Originally Posted by
Sylvanie
Paragon Studios isn't a branch in that sense, either. They had autonomy comparable to ArenaNet.
As I understand it, the following factors are likely to have factored into the shutdown:
(1) City of Heroes is profitable, but doesn't make a lot of money (they have somewhere north of $10 million in revenue annually, as I recall).
(2) When NCSoft bought the franchise, they licensed the engine. The license supposedly is up for renewal, and it is still owned by Cryptic Studios, which is owned by Perfect World, an NCSoft competitor.
(3) NCSoft had a financially difficult quarter.
The best guesses we have is that City of Heroes was considered just too much of a distraction for NCSoft, with not enough benefits to keep it running. But the shutdown had nothing to do with how much or how little influence NCSoft had.