How To Properly End an MMO.

[Colette]

[dwturducken]

Point of order: not any one nationality, just a regional market.

And, except for that bit about purchasing VIP status, I think I'd agree that that would have been much better received.  We'd all still be here, fighting to save the city, but we'd maybe feel a little less against the wall and a lot less like we were being thrown out with the trash.

[Ironwolf]

I know people don't like reality to rear its ugly head but NCSoft needed to terminate the employees rapidly as with 85 people many of the Obamacare changes could cost them quite a bit more money.

I will try and compare the costs of a sub 50 employee entity to an 85 employee one. I do think it is quite a bit more money they would be on the hook for and so it was pay the $4,000 per employee fine or provide healthcare to match the requirements for each.

Again this is not to throw politics in the mix - it is to help explain a partial motivation they may have had, I could be wrong but it would help explain the rapid timing.

[Jetpack]

I
Again this is not to throw politics in the mix -

And yet......

[dwturducken]

I don't think the "politics" is an invalid point, but I wouldn't hang a lot of importance on it.  There were likely plenty of places, presumably, where jobs or costs could have been cut if simple cost savings were the only concern. That point has been made a few times over throughout the course of this endeavor.

[Segev]

Had "if Obamacare..." been a concern, they could have waited until Nov. 7 or 15 or so to fire all of Paragon Studios. That would have been plenty before Jan. 1, and it would also have let them change their minds if Romney gets elected. Given that Romney's election all but guarantees that Obamacare will be repealed before anybody would have had to actually spend money on compliance, that would've been the better choice.

So while it might have factored in on some level, I doubt it does here.

[Osborn]

Had "if Obamacare..." been a concern, they could have waited until Nov. 7 or 15 or so to fire all of Paragon Studios. That would have been plenty before Jan. 1, and it would also have let them change their minds if Romney gets elected. Given that Romney's election all but guarantees that Obamacare will be repealed before anybody would have had to actually spend money on compliance, that would've been the better choice.

So while it might have factored in on some level, I doubt it does here.

Not to mention that we could argue rounds all day long on whether or not it'd have a negative impact on a business like this which already has an almost entirely college educated high wage workforce which it's already (very probably) paying insurance for as it is (and looking over Glassdoor's reviews 'benefits' and 'wages' was about the only good thing most people had to say about NCSoft), or we could argue all day whether or not having the entire national workforce capable of being on insurance actually being on it would reduce insurance costs for everybody like it does the auto insurance industry or not.

It seems pointless to do in this forum. We'll be here forever speculating on the politics of these actions.

If you're of the mind that taxes being used to pay for health care of employees is bad, I'm not going to probably change your mind and this isn't the place to try, but I do want to mention though that, if they want to avoid paying insurance for their employees through taxes or government mandates, then they're not exactly moving their business to the best place in the world to do that if they move their business to South Korea, a country with a nationalized single payer health care option.

That reminds me of people upset over the Affordable Care Act being outraged over this government intrusion into health care and threatening to move to Canada, of all places...

[Segev]

Also a good point, Osborn. Though note they closed, but did not move, the jobs.

But yeah, no point debating other than to note that this likely wasn't a primary or even secondary factor. Maybe tertiary, at absolute most.

[Osborn]

Also a good point, Osborn. Though note they closed, but did not move, the jobs.

But yeah, no point debating other than to note that this likely wasn't a primary or even secondary factor. Maybe tertiary, at absolute most.

That's true too. They didn't outsource CoH or Paragon Studios to another country's workforce, they just straight up axed it. That's not something you do to a property you think is making money but you think the workforce is being paid too much.

Whatever their reasoning is, the most likely reasons for the axe would be either internal pressure due to a shifting power structure in their company (such as Nexon leveraging their majority shares), a change on their focus to their native market (which is pretty much what they told us by saying there is a "realignment of company focus and publishing support"), or because they felt that they needed to support growing, not stable, products (because that's what drives stock market prices is growth, not homeostasis. Debate on whether or not that's a good thing or not at your own leisure, but it's true) and felt the cheapest way to do this wasn't to try to grow that property (because they don't frankly understand the property and don't understand our market so they can't figure out an actionable plan to grow something they don't understand in soil they don't understand, and looking at their Glassdoor reviews they don't trust the chain of command in the West to make decisions) but just to drop it.

Which we're probably proving them wrong with.

[Segev]

That's true too. They didn't outsource CoH or Paragon Studios to another country's workforce, they just straight up axed it. That's not something you do to a property you think is making money but you think the workforce is being paid too much.

Whatever their reasoning is, the most likely reasons for the axe would be either internal pressure due to a shifting power structure in their company (such as Nexon leveraging their majority shares), a change on their focus to their native market (which is pretty much what they told us by saying there is a "realignment of company focus and publishing support"), or because they felt that they needed to support growing, not stable, products (because that's what drives stock market prices is growth, not homeostasis. Debate on whether or not that's a good thing or not at your own leisure, but it's true) and felt the cheapest way to do this wasn't to try to grow that property (because they don't frankly understand the property and don't understand our market so they can't figure out an actionable plan to grow something they don't understand in soil they don't understand, and looking at their Glassdoor reviews they don't trust the chain of command in the West to make decisions) but just to drop it.

Which we're probably proving them wrong with.

Yeah. We have good reason to be all but positive that their reasons were refocus on a market they understand, and didn't know how to grow CoH so thought it best to cut it as sunk cost. Which is why they are not the enemy: they have every reason to want to turn a sunk cost into a one-off cash influx. They were going to drop it anyway; getting paid to wash their hands of it completely is better than that.

[TimtheEnchanter]

or because they felt that they needed to support growing, not stable, products (because that's what drives stock market prices is growth, not homeostasis. Debate on whether or not that's a good thing or not at your own leisure, but it's true)

Well, considering that corporations across the world are pursuing something that is literally impossible (perpetual growth) yeah I'd say that's a bad thing.

[Segev]

I'm interested in your reasoning behind saying perpetual business growth is "literally impossible."

[QuantumHero]

I'm interested in your reasoning behind saying perpetual business growth is "literally impossible."

Perpetual growth is to some degree inverse to speed of growth IMO.

Widget X comes to market

It needs to make x amount of money to cover start-up costs, production costs, and reasonable staff pay.  It also needs some "rainy day" money, hopefully an intelligently managed line of credit.

Then the company wants to expand...expansion to a degree is good but eventually a tipping point is reached...the company finds that the scale of their operations has changed and that means they must figure out how to adapt.  Some companies do this better then others...and some make the adaptation by morphing into an entirely different entity.

Are public companies even a good thing?  They allow people to invest in a company and give companies extra revenue that is good.

But they also become slaves to the rules and whims of the market.  A company may have created something special and unique they may have a corporate culture but now the share holders and the board are in control.

IMO private companies are better as long as they are managed well.  Of course the heir is not the same person as the founder in a public or private company and things change all the time.

Why do we think the apex of a company is to go public?

It used to mean they were seeking capitol to grow or innovate....what does it means now?

Just something to ponder

[Osborn]

Well, considering that corporations across the world are pursuing something that is literally impossible (perpetual growth) yeah I'd say that's a bad thing.

And I agree, I was just trying not to make this into a political debate.

[TimtheEnchanter]

I'm interested in your reasoning behind saying perpetual business growth is "literally impossible."

Does Earth have infinite resources to produce infinite products?

Does Earth have infinite people to buy infinite products?

There's two major limiting factors on growth that cannot be removed, no matter how cunning a company is. Not even if they started mining the moon.

Perpetual growth is also ultimately self-destructive, particularly when it comes to resources. What is good for business in the short-term, is bad for humanity's chances at survival in the long-term.

[Victoria Victrix]

I would have added, to the OP posited shutdown notice, this:

If City of Heroes is purchased by another studio, we will be supporting it until a smooth transition of X days, ensuring that no character or game date is lost, can be achieved.

Which would be trivial to do if part of the purchasing agreement was "we, the purchasing party, will pay the support costs until we can transition to our loader and our new servers."

[Segev]

@Tim: Thanks for your reasoning. (I disagree, but this isn't the forum for an argument. I do appreciate knowing where you were coming from, though.)

[emu265]

I would have added, to the OP posited shutdown notice, this:

If City of Heroes is purchased by another studio, we will be supporting it until a smooth transition of X days, ensuring that no character or game date is lost, can be achieved.

Which would be trivial to do if part of the purchasing agreement was "we, the purchasing party, will pay the support costs until we can transition to our loader and our new servers."

Yeah, that kind of thing is obvious and somewhat of common courtesy.  But, in retrospect, I honestly feel like I could never, ever expect that from NCsoft.  Guess that's the hindsight bias kicking in.

[Osborn]

@Tim: Thanks for your reasoning. (I disagree, but this isn't the forum for an argument. I do appreciate knowing where you were coming from, though.)

You get a model where new shareholders to make money required growth. A stable product like CoH does bad in a public company. Even if a million people play if next year a million and 200,000 don't new stockholders aren't making money. The stock market's homeostasis point is infinity. Therefore new investors pull out causing old investors to sell, causing a stable product to close. Ergo: City of Heroes.

CoH flatlined after a leap in support when CoV came out. Going Rogue and Freedom pumped it slightly but only elevated the flat line. YES the flatline was in the positive. And to a private company that has no shares to move that's great. To NCSoft who can lose money in the stock market EVEN IF the product is moving, just because lack of growth is the same to investors as dying. They expect the market to reach infinity.

Now NCSoft might had been able to grow this property. But with their focus in the East and CoH being marketed solely as a western style comic book they probably decided they didn't have the know how to move it and didn't care to learn and don't trust the chain of command to do it with their HQ's cash. I think it was somewhat dumb myself. The idea this sort of game can't move in the East to me is shortsighted. It requires you to think of CoH in terms less of a Silver Age comic book and more like a Shonen like Anime or Manga ala Naruto or Dragonball Z but it's not that hard. It'd require a few more non-American mascots too.

Some advertising would had helped. GR and Freedom were released like silent farts. The only ad space I saw for the game was literally word of mouth.

It's ironic how much I don't really actually like comics that much and still liked this game.

[Victoria Victrix]

It's crazy-making.  NCSoft saw to it that CoH had a zero (or near it) advertising budget.  Mind you, this is not the first time I have seen this kind of...incomprehensible behavior.  I've even been personally affected by it (*mumble* Bloomsbury and Dead Reckoning and...*mumblecursemumble*).  But it leaves me going WTF? every time.