Ways for us to get New Subscribers?

I can only imagine disabling trial accounts being able to team leader was the devs thinking, "well, the RMTers might spam random invites and /team "BUY GOLD FROM BLAHBLAHRA.COM $10 FOR 100 MILLION!"

Of course, you could just automatically reject blind invites. Got into that habit during MA and the level 1s randomly inviting 50s and demanding you PL them. But if it's a farmer's bot it'll keep spamming out invites until a GM bans the account...and then it'll take maybe 5 minutes tops to activate a new trial account and spam invites until a GM bans it. Repeat ad naseum.

I see no issue with using social networking sites to try and lure in new blood...to be honest....I think anything is worth a try right now...I am not a huge fan of in game items being tied to it but if it achieves the goal then go for it...

The game is definitely an "underground" name...I went to my local EB games when the MA edition came out and asked for it...the store manager said they don't carry COH but they carry WoW and Warhammer...I thought it was strange but browsed some games and found the MA edition tucked away on a shelf...this seems wrong to me....

I agree with the OP that we need some inexpensive advertising...I do set my facebook status to say I am going to play City Of Heroes for more info message me...but I have over 500 friends on facebook...would they all play COH...???...dunno...but it is alot easier to have some app for them to explore than sending 500 instant messages to see...

For those who actually USE social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc, yes... those might be useful venues to use, so long as it's not consider spamming or harassment. After all, we don't want CoH to be seen with the same stigma as, say, 'a certain another annoying game with the most misleading ads on the planet.'

(Though as a side note, THAT was marketing - and they even ADMITTED it!)

I do think a LOT of the playerbase probably has told their family and friends about it, and many of them may have tried it already. If it's not their thing, it's not their thing... though I'd certainly suggest trying again once GR goes live with its graphics upgrade, as that might impress people.

But ways to get folks into the game, or spread the word?

1) If you've got a website, put a CoH banner on it - if you don't like the ones in the fankits, design your own, and make them available for other players.

2) Links in your MySpace, Facebook, etc pages.

3) Occasionally mention it in Twitter - if you're on Raptor or whatever, then you can set it to automatically add whenever you play such-and-such game. (Note - CO has the feature that 'so-and-so just beat such-and-such level or such-and-such baddie', and those were so repetitive and fastcoming that people starting blocking friends because of the annoyance factor... so don't take it too far.)

4) Hit your local gaming stores and mention to the owners that "hey, GOING ROGUE is going live hopefully by June - would you mind if a couple of us brought in our computers and gave a demo?"

5) Design your own ads and put them up on YouTube. And they don't have to be flashy CGI (although if you can do ads like the CITY OF VILLAINS ad and the Korean COH ad, please do it!), they can be live-action a la Captain Dynamic.

6) Do you actually know anyone famous? Think you can con them into doing an ad? Case in point... Vic Mignona did a hilarious ad for Wow - because his fans asked him to do it. Does he play? No idea. But it got the word out. Hey, you never know...

7) Design your own t-shirts and hit the 'con circuit. Phoenix Comicon will be here in May, and hubby, me, and as many of our friends as can make it will be there in CoH gear and wandering as a group to promote the game. Network, network, network.

8) Local meet-and-greets - we had one recently here in Arizona at Howie's, one of those places where you can rent computer rigs for massive LAN parties. The organizers contacted the mods and we got posters, mini-figures, etc, and with 20 or more of us yelling as we ran through TFs and SFs and the like, we were an event unto ourselves. I lost track of how many people came over to ask, "What are you guys playing? That's CoH? Tell me more."

*****

And no, I'm not a marketing student. I don't even play one on TV.

*****

EDIT: Also just found this absolutely fascinating article on Games Marketing. Check it out, plus the related articles at the bottom.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

I've got an idea to increase subscription numbers. Fist we advertise on Penny Arcade. Then we get a CoH twitter and maybe Facebook page. Then we release a new expansion tog et shelf spots!

Originally Posted by MageX

I'd just like to see the game get some physical shelf space in stores.
I've been keeping an eye out since the GvE box hit stores and noticed that we don't get that much physical representation in stores.
I'm hardpressed to find the actual Architect Edition box in my area anywhere, yet I can always find stacks of AION, WoW or CO.

Having little Billy Gamer Jr. cruising the aisles of say, WalMart or Fred Meyer and picking through the games section, let's give him something to compare against those other MMO's.

I am all in favor of drawing new, long-term subscribers to the game. I am also painfully aware that marketing has done a horrible job of advertising this game. As others have pointed out, word-of-mouth just doesn't cut it.

I can see the effects of a slowly declining membership in Atlas Park alone. I used to like to hang out there with my 50s and pass out influence to characters with no 3-month vet badge if I thought their characters were well-designed and had great bios. Lately, it's really hard to find a character with less than 18 months worth of vet badges. That speaks volumes.

Now, the question remains: What to do about it. If marketing can't be bothered, a grass-roots effort may, in fact, be called for. Some think that Facebook is a great venue, and I don't altogether disagree with that. But we've also seen other sites rise to the occasion to provide valuable services to the COX community (BadgeHunter, COHTitan, and so on).

I propose that we might consider a grass-roots advertising campaign using subscriber-created posters and videos. I, myself, would be willing to provide the website for it (though you'll have to put up with my hokey domain name), as long as others would be willing to provide the content. I'm not all that great with graphics-editing software, and I don't know squat about video composition.

But imagine what we could do if we had a link we could share with folks on our Facebook or Twitter accounts (if we so chose) that took potential new subscribers to a custom page that contained TONS of advertisements for the game. Posters, video trailers, screenshots, tutorials, testimonials from long-term subscribers. We could potentially build a far-better advertising movement than Paragon/NCSoft has. All it would take is some interest and commitment.

Start small, and build from there. I know we have some very talented people in this community. If the Marketing Department won't do it, maybe it's time we jumped in and did something about it. We shouldn't have to, that's true; but we want to see this game be successful every bit as much (if not moreso) than the Devs and the rest of NCSoft.

Yes, "viral" is the word you want. I haven't seen that idea mentioned before, but with so much stuff on the forums, it may have gotten lost in the shuffle (or erased during the forum transition).

Variants of the idea would be:

Arachnos recruitment posters (especially following Recluse's speech)
Arachnos REBELLION posters (villains who don't give a damn about Arachnos and have every intention of sweeping Recluse from the map so THEY can be in charge)
Longbow/Freedom Corps recruitment posters (a call to arms by Statesman and Ms Liberty)
FBSA recruitment posters (specializing in the 5 branches)
Vanguard recruitment posters (for heroes and villains - Earth for humans, defeat the Rikti, etc)

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

Reading this thread is sort of sad. As small as this community is, it is sad to see you folks fight and hurl insults. All that aside, I would like to contribute to this thread.

When this game was first released I couldn't stop playing it. My friends from other games joined me and we played for a while together. Back then the only thing to do in the end-game was fight a big transparent blob thingie and herd wolf NPCs in missions to power-level our low level characters. I regret that the most. The whole fun of this game IS the leveling up and the experiences you get while doing it. Friends starting dropping off here and there for various reasons, although the scariest one was some of the changes didn't sit well with them (some nerfs I guess). Maybe some of them thought it would be another DAOC or EQ. Others left to play that monster we know as World of War-crack (errr craft). I continued to play until I wasn't having fun anymore.

I went to other games, mainly WoW, because that is where my friends were. I hated that cartoonish POS since the moment I played it, but I could NOT convince my friends to play anything else. These were people I played with for years and years, since the days of Ultima Online. I've given up on even trying to convince them. Warhammer came out, I tried it. They didn't. Age of Conan - same story. Champions Online - same.

Where am I now? I didn't have many choices to be honest. No other game has been as fun as CoH was for me when I played it. No one I knew was playing it anymore so I was hesitant to play it again. To be honest, I hate to play alone. So I'm back. I brought my son with me too. We will play until we get bored again or something else grabs our attention.

The thing is, many MMO players are just not going to make the switch from The Evil Empire (aka WoW). They are so sucked into the lemming pit it is, and what they can "get" next, that they won't even think of abandoning their hard work (I thought games were supposed to be fun) for something else, especially an old game like CoH.

Your best chance to get new players is from people who are "new" players. This Facebook idea is a good one. I know some of you don't agree and might even be prissy about the types of players it may attract, but I think this game has a LOT to offer fans of super-hero games or even movie fans looking for a new experience after watching a good super-hero movie. It seems that the people running this game have somewhat of an idea of where to get these customers. They certainly won't get them advertising on Fileplanet or other gaming web sites. People there are either disenchanted with all MMOs or are hooked on World of Suckfest, or they are like us, willing to play their favorite MMO even with less people playing it.

It is sad that some of you don't care to see the population grow and like it how it is. In order for new content to be released or anything new, they have to make some profit on the game. The status-quo isn't going to do it. They will only do this until they have something else for these developers to work on. Suits don't care about customers - they care about the bottom line, and if you think they do you are greatly mistaken - especially in a country where they are willing to send all our jobs overseas just to make the mighty dollar line their greedy little pockets.

So anyhow, you have two "sort of" new folks coming back to play this game. I'll do my best to drag others back! I don't expect much though. Haven't you seen the advertisements of the new WoW expansion? They have an army of developers to throw at another grind-fest for their customers and by the sound of my old friends who play that nightmare, their eyes are already lit up and their money is already waiting to be spent.

Show me that then.