[TERA PC & Console] En Masse is closing, but TERA lives on! We will continue to support TERA PC (NA) and TERA Console until service is transferred. Stay tuned for more information.
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[TERA PC] The 64-bit update (v97) is now live. Check out all the changes delivered on August 11 here: https://bit.ly/tera64_patchnotes
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Why this happened
Disclaimer: All of this is a theory of mine but mainly backed up by factual events
Few facts to outline:
EME is the publisher of TERA for NA Region.
BHS is TERA's developer.
EME is a subsidiary company of BHS (meaning BHS owns EME)
Some background info about the companies:
BHS was formed by people who worked at NCSoft in S.Korea. They left NCSoft to make their own company. Three of the TERA devs were found guilty of using NCSoft's Lineage III codes and artwork by the S.Korea supreme court. However, BHS itself was not found guilty. NCSoft also filed a lawsuit against EME, but American court did not find EME at fault. In the beginning EME's CEO was a Korean representative from BHS. However, Chris Lee took over as CEO, he was the Director of Marketing at the time for EME. Chris Lee worked for NCSoft NA before he moved to EME as Sr. Marketing Director. So basically, BHS and EME was formed by ex-NCSoft employees.
Seems kind of shady... But anyways, TERA was a success. EME was even listed as the #33 out of 100 most successful game studios of 2015 by Develop magazine. Tera was one of the top 5 MMOs with the highest revenues yearly.
My Theory of why this happened:
However things started going down hill for EME. They started branching out to other things. ZMR was launched, they put in so much resources into that game, but it was a complete flop. Nobody plays ZMR. Then EME went into Mobile Games. They released 3 games that wasn't popular, Fruit Attacks, Pocket Platoons and Battleplans. I'm guessing they lost lot of money with these projects, especially ZMR. BHS wasn't too happy. Chris Lee stepped down as CEO, but I'm guessing he was fired or was going to be... Sam Kim became the interim CEO when Chris Lee left, but as the title says, "interim". I'm guessing they sent a BHS executive over to run EME now. The ex-COO of EME currently works for BHS as a VP. Perhaps he came back to EME as CEO. Who knows? Maybe Sam is still the CEO, but that doesn't really matter. EME lost their standings with BHS when their projects failed over and over. BHS took over and hence the massive layoffs back in Spring this year. EME has no real power anymore. BHS tells EME to do something, EME just has to take it and become their bich. That's why EME became what it is today, shty company that lies and fks over their players.
I hope this thread doesn't get deleted... I put in 20mins of good work on it.
Edits:
https://www.facebook.com/blueholestudio
Bluehole's facebook page. We should message them and post comments on their page of our thoughts on the matter. Write it in english, they have english speakers. EME is too much of a poosy and incompetent to go up against BHS... we have to do it ourselves if we want to save this game.
Few facts to outline:
EME is the publisher of TERA for NA Region.
BHS is TERA's developer.
EME is a subsidiary company of BHS (meaning BHS owns EME)
Some background info about the companies:
BHS was formed by people who worked at NCSoft in S.Korea. They left NCSoft to make their own company. Three of the TERA devs were found guilty of using NCSoft's Lineage III codes and artwork by the S.Korea supreme court. However, BHS itself was not found guilty. NCSoft also filed a lawsuit against EME, but American court did not find EME at fault. In the beginning EME's CEO was a Korean representative from BHS. However, Chris Lee took over as CEO, he was the Director of Marketing at the time for EME. Chris Lee worked for NCSoft NA before he moved to EME as Sr. Marketing Director. So basically, BHS and EME was formed by ex-NCSoft employees.
Seems kind of shady... But anyways, TERA was a success. EME was even listed as the #33 out of 100 most successful game studios of 2015 by Develop magazine. Tera was one of the top 5 MMOs with the highest revenues yearly.
My Theory of why this happened:
However things started going down hill for EME. They started branching out to other things. ZMR was launched, they put in so much resources into that game, but it was a complete flop. Nobody plays ZMR. Then EME went into Mobile Games. They released 3 games that wasn't popular, Fruit Attacks, Pocket Platoons and Battleplans. I'm guessing they lost lot of money with these projects, especially ZMR. BHS wasn't too happy. Chris Lee stepped down as CEO, but I'm guessing he was fired or was going to be... Sam Kim became the interim CEO when Chris Lee left, but as the title says, "interim". I'm guessing they sent a BHS executive over to run EME now. The ex-COO of EME currently works for BHS as a VP. Perhaps he came back to EME as CEO. Who knows? Maybe Sam is still the CEO, but that doesn't really matter. EME lost their standings with BHS when their projects failed over and over. BHS took over and hence the massive layoffs back in Spring this year. EME has no real power anymore. BHS tells EME to do something, EME just has to take it and become their bich. That's why EME became what it is today, shty company that lies and fks over their players.
I hope this thread doesn't get deleted... I put in 20mins of good work on it.
Edits:
https://www.facebook.com/blueholestudio
Bluehole's facebook page. We should message them and post comments on their page of our thoughts on the matter. Write it in english, they have english speakers. EME is too much of a poosy and incompetent to go up against BHS... we have to do it ourselves if we want to save this game.
7
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
The fact that Bluehole exercised that power to force a blatant cash grab while throwing EME and their efforts under the bus, then taking a steaming dump on the mangled body for good measure, speaks badly of the situation for everyone is in and further destroys whatever remaining confidence the playerbase has for TERA's future.
The lack of foresight blinded by sheer greed and willingness to destroy what little PR is left for NA TERA does not bode well. And there does not seem to be any change coming to mend relations.
When EME first introduced cash shop, they specifically said that since they are the publisher, they have exclusive right as to how to put items on to the cash shop, or how item earned, etc etc. These are more or less part of the critical roles for any publishers on MMO. So for this to happen, BHS basically cross the boundary as a game dev (I know it's a bit awkward since they own EME as well), and despite not knowing the NA market (or simply not caring), went and shove this down our throats. Thus the revolt.
you know what i think abou the hole dragon thing?
i think there was no problem at all with the dragons in general and the way EME/Spacecats presented them on this livestream ( https://www.twitch.tv/enmasseentertainment/v/89730605 ) i think that was the way EME wanted them to give to us earning dragon tokens by killing BAMs and stuff, you know more easyer and injoyable
BUT i think BHS got a wiff of that livestream and they said NO NO to easy whe need more money! ad hard dungeons and rng in your rng so you have more rng so people dont get bored of the game to soon and leave.
So it comes in the end EME cant fight them they have to lisent (see first post) i bet the EME team did there best to fight for us against BHS but in the end they come up with this as there best they can give and end up looking as the bad guys
keep in mind people we dont know what is going on in there offices and there meetings, yes they can do better but i think this is BHS fault and we as players have the short end of the stick...
gaming 101 devs create game.
Publishers monetize game and greatly influence what occurs in game since they help FUND development.
If you want to blame anyone blame Nexon as they have been involved with Tera for quite some time now. The blatant kiss [filtered] and obvious denial is ludicrous. Even after Nexon took over as Publisher for Tera KR community here still in denial pretending. Just look at any Nexon game, long periods if content drought, cash grab items, rehashed content.......ello
Our last hope has been shattered.
First, let's take something like Destiny. Bungie makes a big deal with Activision, who agrees to fund the project and publish it. That's the model more like you're talking about -- the publisher is in control and provides the funding to the developer. The developers are basically a contractor for the publisher.
Second, you have something like TERA. Bluehole secures outside investment (venture capital) to fund their own development project. Then they seek publisher partners who can work on their behalf to publish their game in local markets. (In the case of EME, they use part of their venture capital to form a wholly-owned subsidiary to publish this and potentially other games.) In this case, it's the reverse: the publishers are basically a contractor for the developer. This is the model that a lot of Korean games follow when they go international.
These issues started long before Nexon became the K-TERA publisher, and they're common to a lot of Korean MMOs that are not published by Nexon as well. And of course there are your BHS employees that used to work for Nexon as well. I don't think this is all a giant sign that Nexon has taken over and is pulling the strings, but whether they are or are not, I'm not sure that you'd be able to tell the difference. Some of the decision-making is more part of the culture and market approach.
Anyway, to the OP, your theory is very similar to my own. (Technically, EME is a subsidiary of Bluehole, Inc. as is Bluehole Studios, but the net effect is the same.) I do think it's no surprise that, despite a clear strategy statement of being "all-in" on mobile at the beginning of the year, after the layoffs and CEO change they suddenly got looped into publishing AVA through contacts in Korea and we've seen no more big mobile plays. Also consider that Gameforge just announced a whole bunch of layoffs in recent days because of a failed mobile strategy, and they too are refocusing on PC. I do suspect EME are getting more hands-on management from the board in Korea after some decisions made here didn't work out. This dragon seems very much like an extension of that.
That said... I'll take my extreme doubt of the validity of this stat to my grave. It never made any sense given the lack of some other serious big players on the list, and the source of their data was questionable (given that BHS is a private company). And well, even then, revenue doesn't tell the story on cost, so even if it were true, a lot of people misinterpreted what it meant.
And... You know, if you really meant that, you should really just edit out the insults/flamebait lines near the end. It's an unnecessary distraction.
I should have clarified, it was rank 3 or 4 as a P2P MMO Globally for 2 years or more before it went F2P. Even after game went F2P some metrics listed TERA as still P2P and ranked them top 5. Not sure if it's because TERA has the Elite/VIP thing.
This site placed Tera as #4 for 2014
http://www.polygon.com/2014/7/20/5920815/list-of-mmos-by-revenue-warcraft-old-republic
This site placed Tera as #3 for 2013
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/wow-was-the-top-subscription-mmo-in-2013-star-wars/1100-6421191/