Paragon Studios’ community manager Andy Belford wrote today that due to “a realignment of company focus and publishing support, NCsoft has made the decision to close Paragon Studios” and shut down the City of Heroes servers before the end of the year.
All work on the game has come to an end and the company’s being dissolved. Belford calls on “any potential studios” to”hire these people. You won’t regret it.” Which does suggest that NCsoft haven’t found places within its studios for the team. According to LinkedIn, that could be as many as 50 people, though sources have told Gamasutra the number may be closer to 80.
For the subscribers of City of Heroes “all recurring subscription billing and Paragon Market purchasing will be discontinued effective immediately” and the exact details of the”cessation of services” will be revealed in the coming weeks.
City of Heroes launched in 2004, though then the developer leading the game was Cryptic – now working on the Neverwinter MMO, in 2007 NCSoft moved development duties to NCsoft NorCal. In 2009 NCsoft NorCal became Paragon Studios.
We’ll bring you more on this as we learn more.