City Of Heroes Fans Buy The Paragon Devs Dinner

Written by: QuintLyn Bowers (@QuintLyn) | September 14, 2012 1:00 pm

9 Comments

I have to give it to City of Heroes fans. They’re dedicated.

When I first heard that the CoH fan-base had a petition going and were going to do in game protests I really didn’t think much of it. After all, it’s not unusual to see members of a particular fandom become upset with a game, show, or other IP being shut down or cancelled and firing up the old petition and letter machines.

But, I think I may have underestimated the dedication of CoH fans a bit. Not only are the in-game displays of solidarity still going, but the people behind them have taken it upon themselves to do something for the staff at Paragon Studios who have been hit pretty hard by all of this.

In an effort to do something nice for the devs, TonyV — the same guy who started the movement to save the game — started a fundraiser to buy the staff a meal at a restaurant that the team frequents. In three hours the CoH community had raised $1000.

That’s a pretty impressive chunk of change and a pretty good meal at the right place.

I’m still have my doubts about the outcome of all of this, as the decision to shut the game down was a business one. But, I always support the nice guys. And this is pretty nice.

City Of Heroes Fans Buy The Paragon Devs Dinner

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3 comments

http://twitter.com/cecilandblues Anthony Botz

That is a very nice thing to do for the team that supported the game and a very reasonable expectation. It’d be nice to see the game saved, but obviously it is not performing to expectation of the publisher and it’s time to move on. I am not sure what allows some games, like EQ1 and UO to continue to operate so many years after their time in the sun while other games are removed from the books. Maybe the support costs to maintain the product are too high. Oh well, To every season, turn turn turn. and stuff.
http://www.facebook.com/Hyperstrike.CoH Charles Borner

As a member of the CoH Community I’d like to thank you for your coverage of our situation and the rally.

We understand that, unless we’re able to bring a business case to NCSoft, yeah, it’s all over and done. HOWEVER, part of why we’re doing what we’re doing at the moment is to show that this game still has people who’ll fight for it. This way, if/when the business case IS brought before it, they have some examples of exactly how far the community is willing to go to support CoH.

We’re trying to keep the entire thing as civil as possible so that NCSoft doesn’t feel alienated.

What we’re really fighting for isn’t the game though. The game itself is great, don’t get us wrong. But the community that’s sprung up in and around the game, including our close relationship with the developers is what we’re trying to keep from getting canned more than anything else.
http://profile.yahoo.com/PDVSBOGP5XLM7E3CPFAM3EATIY Justin E

Sad to see these games with truly passionate communities shutting down. You can’t get this from a game with millions of players.
bsqminus4ac

Quite a while ago there was a fear, in retrospect a very unfounded fear, that the advent of GW2 would involve the shutdown of the original GW. AreaNet came out with a statement (can’t find the exact quote) that said that as long as there’s even one person who’s playing GW, a server will remain in operation to accommodate that person. I would hope that NCSoft would do the same for CoH.

It is my opinion that it if you start an MMO then you have the responsibility to run the game until nobody wants to play it anymore. You don’t simply go “Nah, we’re not making enough cash from it so we’re going to shut it down.”. How could a company like NCsoft expect anyone to trust them again if they shut down CoH?

I’m not a fan of CoH but I wish those who love it the best of luck.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Bergevin-Jr/1393526370 Jim Bergevin Jr
  
  While I may agree with your sentiments, it’s not very practical in the business world. Certainly Anet has said that they plan on keeping GW1 up and running, but plans change over time. They certainly have brought in enough income with the game to keep it funded for a while, and I am sure the income from GW2 can support both games, so their statement may see fruition for a long time to come.
  
  However, no gaming company has a responsibility to keep a game running until there is no one on the servers. Their responsibility is to their publisher, the shareholders, and the employees of the company. When a game can no longer pay the bills, the responsible thing to do is shut it down – otherwise the Out of Business sign goes up on the front door and people line up in the unemployment line. It’s just a sad fact of the genre that any and all MMO games are only given a lease on life and that we gamers do not actually “own” the games as we used to in the good old days of the floppy drive. I certainly wish it was different, but it seems the trend to be more and more of games being a service rather than a product owned by the gamers, if the fact that Assassin’s Creed and Diablo III are any indication.
  - http://www.facebook.com/lord.ashar Lord Steve ‘Ashar’ Spain
    
    “When a game can no longer pay the bills.” That’s a line I think is not as straight forward as it seems. I didn’t realise how relatively small costs of running an MMO are after release, I mean it is really cheap as far as business ventures go – when they say “In a realignment of company focus and publishing support, NCsoft
    has made the decision to close Paragon Studios.” I don’t think that automatically means what you said. You may be right, but it shouldn’t be taken for granted. But you are right, businesses don’t care about customers, they care about profits. How they treat their customers is determined by how much they much they can make out of them, for how long. There are businesses that operate with quality of product and services as a fundamental part of their business ethos, but they are the exception. Indeed I think the whole thing with Bioware pre EA and post EA was a fairly good example.
http://www.facebook.com/inkogni.alex Inkogni Alex

ID HAVE SEX WITH IT! rly sad to see my <3 game go down.
more likely donations and spread the word about it on social websites
http://profile.yahoo.com/Z36GPOU3Q2QIQYBIDVNQAVGNGE Raul

this is where the companys that love gaming,
and the ones that love money
get separated.

too bad they couldn’t keep one or two servers open,
they just aren’t bright enough to add that + cash shop,
apparently.
http://www.facebook.com/TheOneKilner Jamie Kilner

this wouldent be the first time they shut down a game with an awsome community

look at auto assault i loved the game and BOOM its gone yes it had to many bugs but ther was still a fair amount of people playing it

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