NCSoft hasn't been too forthcoming with facts or numbers when it comes to City of Heroes and its closure. This article from MMORPG.com that came out yesterday does send some light, and confirms much of what I suspected. NCSoft wanted MORE profits, was unconfortable with the genre, vetoed a sequel, and wants 10 times what they paid for the IP, even though they value it at less than half that for tax purposes.
Since they were asking for the ungodly sum of 80 million for the IP, only Disney or another big budget group has a chance on it. I have my doubts that someone willl jump in with that kind of dough. I hope to see a COH-esuqe property come out -- unfortunately development time alone will take years. I doubt we'll see such until late 2014 at the earliest. Best scenario is for Disney to step in, and recruit ex-Paragon staffers and start in on COH2. But even then, it will be a long time in coming.
The above article has cinched it for me. No matter what NCSoft does or releases, I don't trust them and wouldn't touch them with a 10 parsec pole. If they keep the way they are going, they'll be out of the American market whether they like it or not -- they keep burning bridges leaving players high and dry. Some of those games were dying, but they went the usual route -- Server collapse, cost cutting, etc. You could see it coming, or at least as a possibility. Wildstar better hope to make BIG profits if they want to last a year under NCSoft's umbrella. Otherwise once development costs are covered, they'll be history.