MyMMOGames to Drop Grand Chase and Mabinogi

[NoeJeko]

We've tried these games as features and they've failed. We tried to save our Mabinogi section by acquisition of a struggling Mabi fansite but they have worked out their issues and have decided to continue. Congrats to them but it does mean that MMOG's Mabinogi section will not continue as a feature.

Grand Chase has also failed as a feature. We regret that we cannot continue featuring this game but we get no interest for it here. Ntreev, USA has repeatedly ignored my attempts at affiliation and cross-promotion and I'm not delaying MMOG's progress any further on their account. With no in-game market, no support from the game publisher, and very little interest on MMOG regarding the game, it doesn't make sense to continue giving it the level of promotion we have in the past.

If the community wants us to maintain these game sections then we need to see it. A final decision regarding both games will be made on November 30, 2008. If the features are to remain there must be a 25% increase of all activity in the Grand Chase forums and a 200% increase of all activity in the Mabinogi forums (percentages were decided based upon current size). Furthermore, an open channel of communication will need to be established between MyMMOGames and Nexon USA and Ntreev USA. If these conditions are not met these games will lose feature status in the month of December as we'll be evaluating new games for feature that month.

If there's interest to save them, then we need the community to get the word out about them. Invite your friends, advertise us on game forums (in accordance with the Terms and Conditions of the forum in which you are advertising), advertise us in-game, etc.

We need to clear the dead weight and make room for new, exciting features.

Q: What happens when we "drop" a game?
A: The game is removed from feature status. All threads surrounding the game will be moved into "General Games", it's feature page will be removed, and we will no longer attempt affiliation with the publisher regarding the game. All custom forum design regarding the game will be removed and any existing guilds will be merged into "Universal Guilds". The wikis for these games will also be demoted from feature status. While we will not remove them entirely, we will also not continue to promote them and staff will divert resources to other features. We will also cease any marketing spending regarding these games.

Q: Why aren't you dropping RO2, Imagine Online, or Concerto Gate?
A: These games are not yet released. We decided to feature them based upon speculation and our idea of how they'll perform. The two scheduled to go are mature games for which we have tried to foster interest repeatedly. If RO2, Imagine, or CG fail to perform within 3 months of an official release and we have no affiliation or strong ties to the publishers they'll be axed as well. Two of those publishers are located within 5 miles of MMOG headquarters so I foresee it being easier to work with their publishers.

[hueyple]

!!!!
i LOOVVVVVVE Grand Chase
don't take away the threads on it D:
its the only place i get info about it from

[Levin]

That's a shame...but well I hardly see much activity in GC anyway and haven't even seen many new posts in Mahinogi but they will be missed...maybe.

Any idea on what other games will take their place?

[NoeJeko]

Originally Posted by hueyple

!!!!
i LOOVVVVVVE Grand Chase
don't take away the threads on it D:
its the only place i get info about it from

The threads won't go away - but they'll all be under "General Games" like Ikariam and Dragonica.

Originally Posted by Levin

That's a shame...but well I hardly see much activity in GC anyway and haven't even seen many new posts in Mahinogi but they will be missed...maybe.

Any idea on what other games will take their place?

We're still evaluating that - that's why I gave them until December for a final decision and January for removal. We're looking for upcoming games that don't have a strong established fansite following, show significant interest, and have responsive publishers. We strive to make MMOG the best community out here by working with the publishers and to date we've been able to successfully work with two of them. Unfortunately, neither of those two were Nexon or Ntreev.

[Haiko]

NOES MY GC FORUM ;_____; Don't do it, Noe! Don't do it! D:

Time to post some stuffies thar; but I can't now.

[NoeJeko]

Originally Posted by Haiko

NOES MY GC FORUM ;_____; Don't do it, Noe! Don't do it! D:

Time to post some stuffies thar; but I can't now.

I'd like to keep them all but I just can't. I have to do what's best for the community and, as it stands, Grand Chase and Mabinogi hurt the community more than help it.

I already posted above, there's two ways to save it:

1. Increase the activity by 25%. It currently has 3,939 posts (call it 4000 for ease of calculation). By November 30th it needs to have 5,000 posts and continue this growth or this will come up again in the next couple of months.

2. Somehow get Ntreev, USA to answer the emails they asked me to send and haven't answered for over a month and start talking to me.

[Zamte]

I really just don't understand how having a forum there that doesn't get used a whole lot is detrimental.

I agree that the GC forums aren't as active as forums for a bigger game would be, but then there's not anything built into the game inherently that sparks discussion. For instance, there's no trade. A lot of games would get a lot of activity just based on buying and selling. All there really is to discuss is updates each week and other random stuff that comes up.

We can do our best to get new people to come to MMOG, but I'm not sure that more people are going to create an explosion of discussion, as there's only so much to be discussed in the game. Also kind of lost on the publisher thing. Assuming Ntreev is affiliated for Trickster, why would it disagree for GC? Also why does the forum's status depend on Ntreev's cooperation? Is there more to the affiliation system than just a little button on the front page?

[NoeJeko]

There's a lot more to publisher affiliations than just a little button - there's a template for it on MyMMOGames - MyMMOGames Affiliate Program. The "little button" is for sites that just want to trade links. Affiliations/partnerships, such as MMOsite, have to be negotiated and there are benefits for both sides.

And having a dead forum is detrimental for the community as a whole. It takes more of our resources to maintain - drawing our attention away from other projects that could use it. It occupies space that could be used by a more active game - we do only feature 9 at any one given time as we don't wish to become another OnRPG. It also keeps us from featuring games that we can get active affiliations with the publishers and thus offer more to the community regarding those games.

Also, if someone comes off Google and the first thing they see is a dead forum (they land on the Grand Chase or Mabinogi site), they're 5x more likely to just leave and look for something else (based upon informal polls).

[Neli]

Why not drop Concerto Gate?

Grand Chase and even Sword of a New World were much more active than Concerto Gate ever was.

[HellFireFtw]

uhm... well if you drop some might as well promote some as well?

[NoeJeko]

From first post:

Originally Posted by NoeJeko

Q: Why aren't you dropping RO2, Imagine Online, or Concerto Gate?
A: These games are not yet released. We decided to feature them based upon speculation and our idea of how they'll perform. The two scheduled to go are mature games for which we have tried to foster interest repeatedly. If RO2, Imagine, or CG fail to perform within 3 months of an official release and we have no affiliation or strong ties to the publishers they'll be axed as well. Two of those publishers are located within 5 miles of MMOG headquarters so I foresee it being easier to work with their publishers.

[fieryshadowcard]

I don't much care for Grand Chase, but I'll defend Mabinogi.

Why am I defending it? Because it has solid support that's not based entirely off of hype. RO2 is still sitting there based on hype alone, but ever since that server ceased to be up for discussion on MOG (and even then, there wasn't much to talk about due to lack of content), RO2's section has been dead. Keeping it on despite the fact that we probably won't see a legitimate server for at least a year just seems absurd. Once there was nothing to talk about to sustain the group, RO2 should have been the first to go.

All the while, Mabinogi has had its share of support and is still being represented fairly although not nearly as well as other featured games. The reason? Hype. GC has an immediate tie to many players because a lot of its playerbase came from TO, and this is NTreev's game-next-door, basically. Second Chance Syndrome here. LaTale has its supporters because that's where the majority of Trickster players came from. New Hope Syndrome here, similar to what happened when a lot of MS players ran away to TO.

Mabi's a peaceful sleeper game and deserves to be here because it's a drastic change of pace from all the other games in the Featured Section. It's a great game that's not riding off of the hype revolving around whether or not it will be "the next big hit" like MS/TO/LT. It makes me cringe every time I see Mabi up for removal because it almost sounds like people are actively looking for a reason to remove it from the Featured Games section. I smell bias.

I think the Featured Games section should be more than just the "flavor of the month" section and allow for different experiences to be represented. It'd be like saying Harvest Moon isn't noteworthy because everyone's talking about Super Smash Brothers: Brawl.

That being said, I'd rather see RO2 removed before either of them. I'll buy your "speculation on unreleased games" explanation, but only for Concerto Gate and Imagine. We have no idea when we'll see a global RO2, though, since that's still pending on kRO2 and its beta testing and such. That forum has nothing to sustain itself because its playerbase can't even discuss the only noteworthy accessible server here. And all the speculation is pretty much done (for now) since people have had a taste.

[Hammiepuu]

Well it seems that Mabinogi has a large chance of being dropped.

GO MMOG-GC!

[Momijii]

Look, those who are defending the game, DO SOMETHING. If you care about it then you should do something about it, aka take action. True, I never thought either two games would be very good, Grand Chase is kind of boring (as said earlier, no kind of trade, PvP is like TO all over again, basically becoming a game worse than TO...), and I never really liked Mabinogi.

Question for Noe: Does that mean since we can't establish ties with nTreev, that Trickster's feature will eventually leave? Or is it active enough to stay. I have noticed that it's becoming less and less active though...