Value of CoH IP if someone want to acquire it

[Heliopause]

What do you think is the value of the City Of Heroes IP if another company wanted to acquire it, considering it is a legacy IP abandoned by a company?  10s of thousands, 100s of thousands, millions?  I have a very close friend whose an avid gamer who may soon come into a substantial amount of money.

[Solarverse]

South Koreans who run gaming companies don't have a good track record for selling very easily. You can bet the price will be a very costly one, if they are even willing to sell at all.

[siolfir]

You have to have a seller to be a buyer. The value is whatever NCSoft decides it is, since they hold it currently.

[Gulbasaur]

37 minutes ago, Heliopause said:

legacy IP abandoned by a company

Statesman was used in a 2017 MOBA released by NCSoft. It's possible that it was a loving nod to an IP one of the devs enjoyed, but it's also possible that he was put in as a way of keeping the IP on the backburner to maintain their hold on it. 

[Dragon Crush]

There were numerous attempts to buy the IP when the shutdown was first announced, and to my knowledge they just ignored any and all offers while claiming that they considered any and all offers. I think they wanted to kill the game, misrepresented sales to do it (they were turning a profit just based on subscriptions, cash-flow from in game store wasn't made public as far as I know) and didn't want to face the possibility of someone else doing it better than them.

Suppose things could be different if everyone involved in shuttering the game has since been fired.

[Call Me Awesome]

It wasn't a grind fest so the Korean's didn't like it.  Because it wasn't successful in Korea they didn't want anything to do with it... but it belonged to them so they wouldn't give it up.  Their culture is very strange by our standards and if they were to sell it and someone else was able to make a profit on it then selling would have been a mistake and they hate admitting to a mistake.

 

Lots of Asian cultures view mistakes as a "loss of face" and would rather do anything other than admit it.  They'd rather loose millions then admit to an error.  The majority of popular MMO's in Asia are extremely grindy things frequently with rampant PvP griefing.  CoH wasn't any of those things so it was automatically a "bad" game in their view, and it wasn't the latest shiny thing either.

 

Personally I doubt they'd sell the IP for any amount of money, or at least any reasonable amount.  MAYBE they'd sell for something around 9 figures but I wouldn't count on it and the IP isn't worth anything approaching that.  The figures I recall from shutdown were that CoH was turning a profit of roughly a million per year, making it's value likely under 10 million.  For that NCSoft would likely rather eat the loss than actually sell.

[boggo2300]

The two specific Buy the IP efforts I know of were both told, no amount of money it's our precious

 

So I suspect unless NC Soft is in major financial distress the answer is no amount

[ZacKing]

[boggo2300]

1 hour ago, ZacKing said:

and your firstborn...

[Snarky]

redside villian thinks to himself. Crazy country shoots missile at 1st world country. 1st world country pastes the nation in retaliatory strike. Neighboring country is left in ruins.  Hmmm. What do they have that i can buy for nothing?

Edited December 24, 2019 by Snarky

[Redlynne]

On 12/23/2019 at 4:02 PM, Call Me Awesome said:

Lots of Asian cultures view mistakes as a "loss of face" and would rather do anything other than admit it.

Basically ... NC$oft need to faceplant ... and maybe, just maybe, they'll "drop" the IP rights ... once they've been DEFEATED.

 

Short of that, the only thing that's going to liberate the City of Heroes franchise from the evil Battalion NC$oft is going to be the expiration of their rights to the IP, at which point it would enter the public domain.  Given that Di$ney keeps pushing the envelope on how long that will take (in order to hold onto the exclusive rights to Mickey Mouse), it's entirely possible that the expiration of IP rights held by NC$oft will require more human lifetime(s) than most of us have left.

 

There's a reason why NC$oft has a lifetime BAN from my wallet.

I don't care how "good" a game is that is backed by NC$oft ... I'll never play (let alone pay!) for another game of theirs EVER again.

Not after what they did to Tabula Rasa ... and what they did to City of Heroes.

They can keep what is left of their ... "face" ... and I'll keep my money away from them (as I've done since late 2012 for ... reasons).

[Shred Monkey]

On ‎12‎/‎23‎/‎2019 at 2:41 PM, siolfir said:

You have to have a seller to be a buyer. The value is whatever NCSoft decides it is, since they hold it currently.

It's possible to determine a market value of something without having the current owner agree to sell it for that value.   In other words, how much would a reasonable company pay for this IP if they intended to then make a profit off of it.  That would take creating a business model, calculating the projected return and risk factors, and desired profit margin, then comparing it to other options available in the market. 

 

Given that source code has been leaked and from what everyone says, it's a mess anyway.  I'm guessing the IP is now pretty worthless.  The source code had some monetary value because it had a loyal following willing to spend money.  But anyone wanting to tie-up the IP would have to spend money fighting in court to shutdown other servers.  I think any and all viable companies would choose self generated content over paying anything for this mess. 

 

And in my humble opinion, this mess is actually uniquely wonderful and suits me just fine.

 

[boggo2300]

55 minutes ago, Snarky said:

redside villian thinks to himself. Crazy country shoots missile at crazier country. Crazier country pastes the nation in retaliatory strike, starting third world war.

ftfy

[boggo2300]

20 minutes ago, Shred Monkey said:

It's possible to determine a market value of something without having the current owner agree to sell it for that value.   In other words, how much would a reasonable company pay for this IP if they intended to then make a profit off of it.  That would take creating a business model, calculating the projected return and risk factors, and desired profit margin, then comparing it to other options available in the market. 

 

Given that source code has been leaked and from what everyone says, it's a mess anyway.  I'm guessing the IP is now pretty worthless.  The source code had some monetary value because it had a loyal following willing to spend money.  But anyone wanting to tie-up the IP would have to spend money fighting in court to shutdown other servers.  I think any and all viable companies would choose self generated content over paying anything for this mess. 

 

And in my humble opinion, this mess is actually uniquely wonderful and suits me just fine.

 

That isn't the market value, it's the purchasers valuation, if the seller either doesn't exist, or agree with that valuation then it's a random number that means nothing

[Snarky]

5 minutes ago, boggo2300 said:

ftfy

Okay. So not all Supervillain plans go completely smooth. Thats why we have Ouroboros 

[boggo2300]

1 minute ago, Snarky said:

Okay. So not all Supervillain plans go completely smooth. Thats why we have Ouroboros 

ok, that is just brilliant

[DR_Mechano]

3 hours ago, Shred Monkey said:

It's possible to determine a market value of something without having the current owner agree to sell it for that value.   In other words, how much would a reasonable company pay for this IP if they intended to then make a profit off of it.  That would take creating a business model, calculating the projected return and risk factors, and desired profit margin, then comparing it to other options available in the market. 

 

Given that source code has been leaked and from what everyone says, it's a mess anyway.  I'm guessing the IP is now pretty worthless.  The source code had some monetary value because it had a loyal following willing to spend money.  But anyone wanting to tie-up the IP would have to spend money fighting in court to shutdown other servers.  I think any and all viable companies would choose self generated content over paying anything for this mess. 

 

And in my humble opinion, this mess is actually uniquely wonderful and suits me just fine.

 

Thankfully we're in the situation now where if one server does get shutdown there are plenty to immigrate too and because the sourcecode is now out in the wild NCsoft would have a hard time trying to get all of them. Take a look at World of Warcraft. The entire reason they introduced classic was because they saw the money the private legacy servers were pulling in with donations and the like and also so that they could point to a product they were providing with which to easily shutdown any private server in court. 

 

NCsoft aren't in that same situation, they CAN shutdown private servers just as easily but if good old Blizzard can't manage to do it (still a huge number of private servers kicking around since classic only covers vanilla and not all the other expansions that were sign as a big deal, particularly Wrath of the Lich King or Mists of Pandaria) I doubt NCsoft could be that bothered to chase down a game which they nolonger use the IP for, nolonger run the servers for and was a failure in their home territory, especially with the MMO genre on the backfoot these days.

[Dragon Crush]

3 hours ago, Redlynne said:

Given that Di$ney keeps pushing the envelope on how long that will take (in order to hold onto the exclusive rights to Mickey Mouse), it's entirely possible that the expiration of IP rights held by NC$oft will require more human lifetime(s) than most of us have left.

Not a lawyer, but to my knowledge disney keeps the rights because they still *use* the IP in parks, cartoons, et cettera as well as re-releasing their movies every few years. If you just sit on something and don't use it the rights expire much quicker than if you raise your hand and still say "I still own this" once a decade or so. That said, since they did something with statesman back in 2017, I think it'd still be something like 2080 before it expires the normal way.

[THEDarkTyger]

On 12/23/2019 at 3:15 PM, Gulbasaur said:

Statesman was used in a 2017 MOBA released by NCSoft. It's possible that it was a loving nod to an IP one of the devs enjoyed

It's possible. Whatever it was, it felt like NCSoft giving CoH fans the finger.

[srmalloy]

On 12/24/2019 at 6:19 PM, Dragon Crush said:

Not a lawyer, but to my knowledge disney keeps the rights because they still *use* the IP in parks, cartoons, et cettera as well as re-releasing their movies every few years. If you just sit on something and don't use it the rights expire much quicker than if you raise your hand and still say "I still own this" once a decade or so. That said, since they did something with statesman back in 2017, I think it'd still be something like 2080 before it expires the normal way.

You're conflating copyright and trademark. Trademarks expire if not defended; this is why Bayer GmbH no longer owns the term 'Aspirin', and why both Xerox and Kleenex fight the use of their trademarks as a generic term. Copyright is much harder to lose. The Mickey Mouse Perpetual Protection Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act extended the term of copyright to prevent "Steamboat Willie", the first depiction of Mickey Mouse, from falling into the public domain. The House of Mouse has trademarks on the likenesses of its characters, as well as copyright on their later incarnations, but unless Congress passes another extension to the term of copyright, on January 1, 2024, the specific depiction of Mickey Mouse in "Steamboat Willie" will fall into the public domain.

[boggo2300]

32 minutes ago, srmalloy said:

You're conflating copyright and trademark. Trademarks expire if not defended; this is why Bayer GmbH no longer owns the term 'Aspirin', and why both Xerox and Kleenex fight the use of their trademarks as a generic term. Copyright is much harder to lose. The Mickey Mouse Perpetual Protection Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act extended the term of copyright to prevent "Steamboat Willie", the first depiction of Mickey Mouse, from falling into the public domain. The House of Mouse has trademarks on the likenesses of its characters, as well as copyright on their later incarnations, but unless Congress passes another extension to the term of copyright, on January 1, 2024, the specific depiction of Mickey Mouse in "Steamboat Willie" will fall into the public domain.

There will be much human sacrifice in Anaheim and Orlando to prevent that, mark my words (where do you think the lost kids in the parks go!)

[dangeraaron10]

The best we can hope for is the CoH private servers remain stable on the lower end of population and NCSoft continues to ignore the servers since the source code is out in the wild.  Hell would freeze over before NCSoft would sell the IP (at a reasonable price), but then, they haven't quashed any servers yet so they managed to surprise me once already.

 

All I really want is the current status quo to be maintained.  We got it good here on Homecoming with the volunteer devs continuing on balancing and improving the game over time, and all I ask for is the servers to stay online.  

 

 

[boggo2300]

8 hours ago, dangeraaron10 said:

The best we can hope for is the CoH private servers remain stable on the lower end of population and NCSoft continues to ignore the servers since the source code is out in the wild.  Hell would freeze over before NCSoft would sell the IP (at a reasonable price), but then, they haven't quashed any servers yet so they managed to surprise me once already.

 

All I really want is the current status quo to be maintained.  We got it good here on Homecoming with the volunteer devs continuing on balancing and improving the game over time, and all I ask for is the servers to stay online.  

 

 

you do know HC are in negotiations with NC to get a license right?

[Chris24601]

1 hour ago, boggo2300 said:

you do know HC are in negotiations with NC to get a license right?

They are. And it’s important to note that a license to use the rights and owning the rights are not the same thing.

 

NCSoft could license the rights for any price (including free if they wanted) and still retain ownership of them and pursue legal action against anyone other than the licensee who uses them.

 

My hunch is that one of the reasons they’re willing to talk now is that, after seven years, all the NCSOFT personalities involved in the original shutdown have moved on (i.e. up or out) so there’s no longer any personal honor involved in keeping it shut down (and appearing magnanimous is honorable in Korean culture).

 

Likewise, City of Heroes/costumed superheroes is such a decidedly American franchise that there’s little likelihood of the IP ever being used again outside of things like a character cameo in a MOBA. Licensing it out for any price though would help preserve its trademarks though (c. seven years of disuse is when US courts start treating a copyright as abandoned).

 

Honestly, we have to remember that it’s not even been a year yet since the private server reveal and launch of Homecoming. Deals like this often take a long time to fully hammer out (not just things like license fees, but the rights to modify the original game going forward also need to be negotiated... and the client (HCs 64-bit vs. default 32), rebalancing existing elements,  pre-shutdown beta content, new power sets/archetypes, new costume parts/assets, and new story content are all different factors to be negotiated since they can add or detract from the value of the brand.

 

For example, given their use of Statesman recently, NCSOFT might put restrictions on using existing signature characters in any new content (which might be just as well... Homecoming is a new lease on life, starting new stories seems like where it’d be best to take it anyway).

[Chance Jackson]

As I understand it, ncsoft got a huge tax write off when they ended the game so the game would have to sell for significantly more than any tax penalty incured for selling a game ncsoft already got a huge tax write off for, any hypothetical loss of revenue due to competition, the cost of lawyers working on negotiations & any cost associated with tabulating all the costs.