How much is riding on City of Heroes: Going Rogue?



At the six-year mark, City of Heroes is still moving forward, with City of Heroes: Going Rogue targeted for release in the second quarter of 2010. It's certainly not the oldest game to receive an expansion, but Vicarious Existence has an interesting point to be made: exactly how much is riding on the success of this expansion? In true heroic sense, it may well be the fate of NCsoft West and of NCsoft's entire western presence in the market.

It's no secret that NCsoft West has had a difficult time in the market, with the first rumbles having been made clear with the sad tale of Auto Assault. And it's hardly necessary to dredge up painful memories about the games that have also gone the way of the dodo. But as the post points out, there's not nearly as much revenue coming in from the western branch of the company as they'd like, even with the success Aion has been having in the marketplace. (If that sounds cynical or as if it's expecting too much money, Adam Martin has an excellent explanation of why NCsoft could and would be so draconic about profits.) To be fair, the post is a bit alarmist, but it does posit that there could be a great deal of trouble on the horizon for City of Heroes -- and perhaps the whole studio -- based on the performance of the expansion. And even if the idle speculation is wrong, it certainly does put you in the right mood for the expansion, doesn't it?

NCsoft responds to City of Heroes speculation



A couple days ago, we had a post detailing some speculation on what City of Heroes: Going Rogue meant for NCsoft West, City of Heroes, and the future of the entire branch of the company. Ryan James, director of corporate communications for NCsoft, took the time to issue a direct response to us regarding that post. We also got an opportunity to ask him a few questions regarding NCsoft's current and future direction, which helps provide some context and some behind-the-scenes information to offset the speculative nature of the aforementioned post.

The official response is as follows:

"We wanted to respond to your post from November 2 on City of Heroes and clarify a few points for you and your readers. In short, the piece offers a rather sensationalist view of NCsoft West and our success thus far.
We're very proud of what we've accomplished here in the West – we have several major MMO franchises, including City of Heroes, Lineage and Guild Wars. And our newest addition to the NCsoft portfolio, Aion, has just seen a very successful launch here in the West. As you point out, we have had to make some tough portfolio decisions, but this is very much par for the course for any major game publisher today. That being said, we remain extremely proud of the Paragon team's accomplishments with the City of Heroes franchise. City of Heroes is still the world's most popular super-powered hero MMO. Even with an increasingly crowded landscape, City of Heroes remains the gold standard for comic book-inspired MMOs – it has stood the test of time and we're excited to be bringing Going Rogue to players next year.

As you note, the author of Vicarious Existence is indeed 'alarmist' in his assessment of NCsoft West and our future. We couldn't agree more. On the contrary, we're optimistic about our future."

Following the statement, Mr. James took the opportunity to answer a few questions about the company's game portfolio and future plans. Take a look at the questions and responses after the break.


Massively.com: Is NCsoft West going to continue in the trend of having a large MMO catalog that may, at times, be pruned for the games that are being most successful? Or has the development mindset shifted to a smaller and more robust catalog?

Ryan James: Every games publisher has to make portfolio management decisions that won't always please everyone. We've focused on striking a balance between maintaining our key franchises, cultivating new ones and also remaining profitable. But it is about quality over quantity. The MMO market is very crowded with many major titles competing for players'
attention, and the MMO player knows when a game is great versus when it's just OK. So it's all about delivering a top-quality product and keeping that customer coming back for more. That's been our focus and will continue to be.


Is there a "minimum" level that NCsoft looks for in terms of the performance of their games? A certain minimum number of subscribers, et cetera?


There is not a blanket minimum level we apply across the board. We look at every game differently and relative to the audience and subscription model. So there is not a set minimum. We evaluate each title in our portfolio separately.


Guild Wars and Dungeon Runners both used alternatives to the usual subscription model, with Guild Wars being free-to-play once the game was purchased and Dungeon Runners using a now-more-common microtransaction
model. Will NCsoft West be continuing to try alternative subscription methods, or is the monthly fee the preferred plan for the company at this time?

Yes, we absolutely will continue to look at alternate methods. Our track record speaks for itself - in fact, we already do have different models running in different territories for several games. What works in one territory or country may not necessarily work in another - same with the game and its audience. It's important that we make sure that the model works for the region or country, the game's audience and the specific title.


Finally, perhaps most direct: there was a very long gap between City of Villains and Going Rogue, which makes City of Heroes a very long-running game with a very small number of expansion packs. Will that number be increasing, or will the game's current model of large patches and the occasional expansion continue for the foreseeable future?

I don't agree with this assessment that we've only delivered "large patches." We've released more content, new features, enhancements, etc. for free than almost anyone. With City of Heroes, we've offered an innovative approach to evolving the player experience through delivery of updates to the game in the form of "Issues." We've delivered 16 of these Issues since the game's launch more than five years ago - that's a significant amount of content. City of Heroes continues to be the world's most popular super-powered hero MMO, in no small part because of our ongoing devotion to the title and its community: the fact that we've delivered these 16 updates since the game's launch and have Going Rogue on the horizon only underscores that.

Thank you for your answers and your time.</a>

Do you think Massively is just creating controversy where there is none, or is there something to their speculation?

Ja

Rei

Current Mood: energetic

I think someone at Massively is pulling an opinion out of their ass.

I agree.

I think Massively may be over-sensationalizing a bit.

The media? Over-sensationalizing? Oh, I'm sure that's not at ALL possible... ;)

Finally, perhaps most direct: there was a very long gap between City of Villains and Going Rogue, which makes City of Heroes a very long-running game with a very small number of expansion packs. Will that number be increasing, or will the game's current model of large patches and the occasional expansion continue for the foreseeable future?

How is that for a bullcrap question?! Would the length of a paid expansion be testament to the success of the game, or are we feeling sore of having to pay for boxsets of Frozen Throne or soon to be Cataclysm??

Heh. I read that question and thought, "Somebody doesn't know dick about how CoX works, do they?" Issue releases, what?

What? We're supposed to be MAD that we're not having to pay 40 -50 bucks every year for a new expansion just so we can have shiny new powers and stuff? o.O???
..... Kay..... s'pose.....

Thanks, I'll keep my 100 bucks that I am going to have to fork out if I want to play Cataclysm in WoW and give it to CoX for two accounts and probably some shiny booster packs and a few months of subscriptions.

Looks like it must be a slow news week/month at Massively and they're just trying to create news. Yellow journalism, I believe it's called.

It's not very professional of them and that writer should be censured and forced to take a class or two in journalism.

heh, how is a class in journalism supposed to teach them professionalism?

Well, at least the announcement of Going Rogue is a pretty strong indicator that the game will be around some more months. That's not bad these days.

Pretty much what we have here is Massively, very ignorantly, quoting some random blogger's opinion - and NCSoft waaaay over reacting.

I don't see it as over reacting. I'm actually really glad to see them step in with what I saw as a quiet "Uhm, no."

As to Rei's original question: Based on my experience, the DOOM-sayers are usually wrong. Most people are much quicker to declare danger (or failure) than they are to declare success, especially when it's not their own.

I can never find current subscriber numbers for City, but I think we're consistently in the 150-250k range, which they've said is healthy and profitable. I think at this point we have a large enough, steady enough, dedicated enough playerbase that the game isn't in danger of going anywhere any time soon - and by that I mean within the next several years.

I myself will still be playing City ten years from now, even if they cease releasing new content today. As long as the servers are on, I'll be logging in. I know I'm not the only one who feels that way; whether or not that's enough to keep the game afloat? Probably not, but it doesn't hurt. City has managed to inspire some pretty fierce loyalty (not that other games have not also done so as well, just sayin'), from the developers as well as the players.

So no, I don't think there's any danger, and I think GR will be about as well received as CoV was, with a lot of people loving it and a vocal minority hating it.

I didn't really get an "overreacting" feel from the response. More of a, "Look, we're doing pretty damned well all things considered, we're confident that we know what we're doing, so relax, okay?"

I don't think NCSoft overreacted... I think they took excellent advantage of the sensational grapevine of opinions that is the Internet to step in and be able to say "Well, hey, we're actually doing pretty good here." This both curbstomps the speculation from getting grossly out of proportion, and gives NCSoft a nice excuse to crow about CoX's lasting success from the source.

(goes to log in and play)

This.

Not only do I think Massively is having a slow news week, I think they're also ignoring how savvy NC's been/being about their updates/upgrades too.

Or am I the only person who thinks launching the number one player request around the time of the Champions Online launch and the number two one around the projected time of DCUO is not an accident?

I think that Massively.com is massively out of touch.

Hey, maybe we should go over there and tell them that, huh?

I was trying not to comment today, but this is just cutting me up. You guys know you have Massively bloggers in your mix.

First off, Massively didn't make the post, Vicarious Existence did. They brought the conversation up from an external perspective. They even mention the initial post is alarmist, but try to present it as food for thought. And considering the discussions happening and the response from NCSoft, this is obviously a thing that could use a little talking about. They linked to other sources who have chimed in on the discussion. Basically all they did was open the floodgates. They're not even talking about CoH exclusively, just what Going Rogue means for the health of the company. It's easy to forget what happened to Tabula Rasa and Auto Assault.

This is a CoH community, so I don't see a real problem with a fan backlash. But you're lucky there's a website out there talking about CoH at ALL, and Massively has over time shown a shitload of love for the game and the company, not to mention featuring some of you specifically in the articles.

This is the second time, today, I have read doomsaying for CoX and it saddens me a little. If I am not mistaken, their game subscriptions have been on a steady incline in the past year and they have always had a healthy number of subscribers.

People seem to have this notion that if you don't have 20 million subscribers like WoW, now, that's not successful. WoW is a FREAK in how much revenue it pulls in. It's abnormally large. I applaud Blizz's success but it isn't fair to hold all games to that standard as a comparison of success and to think that if the game isn't yanking in that many subscribers, it's failing.

I love that NC Soft is rising to the occasion and defending this game and pointing out that even with Champions around and coming others, it's STILL on top. (I get a feeling Champions is faltering after it's huge amount of ninja-nerfs right at launch). I love our devs. I love that they're bold enough to not NEED to charge us heaps of money every year for new expansions and yet they still provide us new content!

I had struggles for a good while with CoX with the various balance tweaks two or three years ago (Gasp! When Jack was still here) and in the last year or two it has made so many improvements and so many upgrades that I just don't see myself going anywhere for a good long time!

subscriptions have been on a steady incline in the past year

Really? I hope so. My impression is that the economy had hit hard and the awkward handling of abuse of AE caused a fair number of regulars to leave. But that is not based on hard data, so I've been left to just wonder.

Harvey Firestein said about negative and sensationalist anti-gay media in the 'Celluloid Closet', "Visibility at any cost." He meant that it was more important to be our there, to be in the news rather than ignored. While certainly a different topic here, the same message applies. It doesn't matter what they're saying about CoH, it's more important to just be talked about or else the non-initiated may never join us in our virtual spandex glory.

I'd like to ask: how many of those subscribers do they manage to keep for a full year? Not necessarily subscribe in for the full year at one time, but just keep an active account for that long.

Then, I want to multiply that number times 100. That's the bare MINIMUM NCSoft is making off of the year-round subscribers, presuming they ALL got the cheapest deal for a full-year subscription. (Also, I'm being very liberal with estimation.)

If CoH only has even 10,000 subscribers that stay for a full year, that's a full million dollars a year. Add on those that don't stay maintained for the full year (which will vary from $15 to $165 a year, so I can't estimate that without knowing who stays how long), and revenue from the booster packs and initial game boxes after that, and I find it hard to believe that CoH isn't at least keeping it's head well above the water.

Paying for a year at once is just over $140, which I do every year and have done since launch. (I can't remember if it breaks down to $11.95 or $11.99 per month.) But so, at bare minimum they're getting over $140 per full-year subscriber.

That being said, it's very expensive to run a software company. I don't know exactly how many software developers Paragon has at the moment, but remember that software developers are generally paid pretty good money: in Florida (one of the lowest paid states) they generally make $80-$120k. I would imagine the wages out in California are even better. So if the top ten developers are making $100k each per year, that's a million dollars in salary already. Not to mention the cost of keeping the servers running, paying all the bills, etc. Hell, rent for office space that can hold 50 employees is going to run in the range of $50k per month in Florida, and I know real estate is *way* more expensive in CA. Paragon's operating expenses are certainly in the millions of dollars per year, possibly exceeding $10m.

So, I'm sure they're keeping their head above water (I think it has been stated that City is "in the black"), but I don't think it's necessarily a huge cash cow.

OK, as far as Champions Online goes, their future can best be summed up in this article.

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/50021/Champions-Online-Devs-Respond-To-Nerf-Implement-Test-Server

Now, remember how all the CO apologists said that Jack Emmert would be too busy working on Star trek to go nerf happy? Well, here it is, the day after many people paid $200.00 to get a lifetime subscription, and what is the first solution to a problem, a massively unpopular and heavy handed nerf! It would be one thing for a nerf to have been done several months down the line, but to already start with the mayhem after you got several people to shell out $200.00 dollars for you is insane! This shows that Cryptic has learned NOTHING!

Of course, this means I get to laugh and be thankful I did NOT make the switch, regardless of what rogue turns out to be. You are not going to attract players to your game when the rumors of nerfing fly, especially old timers like myself who remember how such tactics nearly killed the game!

Now, I do worry about NCsoft, after all, they may get profit hungry if GR is a bomb. However, while we are not the Godzilla that World of Warcraft is, we are a very stable group. People who play this game know that the company will every so often give you a reason to keep playing. Now, that they may want more profitable expansions, yes, however, the Ultra mode in GO alone is enough to make people who have ZERO interest in the rest of the new content buy the expansion. If you have the cash to get a super Video card, you will gladly pay to have a game that pushes that video card. There are also areas like in game advertising that can be exploited, as well as Booster packs and costumes (which people have been proven to buy.)

AION also could help Coh out, as there have been rumors that AION's engine will be the basis for any COH 2. The engine has a lot of possibilities.

CO may do well on consoles, as it really is a console game. However, MMOs are, at the moment, the domain of PC gamers. The game that can be a game changer is DC Online. There are two reasons: One, DC is a legendary franchise, and Two, Sony realizes that if they want people to put away the Wii and Xbox360, they better deliver with a HUGE franchise title. Even so, people have played enough crappy Batman games to realize that DCU might not be a good, stable game experience you come back to again and again, like you do with City of Heroes.

PS: the whole MMO world will also be affected by Cataclysm. Yes, it really is World of Warcraft 2.0, and while that offers a LOT of potential, it can also blow up in their face. Be prepared to hear a LOT of people say "we HATE all these changes, they ruined everything!" If that happens, then City of Heroes will come out even stronger, as a lot of WoW players simply walk off in disgust. Then, the steady change model NCsoft has used will stand out even more.