Hello from Paragon Marketing

Here are some of my ideas.

1. Getting the EU and NA players access to one large inclusive serverlist.

2. Well the most effective way is for the community to get more people playing. However, nicer tools and better incentives could help. I'd like to go to my FLGS and get the room full of boardgamers, RPGers and CCG players to play the game. Some cards with website info and info to give the player my globalname would be nice (and maybe some extra gametime too)

3. City of Heroes needs a cardgame. I don't think the Heroclix thing really worked as the Collectable figures is pretty niche. A self contained card game like Race for the Galaxy or Dominion would be a good way to get more visibility to the MMO game. You can stick game brochures in the gamebox for example. It also gets the "City of heroes" name on other sites such as boardgamegeek which has quite a worldside following. (I'll even design the card game for you want to do it)

4. In game advertising, did we get any rewards for turning it on? I'm sure if it was good enough people would turn it on.

Suggestion: Interactive Advertising

Each time a new "issue" is released, the Developers spend time doing interviews with the major MMO news sources. Well, why not use that a little more to your advantage to get active players as well as potential customers to spend more time learning about the product?

Since you are a long time player, you obviously know about the "Mysterious Letters" written by an unknown, in-game character. Those letter find their way into many Flashback/Time Travel missions and give clues about future happenings about the "Coming Storm."

Well, what if this "Mysterious Person" left certain "keywords" in all of the upcoming interviews, that when the time is right, reveals something major abuot Going Rogue?

It could make the Going Rogue advertising more interactive since people will have to read through each line of advertising/interviews to find the correct words (or correct website URL) to create a "Hidden Mysterious Letter" from this person that spills the beans about Going Rogue.

Heck, throw in a freebie that can be applied to each new account or active account. Have the last line of the hidden letter have one more clue to a website url (like http://www.CityOfHeroes.com/the-coming-storm) where it generates a random upgrade code that whoever applies it to their account, before GoRo, gets something like an exclusive Going Rogue chest emblem, maybe one of the Paragon Studios logo?

I think making an interactive advertising campaign, that allows people to feel like they are doing something useful while taking part in the advertising, might be something that, in itself, will make CoH and Ncsoft stand out a bit more.

Anyway, thanks for the time and welcome to the forums

The flood of questions is, unfortunately, overwhelming me.

A lot of great questions, and some good ideas I'll look into.

However, you guys have a lot of questions I simply cannot answer. Not because I don't like you, but because it's not something I know enough about. Unfortunately, I wasn't on this side of the War Wall in 2004. It's not what you want to hear, but I don't want to lie to you or give you false hopes.

I don't mean to ignore questions but.....I can either tell you "I don't know, ask someone else" or answer the questions you know I can help with.

So I'm going with #2.

Greetings fellow ebil marketing person!

The CoX community does indeed rocketh a multitude of socks. So empower us to bring players into the game, and encourage them to stay. A great example of how to do it well - WoW's RAF program. Unique mount for the referrer, plus a month free once the friend has paid for three months, increased levelling speed when teamed with your referrabuddy, a teleport to buddy temp power, and the option to gift levels to characters on the referrers account. Limited to 5 different buddies per main account, but on a rolling basis.

Transfer that to CoX, and let us bring people to you, and reward us for doing your job for you Will need some dev time (xp boost while teamed, the unique reward for the referrer etc). I can offer anecdotal evidence that this brought people into the game (as well as encouraging multiple accounts for completionists *ahem*), by the people I recommended to the game.

Now that I've given you a freebie, I would echo the calls for some clarity on the plans for us lovely Europeans - especially moves to give us more access to a wider playing base (and some equality with you 'mericans when it comes to character slots).

Welcome to the boards, black pebble.

Suggestion time.

1. Mass transit media. In cities, advertise in subways, buses, cabs, ferrys, etc. This is where you get the largest amount of people in one place, nearly every single day, and they have to stay in that one place for the duration of the trip. Your target audience will vary, however, unless you have your own limo or your a sadist for driving into the city everyday, a high majority of folks will see those rectangular advertisement ads for CoH/Going Rogue/etc for a higher duration of time in their transit than someone thumbing through a magazine once for a few seconds.

2. TV show interaction. As mentioned by some earlier, "Big Bang Theory" shows CoH/V merchandise via the comic store, thus engendering a "hey look, City of Heroes stuff is in maintstream TV shows" thinking among those in the gaming world/geek world. That alone has caught dozens of my friends who DIDN'T play the game before to say, 'hey, I saw CoH stuff on that show last night; so what's that game really like?".

In conjuction with that, as mentioned about the fashion show interaction, you can spot ads on websites of shows that have streaming downloads for folks to watch online. Having that one ad for CoH coupled with, say, the streaming episode of "Heroes", or "Chuck", or the such, would be a good visual that sticks with them WHILE they are watching the show.

3. In-Game Ads. This is a tricky monster to manuever, understood. A fair portion of the game's clients may opt out of real adverstising in-game, however, with Going Rogue about to potentially increase our player base, even for a short period of time, this is as good an opportunity to give it another run or try. You can datamine from this new data, and you'll get a good 'surge' demographic for advertising vs client interaction. From there, you can assess its potency.

4. G4TV. Get our devs on that show. NOW. Presnence! We need prescence! I mean, come on! Mellisa "War Witch" is one of the few if not only female Leaders in the field! Get her out there for others to see! That unto itself is newsworthy! With that, each new issue that crops up, get a dev out there to show it off on the show.

5. Community Interaction. Do you know how easy it would be to get a mayor, say of Providence, Rhode Island, to have a day assigned as "City of Heroes Day" on a CoH anniversary? It IS easy! The papers and newscrews would GIVE you free coverage of that just for having the ceremony on the capital's steps! It would definately get more camera time if you get a couple models dressed up as Desmonda and/or Miss Liberty to show up for the proclamation day! I can just hear the shutter clicking noises of the cameras now!

6. Advertise the "Good" we've done as "heroes" as an online community. This CoH community went to bat with a successful donations campagin for "Real World Hero" late this last year; get that info out to the media! Plan MORE such campaigns! As such, we should couple with authorized/approved by NC Soft/Paragon Studios other great campaigns, such as breast cancer awareness (i.e., "City of Heroes supports the Breast Cancer Foundation", etc.). We can be heroic AND supportive, and at their events, we'd be great for handing out free trial game disks, flyers with our game info and logos on it,etc. HIT THE HEROIC THEME and ADVERTISE WITH IT!
7. Survey time. These forums allow to do visual/text polls. Use it! Get some datamining ideas of what stuff you'd think are good marketing ideas and POLL the forums; we're not the ENTIRE CoH community, but we're a great cross section!

And that's all I have for now. I must now get back to work before my boss starts to believe I'm plotting his takeover....MUWHAHAHA...erm..*cough* er...never mind.

Black Pebble, I'll give you credit; this is a brave move you've made this day, and as such, you shall both be rewarded and beaten...just like the rest of us!

Good luck!

Edit: forgot one..

8. New CoH Paperback/Online Comic. NOW! These are GREAT for any and all superhero-loving collector! It not only gets people into the mythos of the game (again) but can regenerate interest in existing/recently lost players. Hand them out at Comic Cons for free with a Trial game Disk! The possibilities are endless once the game is in print like this!

Now, back to our regularly scheduled discussion and brainstorming session already in progress...

BP,

I, for one, would like to have more cool things to buy from the online store. I like microtransactions--if I could spend $5 on some slick new costume pieces every month or so I would be happy to do so.

Edit: that may not be your department now that I think about it, but I'll leave it up for what its worth.

Edit 2: On the other hand, having people come back to your website regularly to see what the new toy is would be valuable form a marketing standpoint.

You know what I think is a pretty cool way of advertising? I used to see these little cards that you could redeem for a month of playtime and a jetpack all the time, but when I actually went to go look for one, I couldn't find a single copy. (Indeed, the only copy of CoH I could find was a single Architect Edition Disk at Gamestop.)

Perhaps widening the distribution of those cards would be a good idea? You could even bundle in trial cards with issues of the CoH Comicbook.

...In fact, if you could spring for it, free issues of the comic book bundled with trial codes would be a good marketing tool. Get people interested in the world, then offer them a pass to the game!

Black Pebble
Those questions you cannot answer (due to knowledge or other stuff) which questions are they? Are those questions related more to the EU questions that comes up by any chance?

Yes, by revealing yourself from the dark room of shadows (and the image many of us have of the dark room of velvet chair with a white cat on your lap or a suit and suitcase) you have made yourself the target of many questions.

Cause we have so many questions for YOU.
So do say which you cannot answer aswell, cause you would not want to make us feel ignored... do you?


edit:
Your welcome Dark_Respite

First, believe it or not, it is nice to hear from the marketing side of things - as often as we've heard mention of it.

Second, one thing I noted was there was no clear indication of whether Black Pebble was a hero or a villain...

Third, in terms of meaningful suggestions - what got me to try the game was winning a demo disc at a gaming con. Not just a code to go download with, but an actual installation demo disc, quick and painless to dive in and try the game. It worked and I've never left.

Fourth, there is no fourth thing.

Fifth, I know in game ads are a tough subject, but I for one left them turned to support the effort to earn shiny coins to help pay for new in game fun. Based on the limited run, I think they could be designed in appearance better to fit within the game, but given the right product mix they certainly do not disrupt anything. But, as suggested earlier, if not going to be used for real sales.... then turn the tech over to the art folks and let them run mad with in game stuff to raise the immersion bar.

Sixth, I found caught the subtle humor in the CoH two letter embarassment on the Moon comment. very funny.

edit to add a seventh: Where is the midwest con presence? GenCon, Origins, ComicCon chicago, etc... big cons. no where near oceans. lots people...

Female sizes and cuts for the "City Of" T-shirts.

Buttons.

Hats.

Mugs.

Mousepads.

Heroclix pieces. (including making our own dials and the ability to choose from a selection of poses to which our character's costume and colors could be applied, for a price. Sort of like the WoW Figurines but doubtlessly less expensive AND usable in a game, rather than on a shelf)

Character Busts of signature characters and, possibly, our own characters. (Just like the WoW Figurines >.>)

More Costume pieces/Emotes/Booster packs as Microtransactions.

Hire Samuraiko/Dark Respite as a video-consultant. Alternatively offer to pay her a few pennies per-view of her videos and send her on a viral-marketing campaign that will spread word of CoH/CoV like wildfire across the internet.


I could probably think of a few more. But those are the big ones that hit me right at this moment.

-Rachel-

Welcome Black Pebble!

Congratulations on joining the forum fray!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Moggie Also, how about a better selection of stuff in the official store? I am a girl, I game, and I'd like to buy a scrapper shirt that fits me. I'm sure you can think of lots of other branded items people will buy.

Please, oh please!! Those high t-shirt collars make me look like a box and I hate them...I've got curves darnit! Can we please get a nice v-neck that -doesn't- look like we swiped it from the male we keep around?

Also, when the in game advertising system was introduced, it was mentioned that players would be able to use it as well for advertising for super groups and such. As the Public Relations Director for The Cape Radio, I would -love- to see this actually implemented. We host several large events throughout the year (as well as a myriad of smaller events) and I would love to be able to add this to our advertising arsenal.

Hope to see you more around the forums!
~Sultry Siren