Yes, Stefan. Business wise, it does. Just show me where lying and saying "we're dedicated to this Triple A title for the long haul" factors in there?

A more honest approach would have been "TR has some plans for the future. We're hoping that content pans out to draw more people in".

Instead of an outright lie about how dedicated they are.

They pulled the same bullshit w/ Auto Assualt. They care little about their players. So, I care little about their products.

(my gawd. I agree w/ Mr. Angry. It's like a sign of the apocalypse)

I can't agree on this, the whole Garriot departure then wait a bit, protect revenue prior to closing the game, it's all been orchestrated over the last few months.

Garriot left because the game had no future and was being closed (not to be a spaceman, regardless of his father's experience)

They gave out a press release to protect revenue after he left, waiting a little, then they decided to curtail support for it in line with Aion Online beta, so they stand a chance of at least a small amount of customer retention.

Sure they can dump their losses, but this has a cost to their existing customer base who have invested both time and money in the product and something I'd like to see addressed.

So my question is, could NCSoft supply Tabula Rasa as an open source game back to the community if they were truly sorry to see it die?

Just because a game doesn't have hundreds of thousands of players doesn't mean it's a failure, and they should have had plenty of money from all of their other MMOs to cover those updates they did to the game. From there, they could have moved most of the developers to another project and let it just sit and make money for them.

And if that wouldn't have worked, then frankly there was something lacking in the design.

And let me reiterate:

A successful MMO doesn't have to be measured by subscriptions. You just need to be pulling in more money than you're pushing out, just like any other business.

Ok, lets say you own a business...selling...lightbulbs. You arent doing well. You invested a ton into a new lightbulb model and people just arent buying it. You make some changes to the lightbulb, shine it up a bit, make it prettier and get ready to launch the "new improved lightbulb model", knowing full well that if it doesnt sell well (and quickly) that you're going to have to close shop. Do you advertise with "OMG please buy this lightbulb or I'm going to have close!" or "Try out our new,improved Lightbulb! We here at Lightbulbs R Us are committed to this worth-while product and we know that you will be as well"

My bet is you'd go with the latter.

Of course NCsoft knew that unless things turned around for TR "sharpish" that it would have to be shut down. You say that to the public, however, and you've just shot any chance you had at attracting new players right in the foot.

That's fine for them to protect their business by making those statements to drive players to a struggling game.

But seriously if that's what it takes and fails as a result, don't expect any sympathy here, when you value business management over customer satisfaction. We are the customers, not the investors.

If that interview was to 'clear anything up' it's obvious they want to try and appeal to customers to retain business. If they really want to appease their customers, make TR free to play, even open source at minimal cost to them. Will this happen, of course not, they just want to sell more boxes of their next game at a premium then go ahead and curtail it, rinse and repeat.

Let's face it, we are all customers here, not business analysts. From a MMO player perspective, a whole bunch of people got jipped out of some substantial dollars who decided to try a new game. I'm sure the time period for cancellation (90 days) nicely prevents charge backs for credit cards too due to failure to provide a service.

So they can go ahead and play business man if they want, but not when people have paid money to participate in a service, where they have had to pay an up front fee.

SOE have gone up in my estimations significantly following this news. It takes guts to stick to your guns.

MMO's are largely different from light bulbs, but I'm sure NCSoft see them as very similar, it's all too easy to switch them off......

Finally what is very amusing, a press release from their next AAA title, Aion Online, note the part about 'everlasting'...... well until it's no longer a business priority, remember, you have been warned!!!!


May 13, 2006 - AION stands for "Epic Everlasting World." Created by NCsoft's Seoul development studio, it is an MMO which looks to break from convention. According to Yong Taek Bae, Associate Producer for NCsoft Seoul, there will be none of the level-grinding which is common in Korean MMOs.

Stefan,

Your light bulb scenario is only partially relatable. If the light bulb had a monthly fee ONTOP of the initial costs, and was presented as “in good shape” or “here to stay”, it’s a smart business decision, but it’s an unethical one.

If this were a stand alone game, it’d be different. It wasn’t. They have a base of people that had been promised for months, after speculation and articles were written of the games demise, that their time and investment into playing and progressing through the game would not be in vain. They flat out, unequivocally, lied to their players. And it’s the second time they’ve done it.