All Quiet on the Paragonian Front
By
Aggelakis,
Posted on: 2010-02-02 23:23 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Castle, I think the majority of the player base (PP excluded), while annoyed, for the most part understands why the release of information on new features to the public/player base flows like a clogged IV drip. What I really think is starting to worry, annoy and make people scratch their heads at is the lack of anything outside of keeping "our nearly 6 year old game in the gaming press". |
Originally Posted by Castle
Our marketing guys are actually very good at what they do. The truth of the matter is that TV commercials are expensive and won't bring in enough new users to justify the cost. Our team gets us banner ads on sites like Ten Ton Hammer and they try very hard to keep our nearly 6 year old game in the gaming press -- which frankly is not an easy job. The fact that schedules change or planned features don't pan out as being feasible sometimes means that their plans have to shift, which causes delays in information release.
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I have no idea where I fit in the MMO marketing demographic but if all this game ever did was advertise in "the Gaming Press" I would have NEVER found it almost 4 years ago and may never have found it. I am a comics fan more than an MMO fan. I found this game on the shelf at Best Buy. I do not go to gaming press sites unless it's from a link in these forums.
I may be speaking for myself but this game should not have to tread water in the gaming press until GR comes out with some new shiny. It should be actively seeking more people based on the merits of what is ALREADY IN THE GAME. Posters or some sort of presence in local comic book shops should not be out of the realm possiblitly. A trip by marketing (or heaven forbid an actual Dev) to set up a booth at a Comicon east of the San Andreas fault would be a novel idea. There is a big one coming to Chicago in a little over 2 months.
The fact that this is an old game does not have to be a handicap to marketing it. Touting the expansive content available for a new player to the game, listing all of the FREE content that has been added and continues to be added, should draw those looking for a good game experience and a good value but have never tried an MMO or have no interest in orcs and elves. I think people are frustrated with marketings narrow focus on the control of information about new stuff and lack of focus on educating consumers on what is already in the game.
I want to feel like marketing cares about the growth of the game as much as the people here do. Instead we get...well...nothing. A blurb on mmoblahblahblah.com does not a marketing campaign make.
I love the game and, like many here, I just don't seem to get the feeling that marketing feels the same way.
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As a CPA, I endorse this message.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Curiously enough, this is also the motto of the Accounting industry and Stalin.
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wut?
That is a good question.... Do we have a spot on facebook for the game? I've heard word that it's got more poeple on it now then WoW and myspace put together. All you would have to do is make it is make it fan site for CoX and there you go, now more people well began to hear about it and may want to join. Just an idea...
Marketing would have been behind the Rooster Teeth MA videos that were popular a while back. Also, if what I remember is correct, someone at NCsoft is happy with CoH/V's marketing because I believe Ross was bumped up to VP of Marketing at NCsoft (Zombie Man can correct me).
Here's the thing that everyone overlooked in Castle's posts - Marketing is dependent on the devs to provide the material they use and okay it. Since the big build up is for GR, then that's what they'll be saving their dollars for and since they can't yet say anything about GR, marketing's hands are tied.
Marketing could be out creating more videos for YouTube, I guess, but even that isn't guaranteed. Did the Rooster Teeth videos go viral? Attract a lot of new players? Probably too hard to tell on its own (since it was tied into a product release).
As for marketing in action - I've seen CoH/V on websites, in comic books and located in any number of places. However, doing this is pretty expensive on a constant basis (and it depends on what marketing budget CoH/V might even have - for a studio the size of Paragon it might not be that big and NCsoft was a lot more interested in plugging Aion last year). If players are willing to give up money being spent on development to increase the marketing budget, feel free to say so.
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As a former bureaucrat, I can also tell you that this is also the motto of every part of any government.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Curiously enough, this is also the motto of the Accounting industry and Stalin.
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I must be one of the few people who isn't irritated by the lack of Going Rogue information. My attitude is that I want to play the expansion, not read about one of its features that I won't be able to experience until it's released in another four to eight months. And I really don't understand all the hatred of the marketing department.
I am, however, alternately surprised and mystified by the approaching taken to marketing the game in general. For at least the past two years, the main marketing targets for the game seem to be (1) current, long-term subscribers and (2) MMO fans.
The focus on the first group is surprising to me, but after much thought, I've come to understand it a bit better. The idea seems to be that because City of Heroes is an old dog in the MMO world, it's better to focus on retaining customer loyalty than to try to gather new customers. Put another way, it's more realistic to try to keep the player base from shrinking than to try to grow it. Yes, this does make sense for an older game. It's also extremely flattering to me as a longterm customer for the game and makes me feel even more invested in the product.
However, with a boxed expansion coming out, I wonder if it might be worthwhile to consider potential customer segments other than those who are already loyal to the product, as well as those loyal customers. If it is worthwhile to do so, the game's positive features (visuals, setting, casual-friendly nature, flexibility) need to be presented in ways other than announcements on this website.
Now, of course, most additions to the game are presented on MMO news websites, which brings me to the second group of marketing targets. I question whether this is the ideal target audience of new players for this particular game for two reasons. First, as a previous poster pointed out, while it's fine to market to MMO fans, City of Heroes has potential appeal well beyond the traditional MMO fan base. This is especially true with a boxed expansion coming out, which will create shelf presence and make it easier for those with a casual interest in the game to learn more about it through the simple expedient of picking up a copy.
Second, City of Heroes succeeds in providing quality entertainment by being different from other MMO's, not by copying them, as most of the industry does. The game is forgiving to casual players, emphasizes customizability and uniqueness, and has relatively little "grind" or "uber-loot." This is the polar opposite of many MMO's out there. Fans of those MMO's, the same people who are being treated as this game's potential new audience, often criticize City of Heroes precisely because it flouts these MMO conventions. It is counterintituitive to expect, for example, hardcore World of Warcraft players to switch their entertainment dollars to City of Heroes simply because City announces the ability to recolor one's powers on an MMO news site. Indeed, such gamers are likely to laugh at City of Heroes for spending the time on such a feature.
I argue that instead of (or at least in addition to) marketing to these individuals, City of Heroes should market itself to non-MMO fans who form communities similar to MMO fans. These would include players of single-player games, comic book fans, and even movie enthusiasts. These are the segments of the population that are most likely to be impressed by a game with the general features I described above. Non-MMO communities are an untapped resource for the game that I believe its marketing should strive to reach. Of course, reaching these groups may be so costly or otherwise difficult that the marketing department has elected to forego trying.
To put things in simpler terms, we're pushing the game to the wrong group of geeks. It's easier to gain the loyalty of someone who isn't committed to any MMO at all than to fight another game for that loyalty.
At least, those are my theories. If you read this far, I hope you enjoyed them!
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So you're saying we need to get some ads on Dr. Aeon, eh? I support this idea.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Its not like anyone watches TV anymore anyway.
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I can't say whether marketing is or is not doing a good job, but I'm inclined to vote the latter for a simple reason - I have not, to this day, seen more than a couple of references to City of Heroes. Ever. I may have seen a banner add somewhere on a site I found by chance, and I may have seen it mentioned in a list of MMOs. That's it. I don't know what sites it has banner adds on, but they aren't the sites I visit. I was not an MMO player before I learned of City of Heroes and, judging from my forays into other MMOs, will never be one. I enjoy City of Heroes exactly because it is not like an MMO, and I think it's a mistake to try and market it to the hardcore MMO fans.
Secondly, the point of advertising, despite what television may have taught you, is not to annoy us or brainwash us, it is to inform us that a product does, in fact, exist, and maybe make us interested in checking it out. I found and tried both Dragonica and Dungeon Fighter Online simply because I saw a cute ad for them on ICanHasCheezburger, back before localisation started showing me crappy Bulgarian browser games I'll never, ever try. Dragonica caught me banners of cute, anime-style ganguro girls in Fantasy armour while Dungeon Fighter Online caught me with what looked like arcade fighter gameplay right on the banner. And I'm pretty sure those were "Ads by Google."
I don't doubt the marketing department are doing as much as they can be, I just don't feel they're aiming for the right spots. Aiming for MMO enthusiasts is a mistake. Aiming for a broader audience of general gamers, and indeed non-gamers seems like a much better choice, specifically considering we have so many people here for whom City of Heroes was the first and only game they played. Targeting more general areas of congregation might also be a good idea. Again, places like the many "funny caption" blogs tend to get a lot of traffic.
Just put it out there for people to see. It's silly that I had to learn about this game from an article on SomethingAwful.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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Well, that's not exactly what I had in mind...|
Originally Posted by Clave_Dark_5
So you're saying we need to get some ads on Dr. Aeon, eh? I support this idea.
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Ladies and gentlemen, tune your forum settings to WIN!
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Well, that's not exactly what I had in mind...
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That is however exactly what I had in mind, nice work! |
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Well, that's not exactly what I had in mind...
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I always thought, that the marketing in germany wasn´t really good.|
Originally Posted by Castle
In one of my business development courses back in college, one of my professors had a great, if cynical, quote: "Marketing's number one job is to promote the cause of marketing; any work actually promoting your product is purely secondary to maintaining their hold on the purse strings."
Our marketing guys are actually very good at what they do. The truth of the matter is that TV commercials are expensive and won't bring in enough new users to justify the cost. Our team gets us banner ads on sites like Ten Ton Hammer and they try very hard to keep our nearly 6 year old game in the gaming press -- which frankly is not an easy job. The fact that schedules change or planned features don't pan out as being feasible sometimes means that their plans have to shift, which causes delays in information release. I would love to see a City of Heroes commercial on TV. The money just isn't there, though. |
I can´t really remember how i found my way to CoX. I think it was a link to the CoV free trial on a site where free online games were listed.
I found CoX a few weeks after I8 was released. A shame, that it took so long.
Btw, CoX is my first MMO. Maybe if i would have used some MMO promoting sites, i would have stumbled over it earlier.
The superhero genre is by far not so well accepted in germany than in other countries, but i think a short cinema commercial before superhero movies or advertising in DC and Marvel Comics, which are the most read superhero comics here would have helped to get the right target group.
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That's awesome! Now if someone could get Tivo on the Television....
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Well, that's not exactly what I had in mind...
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Who do I have to *&^% around here to get more Targeted AoE recipes added?
Arc Name: Tsoo In Love
Arc ID: 413575
Well we are kind of in a tight spot here. First of all we can't advertise in Marvel comics (although, I think I did see an ad once) and DC has their own game coming out. On top of those facts, we also don't have our own comic on the shelves anymore, so regular advertisment is limited.
"Samual_Tow - Be disappointed all you want, people. You just don't appreciate the miracles that are taking place here."
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These are my thoughts almost exactly. I'm not obsessing over info on GR. But I am continually amazed at how few people really know about City of Heroes and how that seems to be an acceptable thing for the marketing dept or whoever calls the shots.|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I can't say whether marketing is or is not doing a good job, but I'm inclined to vote the latter for a simple reason - I have not, to this day, seen more than a couple of references to City of Heroes. Ever. I may have seen a banner add somewhere on a site I found by chance, and I may have seen it mentioned in a list of MMOs. That's it. I don't know what sites it has banner adds on, but they aren't the sites I visit. I was not an MMO player before I learned of City of Heroes and, judging from my forays into other MMOs, will never be one. I enjoy City of Heroes exactly because it is not like an MMO, and I think it's a mistake to try and market it to the hardcore MMO fans.
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With all due respect to Castle and his post, I am so tired of hearing about how we are six years old now and we should just be happy that the servers are still live(at least that's what I keep hearing from people on the forums and now devs as well). EVE is older than we are and started with less than 20k subscribers.
Olantern's point about focusing on veteran subscribers seems to be right on the money. It almost feels like we're on a leaky boat and we've just come to the point where we're patching holes to stay afloat.
The ironic part is that with GR we're overhauling the boat and expanding it, but we're still only willing to carry the same number of passengers we had when the boat was a leaky little skiff.
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| Secondly, the point of advertising, despite what television may have taught you, is not to annoy us or brainwash us, it is to inform us that a product does, in fact, exist, and maybe make us interested in checking it out. I found and tried both Dragonica and Dungeon Fighter Online simply because I saw a cute ad for them on ICanHasCheezburger, back before localisation started showing me crappy Bulgarian browser games I'll never, ever try. Dragonica caught me banners of cute, anime-style ganguro girls in Fantasy armour while Dungeon Fighter Online caught me with what looked like arcade fighter gameplay right on the banner. And I'm pretty sure those were "Ads by Google." |
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| Aiming for MMO enthusiasts is a mistake. Aiming for a broader audience of general gamers, and indeed non-gamers seems like a much better choice, specifically considering we have so many people here for whom City of Heroes was the first and only game they played. Targeting more general areas of congregation might also be a good idea. Again, places like the many "funny caption" blogs tend to get a lot of traffic. |
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| Just put it out there for people to see. It's silly that I had to learn about this game from an article on SomethingAwful. |
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Originally Posted by Slashman
These are my thoughts almost exactly. I'm not obsessing over info on GR. But I am continually amazed at how few people really know about City of Heroes and how that seems to be an acceptable thing for the marketing dept or whoever calls the shots.
With all due respect to Castle and his post, I am so tired of hearing about how we are six years old now and we should just be happy that the servers are still live(at least that's what I keep hearing from people on the forums and now devs as well). EVE is older than we are and started with less than 20k subscribers. Olantern's point about focusing on veteran subscribers seems to be right on the money. It almost feels like we're on a leaky boat and we've just come to the point where we're patching holes to stay afloat. The ironic part is that with GR we're overhauling the boat and expanding it, but we're still only willing to carry the same number of passengers we had when the boat was a leaky little skiff. Again this is the point that I think most people who are protesting the marketing strategy of the game are trying to make. The marketing department may well be doing something, but if they aren't doing that something in the right place, then it's almost the same thing as doing nothing. One lesson that WoW taught that MMO devs don't seem to ever learn is the value of creating your own target audience. Don't try to be the MMO that 'kills' one MMO so that you can succeed by getting their subscribers. By the same token, COX needs to appeal to people who are not MMO players. I suspect that most MMO players already know about COX. A lot of them have bad preconceived notions about it as well from what you read on MMO forums(some of these are well founded...but still). COX is superior to a lot of the stuff that's out there and, in general, most folks still don't know about it. This, a thousand times! |
I can honestly say; CoH was my first MMO, my only MMO. Nor do I consider myself a MMO player; yet I've been here since closed beta. I even took over my brother's account and made it my second "on again off again" account.
I can't remember how I found out about this game, but I can tell you it wasn't from a comic book advertising as I stopped reading those back in the 90s.
Who do I have to *&^% around here to get more Targeted AoE recipes added?
Arc Name: Tsoo In Love
Arc ID: 413575
I was a big console player and never heard of CoX.While checking out the back aisles in a Target store,I seen a clearance rack and seen a copy of City of Villains.Now here we are 40 months later and I still play,and haven't touched a console game in 2 years.
Yeah it's an addictive game with a great community,but,to never have heard of it and see it on a clearance rack.
Plus,I subscribed to alot of console magazines back then and didn't see squat about the game.For the longest time I thought CoX was some kind of below the radar fluke...
Please don't use WoW as any example for what MMOs should do. It launched with an international advertising campaign and had a pre-launch campaign that covered a lot of different channels. EDIT: Plus it pulled players from existing MMOs first, who then told their friends to come play.
Ultimately WoW has earned the billions that their marketing department can use to spend on celebrity endorsements. CoH/V earned something like US$26m last year in revenue (might be a bit more or less, currency conversions being what they are) and I don't think that their marketing department is getting a huge proportion of that budgeted to them.
The other thing that CoH/V runs into is that even perfect non-MMO sites that might contain thousands of people who all desperately want to play a MMO it might not be that easy to target. Paragon Studios' marketing team might be (actually, probably is) constrained by NCsoft's overall marketing decisions, which means they can't just pop out and choose whichever sites they want to buy ad space on. It makes sense for NCsoft to keep a close rein on which of their titles are advertised where so that internal conflicts (say CoH/V vs Aion) don't occur in advertising purchasing decisions or at key information release points.
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I really dislike WoW. So I'm not using them as an example that COX should follow to the letter. Also, WoW did not, in fact, get it's majority of players from other MMOs. When it launched, there simply weren't that many MMO players to pull from. A significant number of WoW players were already Blizzard fans. I'm talking about where they pulled the rest of their players from. It wasn't by 'killing' other MMOs. They got people playing that had never played MMOs before, or indeed even a PC game.|
Originally Posted by UnSub
Please don't use WoW as any example for what MMOs should do. It launched with an international advertising campaign and had a pre-launch campaign that covered a lot of different channels. EDIT: Plus it pulled players from existing MMOs first, who then told their friends to come play.
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| Ultimately WoW has earned the billions that their marketing department can use to spend on celebrity endorsements. CoH/V earned something like US$26m last year in revenue (might be a bit more or less, currency conversions being what they are) and I don't think that their marketing department is getting a huge proportion of that budgeted to them. |
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| The other thing that CoH/V runs into is that even perfect non-MMO sites that might contain thousands of people who all desperately want to play a MMO it might not be that easy to target. Paragon Studios' marketing team might be (actually, probably is) constrained by NCsoft's overall marketing decisions, which means they can't just pop out and choose whichever sites they want to buy ad space on. It makes sense for NCsoft to keep a close rein on which of their titles are advertised where so that internal conflicts (say CoH/V vs Aion) don't occur in advertising purchasing decisions or at key information release points. |
It could simply be a case of me not getting it. I'll admit that I'm wrong if someone ever speaks out and explains the methodology of it all. Until then, I suppose I can only look from the outside and speculate at what I perceive to be a very good game not getting its' fair share of the spotlight.
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I understand your marketing department doesn't have 'tv money' and I'm not expecting to see CoH mentioned during the superbowl, but I feel like your marketing department does a very poor job marketing this game. There are countless ways to create buzz that are absolutely FREE. I very rarely see any mention of this game anywhere. Even on your own site, the info is rare and far between, though very recently it seems moves were made to correct this. Your marketing team is far too secretive for it's own good. They should be leaking whatever they can about GR in bits and pieces to keep people interested, instead there has been a virtual lock down of info over the last few months.|
Originally Posted by Castle
In one of my business development courses back in college, one of my professors had a great, if cynical, quote: "Marketing's number one job is to promote the cause of marketing; any work actually promoting your product is purely secondary to maintaining their hold on the purse strings."
Our marketing guys are actually very good at what they do. The truth of the matter is that TV commercials are expensive and won't bring in enough new users to justify the cost. Our team gets us banner ads on sites like Ten Ton Hammer and they try very hard to keep our nearly 6 year old game in the gaming press -- which frankly is not an easy job. The fact that schedules change or planned features don't pan out as being feasible sometimes means that their plans have to shift, which causes delays in information release. I would love to see a City of Heroes commercial on TV. The money just isn't there, though. |
And I'd disagree with your professor's statement (even though I'm thinking he made the statement in jest) - a GOOD marketing firm puts the product first, because if the product fails, there are no purse strings to keep a hold on. Obviously a marketing firm has to market itself to get jobs, but once it gets a job, it damn well better focus on product. The excuses offered 'its an old game' and 'the product evolves as we go' are poor excuses. The last thing marketing should want to do is give the idea that this game is old, they should be pointing out updates that make the game fresh and new (even if its BS...), and to answer the constant evolution problem, be vague if necessary, but keep the info flowing to your customers, and make them believe great new stuff is coming (again, even if its BS...). Hiding the game behind a wall of secrecy is simply bad marketing. People stop caring about the game and you start to bleed customers. And once you lose a customer, it's harder to get them back.
On the plus side, the recent moves to improve activity on this website are good ideas, as are the contests that have been implemented. But more info on GR, perhaps on a weekly basis, would create more buzz for GR and maintain interest among your current customers.
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How about internet advertising? http://www.syfy.com is polluted with ads for STO. There has to be some good avenues for advertising CoX on the Superhero/comic/MMO genre themed sites out there.
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Originally Posted by Castle
The truth of the matter is that TV commercials are expensive and won't bring in enough new users to justify the cost.
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Shard Warrior - 50 MA/Regen/BM Scrapper
Founding Member and Leader : Shadow-Force
Co-Leader: Council of Heroes
"Whatever evils come this way... we will be there to stop them."
I wonder what it'd cost to do online advertising like on Newsrama and other comic-related websites?
My COX Fanfiction:
Blue's Assembled Story Links
I say make a few 'official' posters and stuff and post them on the website.
And then let the fanbase print them out and sticky them up in places.
Take a load printed to pamphlet size and ask the local game store if they mind just leaving them on the side, or stand by the door (hell, bring a chair)
Stick em by bus stops; people read any old carp when they are sat, bored, waiting for the 18:58.
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Originally Posted by Zwillinger
GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.
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Originally Posted by Captain_Photon
NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.
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Updates (free or otherwise) are the main way a game can retain existing players, however, a paid expansion has the advantage of allowing more staff to work on it since the company can expect to recoup a lot of the costs by charging players for it, something they obviously can't do with a free update.|
Originally Posted by Slashman
This begs me to ask again, why more than double your staff and spend even more money on top of that to produce and expansion, when you don't intend to grow the playerbase of the game? They could have added less people to the team and then simply gave us meatier issues as continued free updates.
It could simply be a case of me not getting it. I'll admit that I'm wrong if someone ever speaks out and explains the methodology of it all. Until then, I suppose I can only look from the outside and speculate at what I perceive to be a very good game not getting its' fair share of the spotlight. |
Players are generally not resentful for paying because the expansion goes above and beyond what they could typically get for 'free'.
With regards to advertisements, a few points I would make are:
1. The game is nearing six years old. NCsoft will be working hard to retain players rather than focusing more on getting new ones, since a) it's a lot easier to keep a player than woo him back after he leaves and b) the playerbase is not going to grow significantly with the game being as old as it is. That window, I think, closed several years back.
2. A superhero (and villain) MMO is a niche inside a niche. The appeal is limited no matter how good the game is. Spending marketing dollars that may drum up little interest would be a wasted investment.
I do think NCsoft marketing dropped the ball by announcing Going Rogue so early and then following up with virtually no information for months on end. Look at the way other comparable MMOs have handled publicizing their expansions (LOTRO, EQ2, EVE) and you won't see the same thing. Heck, even after getting some updates at HeroCon, the official Going Rogue website remains moribund well over three months later, with only a character bio added. It's rather baffling to me that they didn't at least refresh it with the information released at HeroCon.
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