Guild Wars 2

Nexon sold off their entire interest in NCSOFT last week.

http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/industry/12519-bad-romance-ncsoft-nexon-divorce-after-whirlwind-4-years

So please no more “Nexon is pulling ANet’s strings” conspiracy theories. Nexon never had any influence on NCSOFT, much less ANet.

ANet has always been, since years before the first Guild Wars, a 100% owned NCSOFT company with it’s own officers, none of whom came from NCSOFT.

ANet is the master of their own fate, always been. Assign any poor decisions they made in your opinion to ANet itself and not some shadowy figures overseas.

And Nexon lost a pile of money in the process. Needless to say their joint development studio is also 86ed.

at some point anet had someone from nexon come in and look at the gemshop stuff. that’s fact. how much that influenced anything in the end we don’t know (means: YOU also don’t know). however, since that happened stuff that players were to some degree outraged about popped up more often than before (f.e. the watchwork pick). attention: NOT started popping up or became outrageous, just popped up a bit more frequently. might be coincidence, might not. we will never know.

however, even if nexons influence over any decisions is close to none i still love to see them gtfo of any relationship with any company that produces games i play. they are generally just not good to have around.

PS: don’t underestimate the fact that money can sway people in their decisions. a payraise here, a job offer in a higher position there, a promise of investment or just exercising ones influence on (potential) shareholders (that you might be connected to through other enterprises f.e.) can gradually change how decisions are made within a company without directly interacting with their daily business. those things happen subtly and silently. however, i would not be able to find any decision by anet they wouldn’t have made just my themselves so i don’t think nexon has ever tried to pull strings with anet. but who knows ….

PS²: spelling is important. you are actually the “tin foil hater” while we are the “tin foil hatters”.

Ashen.2907:

zaced.7948:

at some point anet had someone from nexon come in and look at the gemshop stuff. that’s fact.

Isn’t the someone from nexon you refer to someone who worked at Anet before working at Nexon. Were they not also someone who left Nexon’s employ, taking a new job at Anet?

as far as i know it was a nexon employee consulting regarding ingame shop and microtransactions. if it had any concrete effect on anything i don’t know.

Ashen.2907:

zaced.7948:

at some point anet had someone from nexon come in and look at the gemshop stuff. that’s fact.

Isn’t the someone from nexon you refer to someone who worked at Anet before working at Nexon. Were they not also someone who left Nexon’s employ, taking a new job at Anet?

I worked at Tacobell as a kid. My current employment with another company entirely is an indication of Tacobell’s intention to take over the pharmaceutical industry right?

I’m pretty sure my local Taco Bell has some pharmaceuticals in it.

zaced.7948:

Ashen.2907:

zaced.7948:

at some point anet had someone from nexon come in and look at the gemshop stuff. that’s fact.

Isn’t the someone from nexon you refer to someone who worked at Anet before working at Nexon. Were they not also someone who left Nexon’s employ, taking a new job at Anet?

as far as i know it was a nexon employee consulting regarding ingame shop and microtransactions. if it had any concrete effect on anything i don’t know.

Who was it?

Crystin Cox.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Crystin Cox.

^

i did a quick google search and it seems cox is still doing work for anet (at least she appears in recent gw2 videos like from gamescom 2015). i don’t know the terms of her involvement as this was nowhere to be found in a quick search. as far as i know nexon hasn’t sold their shares yet as such things usually happen over time.

zaced.7948:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Crystin Cox.

^

i did a quick google search and it seems cox is still doing work for anet (at least she appears in recent gw2 videos like from gamescom 2015). i don’t know the terms of her involvement as this was nowhere to be found in a quick search. as far as i know nexon hasn’t sold their shares yet as such things usually happen over time.

According to linkedIn Crystin Cox worked for Nexon from 2010 to 2012 before leaving to work for Anet from 2012 to present. She has now been with Anet for longer than her employment with Nexon.

Conncept.7638:

Nexons majority acquisition of NCSoft stock.

When did Nexon increase their holdings of NCSoft from their purchase of 15% to the 51% you claim?

Ashen.2907:

Conncept.7638:

Nexons majority acquisition of NCSoft stock.

When did Nexon increase their holdings of NCSoft from their purchase of 15% to the 51% you claim?

they didn’t even purchase 15%. they had 13 or 14.something% for quite a while and stocked up to ~15%.

Ashen.2907:

Conncept.7638:

Nexons majority acquisition of NCSoft stock.

When did Nexon increase their holdings of NCSoft from their purchase of 15% to the 51% you claim?

Picked up that huge wealth of finance knowledge from 1990s business dramas did you?

You don’t have to have 51% of a company to be majority shareholder, you have to have a larger portion than any other shareholder. And these days, 15% is actually a huge portion, most large businesses have hundreds if not thousands of investors.

I don’t hate tin foil.

Conncept.7638:

Ashen.2907:

Conncept.7638:

Nexons majority acquisition of NCSoft stock.

When did Nexon increase their holdings of NCSoft from their purchase of 15% to the 51% you claim?

Picked up that huge wealth of finance knowledge from 1990s business dramas did you?

Nope, from the dictionary.

To be the majority shareholder one must own greater than half of the stock in a publicly traded company.

Wow. This thread is reminding me of this:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Lost-Shores-A-Cry-for-Help/first

Ashen.2907:

Conncept.7638:

Ashen.2907:

Conncept.7638:

Nexons majority acquisition of NCSoft stock.

When did Nexon increase their holdings of NCSoft from their purchase of 15% to the 51% you claim?

Picked up that huge wealth of finance knowledge from 1990s business dramas did you?

Nope, from the dictionary.

To be the majority shareholder one must own greater than half of the stock in a publicly traded company.

Good for the dictionary, however in the real world where you have no idea what you’re talking about, majority means a majority of votes concerning the goings-on of the company which is a result of owning the largest part of controlling interest in company stock. Otherwise, most public companies would not even have a majority holder since most companies are not owned in 51% or greater portions by anyone.

Ashen.2907:

Conncept.7638:

Ashen.2907:

Conncept.7638:

Nexons majority acquisition of NCSoft stock.

When did Nexon increase their holdings of NCSoft from their purchase of 15% to the 51% you claim?

Picked up that huge wealth of finance knowledge from 1990s business dramas did you?

Nope, from the dictionary.

To be the majority shareholder one must own greater than half of the stock in a publicly traded company.

If there are 100 stocks of a company available and 75 of them are owned by 75 individuals, 10 of them are owned by one individual and 15 of them are owned by another individual guess who has the controlling interest?

Cursors, Foiled Again

DaShi.1368:

I don’t hate tin foil.

Me neither. I do prefer aluminum foil, however, so I’m not sure where that puts me with respect to this Nexon business.

I’m thinking “not concerned” about sums it up.

I don’t agree with every decision ArenaNet has made, but so far, I haven’t seen them do anything that they haven’t credibly explained, and don’t think it necessary to theorize some sort of evil outside influence on them to rationalize their decisions. Regardless of who owns them, ArenaNet needs to be profitable, like every other non-government business, and will act accordingly.

It’s certainly likely that NCSOFT passes down some edicts from time to time (the nixing of the Cantha Quarter in Divinity’s Reach comes to mind), and we can assume that, in general, they pressure ArenaNet to make money.

But the potential of not being able to make payroll also pressures companies to make money, and it’s unlikely ArenaNet would do things much differently as an independent company — except probably sweat financing more than they have to now.

There’s nothing wrong with being interested in ArenaNet’s business dealings, because they do after all make the game we like to play, but in doing so, it’s important to stick to facts, minimize conjecture and maintain perspective.

Otherwise, we might accidentally figure out the world is secretly controlled by Beta Reticuloids or something.

Behellagh.1468:

Nexon sold off their entire interest in NCSOFT last week.

http://www.businesskorea.co.kr/news/industry/12519-bad-romance-ncsoft-nexon-divorce-after-whirlwind-4-years

So please no more “Nexon is pulling ANet’s strings” conspiracy theories. Nexon never had any influence on NCSOFT, much less ANet.

ANet has always been, since years before the first Guild Wars, a 100% owned NCSOFT company with it’s own officers, none of whom came from NCSOFT.

ANet is the master of their own fate, always been. Assign any poor decisions they made in your opinion to ANet itself and not some shadowy figures overseas.

Bought out with HoT cash. The reason living story season 3 became an expansion perhaps. (That’s a theory).

Make no mistake any developer who is a subsidiary is not in control of their destiny.

You state no influence from Nex that’s ridiculously wrong (see gem store).

Conncept.7638:

Incorrect, ANet was required to take Crystin Cox as lead monetization specialist upon Nexons majority acquisition of NCSoft stock.

And, I… I can’t even begin to trust anything where she is involved. Nexon’s monetization has screwed over millions of gamers out of billions of dollars; they have never shied away from cheating, lying, misleading and false advertising for pennies, let alone all that they could squelch from the gaming communities under their thumb. I myself had to suffer through Nexons violent and dishonest exploitation of Atlantica Online, a game I absolutely loved and can’t bear to play anymore. And she was in charge during its entire downward spiral.

Nexon would not have put her there, if they didn’t intend to user her, and I’ll be happy, only when she’s gone, or she expresses some amount of grief for working as a legal scamartist meeting the demands of a bunch of unconscionable scumbags.

Ms. Cox was in charge the whole time? Not just any old employee but the boss? No one over her telling her what her job duties were? That’s interesting to hear.

Current job duties: spotlight on Crystin Cox

Conncept.7638:

Ashen.2907:

Conncept.7638:

Nexons majority acquisition of NCSoft stock.

When did Nexon increase their holdings of NCSoft from their purchase of 15% to the 51% you claim?

Picked up that huge wealth of finance knowledge from 1990s business dramas did you?

You don’t have to have 51% of a company to be majority shareholder, you have to have a larger portion than any other shareholder. And 15% is actually a huge portion in most businesses these days, as most businesses have hundreds of different investors.

nexon still wasn’t majority shareholder. that was ncsoft themselves.

zaced.7948:

Conncept.7638:

Ashen.2907:

Conncept.7638:

Nexons majority acquisition of NCSoft stock.

When did Nexon increase their holdings of NCSoft from their purchase of 15% to the 51% you claim?

Picked up that huge wealth of finance knowledge from 1990s business dramas did you?

You don’t have to have 51% of a company to be majority shareholder, you have to have a larger portion than any other shareholder. And 15% is actually a huge portion in most businesses these days, as most businesses have hundreds of different investors.

nexon still wasn’t majority shareholder. that was ncsoft themselves.

That’s not how corporations work. Nexon never needed to become the majority shareholder they simply needed to rival the current chairman’s shares (which they did) and have the board vote them in.

Caught the title misspelling after I hit post, thought I could edit it and couldn’t. Sad face.

Ashen did a great job countering. Thank you.

To be clear. Morgan Stanley bought the stock from Nexon. It sold a bit to NCSOFT’s CEO founder raising his ownership from 10% to 12%. That’s all that’s been reported. Also Nexon didn’t buy the stock to begin with from NCSOFT, they bought some of the CEO/founder’s personal share and much later a little more off the open market late last year in an attempt to pressure NCSOFT to do a few things Nexon wanted. At no time did Nexon have anybody on NCSOFT’s board, that was one of the things they wanted.

Ms Cox was hired several months before Nexon buying any NCSOFT stock. Check her CV. She started working there, again, in March of 2012. The Nexon stock purchase was in June 2012. And as indicated, she worked for ANet before working for Nexon. She also worked for Disney I think so lets add Mickey to the grand conspiracy.

And yes, she still works at ANet.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/hidden-arcana-developer-spotlight-on-crystin-cox/

She’s the one to “blame” that new armor skins will only be acquired in game now and not the “ebil” cash shop.

All stockholders can do in any corporation is vote on measures brought to them annually at the stockholders meeting including determining who is on the board of directors. A minority owner (talking strict minority as in less than 50% + 1) has to find like minded individuals to gain that 50% + 1. Nexon only had 15.08%. They were until the Netmarble deal the largest single stockholder but NCSOFT’s CEO along with Netmarble’s was larger.

Sometimes you don’t even need more shares than the current chairman’s to influence a company. Activist shareholders routinely influence larger companies through a combination of holding shares and convincing other shareholders to vote with them.

Judging from the article it’s pretty clear Nexon was doing exactly that, but gave up and cut their losses when they (presumably) couldn’t secure enough friendly votes to rival the NCSoft/Net Marble alliance. Given how aggressive Nexon was in trying to exert control over NCSoft, it’s really not unreasonable to assume they were already pushing their agenda long before this fight.

Aidenwolf.5964:

zaced.7948:

Conncept.7638:

Ashen.2907:

Conncept.7638:

Nexons majority acquisition of NCSoft stock.

When did Nexon increase their holdings of NCSoft from their purchase of 15% to the 51% you claim?

Picked up that huge wealth of finance knowledge from 1990s business dramas did you?

You don’t have to have 51% of a company to be majority shareholder, you have to have a larger portion than any other shareholder. And 15% is actually a huge portion in most businesses these days, as most businesses have hundreds of different investors.

nexon still wasn’t majority shareholder. that was ncsoft themselves.

That’s not how corporations work. Nexon never needed to become the majority shareholder they simply needed to rival the current chairman’s shares (which they did) and have the board vote them in.

i know. i just corrected that even if his definition of majority shareholder was right nexon wasn’t. not more and not less. there was no implication of how a corporation works or how the boards voting goes down. please take my words as they are and don’t try to interpret anything else into them.

Pandaman.4758:

Sometimes you don’t even need more shares than the current chairman’s to influence a company. Activist shareholders routinely influence larger companies through a combination of holding shares and convincing other shareholders to vote with them.

Judging from the article it’s pretty clear Nexon was doing exactly that, but gave up and cut their losses when they (presumably) couldn’t secure enough friendly votes to rival the NCSoft/Net Marble alliance. Given how aggressive Nexon was in trying to exert control over NCSoft, it’s really not unreasonable to assume they were already pushing their agenda long before this fight.

And losing. Otherwise they wouldn’t have tried to take control. In the end Nexon ate some $150 million plus in just lost stock value.

I came here just to post this and now I will go.

Ashen.2907:

Conncept.7638:

Nexons majority acquisition of NCSoft stock.

When did Nexon increase their holdings of NCSoft from their purchase of 15% to the 51% you claim?

The Walton Family only owns ~23% of Walmart stock, yet they are considered the majority shareholder. The majority shareholder doesn’t mean owning more than half of the shares, it means having the greatest individual influence on decisions.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I came here just to post this and now I will go.

Brilliant!

You can edit the title directly underneath the title in the thread itself. It’s not part of editing your post.

Guhracie.3419:

You can edit the title directly underneath the title in the thread itself. It’s not part of editing your post.

Thanks. I knew I saw it somewhere.

Endless Soul.5178:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I came here just to post this and now I will go.

Brilliant!

That’s why I use this in other players TFH posts.

Behellagh.1468:

Pandaman.4758:

Sometimes you don’t even need more shares than the current chairman’s to influence a company. Activist shareholders routinely influence larger companies through a combination of holding shares and convincing other shareholders to vote with them.

Judging from the article it’s pretty clear Nexon was doing exactly that, but gave up and cut their losses when they (presumably) couldn’t secure enough friendly votes to rival the NCSoft/Net Marble alliance. Given how aggressive Nexon was in trying to exert control over NCSoft, it’s really not unreasonable to assume they were already pushing their agenda long before this fight.

And losing. Otherwise they wouldn’t have tried to take control. In the end Nexon ate some $150 million plus in just lost stock value.

I think a hostile takeover was the plan from the start, given Nexon had a subsidiary buy just enough shares to push them over 15% without being required to declare. The timing would certainly have been due to NCSoft’s shares hitting an all-time low of 125,000 won (compared to its high of 368,500 won in Nov. 2011), which would have made shareholders more amenable to Nexon’s attempt to take over.

Thank goodness they failed though, can’t imagine how bad it would be if Nexon actually had serious say in the business model.

Guhracie.3419:

Ashen.2907:

zaced.7948:

at some point anet had someone from nexon come in and look at the gemshop stuff. that’s fact.

Isn’t the someone from nexon you refer to someone who worked at Anet before working at Nexon. Were they not also someone who left Nexon’s employ, taking a new job at Anet?

I worked at Tacobell as a kid. My current employment with another company entirely is an indication of Tacobell’s intention to take over the pharmaceutical industry right?

I’m pretty sure my local Taco Bell has some pharmaceuticals in it.

And my pharmacist has some tacos inside him. Dangerous world we live in.

zaced.7948:

Aidenwolf.5964:

zaced.7948:

Conncept.7638:

Ashen.2907:

Conncept.7638:

Nexons majority acquisition of NCSoft stock.

When did Nexon increase their holdings of NCSoft from their purchase of 15% to the 51% you claim?

Picked up that huge wealth of finance knowledge from 1990s business dramas did you?

You don’t have to have 51% of a company to be majority shareholder, you have to have a larger portion than any other shareholder. And 15% is actually a huge portion in most businesses these days, as most businesses have hundreds of different investors.

nexon still wasn’t majority shareholder. that was ncsoft themselves.

That’s not how corporations work. Nexon never needed to become the majority shareholder they simply needed to rival the current chairman’s shares (which they did) and have the board vote them in.

i know. i just corrected that even if his definition of majority shareholder was right nexon wasn’t. not more and not less. there was no implication of how a corporation works or how the boards voting goes down. please take my words as they are and don’t try to interpret anything else into them.

Wasn’t reading anything into what you wrote, you simply don’t need to be the majority shareholder to take over the company. If Nexon was able to get others to vote them in they would control NCSoft as a non majority shareholder which they attempted.

The pressure applied to NCSoft’s chairman led to an expansion in GW2, WS going FTP (GW2 as well which I hate) and a refocus on profits across the board which held off the takeover.

Unable to gain control of NCSoft Nexon sold out of their investment at a high earnings point which is what this quarter will be (anyone thinking this quarter won’t be the second or third highest in GW2 history is deluded).

When he died Steve Jobs owned .5% of Apple, hardly a majority.

Whatever the specific details of where it comes from, in this case, there will almost always be greed involved in businesses that are over a certain size; it’s naïve to think otherwise.

It’s almost irrelevant to wonder where it’s coming from.

If you want more say over what an online games company does, you have to be prepared to pay a sub and then, withhold that sub (and not play), if they do something you really dislike.

As long as you keep logging-on, they will think everything is OK (or OK enough).

Even if you stop buying gemstore stuff with real money, in protest, it won’t help much…

As then, they will just assume that they’re not providing the gemstore stuff you really want to buy and/or that you can’t afford it and/or that they’re rewarding you too much in-game, so you don’t need to open your wallet.

They are even more unlikely to put 2 and 2 together and realise that they’re doing things wrong than they would be in a sub game, where not paying means not playing.

…and even in a sub game, it’s not by any means guaranteed that they will get how the (silent) majority feels.

Especially if there is a loud minority, screaming their baby-like heads off, constantly and giving misinformation, all over the internet.

As there very often seems to be.

It’s a dilemma, frankly.

One would hope that the games companies would, therefore, choose to do the right thing.

But, the larger and more successful they get, the more they seem to lose sight of what exactly that is…

Not only that, but as there is no longer one individual (or small group of individuals) to blame, they no longer seem to really care if they come off as somewhat “evil”.

With the attitude that they will just be viewed as yet another evil corporation, in the long list of evil corporations.

…and in fact, it could almost be viewed as very convenient for the original company, if they join forces in some way with a larger, faceless corporation.

As then all the blame for their greedy and/or unfair decisions can be silently switched to the faceless corporation.

The faceless corporation, of course, doesn’t give two hoots about being blamed (fairly, or unfairly), as it is faceless.

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

(Not talking specifically about Anet, here, BTW – more in general.)