Do you think if this game was better advertised early on...

That it would have been a very competitive/outsold WoW?

Just curious what you all think. Personally, I would rather have people blatantly copy this game than WoW (Not like champions or DC, like, Carbon clone with different names and such.)

WoW? Heck no - people see 'Blizzard' and they go ape.

Regarding giving the people what they wanted - it's hard to say - it took a long time for them to stabilize things enough to get to that point.

Remember Blizzard been in the game for long time not to mention WoW had larger interest as far as fan base go. Although this is an MMO, but in history most super hero gaes only do ok to worse in sales while things like fantasy, fps, and the likes sell like hotcakes.

With proper advertising, I think this game could of been 5 to ten time as large.

Even most people who dont play MMOs, games, or what not at least heard of WoW. They are in the media. And like a party, no one wants to be the first one in waiting for the crowd but love to go where the the crowd is already at. And WoW is where the party is at, and other games that start up have to convince people to stay instead of peeping in saying "no one is here" and then leaving.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mauk2 Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words. "Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L!

*sighs*

I tried... I really did.

Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite

My experience talking to other gamers about CoH, and observing the communities in other MMOs, is that CoH isn't really what most people are looking for in an MMO. That's why it's so depressing to know it's disappearing: it's unlikely anyone will ever make another MMO like it because those of us who found it to be exactly what we want are firmly in the minority among MMO players.

Granted, better advertising might have found more people who fit into our particular niche, but it'd still very much be a niche - no matter how good the advertising was, we were never going to get anywhere near WoW's subscription numbers. Maybe we could've been competitive with Eve or something of that level though.

CoH never would have outsold WoW.

CoH was horrendously marketed.

To me it's a superhero game, but you can play a wizard, a troll, a mad scientist, a fairy, a cowboy, a soldier, medieval warrior, a space man, or an alien. The character creator was NOT advertised the way it could have been.

I would agree that they should've found someway to do a tag along with all of the superhero movie releases; even if they stuck to the 'indie' ones like KickAss, Hancock, The Watchmen, etc...

Banner rotation/trading with other gaming sites would've helped as well.

They could've hit the social media circuit a lot earlier (Facebook, Myspace, etc).

They probably could've done something with specialty products; like Jones Cola, the various pro-wrestling circuits or ringside banners at MMA or other sporting events.


The timing and focus of their PR could've used some major work.


I also believe that they could've tried to keep pace with the mobile revolution.

A solid PvP experience couldn't have hurt.

And finally, a better base building experience (interior/exterior), combined with the already robust character creation system could've put it somewhat onto Sims turf.

I'm kind of glad that CoH never advertised on mainstream media. Our playerbase was never huge, but it was composed of fun, smart, vibrant people.

Offhand, the only MMORPGs I can think of that advertised on TV are WoW, SWG, and SW:TOR... and just take a look at their players.

furthermore, everything he i wearing is an nes accessory. not seeing anything making him emblematic of any game's community. And furthermore, he looks like he was having fun, a bright vibrant community would certainly welcome a person who didnt mind looking a little silly doing what he wanted, In fact, given that several posters posted pics of them cosplaying their characters, I'd say that was one of the positives of the community.

anyhow, i have my doubts, i know that wow had advantages coh or anything by a publisher that did not have blizzard's rep would simply not have and bypassing those numbers wouldn't have happened. that said, I remain skeptical when people try to blame advertizement for poor performance of good games, i have a standard rattle off list of games that were very good, were strong critical preformers and sold poorly(okami, godhand, beyond good and evil and psychonauts, for the curious), I just don't think that people want as much change as they pretend that they do. And I really think people overstate how popular superheroes are. a few summer blockbusters with massive budgets and bankable stars doing well does not show me that there is a large hunger for superhero games. outside of the infamous series, I cant think of a superhero game that did well commercially that was not a direct movie tie in.

the situation looked even worse when you look at how champions and dcou fared, despite heavy advertizement on the latter's part. So would more advertizing have brought in more people? dunno, i strongly suspect that it would have brought in some transitional players maybe got some 3 month stays out of them, but I just dont see a thirst for the unusual in today's gaming markets. people want what they already know how to play with incremental improvements.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

Outsold WoW, never. Blizzard had a string of wildly successful games, Warcraft series, Starcraft, Diablo series. An MMO set in their Warcraft universe coupled with the high opinion that people had of their games was the perfect storm. It got people who previously laughed about playing an MMORPG giving it a try and getting hooked. And once the subscription numbers started to steamroll there was no stopping it.

There was a blog (T=Machine) written by a former NCSoft Europe person. Now most of the posts in the blog have nothing to do with NCSoft but there was one that described that NCSoft corporate always took a big bang approach with marketing. Game comes out, you plaster the stores and fire off all your print ads for that one month and then move on to the next game.

Now that might work in Korea or even Asia but it doesn't cut it here in the land of the sound bite and microsecond attention spans. However the game did do well in it's first two-three years, partially because CoV came out 18 months or so after CoH. In 2004-2006 we still had multiple outlets for PC games. A box on a shelf is advertising to a degree. But then chain stores like CompUSA, Electronic Boutique and Circuit City closed. The remaining PC game sections started to shrink as people became use to buying products online and then via downloads. Soon only the currently hyped new titles, long running series (Sims 3,WoW) or shovelware are in stock at Best Buy or Target.

How many people use to pick up a game simply because you were in a game shop and the title or box art or write-up on the back sounded interesting? You can't really do that anymore. You can't even get a box copy of GW2 at GameStop, it's download only once the pre-orders were filled.

Even having time cards in stock would have shown that the game still exist (unlike now where I saw plenty of the $20 CoH game cards at BestBuy just this Tuesday).

The GvE exclusive at Walmart failed badly since Walmart isn't really known for carrying PC games. They aren't located where the console games are but somewhere around their tiny PC area. It was weeks after the time the exclusive started before the game ever got stocked on the shelves in my area's Walmarts. And with no ad in a weekly circular how would anyone who wasn't reading the forum or NCSoft's website knew it was coming out and where you could find it? At least the Architect Edition and GR actually had a shelf presence in stores, and maybe even an appearance in a weekly circular. Even still by then only Best Buy was left and they only stocked a few copies and once those were sold out that was it.