In his second weekly round-up, MMORPG.com Managing Editor Jon Wood gives his opinion on some of the issues from the last week, namely the sale of City of Heroes and the recent announcement that a character from Age of Conan will make an appearance in Playboy magazine.
I would have considered this past week to be a slow week if it wasn’t for the news that Cryptic Studios had sold their part in the City of Heroes / Villains franchise to NCsoft, their former partners in the venture. There are people who welcome this change, there are people who are against this change and there are people who really just don’t care, and I wouldn’t really be sharing my opinions if I didn’t tell you which side I come down on.
City of Heroes / Villains
It’s a good thing. I know I tend to see a silver lining in a lot of what goes on in the industry, anyone who has listened to our podcast can tell you that. It’s not that I’m afraid to say anything negative, it’s that there genuinely is a lot about our industry that I really enjoy. That being said, and not wanting to stray too far from my original point, I’d like to tell you why it’s a good thing:
First – NCsoft is bringing in a lot of the developers from Cryptic Studios to work at their new office in California. The team we see on the other end of this sale isn’t going to be terribly different than it was last week. This means that if you liked the game and how it was handled up until now, you’ll probably stay just as satisfied. On the other hand, if you weren’t a fan of how things were done, you’re not going to be jumping up and down in unfettered glee at the change.
There is no hidden agenda here, in my opinion. City of Heroes / Villains is a successful game for NCsoft and at this point it make sense that they run it 100%. The reason following below:
Read the whole column here.
