Perhaps your google-foo is on the fritz. I can come up with several links that support the contention here. As former MMORPG columnist (and CoH dev) said,
"...It was funny because the players were in as much shock as any of the developers--and they were like, in all the forums and on private messages on Twitter, 'Why don't you try X, or Y, or Z? Have you thought about doing a Kickstarter?' Things like that. Of all of them I've read, none of them were something we didn't already try ... It just didn't work out."
The game devs thought enough of CoH that they were trying to buy it out til the very last minute. Their opinion carries some weight with me.
"Random anonymous account on a random board once claimed the price" article that starts with "allegedly" in the headline. A "doable" from an anonymous poster is proof for "very sweet deals"? Is that a fucking joke?
Thats the bullshit I was just talking about. This is business. You don't buy an MMO with just intentions, talk and emotions nor with dreams and childish tantrums of fanboys. Who even calls his own offer bad? Its naively stupid just to try to twist that into evidence. That's luke warm air of zero value and weight. Nevermind you failed with just that. Not even trading bananas on a bazzar is that simple. We are talking multimillion Dollar deals for highly competitive longterm game projects. Even a reasonable offer makes no deal on this realm. You are jumping to completely ignorant conclusions from made up points and respond with full blown deception when caught lying. All to smear over a game developer. You are only making yourself look shady here.
Try to fix this one first before your derail any further with your conspiracy theories, fabrications and slander. I already heard these childish and clueless stories often enough.
Paragon Studios had millions in actual money lined up to buy the property. Potty mouth CoH haters keep ignoring that fact. Maybe you should check your own biases before calling something a myth.
Perhaps your google-foo is on the fritz. I can come up with several links that support the contention here. As former MMORPG columnist (and CoH dev) said,
"...It was funny because the players were in as much shock as any of the developers--and they were like, in all the forums and on private messages on Twitter, 'Why don't you try X, or Y, or Z? Have you thought about doing a Kickstarter?' Things like that. Of all of them I've read, none of them were something we didn't already try ... It just didn't work out."
The game devs thought enough of CoH that they were trying to buy it out til the very last minute. Their opinion carries some weight with me.
"Random anonymous account on a random board once claimed the price" article that starts with "allegedly" in the headline. A "doable" from an anonymous poster is proof for "very sweet deals"? Is that a fucking joke?
Thats the bullshit I was just talking about. This is business. You don't buy an MMO with just intentions, talk and emotions nor with dreams and childish tantrums of fanboys. Who even calls his own offer bad? Its naively stupid just to try to twist that into evidence. That's luke warm air of zero value and weight. Nevermind you failed with just that. Not even trading bananas on a bazzar is that simple. We are talking multimillion Dollar deals for highly competitive longterm game projects. Even a reasonable offer makes no deal on this realm. You are jumping to completely ignorant conclusions from made up points and respond with full blown deception when caught lying. All to smear over a game developer. You are only making yourself look shady here.
Try to fix this one first before your derail any further with your conspiracy theories, fabrications and slander. I already heard these childish and clueless stories often enough.
Paragon Studios had millions in actual money lined up to buy the property. Potty mouth CoH haters keep ignoring that fact. Maybe you should check your own biases before calling something a myth.
If there were millions lined up to be given to NC Soft, who in their right mind would turn that down and just shut the game down. That's just rediculous. That's like you taking millions and flushing it down the toilet. If that myth was real, I would bet that NC Soft would've taken it in a heartbeat. The problem is, a myth is a myth for a reason.
Perhaps your google-foo is on the fritz. I can come up with several links that support the contention here. As former MMORPG columnist (and CoH dev) said,
"...It was funny because the players were in as much shock as any of the developers--and they were like, in all the forums and on private messages on Twitter, 'Why don't you try X, or Y, or Z? Have you thought about doing a Kickstarter?' Things like that. Of all of them I've read, none of them were something we didn't already try ... It just didn't work out."
The game devs thought enough of CoH that they were trying to buy it out til the very last minute. Their opinion carries some weight with me.
"Random anonymous account on a random board once claimed the price" article that starts with "allegedly" in the headline. A "doable" from an anonymous poster is proof for "very sweet deals"? Is that a fucking joke?
Thats the bullshit I was just talking about. This is business. You don't buy an MMO with just intentions, talk and emotions nor with dreams and childish tantrums of fanboys. Who even calls his own offer bad? Its naively stupid just to try to twist that into evidence. That's luke warm air of zero value and weight. Nevermind you failed with just that. Not even trading bananas on a bazzar is that simple. We are talking multimillion Dollar deals for highly competitive longterm game projects. Even a reasonable offer makes no deal on this realm. You are jumping to completely ignorant conclusions from made up points and respond with full blown deception when caught lying. All to smear over a game developer. You are only making yourself look shady here.
Try to fix this one first before your derail any further with your conspiracy theories, fabrications and slander. I already heard these childish and clueless stories often enough.
Paragon Studios had millions in actual money lined up to buy the property. Potty mouth CoH haters keep ignoring that fact. Maybe you should check your own biases before calling something a myth.
If there were millions lined up to be given to NC Soft, who in their right mind would turn that down and just shut the game down. That's just rediculous. That's like you taking millions and flushing it down the toilet. If that myth was real, I would bet that NC Soft would've taken it in a heartbeat. The problem is, a myth is a myth for a reason.
NCSoft, that's who.
This company has never made reasonable decisions. It throws more money into its stupid baseball franchise (who can't win) than it can afford, and makes silly decisions with its properties.
The best estimates we have on the profits of Paragon the year before it closed is 8 million...revenue of 12 million - 4 million in operating costs:
Now I realize that CoH haters don't trust this data...but unless they can come up with their own figures, then they need to STFU and accept that CoH was profitable.
Now one dollar equals about 1200 won today (1166.85 to be exact). Multiply that 8 million by the won value, and divide it by four (for four quarters) and you get Paragon Studio revenue at a little over 2.3 billion won per quarter...not so bad, considering that Carbine and WildStar is still alive at 2 billion.
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
You can check November 2011 and all the way to November 2012 figures for CoH/V here. No need to speculate it is about 1% which is around 1.2 million a quarter according to those numbers. The February figures of 2013 no longer have the game so November 2012 is the last report you can check on.
You have to download and open the pdf files and then you can see the figures.
Perhaps your google-foo is on the fritz. I can come up with several links that support the contention here. As former MMORPG columnist (and CoH dev) said,
"...It was funny because the players were in as much shock as any of the developers--and they were like, in all the forums and on private messages on Twitter, 'Why don't you try X, or Y, or Z? Have you thought about doing a Kickstarter?' Things like that. Of all of them I've read, none of them were something we didn't already try ... It just didn't work out."
The game devs thought enough of CoH that they were trying to buy it out til the very last minute. Their opinion carries some weight with me.
"Random anonymous account on a random board once claimed the price" article that starts with "allegedly" in the headline. A "doable" from an anonymous poster is proof for "very sweet deals"? Is that a fucking joke?
Thats the bullshit I was just talking about. This is business. You don't buy an MMO with just intentions, talk and emotions nor with dreams and childish tantrums of fanboys. Who even calls his own offer bad? Its naively stupid just to try to twist that into evidence. That's luke warm air of zero value and weight. Nevermind you failed with just that. Not even trading bananas on a bazzar is that simple. We are talking multimillion Dollar deals for highly competitive longterm game projects. Even a reasonable offer makes no deal on this realm. You are jumping to completely ignorant conclusions from made up points and respond with full blown deception when caught lying. All to smear over a game developer. You are only making yourself look shady here.
Try to fix this one first before your derail any further with your conspiracy theories, fabrications and slander. I already heard these childish and clueless stories often enough.
Paragon Studios had millions in actual money lined up to buy the property. Potty mouth CoH haters keep ignoring that fact. Maybe you should check your own biases before calling something a myth.
If there were millions lined up to be given to NC Soft, who in their right mind would turn that down and just shut the game down. That's just rediculous. That's like you taking millions and flushing it down the toilet. If that myth was real, I would bet that NC Soft would've taken it in a heartbeat. The problem is, a myth is a myth for a reason.
NCSoft, that's who.
This company has never made reasonable decisions. It throws more money into its stupid baseball franchise (who can't win) than it can afford, and makes silly decisions with its properties.
The best estimates we have on the profits of Paragon the year before it closed is 8 million...revenue of 12 million - 4 million in operating costs:
Now I realize that CoH haters don't trust this data...but unless they can come up with their own figures, then they need to STFU and accept that CoH was profitable.
Now one dollar equals about 1200 won today (1166.85 to be exact). Multiply that 8 million by the won value, and divide it by four (for four quarters) and you get Paragon Studio revenue at a little over 2.3 billion won per quarter...not so bad, considering that Carbine and WildStar is still alive at 2 billion.
What? Not so bad? Are you serious? Wildstar is on life support and based on the statements, COH was half of that. I'm not a hater, i'm just looking at numbers and if the game is not making the money that the company expects they close it down. Even in the link you posted they said they tried to sell it but NOONE wanted it. You can love the game but you can't be that blind to not see that it was a sinking ship, superman hit by kryptonite, the flash without the flash, etc etc.
Some folk hated Wildstar from the very beginning and make threads talking about it going F2P as soon as it launched and lorded over every bit of bad news. Not surprising how petty human beings are and how much they enjoy watching things they don't like fail .
Originally posted by Ludwik This may come off as greedy but I'd like to see them just scrap Wildstar and move people to GW2 and B&S.
What makes you think people will move from one game to another?
Can't force people from one game to a completely different game - it's a ludicrous idea.
People will try to force other do what they want not what they like, not company just how people think, like how many times for years on playing ret pally people try to force me to heal. But some people idea still go on forcing people or a game to take there path:)
Originally posted by kitarad Some folk hated Wildstar from the very beginning and make threads talking about it going F2P as soon as it launched and lorded over every bit of bad news. Not surprising how petty human beings are and how much they enjoy watching things they don't like fail .
LOL, I'm sure you mean every MMORPG game in existence, not just Wildstar.
I have to agree. If the F2P conversion for WildStar is not a runaway hit that game will be axed as soon as they can. They do not need wildstar and while i´d assume they would like to recoup their costs they do not in any way shape or form need the grindstone of a dead game. In fact going by the numbers presented it is holding on by a thread.
Beyond that it is impressive to see the numbers that Lineage 1 makes. I guess they really hit the sweet spot on their own market. But it also shows how alien the western market is to them.
Originally posted by Ludwik This may come off as greedy but I'd like to see them just scrap Wildstar and move people to GW2 and B&S.
What makes you think people will move from one game to another?
Can't force people from one game to a completely different game - it's a ludicrous idea.
People will try to force other do what they want not what they like, not company just how people think, like how many times for years on playing ret pally people try to force me to heal. But some people idea still go on forcing people or a game to take there path:)
I'm certain the poster meant moving the development resources, not players.
You can check November 2011 and all the way to November 2012 figures for CoH/V here. No need to speculate it is about 1% which is around 1.2 million a quarter according to those numbers. The February figures of 2013 no longer have the game so November 2012 is the last report you can check on.
You have to download and open the pdf files and then you can see the figures.
The 1% and 1.2 billion numbers are for GW; CoH is the third segment at 2%.
Specifically: Q1 2012: 2,890M KRW; Q2 2012 2,855M KRW. NCSoft closed Paragon studios in August 2012 with any residual earnings in Q3 2012 being lumped into Others.
So, bottomline, NCSoft closed CoH even though it had greater revenue than WS (before any exchange rate variations). Profit is another matter of course.
So what does Wildstar have that CoH didn't? Presumably an opportunity. CoH revenue was - essentially - flat; stable but flat. And obviously it wasn't "profitable enough". Wildstar is going to get its shot to make lots of money as a f2p game and if it doesn't ........ queue ominous music.
What is "profitable enough?". Basically it is not enough to simply spend $X and make $X+1. Each game has to pull its own weigh or it will drag the overall profitability of the company down. So NCSoft might game X, lose the $1 but see their % profit goes up as a result of lower operating costs etc.
Perhaps your google-foo is on the fritz. I can come up with several links that support the contention here. As former MMORPG columnist (and CoH dev) said,
"...It was funny because the players were in as much shock as any of the developers--and they were like, in all the forums and on private messages on Twitter, 'Why don't you try X, or Y, or Z? Have you thought about doing a Kickstarter?' Things like that. Of all of them I've read, none of them were something we didn't already try ... It just didn't work out."
The game devs thought enough of CoH that they were trying to buy it out til the very last minute. Their opinion carries some weight with me.
"Random anonymous account on a random board once claimed the price" article that starts with "allegedly" in the headline. A "doable" from an anonymous poster is proof for "very sweet deals"? Is that a fucking joke?
Thats the bullshit I was just talking about. This is business. You don't buy an MMO with just intentions, talk and emotions nor with dreams and childish tantrums of fanboys. Who even calls his own offer bad? Its naively stupid just to try to twist that into evidence. That's luke warm air of zero value and weight. Nevermind you failed with just that. Not even trading bananas on a bazzar is that simple. We are talking multimillion Dollar deals for highly competitive longterm game projects. Even a reasonable offer makes no deal on this realm. You are jumping to completely ignorant conclusions from made up points and respond with full blown deception when caught lying. All to smear over a game developer. You are only making yourself look shady here.
Try to fix this one first before your derail any further with your conspiracy theories, fabrications and slander. I already heard these childish and clueless stories often enough.
Paragon Studios had millions in actual money lined up to buy the property. Potty mouth CoH haters keep ignoring that fact. Maybe you should check your own biases before calling something a myth.
If there were millions lined up to be given to NC Soft, who in their right mind would turn that down and just shut the game down. That's just rediculous. That's like you taking millions and flushing it down the toilet. If that myth was real, I would bet that NC Soft would've taken it in a heartbeat. The problem is, a myth is a myth for a reason.
NCSoft, that's who.
This company has never made reasonable decisions. It throws more money into its stupid baseball franchise (who can't win) than it can afford, and makes silly decisions with its properties.
The best estimates we have on the profits of Paragon the year before it closed is 8 million...revenue of 12 million - 4 million in operating costs:
Now I realize that CoH haters don't trust this data...but unless they can come up with their own figures, then they need to STFU and accept that CoH was profitable.
Now one dollar equals about 1200 won today (1166.85 to be exact). Multiply that 8 million by the won value, and divide it by four (for four quarters) and you get Paragon Studio revenue at a little over 2.3 billion won per quarter...not so bad, considering that Carbine and WildStar is still alive at 2 billion.
Yes, thats why they have by far 2nd and 3rd most successfull MMOs in history.
NCSoft is one company that actually make REASONABLE decisions. Once of those includes posting game revenues transparently.
And you should read that article again and again.
The only decision that can be cosidered unreasonable is from NCSoft is buying Carbine/WS, but i put that completely on very good selling skills from that guy gaffney.
CoH was dead in the water.
"When we reached out to NCsoft for comment, they were candid in their response. Here is the statement from NCsoft's Director of Corporate Communications, Lincoln Davis:
"It is disappointing that such inaccurate information was provided to MMORPG by an anonymous source and is being reported on as news. The operating cost, annual revenue figures and other financial information shared by this anonymous source are simply wrong. The studio was unprofitable before the shutdown. Both NCSOFT and Paragon Studios were incredibly proud of the transition of City of Heroes to a Free to Play business model, but unfortunately it wasn’t enough to support the studio’s needs. We made the difficult decision to close Paragon Studios and sunset City of Heroes because the franchise no longer aligned with the long term profitability goals for the company.
"While we looked to sell the franchise multiple times, we were unsuccessful in finding a suitable partner that we thought would support City of Heroes’ fans in a manner they were accustomed to for years to come. Closing a studio and sun setting a beloved franchise is never an easy thing to do for the publisher, the developer or the fans. This was not an easy decision to make. The Heroes and Villains have taken to the skies of City of Heroes for the last time, but the game and community will remain in our memories. We truly thank our fans for their years of support and we hope they understand the difficult position we were in when making the final decision."
Deal with it.
WS will get its chance as F2P, but same as CoH, if it doesnt pull ahead considerably it will be closed as every unprofitable MMO should instead being dragged through mud by laying off all but handfull of devs and be put in maintenance mode.
You can check November 2011 and all the way to November 2012 figures for CoH/V here. No need to speculate it is about 1% which is around 1.2 million a quarter according to those numbers. The February figures of 2013 no longer have the game so November 2012 is the last report you can check on.
You have to download and open the pdf files and then you can see the figures.
The 1% and 1.2 billion numbers are for GW; CoH is the third segment at 2%.
Specifically: Q1 2012: 2,890M KRW; Q2 2012 2,855M KRW. NCSoft closed Paragon studios in August 2012 with any residual earnings in Q3 2012 being lumped into Others.
So, bottomline, NCSoft closed CoH even though it had greater revenue than WS (before any exchange rate variations). Profit is another matter of course.
So what does Wildstar have that CoH didn't? Presumably an opportunity. CoH revenue was - essentially - flat; stable but flat. And obviously it wasn't "profitable enough". Wildstar is going to get its shot to make lots of money as a f2p game and if it doesn't ........ queue ominous music.
What is "profitable enough?". Basically it is not enough to simply spend $X and make $X+1. Each game has to pull its own weigh or it will drag the overall profitability of the company down. So NCSoft might game X, lose the $1 but see their % profit goes up as a result of lower operating costs etc.
They are trying to push the F2P as the last resort before closing its doors as well as the China localization, but if even the F2P + China don't help - WS will be dead for sure.
There's been hardly any AAA mmorpg deaths in the last 15 years and wildstar has eneough quality in it that it won't die either. Im not a big fan of the end game raiding format but f2p is certainly going to entice me back in for a retry, and i guess it's the same for many - nothing to lose, and a lot of content to try out.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Originally posted by Bladestrom There's been hardly any AAA mmorpg deaths in the last 15 years and wildstar has eneough quality in it that it won't die either. Im not a big fan of the end game raiding format but f2p is certainly going to entice me back in for a retry, and i guess it's the same for many - nothing to lose, and a lot of content to try out.
There have been some however. Let's see:
CoH, as one might guess from this thread, closed by NCSoft
Tabula Rasa closed by NCSoft;
L2 closed in the west
I could go on - MXO closed by SoE, Vanguard closed; FFXI has been closed in all but name, Warhmmer closed by EA, ditto Earth & Beyond, Darkfall - I could go on but I would have to start checking - has Asheron's Call been closed / transferred to private servers yet? Shadowbane is another that closed, think the Roman one has closed ...
And NCSoft has clearly shown that it will close a loss making game. Read what it said about CoH: it was making a loss. And it had higher revenue than WS and - as an old game - probably lower costs. So WS has a chance. If it makes it - all is well for WS fans; if not it will close. The end.
Hmm, I did a look back at the financial reports at the time just before the closure of CoH. Surprisingly it appears that Wildstar is actually doing less well than City of Heroes was doing just before they were closed down.
City of Heroes dropped so low it was not even listed anymore on the charts before it was closed down. The numbers you seem to refer to are not from "just before they where shut down" but the first quarter after the last update CoH that failed to turn around things and was just tanking in progress. NCSoft has even games with only slighty more than 1 Billion Won listed. The rest is dropped to "others" category. CoH was still not listed seperately anymore before it was shut down. Wildstar makes more than 2 Billion Won. Your point fails.
PS.: @others: Those "sweet deals to buy out CoH NCSoft declined" are just as much made up myths as the claims that the game was "indeed later admitted to be very profitable" or "leaked to be profitable". Nameless anonymous sources and invented game dataabout population and never reported profits that only disgruntled CoH fanboys and NCSoft hater/Blizzard fanboys ever seem to manage to get their hands on. The same people who go as far as paraphrasing news that contradicts them, to fabricate "proof" for these myths. Don't spam these basless and debunked fake stories into every NCSoft/NCSoft games news. This repetitive derailing is getting old and tiresome. I still see some armchair business boys who can't tell the difference between revenue and profit trying hard to pretend the have a point and the facts on their side, proclaiming impending meltdown of the company because of these "bad business decissions" for the past 3 years at average once a month. Yet the company stands here better than when CoH was dying... I mean "being very profitable and healthy".
It is possible that my information could be wrong. I did however glean much of it from this very site where it was reported on and I did look at the financial report in question. It was the report published just before notice of the shutdown. I would not be surprised if the revenue dried up immediately after the announcement. After all, who is going to put money into a F2P game that will not exist in a few months.
On the other hand, seeing as how you seem to feel justified in presuming my intentions as some kind of NCsoft hater, which I am not, it does lead me to call your motivations into question. You seem to take this whole thing rather personally to then make attempts at character assassination in an attempt to dismiss my information. Might I ask why? I will do you the consideration of allowing you to speak for your own motivation, rather than mischaracterize you the way you feel entitled to in regards to me.
The issue is most of there games and there terrible rep, just like soe they will probably sell out, I also never see any guild wars 2 sales, they could help them.
Comments
I think that is the key.
What makes you think people will move from one game to another?
Paragon Studios had millions in actual money lined up to buy the property. Potty mouth CoH haters keep ignoring that fact. Maybe you should check your own biases before calling something a myth.
If there were millions lined up to be given to NC Soft, who in their right mind would turn that down and just shut the game down. That's just rediculous. That's like you taking millions and flushing it down the toilet. If that myth was real, I would bet that NC Soft would've taken it in a heartbeat. The problem is, a myth is a myth for a reason.
NCSoft, that's who.
This company has never made reasonable decisions. It throws more money into its stupid baseball franchise (who can't win) than it can afford, and makes silly decisions with its properties.
The best estimates we have on the profits of Paragon the year before it closed is 8 million...revenue of 12 million - 4 million in operating costs:
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/3/feature/7015/City-of-Heroes-Profitable-or-Not.html
Now I realize that CoH haters don't trust this data...but unless they can come up with their own figures, then they need to STFU and accept that CoH was profitable.
Now one dollar equals about 1200 won today (1166.85 to be exact). Multiply that 8 million by the won value, and divide it by four (for four quarters) and you get Paragon Studio revenue at a little over 2.3 billion won per quarter...not so bad, considering that Carbine and WildStar is still alive at 2 billion.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
http://global.ncsoft.com/global/ir/quarterly.aspx?BID=&BC=&BNo=&SYear=&SType=&SWord=&PNo=3
You can check November 2011 and all the way to November 2012 figures for CoH/V here. No need to speculate it is about 1% which is around 1.2 million a quarter according to those numbers. The February figures of 2013 no longer have the game so November 2012 is the last report you can check on.
You have to download and open the pdf files and then you can see the figures.
What? Not so bad? Are you serious? Wildstar is on life support and based on the statements, COH was half of that. I'm not a hater, i'm just looking at numbers and if the game is not making the money that the company expects they close it down. Even in the link you posted they said they tried to sell it but NOONE wanted it. You can love the game but you can't be that blind to not see that it was a sinking ship, superman hit by kryptonite, the flash without the flash, etc etc.
People will try to force other do what they want not what they like, not company just how people think, like how many times for years on playing ret pally people try to force me to heal. But some people idea still go on forcing people or a game to take there path:)
LOL, I'm sure you mean every MMORPG game in existence, not just Wildstar.
I have to agree. If the F2P conversion for WildStar is not a runaway hit that game will be axed as soon as they can. They do not need wildstar and while i´d assume they would like to recoup their costs they do not in any way shape or form need the grindstone of a dead game. In fact going by the numbers presented it is holding on by a thread.
Beyond that it is impressive to see the numbers that Lineage 1 makes. I guess they really hit the sweet spot on their own market. But it also shows how alien the western market is to them.
This have been a good conversation
I'm certain the poster meant moving the development resources, not players.
The 1% and 1.2 billion numbers are for GW; CoH is the third segment at 2%.
Specifically: Q1 2012: 2,890M KRW; Q2 2012 2,855M KRW. NCSoft closed Paragon studios in August 2012 with any residual earnings in Q3 2012 being lumped into Others.
So, bottomline, NCSoft closed CoH even though it had greater revenue than WS (before any exchange rate variations). Profit is another matter of course.
So what does Wildstar have that CoH didn't? Presumably an opportunity. CoH revenue was - essentially - flat; stable but flat. And obviously it wasn't "profitable enough". Wildstar is going to get its shot to make lots of money as a f2p game and if it doesn't ........ queue ominous music.
What is "profitable enough?". Basically it is not enough to simply spend $X and make $X+1. Each game has to pull its own weigh or it will drag the overall profitability of the company down. So NCSoft might game X, lose the $1 but see their % profit goes up as a result of lower operating costs etc.
Yes, thats why they have by far 2nd and 3rd most successfull MMOs in history.
NCSoft is one company that actually make REASONABLE decisions. Once of those includes posting game revenues transparently.
And you should read that article again and again.
The only decision that can be cosidered unreasonable is from NCSoft is buying Carbine/WS, but i put that completely on very good selling skills from that guy gaffney.
CoH was dead in the water.
"When we reached out to NCsoft for comment, they were candid in their response. Here is the statement from NCsoft's Director of Corporate Communications, Lincoln Davis:
"It is disappointing that such inaccurate information was provided to MMORPG by an anonymous source and is being reported on as news. The operating cost, annual revenue figures and other financial information shared by this anonymous source are simply wrong. The studio was unprofitable before the shutdown. Both NCSOFT and Paragon Studios were incredibly proud of the transition of City of Heroes to a Free to Play business model, but unfortunately it wasn’t enough to support the studio’s needs. We made the difficult decision to close Paragon Studios and sunset City of Heroes because the franchise no longer aligned with the long term profitability goals for the company.
"While we looked to sell the franchise multiple times, we were unsuccessful in finding a suitable partner that we thought would support City of Heroes’ fans in a manner they were accustomed to for years to come. Closing a studio and sun setting a beloved franchise is never an easy thing to do for the publisher, the developer or the fans. This was not an easy decision to make. The Heroes and Villains have taken to the skies of City of Heroes for the last time, but the game and community will remain in our memories. We truly thank our fans for their years of support and we hope they understand the difficult position we were in when making the final decision."
Deal with it.
WS will get its chance as F2P, but same as CoH, if it doesnt pull ahead considerably it will be closed as every unprofitable MMO should instead being dragged through mud by laying off all but handfull of devs and be put in maintenance mode.
There are worse fates than death.
They are trying to push the F2P as the last resort before closing its doors as well as the China localization, but if even the F2P + China don't help - WS will be dead for sure.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
There have been some however. Let's see:
It is possible that my information could be wrong. I did however glean much of it from this very site where it was reported on and I did look at the financial report in question. It was the report published just before notice of the shutdown. I would not be surprised if the revenue dried up immediately after the announcement. After all, who is going to put money into a F2P game that will not exist in a few months.
On the other hand, seeing as how you seem to feel justified in presuming my intentions as some kind of NCsoft hater, which I am not, it does lead me to call your motivations into question. You seem to take this whole thing rather personally to then make attempts at character assassination in an attempt to dismiss my information. Might I ask why? I will do you the consideration of allowing you to speak for your own motivation, rather than mischaracterize you the way you feel entitled to in regards to me.