NCSoft issued an official press release today to all those City of Heroes fans who’ve been trying to save the game.
Short version: “Happy Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor!”
Long version:
City of Heroes® Players and Fans,
We wanted to let you know that your voices have been heard and your concerns have been taken into serious consideration. We appreciate the overwhelmingly constructive and positive messages in the emails, notes, and packages you’ve sent in support of the game. It has not been an easy decision for us to close Paragon Studios® and prepare to shut down City of Heroes. We’ve exhausted all options including the selling of the studio and the rights to the City of Heroes intellectual property, but in the end, efforts to do so were not successful. City of Heroes has a special place in all of our hearts, and we want to ensure its reputation and the memories we share for the game end on a high note.
Once again, we will be holding events throughout the process of preparing for the game’s end, and we encourage players and fans of the franchise to join forces and enjoy their time in a game that we’ve enjoyed supporting for more than eight years.
The NCSOFT® Team
Um … yeah. Right. I call shenanigans.
I’d really love to know what NCSoft considers “exhausting all options”. What actual offers of selling Paragon Studio (which has been officially disbanded already) or the CoH IP have been entertained? What actual interest does NCSoft have in selling the property, rather than taking a write-off on their taxes? Whom did they consider, and what offers did they entertain? What (ballpark, even) would they consider a reasonable offer?
In short, I don’t believe a word of it. It’s a PR release designed to placate people and convince them to stop sending sad, angry, or demanding letters, to stop getting articles printed in the media, or getting celebrities who enjoy CoH to speak out. It’s a “Run along, kid, show’s over” message.
I didn’t expect other result, to be honest. But I would have liked some basic honestly and integrity in the message. E.g., “We have decided to consolidate our operations in Korea, rather than have American and European studios. This is a strategic business decision. City of Heroes has been profitable, but maintaining it is a distraction from other games we hope will be much bigger. That said, we have no interest in passing along the game to anyone else, given that it has been profitable and would only benefit the purchaser. This is not meant to be a slap in the face to loyal players of the game, but the cold, hard, business facts behind this decision.” It wouldn’t earn them any friends, but it might earn them some modicum of respect for being open about it. It would move decisions about being a future NCSoft customer away from emotion and over to simple business decisions.
But instead they blow smoke up our ass.
Well, guess what? Yeah, I’d been still toying with some of the recent and on-the-boards NCSoft games. But, y’know what? Screw it. I have plenty of other places to put my money and spend my time than on a company that makes a calculated financial decision to destroy a popular and profitable game that I dearly love.
(Waves at all the folks being referred over to this post.)
We’re not gonna be quieted. This will just make us yell louder. NCsoft needs to name their price. That’s it. It’s not that hard. NAME YOUR PRICE NCsoft.
They can go suck snot for all I care. I’ll support EA or SOE before supporting NCsoft again.
This whole thing has made me very sad. I’ve been trying to get on and level one last character to 50, but I can’t muster the mental energy. I did buy, and have enjoyed Guild Wars 2, a lot of my friends are in it. But, I’m having some MMO fatigue right now and making up for it with sleep.
I don’t know of a rescued CoH will get me back into the City (maybe for a while at least), because after 6+ years I feel like i’m loosing at least a treasured pet.
My greatest treasure from this game are the friendships I made in it, not the characters themselves, and the Repeat Offenders will carry on from here, so I still have my friends. Still, end of an era, and poorly, poorly handled by NCSoft.
In particular I can’t imagine shuttering everything just before the I24 launch. They should have launched it, given it a month, made announcements, unlocked everything for everyone and let everyone back into their accounts at the very least.
Arty, I agree it’s just crazy how NCSoft did this.
I haven’t been back in to play since the announcement. Just can’t.
So. We’re down to the last few days and (having not thought too much about it for a few weeks) I now feel like I need to urgently capture some of my characters for posterity. Do you guys have any tips on how to go about doing that? Maybe a good way to capture in game videos or some such? Thoughts appreciated (or Dave, maybe it’s a good theme for a blog entry?).
I did a bunch of screen caps, and will be posting …. shortly.