Can The Fans Save City of Heroes

What a fantastic week to be an MMO player. Games are closed all the time, sometimes rather big games (was the last major closure Star Wars Galaxies? I feel it might have been), but rarely do the players feel so affected by the announcement that they work so hard to save the world they’ve come to love so much. Rarely do the fans care enough to attempt to push the decision to turn off the servers, to change minds and potentially save everything they’ve been a part of for years and years and years.This week, with the announcement that MMO-favourite City of Heroes will be shut down at the end of November, we’ve seen just how invested people can become in a world. Will the protest work? Is there any way of saving City of Heroes? Is it fair to just close a game that people love so much? They’re all important questions and the answers might change the face of the MMO world forever.

City of Heroes

City of Heroes was released in 2004 as an antithesis for all the dungeons and dragons MMOs on the market. Sword and sorcery was and remains an important part of specifically the MMORPG genre, but people looking for something a little less dwarves and elves and little more spandex and eye beams were largely disappointed. Since release it has become a staple of the MMO world, inspiring action figures, novels, comic books (naturally), the sale of film licences and even its very own trading card game. With the exception of World of Warcraft, I can’t think of any other MMO that has been successful on that level in regards to branching out its IP.

At the end of last year – and this makes the announcement of the game’s cancellation even more surprising – the developers made City of Heroes free-to-play and playable via Steam. Additionally, they incentivised the subscription model by offering the latest expansion at no cost to people still paying. A little more than a year later, the game will probably shut off its servers.

Superman, Where Are You? Save City of Heroes!

I say probably because, although it has been announced that City of Heroes will cease to be on November 30th 2012, the fans have taken an unprecedented stand against publisher NCSoft’s decision. Just consider, for a second, the millions of people that have enjoyed City of Heroes over the years. Some of them might not have played for a while, some probably never thought for a second that they’d ever return, distracted by newer, shinier games and, god forbid, real life. All of their characters, all of their game time, the friends they made and the quests they completed. Losing all of that was a little too much for some people, and they staged a protest in Atlas Park to show that some people will still play the game if it’s given a stay of execution, some people still want to play on.

Realistically, it makes for an impressive sight on video but it’s hardly enough to protect the game from going bust. A few hundred people turned out to take part in that protest, a few more might write letters and emails, but as of now that probably won’t be enough to change the minds of people that probably hesitated to make the announcement in the first place.

Playing Daredevil’s Advocate

Why does a game get shut down? There can be a number of reasons, not always with the fans best interests at heart. It’s important to remember that NCSoft is a business, that City of Heroes either has the potential to make money or the potential to lose it.If it’s no longer successful, if the game cannot longer pull in tens of thousands of players (especially in a year in which a number of major AAA MMOs are coming out), then there’s no option but to close the game. A nice option might be to allow users to create their own servers in the vein of the Vanilla World of Warcraft fan project, but even that isn’t a necessary move on behalf what is, effectively, a company that is allowed to live or die based on its ability not to bleed money.

If they’ve decided to close the game, there’s a good chance that it’s for a good reason and that, with or without hesitation, when presented with the same facts, the majority of us would probably make the same decision. As an aside, it would be rather cynical to suggest that closure of this game has anything to do with the increased revenue the publisher might receive should free-to-play users move on to something more recent like Guild Wars 2, but a lack of subscribers on a free-to-play game wouldn’t be a surprise.

Can the Heroes Save the Day?

The question on everybody’s lips is whether or not the heroes can stop NCSoft from shutting down the game in November. Smart guesses, in my mind, would be that either the game will close down on the announced day and last day players will received some compensation – say 10-20% off Guild Wars 2 – or that the closure date will be delayed a month or so, turning it into a late, unwanted Christmas present. As impressive as it looks, and as proud as I am of the people involved in this protest, in trying to defend their rights as long-time players of City of Heroes, it just isn’t enough to turn the decision of a major corporation – especially if the reason the game is being closed is as the result of low playerbase. NCSoft knows exactly how many of those protesting had never played before, or hadn’t played in years, or hadn’t ever played regularly, and unless each of them was willing to come back and contribute towards server costs it seems unlikely that that specific group of people could make a difference.

How NCSoft react to this player uproar will be an important precedent in years to come, however, as more games shut down and more digital lives are dropped into oblivion.

Conclusion

Which leaves us with our last question: is it fair to close a game that people love so much? The answer, of course, depends on where you stand. If you’re sitting at your computer desk, wearing your y-fronts on the outside of your trousers, worrying that you’re going to lose years of your life (almost literally) because of corporate greed, of course you’re going to feel hard done  by. If you’re one of the many people who has played and forgotten this game, or who never bothered in the first place, you’ll probably understand that there are a lot of reasons a game is closed and “fairness” rarely comes into it.

Whatever you think of the game and of its closure (eight years is a good run for any online game), I think we can all agree that it’s a pretty upsetting announcement and I personally wish those protesting the very best of luck. Seeing a group of gamers fighting for something they believe in (something that doesn’t involve attempts at getting companies to release free DLC or the like) is always a great sight and I hope they can make a difference.