The Reason NOT to Save City of Heroes

As you can see from many months of entries, I haven't really written anything of substance or thought; mostly pictures, photographs and card previews. I find it easier to write (something gaming related) something of substance when you've got a game to play. I unfortunately won't be playing Guild Wars 2 anytime in the near future and thus must wait to bore my readers about the wonders of Borderlands 2 with Return to Ravnica card reveals instead.

I saw an article that C.Smith wrote at Levelcapped, and at first I was not going to bother (read or have a blog response), but then after reading it a few times, I think it deserves a closer look.


I'm normally not the one to be argumentative, but I don't agree with alot with what was written there.

Companies have no obligation to tell their customers why they are shuttering the servers to an old game. I don't believe they even need to do it with a new game. Say ArenaNet tomorrow closes all their servers to Guild Wars2, "thanks for the money, later!" I believe they can do that. There would be horrific backlash worldwide and no one would ever buy an ArenaNet product again, not to mention there would be more than one legal case put against them.

The obligation they have is to give notice that they are closing the servers. Not on why. 

Does that mean we should just give up, not question The Man and walk away? No. You have the right to question it, write those letters, and make your voice heard. 

One interesting tidbit; CoH is one of NCSoft's longest running titles besides the Lineage series. Apparently its older than the original Guild Wars and the obvious Aion. Does it not make sense to close down servers to an unpopular game so that more resources can be allocated to a newer game or to a game in development?

I wouldn't say that accepting the closure of CoH is being one step above a vegetative state, but more about being realistic, being mature and understanding how the real world works. The bottom line is: does CoH matter? And the answer is: It really doesn't. Just because you don't fight for one instance of a thing, doesn't mean you'll do that for everything. Thats why I don't fight for CoH; b/c it doesn't matter.

I'd argue that CoH IS like a can of beans sitting on a supermarket shelf. It is a product that a company produces and chooses what to do with it however they see fit. What is it other than a online game that allows different levels of interaction with other people. Is it not like an out of date cell phone, countless years old that a company doesn't want to manufacture anymore b/c they are developing even better phones, far superior in every way, with nearly every feature the old phone had?

People waste so much effort in saving things that are a lost cause and won't make a difference. Saving CoH is one of those cases. The decision has been made, and unless NCSoft is full of idiots, they did their research, they have the data, the graphs, the experts to tell them whether this is the right thing to do or not. And its the case that its not worth wasting resources on keeping. A company has many but 2 basic goals: 1) to make money, 2) to have loyal customers. It doesn't matter how loyal they are if you're not making money, b/c if you're not making money, you can't pay the people to support the game. If you can't pay people, unless they're independently wealthy, they won't stay and work for free. If you don't have workers, then you don't have much of a company, do you? (Check this article on some tidbits on their revenue stream)And what happens then? People will argue that NCSoft makes revenue elsewhere, so if CoH bleeds them, its ok. Wrong. Where do you go from it being ok that it is a drain on their company, to it not being ok. Be realistic b/c in this case: everyone loses.

I was writing earilier how CoH doesn't matter. How about what happened with the Islamic Spring in Egypt or currently happening in Syria? Things like.. your government is suppressing you rights and killing you for it. What we're talking about is a game that is being closed that we're spending so much effort on. Gaming has their merits but it isn't everything in life nor should it be given precidence over other parts of life.

If CoH was worth maintaining, then there obviously would be more people playing it and paying for it, but it obviously is not (according to the graph, with less revenues, means less players, meaning you would need to charge them 25$ to have the same amount of revenue, if thats even sustainable). How often do we hear news about CoH? Never, b/c its not a popular game anymore. People are playing GW2, The Secret World, waiting for the next WoW expansion etc.

While both developers and players put countless hours into the game and form emotional attachment to it, that doesn't mean the company loses the right to choose whether they keep it going or close it down. It is childish to think that companies don't know that anyone that has a hand in the product is passionate and attached to it. A smart company will find a new product, a better product that these passionate fans can appreciate.

So while one game dies, many more will be born. Its just the cycle of games; especially mmo games. While there are people that still play the original Call of Duty game, there are possibly 10, 20, 100, 200 times more players playing and savoring the newest iteration. CoH is a super hero mmo game, there has been other super hero mmo's developed (Champions Online & DC Universe)and many more to come in the future. By forcing it to exist, you keep the market saturated and reduce the need to have a newer, better one for today's modern mmo player. 

#SaveCoH is actually doing a disservice to mmo players, especially those that enjoy super hero themed ones. Let it die with grace so the sidekick can step up to the plate or a new super hero appear from the shadows.