City of Heroes Shutting Down But Are Recent Demands from Gamers Going Too Far?

To start off with, I would like to say that I think that I’m a reasonable person. Just as food, popular trends and bizarre fashion statements have a shelf life, so do video games. From MOBA’s to MMORPG’s, games have a shelf life where they eventually are considered outdated, out of touch and even unprofitable. Not to say that old games have to start hemorrhaging money in order to be shut down, but like every good business model, there needs to be more than just staying in the black.

If a company spends $99 dollars a month on a product and only gets $100 in return, then technically they are profitable. Not to say that they are getting anywhere near the actual return they want, but they are still in the black. As the game industry has seen its fair share of hostile protesters, such as the attack on BioWare with the Take Back Mass Effect debacle, so we see it now with NCSoft shutting down City of Heroes.

In a statement made by the corporation, it has been said that they are shutting down Paragon Studios “in a realignment of company focus and publishing support.” Considering the release of Guild Wars 2 by another partnered studio, ArenaNet, it can be safe to assume that NCSoft will be redirecting more focus on their newest buy-to-play MMO and shutting down the F2P 8-year old one.

Still, this logical business decision is now the target of yet another uprising by fans that seem to want to have their cake and eat it too. The current outcry reflects that latest mindset of the loudest bunch of oblivious and obnoxious gamers that I’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing from. Call me crazy, but I’m neither surprised nor upset when a game that has reached its peak comes to a dignified end.

So far, the arguments from those who are tweeting up #SaveCoH seem to circle the drain of not only wanting to keep the barely profitable and dated title, but they are also claiming that it’s not even about the game. In the case the argument leans towards how it’s ‘really’ about the community, though last I checked, this is the internet. There are plenty of fansites for ‘deceased’ games out there who keep a great community of fans. Take Phantasy Star Online, who has keep a highly active fan-run forum since the Dreamcast version.

With NCSoft already holding onto one failed subscription-based game, AION, it’s doubtful that they’ll keep the servers on for the handful of players who do subscribe much like how Star Wars Galaxies shut down. The current success of Guild Wars 2 has made waves and a good business decision would be to cut the fat in order to redirect resources to what is making the most money. While it’s always sad to see a studio close, this should not insight such rage in causal players, at best. Community is not limited to in-game activities just as avatars don’t make up who you are. Well, maybe they do in Second Life…

While one can compare ages of CoH with a World of Warcraft, you can also argue that every single player in WoW pays the subscription fee. Sure, they have limited trial accounts, but you can bet that Blizzard makes a minimal bank on every player outside of trials. That’s not something that can be said with a optional F2P game that depends on the spending habits and would-charities of a player.  If you really want to be mad about something, you should be made at the demands of the F2P model and management of in-game cash shop models instead.

Still, who is the real bully here? Is NCSoft, who were heroes in their own right with the hyped up release of Guild Wars 2 to the raging fanatics, now the bad guys over a smart financial move? Perhaps it’s the casual gamer, who doesn’t want to pay a subscription fee but then demands that a game remain active, even though the needs of the salaries of studio works and server maintainers still need to be met? Maybe it’s even those who pay their fees, feeling special because they don’t ‘have to pay, but do it anyway’? In either case, I believe it would be foolish (and highly unlikely that they even would) if NCSoft kept the game open with their latest string of game releases including GW2, Blade & Soul and hints of a new Lineage on the horizon. Thoughts?