On August 31, 2012, NCsoft liquidated Paragon Studios and announced the closure of City of Heroes.[18] Servers are planned to shut down by November 30, 2012.[19] Members of the studio learned the news only a few hours before the players, and all 80 were dismissed from employment by the afternoon.[citation needed] In addition, in-game financial processes terminated immediately, leaving players unable to resubscribe or dispute charges before the shut down.[20] NCsoft did not provide financial compensation until a month after the announcement.[21] Reasons for the closure are still unclear, as the announcements only reveal that the game was removed "in a realignment of company focus and publishing support".
Players have reached out to social media with their criticism of NCsoft's closing procedures.[22] Efforts range from in-game protests[23] to actively contacting other companies such as Valve[24] and Sony.[25] Some aim to convince NCsoft to reverse their decision, but NCsoft continues to reaffirm the closure.[26] Players have also attempted to boycott NCsoft, and speculate NCsoft's financial decline[27] as demonstrative of customer dissatisfaction. Fan-based communities are also attempting to convince NCsoft to either sell the intellectual property and code to another company, preferently a reformed Paragon Studios under new management, or release server and game information to run private servers or emulations.[28] Celebrities such as Neil Gaiman and John Kovalic showed their support through Twitter, and John C. Wright wrote a personal request to NCsoft on his blog.[29] Mercedes Lackey has been an active player for several years, and assisted the effort by volunteering to provide five to ten years of free endorsement for NCsoft if they preserve City of Heroes. In addition, fans have worked on projects to support the former employees. They ran in-game events in tribute to the lead designer[30] and funded an honorary dinner for the studio.[31] As of October 2012, NCsoft has not made any changes to its decision.