take a knee in your honor m'lady. :)
I don't want to derail this conversation, so I will simply point out that the Tea Party considers Fox News to be centrist, not conservative. I should know. I'm a Tea Party person myself.
But on whether it matters at all where on the political spectrum a media outlet is in regards to our cause here - I consider CNN to be centrist leaning left and MSNBC to be extreme left. And you know what? I bloody don't give a rip - If it would help our cause here, I'd send these stories to them in a heartbeat to put WHATEVER spin on it they'd like as long as it gets our cause ATTENTION.
However - since the election is coming up on in the first week of November and we have until the end of November before the game closes, there may be enough time between those two points for a non-political story to gain some traction.
Of course this doesn't end on Nov 30th anyway.
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Hey Rae--I now am "officially" "NYT Bestselling author." Came in this week at #20 on the NYT Bestsellers List. :) So you can add that if you want.
And grats on that! Well-deserved!
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Much appreciate the effort to get this story rae. I hope that you can find another story given the very fact of the odd response you received. There has to be something worthwhile to investigate / comment about given the rather specific nature of the responses. It seems so interesting , in terms of what was said and all that was not said.
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I confess I am baffled. H&K is a US based and run company. NCSoft may be under the impression that if they hide in the bunker we will go away, but at this point H&K's bots have brought them all our posts and they have to know better. They have to know that after Nov 30, the gloves come off and the playing dirty starts. They have nothing to gain and everything to lose by remaining silent.
That's another thing - they have to know that although there have been some small amounts of playing dirty up till now, that the playerbase have largely been staying our hand per TonyV's wishes (and good sense). But if the game closes without them EVER talking to us AT ALL... Well - since we'll have nothing at all to lose at that point, the gloves will indeed come off.
Surely they understand that this closure is DIFFERENT from the other games they've closed? Surely they understand by now that the pressure that they've been under already is the merest hint of what will come? The bad press will continue and intensify. And it WILL affect their ability to release new products here in the West?
Do they seriously not GET it?
Did they not even NOTICE what happened in regards to Mass Effect 3? Mass Effect fans shamed ELECTRONIC ARTS into moving! EA got "worst company of the year" for that debacle. That's rather impressive.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/04/09/why-ea-won-the-worst-company-in-america-award/ (http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/04/09/why-ea-won-the-worst-company-in-america-award/)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/04/04/ea-is-the-worst-company-in-america-now-what/ (http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/04/04/ea-is-the-worst-company-in-america-now-what/)
After that, EA actually listened to and did something the fans wanted them to. Maybe not entirely the way the fans wanted or going as far as wanted. (The "4th Choice" is clearly a "Fuck You very much, yourself." to the fans.) But the Extended Cut DLC essentially saved Bioware Studio and EA from absolute Public Relations ruin.
Bioware is STILL dead to many gamers. But many more are simply wary but willing to see what happens with their future releases, where before it was close to unanimous among most fans that the Mass Effect franchise was pretty much dead. Now - well it at least has a chance. Bioware is still pretty much still going to be subsumed within EA because that's what EA does. But in terms of PR relations with the fans, things have been salvaged to the point that gamers and fans are at least willing to give future products a chance. There will probably not be the same willingness to pre-order things as before. Fans will probably wait for detailed reviews before buying. But they are at least not writing off future purchases of Mass Effect DLC and future games outright.
I wonder - could we do to NCSoft what Mass Effect fans did to EA? Garner them "Worst Company" status for next year?
If NCSoft keeps going the way they are, I'd say we certainly have a chance. They have a history almost as shady as EA. From all the games they've killed, to the way they treat their employees (The Glass Door reports) to the Richard Garriot Lawsuit that they lost.
So yes - we could DEFINITELY ramp up the negativity from here. NCSoft does indeed have everything to lose by ignoring us.
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I've been very careful about the feminist bloggers I have sent Segev's press release to. There are lots of them that I consider wackaloons...and many of them would be perfectly happy to have something else to go ballistic about. I have not yet sent any of them the Boobs and Shame Gon Dance link and that made me ill, so I cannot imagine what it would do to them. I have not yet unleashed that to....whatever parental group it is that goes bonkers every time they think they can link a video game to something terrible (need to research that).
And I wonder how NCSoft would appreciate the perpetual "I urge you, do not buy NCSoft products, and this is why" forward I would put in Book 3 of Secret World Chronicles....because that will NEVER go away as long as the book is in print, nor can they issue a takedown notice on it. Or the copy of the same "Do not buy" that would forever be on my website, and which I would ask you people to kindly Googlebomb for me so that it is the FIRST thing that comes up when someone does a Google search on "NCSoft."
And that's just the top few things on my "gloves are off" list.
I know the rest of you have your own lists.
I was going to say "we probably can't wreck them"....but after reminding me about what happened to EA, I'm not so sure. I do think that if they are serious about "realigning their focus" to the East, we can sure assist them with a boot to the butt.
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That's another thing - they have to know that although there have been some small amounts of playing dirty up till now, that the playerbase have largely been staying our hand per TonyV's wishes (and good sense). But if the game closes without them EVER talking to us AT ALL... Well - since we'll have nothing at all to lose at that point, the gloves will indeed come off.
Surely they understand that this closure is DIFFERENT from the other games they've closed? Surely they understand by now that the pressure that they've been under already is the merest hint of what will come? The bad press will continue and intensify. And it WILL affect their ability to release new products here in the West?
Do they seriously not GET it?
Did they not even NOTICE what happened in regards to Mass Effect 3? Mass Effect fans shamed ELECTRONIC ARTS into moving! EA got "worst company of the year" for that debacle. That's rather impressive.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/04/09/why-ea-won-the-worst-company-in-america-award/ (http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/04/09/why-ea-won-the-worst-company-in-america-award/)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/04/04/ea-is-the-worst-company-in-america-now-what/ (http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/04/04/ea-is-the-worst-company-in-america-now-what/)
After that, EA actually listened to and did something the fans wanted them to. Maybe not entirely the way the fans wanted or going as far as wanted. (The "4th Choice" is clearly a "f--- You very much, yourself." to the fans.) But the Extended Cut DLC essentially saved Bioware Studio and EA from absolute Public Relations ruin.
Bioware is STILL dead to many gamers. But many more are simply wary but willing to see what happens with their future releases, where before it was close to unanimous among most fans that the Mass Effect franchise was pretty much dead. Now - well it at least has a chance. Bioware is still pretty much still going to be subsumed within EA because that's what EA does. But in terms of PR relations with the fans, things have been salvaged to the point that gamers and fans are at least willing to give future products a chance. There will probably not be the same willingness to pre-order things as before. Fans will probably wait for detailed reviews before buying. But they are at least not writing off future purchases of Mass Effect DLC and future games outright.
I wonder - could we do to NCSoft what Mass Effect fans did to EA? Garner them "Worst Company" status for next year?
If NCSoft keeps going the way they are, I'd say we certainly have a chance. They have a history almost as shady as EA. From all the games they've killed, to the way they treat their employees (The Glass Door reports) to the Richard Garriot Lawsuit that they lost.
So yes - we could DEFINITELY ramp up the negativity from here. NCSoft does indeed have everything to lose by ignoring us.
I think NCSoft considers it as an acceptable loss, since we don't have anything even remotely close to the numbers the "Hold the Line" ME3 action had (AKA millions of players that had been following the series for years).
And as an article said, the ME3 fans weren't the only reason they earned their top spot on that list, EA's pissed off people left and right for years - including all the times they've shoved Origins down their players throats in order to be able to play a game.
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I have not yet unleashed that to....whatever parental group it is that goes bonkers every time they think they can link a video game to something terrible (need to research that).
In general I -despise- those people, like the mother that was blaming Manhunt for the fact that her drug dealing son got shot.
Surely it must have been the game's influence, and had nothing to do with all those shady connections he had. :roll:
But when it comes to it - and CoH is shutdown without any light in the tunnel ahead, I'll have a good laugh if you give THOSE people a reason to go after NCSoft.
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I don't want to derail this conversation, so I will simply point out that the Tea Party considers Fox News to be centrist, not conservative. I should know. I'm a Tea Party person myself.
But on whether it matters at all where on the political spectrum a media outlet is in regards to our cause here - I consider CNN to be centrist leaning left and MSNBC to be extreme left. And you know what? I bloody don't give a rip - If it would help our cause here, I'd send these stories to them in a heartbeat to put WHATEVER spin on it they'd like as long as it gets our cause ATTENTION.
However - since the election is coming up on in the first week of November and we have until the end of November before the game closes, there may be enough time between those two points for a non-political story to gain some traction.
Of course this doesn't end on Nov 30th anyway.
As a Tea Party person myself, I have to agree with Atlantea, mostly. I think CNN is more left than center, personally; ABC is the only left-leaning one that has a well-done pretense of centrism in my experience. Fox is definitely to the right of the other major networks, and probably leans a bit right-of-center overall (I suspect because they see that there's a bigger audience chunk if they don't bother to compete with the other three for the center-left and far left), but their "token liberals" aren't ever saying anything different than the non-token ones in other networks...they just are being confronted by conservatives, which makes the message seem more right-leaning to those used only to CNN/MSNBC/ABC/CBS.
All of that, though? Even if you disagree 100%? Ignore it. Even if it becomes a footnote in "why companies are leaving the US" or somesuch, it gets mentioned. I don't care what network it's mentioned on. This isn't a political issue, in the sense of "electing politicians." We want PR. Our politics in this case is that of public image pressure on NCSoft. It's not left-wing or right-wing (though I'll admit to trying to quell certain fires I've seen that are voicing desires to see governmental action); it's business and PR.
And when the election is over, even if it was just a footnote before hand, that leaves most of a month for us to hit every news outlet we can find again, now that the big election season news cycles are dried up, and let them take that footnote that has already seeded in the public consciousness and grow it into a full story. I am a proud conservative, but in this fight I don't care which news outlets with what political leanings we talk to. They're all potential allies!
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I've been very careful about the feminist bloggers I have sent Segev's press release to. There are lots of them that I consider wackaloons...and many of them would be perfectly happy to have something else to go ballistic about. I have not yet sent any of them the Boobs and Shame Gon Dance link and that made me ill, so I cannot imagine what it would do to them. I have not yet unleashed that to....whatever parental group it is that goes bonkers every time they think they can link a video game to something terrible (need to research that).
And I wonder how NCSoft would appreciate the perpetual "I urge you, do not buy NCSoft products, and this is why" forward I would put in Book 3 of Secret World Chronicles....because that will NEVER go away as long as the book is in print, nor can they issue a takedown notice on it. Or the copy of the same "Do not buy" that would forever be on my website, and which I would ask you people to kindly Googlebomb for me so that it is the FIRST thing that comes up when someone does a Google search on "NCSoft."
And that's just the top few things on my "gloves are off" list.
I know the rest of you have your own lists.
I was going to say "we probably can't wreck them"....but after reminding me about what happened to EA, I'm not so sure. I do think that if they are serious about "realigning their focus" to the East, we can sure assist them with a boot to the butt.
You've got quite a bit of leverage (moreso than most of us at least). Everyone here is probably ready to something that is going to make NCsoft's skin crawl. The problem is that I don't think NCSoft realizes it. I doubt they understand that we're playing nice. IF they do, however, they're probably taking it as a blessing and abusing it to the tune that since we're behaving, they don't have to do anything for us. I am not saying we need to start getting dirty with them, at least not yet. But it's important to understand that there is a possibility that they're taking advantage of our relatively clean movement.
And equally important to understand that they might be unaware (as of now at least) how bad things are going to get for them once the game goes down.
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As for the main topic, I am a little baffled. They actually cited turning you down (for something you didn't ask for) because it was related to City of Heroes? They basically said that they will not speak on the matter. It seems to be their policy right now. Since when is silence good damage control? Unless they believe there is no damage, or at least none of consequence.
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What kind of an article are you going to go with, now that you essentially have nothing to go on from NCSoft but this?
Well, the article I pitched and that got greenlighted was a 'NC Soft's response to concerns from the community' piece. Now I guess the story is that NC Soft either can not, or will not go on the record about the options they explored and how they 'exhausted them'. It'd be REALLY helpful if some of the investors who approached NC Soft are available to comment me and tell me what offers they put on the table, and the response they had from NC Soft (if it's commercially sensitive, I can assure anonymity, although obviously if you're willing to put your name out there, it looks like I'm not making it up.)
If I can PROVE that they've lied to their customers and the press, that would be so good that I'd probably have an orgasm. Just sayin'.
If I can't get that information, I can go with the information I have from the Facebook groups and these forums about investors who did go forward and didn't get a response, concerns raised by Save COH about the statement issued by NC Soft, that we put those concerns to NC Soft and they refused to comment, leading very realistic fears that they're up to their old tricks of not being exactly honest with their customers.
Which is..great for us, but not really great for the magazine I was originally aimed at. The editor has been understanding, thankfully, but this sort of piece isn't really for them.
Once I've got what information I can get, and if I factor in the way they handled the Tabla Rasa closure, it might prick up a few '..is NC Soft at it again..?' news-senses in the gaming pressing, mebbe. I'll do is put together a press release which I'll post here and once everyone's fact-checked it and pointed out the obvious stuff I should've added in.
Once it's been thoroughly vetted, I can ping it off to the gaming press (I've kept the email addresses of all the writers I've spotted writing stuff on the closure of City of Heroes) and there's a website here called It's Public Now (or something like that), which allows people to publish news and press releases. I know the site is trawled by the mainstream media here, so maybe they'll pick up on it, too.
I really have no idea which US outlets might be interested in it (sorry, your leaning to the left, leaning to the right thing sounds like a dance to me. I was totally lost :-p), but once the press release is sorted and if Tony doesn't freak out when he sees it, you guys can send it to whoever you think it might be interesting to, and obviously it can be tweaked to appeal to any number of places.
For example, the fact that so many websites/magazines just read the NC Soft release and went 'oh. Ok' and published it without digging could be turned into an interesting piece on decreasing standards of journalism or something, the fact that they ignored a New York times best selling author might make a nice angle for various writing/fiction websites and outlets, the fact that they won't issue a response about job losses might be useful to more mainstream news. There's probably some politics in there somewhere, I dunno :-p.
Hell, the fact that a company has a PR firm that they're paying gazillions, and a corporate communications response director who is probably paid more a week than I earn in a year and it took them..14 days to respond to a query with the weirdest comment ever could probably be a nice angle for someone, but I'm not sure who.
This weekend is pretty busy - we're in a strong position for some follow-up press releases - the Extralife Gameathon is something we should be issuing a release about once we know how much has been raised, and hopefully that'll tide us over nicely until we can get this..whatever it is knocked into some sort of shape.
Also, I have the email address of NC Soft's Corporate Communications Director, if it'd help anyone. TonyV? :)
Unfortunately, today is a bit on the heavy side, but I'm hoping to get something down properly tomorrow/Saturday, which I'll post up for your help in smashing into shape, if that's cool with you guys?
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And I wonder how NCSoft would appreciate the perpetual "I urge you, do not buy NCSoft products, and this is why" forward I would put in Book 3 of Secret World Chronicles....because that will NEVER go away as long as the book is in print, nor can they issue a takedown notice on it. Or the copy of the same "Do not buy" that would forever be on my website, and which I would ask you people to kindly Googlebomb for me so that it is the FIRST thing that comes up when someone does a Google search on "NCSoft."
For users that don't know what to do to help in 'googlebombing' simply start by using links to Victoria's site in forum discussions, blogs, social media, etc when discussing NCSoft, City of Heroes, and the shutdown. It would be most effective if the "NCSOFT" word itself was in the hyperlinked text, but in general, google uses the context around the hyperlink while indexing, so just appearing in the same sentence will help.
Do NOT use identical wording cross-posted across. Google's gotten many measures in place to reduce the impact of blatant "bombing", and evidence of trying to "spam" search results actually can reduce your search results.
Unfortunately, since NCSoft has the domain name matching this word, google will likely put enough weight on the domain name that we won't be able to grab the absolute top spot. it would be easier to get something like "Save CoH" or "GameKiller" directed to a specific search result, as there's no popular high-traffic already associated with the word.
I'm all for trying, though.
For those curious, the googlebombing artform has been a great source of geek fun ever since it was discovered that "more evil than satan himself" had Microsoft and AOL as their top results. Other notables include this custom 404 (http://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/~SJM200/massdestruction.html) for searches for "weapons of mass destruction," and the Official White House biography page of Pres George W Bush as the top result for "miserable failure." As a cautionary note, supporters of Pres Bush tried to counter by getting then-candidate Senator Kerry to be the top results for "Waffles" and "flip-flop" and failed at both- they were unable to break the strength of the brand name for either of those (strangely, wikipedia now tops both of those words instead.
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Has anyone approached The Escapist website with coverage of SaveCoH and the underhanded dealings of NCsoft or is that just not their bag? They get a hefty amount of traffic from the game community that it could open the eyes of our fellow gamers not familiar with what's going on. Or how about Jim Sterling? He's all about verbally tearing down terrible game companies.
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They're on my list. Kotaku (spelling?), too.
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Here's another angle to consider for your story:
NCSoft is not only doing themselves a disservice by their continued silence. I suggest that in the long run they are poisoning the well of the ENTIRE MMO industry.
When gamers really, truly as a group begin to understand the fact that at ANY time for ANY reason - even a NONSENSICAL reason - a game can be taken away -
When it becomes crystal clear that your characters, your guild, all the work you put in - the achievements you have made, the bases (or housing or Starbases) you have worked so hard for - that none of it is actually yours and that you don't own ANY of it.
If players of MMOs really, seriously, have the thin veil of illusion of "this is mine" ripped unceremoniously away and that it can go away at any time without so much as an apology or even get an answer to the question - "WHY?"
Well then. How many MMO players will think to themselves: "What is the point of paying into ANY MMO? For ANY reason?"
What is the backbone of real moneymaking in both subscription and free-to-play games?
Is it the casual gamer who plays the game for a couple of months and then moves on to the next shiny?
Or is it the amount of emotional investment of the long term committed customer that a game can retain?
NCSoft is poisoning the well of the latter in favor of the former. THAT is what they have to answer for. They will manage to lose not only the trust in THEIR brand, but the brand of the ENTIRE MMO industry once people figure it out.
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Here's another angle to consider for your story:
NCSoft is not only doing themselves a disservice by their continued silence. I suggest that in the long run they are poisoning the well of the ENTIRE MMO industry.
When gamers really, truly as a group begin to understand the fact that at ANY time for ANY reason - even a NONSENSICAL reason - a game can be taken away -
When it becomes crystal clear that your characters, your guild, all the work you put in - the achievements you have made, the bases (or housing or Starbases) you have worked so hard for - that none of it is actually yours and that you don't own ANY of it.
If players of MMOs really, seriously, have the thin veil of illusion of "this is mine" ripped unceremoniously away and that it can go away at any time without so much as an apology or even get an answer to the question - "WHY?"
Well then. How many MMO players will think to themselves: "What is the point of paying into ANY MMO? For ANY reason?"
What is the backbone of real moneymaking in both subscription and free-to-play games?
Is it the casual gamer who plays the game for a couple of months and then moves on to the next shiny?
Or is it the amount of emotional investment of the long term committed customer that a game can retain?
NCSoft is poisoning the well of the latter in favor of the former. THAT is what they have to answer for. They will manage to lose not only the trust in THEIR brand, but the brand of the ENTIRE MMO industry once people figure it out.
I believe metaphorically speaking, this is the Chemical/Biological Weapon of PR. That fact will raise such a horrid stink about the situation, that it's basically scorching the earth. It reminds me that we are not doing this just so that we can keep playing the game, but that the injustice of the situation is laid open.
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I don't want to derail this conversation, so I will simply point out that the Tea Party considers Fox News to be centrist, not conservative. I should know. I'm a Tea Party person myself.
But on whether it matters at all where on the political spectrum a media outlet is in regards to our cause here - I consider CNN to be centrist leaning left and MSNBC to be extreme left. And you know what? I bloody don't give a rip - If it would help our cause here, I'd send these stories to them in a heartbeat to put WHATEVER spin on it they'd like as long as it gets our cause ATTENTION.
However - since the election is coming up on in the first week of November and we have until the end of November before the game closes, there may be enough time between those two points for a non-political story to gain some traction.
Of course this doesn't end on Nov 30th anyway.
At this point I'd wear spandex and let crowds of any political leaning laugh in my face and rant about politics, economics, martians landing, whatever got them to show up as long as it brought attention to the game's unjust closure. I simply chose Fox because it bends more towards their political leanings.
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Quite frankly ANY mainstream news mention of this story, so long as the emphasis is placed on what NCSoft is doing to (USA! USA! USA! oh, and yeah, you Eurotypes too) customers and not on LOLSillyGamers is going to be good coverage. Slant it right wing or left wing, it's still good coverage.
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I suppose if you needed to find a centrist news outlet, I'd point first toward the BBC. They may not get much respect in the states, but they're pretty highly regarded in the EU, esp. UK. Really, the only reason I'm aware of BBC News is because I bought access to BBC America to watch Doctor Who. (And I'm pretty sure the Doctor would take our side in this... :P)
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I really have no idea which US outlets might be interested in it (sorry, your leaning to the left, leaning to the right thing sounds like a dance to me. I was totally lost :-p), but once the press release is sorted and if Tony doesn't freak out when he sees it, you guys can send it to whoever you think it might be interesting to, and obviously it can be tweaked to appeal to any number of places.
National Public Radio and Public Radio International might be willing to run it as a "human interest" piece. It'd fight right in between the shocking expose on Italian spaghetti farmers and the retrospective on Brazilian folk music. (I kid because I care. I less-than-three public radio.)
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National Public Radio and Public Radio International might be willing to run it as a "human interest" piece. It'd fight right in between the shocking expose on Italian spaghetti farmers and the retrospective on Brazilian folk music. (I kid because I care. I less-than-three public radio.)
I can certainly see it there. And since we don't have visuals, we could use audio tracks. Nice heroic CoH music and the "ooooh" "aaaah" "oh yeaaaaah" from the Gon Dance Boobs and Shame clip. Believe me, that will tell even LISTENERS what is going on there.
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Quite frankly ANY mainstream news mention of this story, so long as the emphasis is placed on what NCSoft is doing to (USA! USA! USA! oh, and yeah, you Eurotypes too) customers and not on LOLSillyGamers is going to be good coverage. Slant it right wing or left wing, it's still good coverage.
Yea that is the side of the line we would want to be on, the NCSoft option. Yet, we know that LOLSillyGAmers and people Nerdraging seem to catch more attention as it fits into the stereotypical view of people that dont play online games. It should be slanted as we the customer and an disagreeable buisness practice instead of "Gamers raging because company shuts down game!! Next up, is Dr. Phil on Gaming Addicts!"
How did that negative stereotype get assigned to online gamers anyways? The one where we are either socially awkward pimple bespec. nerds that spend hours playing games, or jobless adults living in moms basement living off cold pizza and too lazy to do our own laundry? From the looks of it, I havent came across too many raging nerds or basement dwellers. From the looks of it we at least have an accomplished author, an IT worker, well several IT people, a government person, buisness people, a few law people.
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I don't want to derail this conversation, so I will simply point out that the Tea Party considers Fox News to be centrist, not conservative. I should know. I'm a Tea Party person myself.
But on whether it matters at all where on the political spectrum a media outlet is in regards to our cause here - I consider CNN to be centrist leaning left and MSNBC to be extreme left. And you know what? I bloody don't give a rip - If it would help our cause here, I'd send these stories to them in a heartbeat to put WHATEVER spin on it they'd like as long as it gets our cause ATTENTION.
However - since the election is coming up on in the first week of November and we have until the end of November before the game closes, there may be enough time between those two points for a non-political story to gain some traction.
Of course this doesn't end on Nov 30th anyway.
You're right, the beatings will continue until morale improves... or until the company goes under, whichever comes first.
Barring any major catastrophe, or hanging chad, the news should be relatively quiet after the election. Might be the perfect time.
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I think we're all familiar with how we're not the typical group of gamers.
<pushes empty pizza box under the couch so mom doesn't see it>
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Here's another angle to consider for your story:
NCSoft is not only doing themselves a disservice by their continued silence. I suggest that in the long run they are poisoning the well of the ENTIRE MMO industry.
When gamers really, truly as a group begin to understand the fact that at ANY time for ANY reason - even a NONSENSICAL reason - a game can be taken away -
When it becomes crystal clear that your characters, your guild, all the work you put in - the achievements you have made, the bases (or housing or Starbases) you have worked so hard for - that none of it is actually yours and that you don't own ANY of it.
If players of MMOs really, seriously, have the thin veil of illusion of "this is mine" ripped unceremoniously away and that it can go away at any time without so much as an apology or even get an answer to the question - "WHY?"
Well then. How many MMO players will think to themselves: "What is the point of paying into ANY MMO? For ANY reason?"
What is the backbone of real moneymaking in both subscription and free-to-play games?
Is it the casual gamer who plays the game for a couple of months and then moves on to the next shiny?
Or is it the amount of emotional investment of the long term committed customer that a game can retain?
NCSoft is poisoning the well of the latter in favor of the former. THAT is what they have to answer for. They will manage to lose not only the trust in THEIR brand, but the brand of the ENTIRE MMO industry once people figure it out.
Very, very nice. This, I do believe, would catch the attention of not only the players, but the independent design houses like Cryptic started CoH as. Who would want to be purchased by NCSoft, knowing that they could be fired with no notice at the drop of a hat and the sum of all their work summarily mothballed?
Reminds me of a comment by Valve's Gabe Newell. He said he'd rather see the company disintegrate than be swooped up by some big name company that would then wait for their employment agreements terminate. I believe he was speaking of Nexon in that context as well.
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Yea that is the side of the line we would want to be on, the NCSoft option. Yet, we know that LOLSillyGAmers and people Nerdraging seem to catch more attention as it fits into the stereotypical view of people that dont play online games. It should be slanted as we the customer and an disagreeable buisness practice instead of "Gamers raging because company shuts down game!! Next up, is Dr. Phil on Gaming Addicts!"
How did that negative stereotype get assigned to online gamers anyways? The one where we are either socially awkward pimple bespec. nerds that spend hours playing games, or jobless adults living in moms basement living off cold pizza and too lazy to do our own laundry? From the looks of it, I havent came across too many raging nerds or basement dwellers. From the looks of it we at least have an accomplished author, an IT worker, well several IT people, a government person, buisness people, a few law people.
Because when gaming was in it's infancy we WERE socially awkward nerds, and then we grew up. They just haven't gotten that memo yet. What they really need to realize is that nerds tend to run the world from the background, like the Wizard of Oz. ;D
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... and then we grew up.
Speak for yourself. 8)
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Speak for yourself. 8)
ROFLMAO! Okay, my bad, we got older. (Ooooh boy, older... :'( )
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Yea that is the side of the line we would want to be on, the NCSoft option. Yet, we know that LOLSillyGAmers and people Nerdraging seem to catch more attention as it fits into the stereotypical view of people that dont play online games. It should be slanted as we the customer and an disagreeable buisness practice instead of "Gamers raging because company shuts down game!! Next up, is Dr. Phil on Gaming Addicts!"
How did that negative stereotype get assigned to online gamers anyways? The one where we are either socially awkward pimple bespec. nerds that spend hours playing games, or jobless adults living in moms basement living off cold pizza and too lazy to do our own laundry? From the looks of it, I havent came across too many raging nerds or basement dwellers. From the looks of it we at least have an accomplished author, an IT worker, well several IT people, a government person, buisness people, a few law people.
I came across THOSE types more on other MMO's than on CoX - most of the people I met on CoX that were unemployed were either for health reasons or because they couldn't find anything, despite actively looking for a job.
The stereo types -are- out there too though, people who can't even bothered to shower or do their laundry because they'd rather keep playing - but I'm fairly sure that for every gamer out there that falls into that category, there's two others who do the same with their TV addiction.
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How did that negative stereotype get assigned to online gamers anyways? The one where we are either socially awkward pimple bespec. nerds that spend hours playing games, or jobless adults living in moms basement living off cold pizza and too lazy to do our own laundry?
Why is "gamer" a charged word? Why isn't "bookworm" or "sports fan"? What can we do about it? The folks at Extra Credits did a video on this topic some time ago. It's thought-provoking, if you have between five and ten minutes.
http://extra-credits.net/episodes/gamer/
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As a proofreader by trade I noticed a number of mispellings, incorrect pluralization, and other things. I can go over it later tonight, but the text is too long for me to work with on my phone.
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City of Heroes was winning awards until only a short time ago as well.
It was also the first AAA rated MMORPG according to Cryptics website on it.
Other games such as DDO compare their systems against City of Heroes for game mechanics, it is considered the gold standard for many areas of MMO development such as aggro management, ability customization, class customization, costume customization, flexible playstyles....
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Additional note for the "merchandise spawned" sentence: Comics were published by both Blue King and Top Cow (two separate series).
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Thanks Kheprera, that'd be appreciated.
And noted Downix and Olantern , thank you :)
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OK. Here's my first attempt at something for the mainstream media....
Alright this is good stuff for a gamer point of view. It details the plight, what we are trying to accomplish and everything. The gaming community will understand what's going on and the actua effect it has on a game community that has grown close over the years and some resulted in real life bonds that has crossed the virtual barrier.
When I have time later, I'm going to re read it but this time from the view point of someone who never ever played a single online game and maybe only heard of WoW, aka, the average audience of mainstream media. In a nutshell, re-read it on an even keel as possible without the personal feeling of the gaming world and pretending I have no idea how a gaming community works.
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Have you considered Wired magazine? http://www.wired.com/magazine/
Wired is a great technical magazine that provides a story focus on the cultural and social aspects of technology as well.
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Good article rae (as JaguarX noted - particularly from a gamer's PoV).
Like Khepera, I also noted some typo/grammatical stuff (though I'm not a proof reader).
The ones that immediately caught my eye:
...to sell the IP address...
Did you really mean IP address, or were you intending IP (Intellectual Property) instead?
...that the company is forged his resignation...
"is" shouldn't be there. Also, and I personally don't know, but "forgery" is a serious accusation - is that proved? Note, I am aware that Garriot's civil suit was successful for him, but that's a bit different (though, related).
...casting more suspicions on the companies motives and way...
This should be "company's motive" - it's possessive, not plural ;)
For Tony's quotes, I believe that each should be quotated, so I'd add a " after ...in fact, reasonable and also after ...disingenuous at best, but I'm not a grammarian either, so I'm not certain whether that is correct or not, but those look like hanging quotes to me...
In any case, hope those help - again, good article. I was interested to read it.
Regards,
4
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*facepalm* IP address. *snrk* I'm a genius. Yes, that is supposed to be Intellectual Property.
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*facepalm* IP address. *snrk* I'm a genius. Yes, that is supposed to be Intellectual Property.
Also, for the purposes of the article, you may want to spell it out, rather than using the abbreviation; many readers may not be familiar with the term "IP".
I'll echo FourSpeed's corrections, and ad a few other minor points:
Their reputation also took a battering in 2008 after a lenghty court battle with Richard Garriot after the closure of Tabla Rasa, another MMO.
I'm pretty sure that this is just a typo as it is correct in the "Notes" section, but the game was "Tabula Rasa," not "Tabla Rasa."
We contacted NC Soft, asking for clarification on the statement they issued and giving them the opportunity to respond to claims by the Save COH campaign who took to forums, Facebook and Twitter wanting to know:
Asking if NC Soft considered combining servers, putting the game in maintenance mode and keeping it running without further developments or updates, or allowing people to create their own, private servers.
This seems a bit disjointed; as a sentence, the second part doesn't quite fit with the first. All the other items in your list are quetsions while this one is a statement. I'd change it to "Did NCSoft consider combining servers,...", but you're the author, use whatever wording you like.
While NC Soft refused to engage with their customers, or shed transparency on the attempts they claim to have made to prevent the closure of City of Heroes,
Again, the phrasing feels off; one does not "shed transparency." You can shed light on something, or be transparent about a subject, but both at once doesn't quite work.
"City of Heroes" was the first MMORPG based not only on superheroes, but heavily on comics books,
Someone correct me on this, but shouldn't it be "comic books?" (singular on comic, plural on books) At least that's how I'd always heard it, I could easily be wrong.
I hope this helps!
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*facepalm* IP address. *snrk* I'm a genius. Yes, that is supposed to be Intellectual Property.
No need for such an epic facepalm - I was watching a documentary on the solar system the other day and would you believe the narrator actually said "The planet can wobble on its axis as much as 15 degrees celcius" :roll:
Happens to everyone :)
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My main comment would be what Cory Doctorow always says about Boing Boing proposals.
"I don't care. MAKE me care."
And how about submitting it to Boing Boing? You definitely have a story there now.
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Thank you all so much for the feedback. I'll have a pop at draft two tomorrow .
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Here's another angle to consider for your story:
NCSoft is not only doing themselves a disservice by their continued silence. I suggest that in the long run they are poisoning the well of the ENTIRE MMO industry.
When gamers really, truly as a group begin to understand the fact that at ANY time for ANY reason - even a NONSENSICAL reason - a game can be taken away -
You're an absolute genius. I'm reworking the original one based on all the suggestions, but this is worth something on it's own. I've asked ..er..sorry, I forget the name, the person who collected the 'no rights, no reasons' thread if they're cool with me using that as the basis for another article, and they've said yes, so that's my next project.
Thank you all SO much for the help and the feedback.
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You might want to add the fact City of Heroes community had donated thousands to charities every year. Also could mention that we have been called the friendliest and helpful MMO communities. We take pride in helping new players instead of insulting them with "NOOB".
Second you mentioned that NCsoft got the nickname the MMOKiller twice, and that they are responsible for a third of the loss of mmos.. Repeating it might make people believe your trying to hammer this point. From our view it's fine but from an outsider it would seem your bis.
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Thanks, Rotten. I'll factor that in :)
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You're an absolute genius. I'm reworking the original one based on all the suggestions, but this is worth something on it's own. I've asked ..er..sorry, I forget the name, the person who collected the 'no rights, no reasons' thread if they're cool with me using that as the basis for another article, and they've said yes, so that's my next project.
Thank you all SO much for the help and the feedback.
*Bows, blushing* All part of the service, my friend.
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You might want to add the fact City of Heroes community had donated thousands to charities every year. Also could mention that we have been called the friendliest and helpful MMO communities. We take pride in helping new players instead of insulting them with "NOOB".
Maybe we should leave that last statement out as there are plenty of cases where we a few people that do call people noob for asking for help and or refer them to paragonwiki.com before calling them a noob.
Wait, most of the time that happened in game so may not be any evidence to the contrary recorded. Not sure about the forum as I havent been there in a while much, but last time the forum was worse than ingame attitudes, but no where near as worse as it is now. It's not looking very friendly now at all there and hope with this article there is no link provided to that forum as it is not how this community is asa whole but to an outsider, COH official forum if they find it, will be used as a judgement of the community as a whole and the recent posts are not a very good image. We dont want them to take this then follow up the story with posting evidence of people going nuts, and acting like savages just because they are hidden behind a computer screen. The mainstrema love those stories as it fits into their view of gaming communities already.
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Article two is underway, with Blizzard/Funcom/SOE/Perfect World and (a little cheekily) Nexon asked if they'd be willing to sign up to a voluntary code of contact/game of rights to protect their customer's investments of time and money.
Pending no-one screaming at me that I GOT SOMETHING WRONG, on Wednesday, I'll be looking to send off the corrected-original article to a number of press-release distributing websites, as well as nowpublic.com. I'll send the more gaming-angled one to some gaming websites.
I'm hoping to add in the information about the (apparent) Steam approach to NC Soft, too, if I can get permission from the person who posted the info here.
Fansy also said he'd forward it to a couple of his contacts. He seems to have some ace media contacts so fingers crossed he can get it in someplace.
If anyone wants to put the spelling into American and send it off to anyone they think might like it, that would be super.
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Only thing that jumps out at me is his name is Sean Astin, not Austin.
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Ooh, nice catch. Thanks Lily.
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Alright.
Today, I have sent the 'firewall of silence' version as a press release to:
PCgamer.com, escapist magazine, rockpapershotgun, lorehound, MMOFallout, Starburst, eurogamer, egmnow, gamespy, blisteredthumbs, zam, insidemacgames, dealspwn, examiner.com, massively, wired, thesixthaxis, shacknews, mmorpg, mmobomb, segment next, incgames, videogamer, mcvuk, vg247, gamepolitics, kotaku, BBC click and The Guardian, gamingbus, chaoster and player attack. These are all the places I could find online that'd ever run stories about the closure of COH.
I sent a slightly (very slightly reworked) version: "South Korean games software giant NC Soft has made 80 people in Mountain View redundant, and is set to destroy a world with a population of Spain - but won't say why." to local papers that seemed to cover the Mountain View area of California, including the San Jose Mercury, and Mountain View Gazette.
I've also put it up on a couple of freebie press release distributions sites, as well as Reuters and UIP, who seem to sell news to just about everyone on the web. It's also been submitted to www.nowpublic.com where it's waiting for approval for publication, because I've never tried to publish anything there before :-p
At this point, I think the job loss front might be the way forward for mainstream media, so if anyone can think of a suitable US news outlet or newspaper where I could forward it, please let me know who I should be sending it to. Ideally not something TOO big, where it'll probably be over looked, but big enough where exposure there is likely to get picked up by bigger papers.
I'm also going to send a copy to Fansy, since he seems to have some awesome media/webcomic contacts who could probably get this out to the wider 'net community.
If anyone has any contacts they could send it on to (*coughcoughdownixcough*), or a blog or..whatever..please, please, please plagerise the crap out of it and put it where ever the hell you want :)
I'm waiting on responses from other MMO publishers for article #2, on how MMO players basically have no rights at all :-p
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rae, my hat's off to you - you're a star! :D
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Awesome! Let us know where this stuff sees print/posting!
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Sadly Dont think MCVuk.com will. The editor made a sarcastic tweet about it. :( Jerk.
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I saw. I hope I straightened it out.
It's difficult when people have contact forms instead of email addresses, because as much as I hope they handle formatting...apparently on that occasion, it didn't.
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Sadly Dont think MCVuk.com will. The editor made a sarcastic tweet about it. :( Jerk.
Link?
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Just heard from starburst. They will be running it :)
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Link?
https://twitter.com/BenParfitt/status/261027758359056384/photo/1
Bit unprofessional of him, I think. It was obviously a format issue, and it clearly shows it showed up in his inbox via his contact form.
I apologised and offered to resend via email. He hasn't taken me up on it, though.
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Pfft... Ok. If he's going to be unprofessional about it, then we can write off that site as unprofessional as well and not worth the time.
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https://twitter.com/BenParfitt/status/261027758359056384/photo/1
Bit unprofessional of him, I think. It was obviously a format issue, and it clearly shows it showed up in his inbox via his contact form.
I apologised and offered to resend via email. He hasn't taken me up on it, though.
Seems like the commentary on it was sarcastic anyway.
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In appreciation for all your hard work, let me buy you a Snickers bar. :)
Its about all I can afford at the moment. :(
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Oh, I can understand why he's upset.
It's much harder to copy and paste a press release and then put your byline on it, if the formatting is all messed up ;)
Meow.
Ooh! Chocolate. I'm mostly fuelled by chocolate.
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Oh, I can understand why he's upset.
It should've been obvious that wasn't the intended format though.
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I'd have thought so, but still.
Other websites have picked up on and published it, so if he's going to be a smart arse about it and not run it that's up to him. It'll just make him look out of the loop. ;)
Was mildly entertained by a couple of tweets me put up afterwards, though:
Ben Parfitt @BenParfitt
I also reject the idea that the relationship between journalists and PR has to be a confrontation one
Ben Parfitt @BenParfitt
We are all adults working together small industry. Friendships are going to emerge. Respect and cooperation. Understanding boundaries.
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You go, Rae.
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Very impressive, Rae! ;D
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I had my voice to the many : Kudos to you Rae for a most excellent job !
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Good stuff rae.
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Just on a side note, re the MCVUK guy:
http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/libel-alleged-legal-threats-and-conflicts-of-interest-the-twisted-story-of-
http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/mcvs-lauren-wainwright-english-libel-law-and-the-gaming-press-why-this-stor
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Maybe you have to be a journalist to get it but... this hardly seems like a new thing to me...? O.o
I've seen plenty of journalists starting off a story by reminiscing about how much they loved the original game, in case of a remake or sequel - or even how the Game Studio that made it has made some great titles that they've really enjoyed in the past and they have high hopes for this game too.
I guess it had to do with the prizes she gave away? Or was the magazine/website she was writing for supposed to be big on being impartial?
(I never knew Libel was such a huge thing in the UK though :o)
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The controversy is over the fact that she sees nothing wrong with journalists being given free stuff by the people whose product they're reviewing. My guess is that she does not feel getting gifts from people makes you less objective about their products. I assure you, my employer, who does a lot of business with the US government, feels differently, as part of the many orientation videos I had to sit through included instructions on how to avoid even hinting that you were trying to bribe government decision-makers. Common courtesy things one might do in thanks just for somebody's time are no-nos. Free expensive electronics? Right out.
It's as much about the appearance as the substance, because even the appearance of bribery is a huge ethical concern.
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It sounds like the music industry concept of "pay-o-la."
But, my read on it is "American media writers have linguistic/legal tricks that allow them to say whatever they want about her." Challenge accepted! (Wait. I'm not an American media writer...)
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The controversy is over the fact that she sees nothing wrong with journalists being given free stuff by the people whose product they're reviewing. My guess is that she does not feel getting gifts from people makes you less objective about their products. I assure you, my employer, who does a lot of business with the US government, feels differently, as part of the many orientation videos I had to sit through included instructions on how to avoid even hinting that you were trying to bribe government decision-makers. Common courtesy things one might do in thanks just for somebody's time are no-nos. Free expensive electronics? Right out.
It's as much about the appearance as the substance, because even the appearance of bribery is a huge ethical concern.
Ohhhh! I think I misread something there! I thought she was giving away those prizes on behalf of the site!
But she was actually getting the shinies? :P
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What Segev said :D
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https://twitter.com/BenParfitt/status/261027758359056384/photo/1
Bit unprofessional of him, I think. It was obviously a format issue, and it clearly shows it showed up in his inbox via his contact form.
I apologised and offered to resend via email. He hasn't taken me up on it, though.
The guy is an asshat:
Look at this Twitter exchange:
@GnitoInco 29 Oct
@BenParfitt You have so much time on your hands, you whine about a formatting issue on Twitter? Wow, I'd just ask them to resend.
@BenParfitt
@GnitoInco I did. They didn't#
So he's either illiterate, stupid or a liar.
Bets?
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I wouldn't like to guess :)
Just FYI, I sent those releases off to a few of the larger gaming blogs today (I've had a complete nightmare with my email, or I would've done it sooner) so I'm hoping that'll add to it.
I've also heard from my buddy at Starburst. They have a 'absolutely scathing' feature they've written based off the information I gave them ready to go, but they've also tried to contact NC Soft to give them a chance to respond, which is why it hasn't gone up yet. Soon as it does, I'll post link.
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I wouldn't like to guess :)
Just FYI, I sent those releases off to a few of the larger gaming blogs today (I've had a complete nightmare with my email, or I would've done it sooner) so I'm hoping that'll add to it.
I've also heard from my buddy at Starburst. They have a 'absolutely scathing' feature they've written based off the information I gave them ready to go, but they've also tried to contact NC Soft to give them a chance to respond, which is why it hasn't gone up yet. Soon as it does, I'll post link.
Awesome. And when they don't respond, they will look even worse.
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I think that's what they are going for. A no comment on the no comment ,as it were.
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I think that's what they are going for. A no comment on the no comment ,as it were.
That's most likely what they'll get.
Can't wait to see the article!