Now that's publicity...

[Moaning Myrtle]

I was reading 'The Times' this morning on the train into London, as I do every day. What was different about today I hear you ask?

A full two page article on WoW by Caitlin Moran, with colour pictures of her Dwarf and her admission that she now stays up until 2AM on quests, despite being a Mum with two children under 5 years old! Oh, and in 'The Times' on Saturday they are giving away a free 14 day trial. In 'The Times' FFS!

GOA have so much to learn when it comes to marketing and advertising - no wonder the population is so low.

 

[old.Whoodoo]

I was reading 'The Times' this morning on the train into London, as I do every day. What was different about today I hear you ask?

A full two page article on WoW by Caitlin Moran, with colour pictures of her Dwarf and her admission that she now stays up until 2AM on quests, despite being a Mum with two children under 5 years old! Oh, and in 'The Times' on Saturday they are giving away a free 14 day trial. In 'The Times' FFS!

GOA have so much to learn when it comes to marketing and advertising - no wonder the population is so low.

The BBC is the same, the so called "gaming guru" on there plays too, and talks a load of crap about it, and slags off other MMOs after admitting he doesnt even play them, some journalist he is. It seems these press peeps play one game and rate it on their experience rather than comparison to other games of the genre, which they dont even give the time of day to try.

EA will no doubt plug as much as they can into WAR, and GOA can relax knowing the hard work will be done by bods in the US EA offices. In fact they will be doing as much for advertising as they have with EU DAoC....squat.

 

[Imgormiel]

The BBC is the same, the so called "gaming guru" on there plays too, and talks a load of crap about it, and slags off other MMOs after admitting he doesnt even play them, some journalist he is. It seems these press peeps play one game and rate it on their experience rather than comparison to other games of the genre, which they dont even give the time of day to try.

EA will no doubt plug as much as they can into WAR, and GOA can relax knowing the hard work will be done by bods in the US EA offices. In fact they will be doing as much for advertising as they have with EU DAoC....squat.

I actually saw an article about DAoC in the Daily Mirror (Trinity news = gimps that monopolise the industry yet there's no work ) some years ago. Yep, the review was? Our own lubbly Carol Vorderman and some nice things she said about DAoC too. Article was a bit small though iirc. But at least GOA have managed to branch out in the past from just gaming mags. Perhaps what the times has done, is the future of what GOA shall be with all their games? Let's play a little game of wait and see .....

 

[Ctuchik]

GOA have so much to learn when it comes to marketing and advertising - no wonder the population is so low.

catch 22. u need money to advertise, and to get money u need subscribers (or rather, alot more then DAoC EU currently have, atleast if they really wanna show up anywhere worth a damn), and to get subscribers u need to advertise etc etc etc, the circle completes.

but then again, i doubt the times or any other major magazine would look much on DAoC anyway. the quest system sucks. 1-50 is just a big seemingly endless grind. the controlls are extreamly restrictive and clumpsy.

the gameplay in itself also have a shedload to wish for compared to many of the other current MMOG's. and not to forget, the complete lack of anything even resembeling a storyline part the epic quests and the odd out of context GOA quest.

it doesent really matter how "uberwtfpwn" the end game pvp is when GETTING there is retardedly boring, and no ammount of bonus xp per kill is going to change that. and even the rvr is starting to fall behind just because of the restrictive gameplay. i mean comon. /assist, /face, /stick?!?

 

[Mabs]

The BBC is the same, the so called "gaming guru" on there plays too, and talks a load of crap about it, and slags off other MMOs after admitting he doesnt even play them, some journalist he is. It seems these press peeps play one game and rate it on their experience rather than comparison to other games of the genre, which they dont even give the time of day to try.

isnt that the same tard who use to play nothing but EQ and that was the BEST THING EVER! despite having not tried the others ?

 

[Imgormiel]

isnt that the same tard who use to play nothing but EQ and that was the BEST THING EVER! despite having not tried the others ?

Ignorance and bliss (cough cough did I forget to add the words gimp hack here? I think I did.....) is a match always made in heaven

 

[old.Whoodoo]

isnt that the same tard who use to play nothing but EQ and that was the BEST THING EVER! despite having not tried the others ?

Hehe, yes thats him indeed, I emailed him and he basically said he had played only EQ (1), WoW and EvE, and thats it, then went onto say that 2 million people couldnt be wrong, I replied that 3 billion copies of Windblows didnt mean it was the best (pointing at Linux), and that put enough money in advertising will draw punters but if they dont know the alternatives, they wont have comparision.

He didnt reply to that, but I did end the email "you are a poor journalist who bases judgement on what he likes rather than whats best for everyone, in fact you are just another wannabe IT monkeyboy who probably got his job by working his way up through the helpdesk at Dixons". Cant blame him for not talking to me, but he did talk shit.

 

[Imgormiel]

Hehe, yes thats him indeed, I emailed him and he basically said he had played only EQ (1), WoW and EvE, and thats it, then went onto say that 2 million people couldnt be wrong, I replied that 3 billion copies of Windblows didnt mean it was the best (pointing at Linux), and that put enough money in advertising will draw punters but if they dont know the alternatives, they wont have comparision.

He didnt reply to that, but I did end the email "you are a poor journalist who bases judgement on what he likes rather than whats best for everyone, in fact you are just another wannabe IT monkeyboy who probably got his job by working his way up through the helpdesk at Dixons". Cant blame him for not talking to me, but he did talk shit.

repped

 

[Manisch Depressiv]

Tv...

 

[IainC]

I think people need to realise that journalists write column pieces based on what ever the zeitgeist of the time is. This isn't a story about MMOs per se, it's a story about a busy journalist who also finds time to play games. A lot of her readers will also play WoW and so there's an angle there. It's not the same as Vivendi giving The Times a large amount of cash to run a two page puff piece on WoW. You see stories like this about WoW rather than other games in the mainstream press becuase of its incredible popularity, WoW is mainstream enough that a journalist can write about it without leaving a lot of readers behind. The popularity pushes the publicity here not the other way around.

Journalists are primarily in the business of selling their paper not someone else's game. We also have some 'pet journalists' who are also DAoC fans given free accounts via our PR partners, mostly these work for games magazines or websites but there are a few that have syndicated columns in regional and national newspapers too. MMOs however aren't often the subject of news columns. When they are, it's usually either in a negative context (articles about gaming addicts who lose themselves in fantasy worlds for example) or it's more populist stuff that is only tangentially about the game itself - such as the Times article mentioned above. These aren't articles about games, they are articles about people.

We have spent a lot of money and effort marketing DAoC in all of our territories and we have a very robust plan for marketing WAR. It absolutely won't be the case that EA will be doing our job for us in Europe.

 

[Imgormiel]

I think people need to realise that journalists write column pieces based on what ever the zeitgeist of the time is. This isn't a story about MMOs per se, it's a story about a busy journalist who also finds time to play games. A lot of her readers will also play WoW and so there's an angle there. It's not the same as Vivendi giving The Times a large amount of cash to run a two page puff piece on WoW. You see stories like this about WoW rather than other games in the mainstream press becuase of its incredible popularity, WoW is mainstream enough that a journalist can write about it without leaving a lot of readers behind. The popularity pushes the publicity here not the other way around.

Journalists are primarily in the business of selling their paper not someone else's game. We also have some 'pet journalists' who are also DAoC fans given free accounts via our PR partners, mostly these work for games magazines or websites but there are a few that have syndicated columns in regional and national newspapers too. MMOs however aren't often the subject of news columns. When they are, it's usually either in a negative context (articles about gaming addicts who lose themselves in fantasy worlds for example) or it's more populist stuff that is only tangentially about the game itself - such as the Times article mentioned above. These aren't articles about games, they are articles about people.

We have spent a lot of money and effort marketing DAoC in all of our territories and we have a very robust plan for marketing WAR. It absolutely won't be the case that EA will be doing our job for us in Europe.

As a former journalist myself, I can still see many angles for Dark Age and how to write about it. Ok, DAoC is not as popular as WoW but still I have the skills to write about DAoC if it were put before me as a job to do. I still got it journalistically, and I see nothing in the game to write about it in a negative way. Albeit that I would have to write in a far more clinical manner than I already do on this forum But I can see from here that you are not giving too much away with regards to anything the future holds for Dark Age and I respect you for that

 

[tollstore]

We have spent a lot of money and effort marketing DAoC in all of our territories and we have a very robust plan for marketing WAR. It absolutely won't be the case that EA will be doing our job for us in Europe.

Req - Just where would this marketing have been ? In 4 years of playing in the UK i have never once seen anything relating to DAOC - I heard about game from a friend not from any marketing - Its like these supposed pre paid cards you can buy ? Where would they be from ive looked in smiths, game, gamestation, wollys, hmv, even PC world and guess what all the assistants look at me as though I'm stupid if I ask if they sell them.

(Although HMV kindly offered to see if they could order one in for me)

Now I have found a place online to buy them but dosn't that just kind of defeat the object of buying the prepaid ???

 

[Imgormiel]

Req - Just where would this marketing have been ? In 4 years of playing in the UK i have never once seen anything relating to DAOC - I heard about game from a friend not from any marketing - Its like these supposed pre paid cards you can buy ? Where would they be from ive looked in smiths, game, gamestation, wollys, hmv, even PC world and guess what all the assistants look at me as though I'm stupid if I ask if they sell them.

(Although HMV kindly offered to see if they could order one in for me)

Now I have found a place online to buy them but dosn't that just kind of defeat the object of buying the prepaid ???

I asked this question about two weeks ago

https://forums.freddyshouse.com/showthread.php?t=215351

with the same issues. No one could answer me with regards to the game cards. I guess it is on the list of things to do with regards to the goa.portal getting priority at this moment in time. With the game card issue, there's probably more of a publicity issue and much PR to be done to actually make those cards viable. As it stands, you can only get them if you buy a copy of DAoC x version at a cost of £24 iirc. I think that pre-order via a shop appears to be the only viable way you can get it without a credit card of any sort. But still, something needs to be done in respect of this matter to make them more viable. I for one don't want 3 acc's just so I can get a game card and pre-pay. Also there is a payment issue with the stores mentioned. I asked some of them last week and they said they do not take payments for that pre-pay card either. So the whole issue needs to be addressed as a concept.

 

[Darkptang]

who gives a fok about EU server´s just give char copy so i can take all my 22 toons to US :kissit:

 

[Imgormiel]

Killing EU server´s on FH is my business and business is good :kissit:

such partypoop

 

[old.Whoodoo]

I think people need to realise that journalists write column pieces based on what ever the zeitgeist of the time is. This isn't a story about MMOs per se, it's a story about a busy journalist who also finds time to play games. A lot of her readers will also play WoW and so there's an angle there. It's not the same as Vivendi giving The Times a large amount of cash to run a two page puff piece on WoW. You see stories like this about WoW rather than other games in the mainstream press becuase of its incredible popularity, WoW is mainstream enough that a journalist can write about it without leaving a lot of readers behind. The popularity pushes the publicity here not the other way around.

Journalists are primarily in the business of selling their paper not someone else's game. We also have some 'pet journalists' who are also DAoC fans given free accounts via our PR partners, mostly these work for games magazines or websites but there are a few that have syndicated columns in regional and national newspapers too. MMOs however aren't often the subject of news columns. When they are, it's usually either in a negative context (articles about gaming addicts who lose themselves in fantasy worlds for example) or it's more populist stuff that is only tangentially about the game itself - such as the Times article mentioned above. These aren't articles about games, they are articles about people.

We have spent a lot of money and effort marketing DAoC in all of our territories and we have a very robust plan for marketing WAR. It absolutely won't be the case that EA will be doing our job for us in Europe.

I do see where you are coming from here req, however as many have mentioned on here and the departed Barrysworld over the last 4 years, advertising by GOA has been at the least poor. The odd page here and there in the usual gaming geek spank mags, the odd clip on a forum and maybe a slot in a paper that reminds me of the description of Earth in the HHGttG reading "mostly harmless".

Blizzard pulled out all the stops to promote WoW, and SWG sponged off the name alone to do the same, while just about anyone in EU can say its been a severe struggle to buy the game over the counter, near impossible to see on the shalf after a month after a new expansion, and most game shop staff say "wassat?" when we ask for DAoC. I was in Game, as you know the largest UK gaming retailer, a few weekends, and not a single copy of any of the expansions existed.

Play.com gave me a USB humping dog for the query "DAoC" (LOL!) and LotM expansion £1 more expensive than the full game...go figure?!?

The BBC correspondant admitted he had no real knowledge of DAoC, but that WoW was "groundbreaking", whereas we all know theres nothing new in WOW that hadnt been already done in UO, EQ, SWG, Diablo, DAoC etc etc, except the potent ads on TV and in mags. Whiles he is entitled to be enthralled about WoW, he should have done better homework, and see where the whole thing came from or at least granted those games a mention. Journalism should be about fact, not fanboi.

At least we can count on EA plugging WAR, with their catchline "Its in the wallet!".

 

[IainC]

Ok, firstly there is a difference between distribution and marketing, there are links to be sure but retailers stock or don't stock games for reasons that are little to do with marketing.

I'll talk about marketing first then add a few things about distribution. Firstly remember what the MMO market was like when DAoC launched. There were a few established games like UO and EQ but mostly it was very much a niche market.

From a publishing point of view as well MMOs are a very different beast to a regular release. For most games, the marketing effort is divided into 4 parts. One quarter is prelaunch hype, building up the game before it is released, demos, gameplay videos, teaser websites etc. Half of it is spent on launch, blitzing retailers, magazines, the internet and pretty much any other channel you can think of. Once the launch party is over the focus moves to the next game. When the inevitable expansion is released six months later, the final quarter comes into play, to try and squeeze a bit more money out of what is now essentially a retired game. Obviously this model doesn't work well for MMOs because it's not just about the launch, it's about the long term. The marketing money has to be stretched over a much longer period.

WoW changed the whole landscape of the MMO market. Love it or hate it, you either played it or knew someone who did. Vivendi took a massive risk and spent the kind of money that most studios could only dream of having access to in promoting the game. Remember that they'd already spent a collossal amount of money in developing the game, they had access to a warchest that has been pretty much unrivalled before or since. Even Sony who have pretty deep pockets haven't got close to the amount of money Vivendi handed Blizzard to make and sell WoW. Nobody had really done this before, MMOs were still very much a niche market. The number of people playing EQ or DAoC every night was a tiny fraction of the number of people playing games like Halo or whatever the fotm football game was at the time. Blizzard had three main things going for them:
More money than anyone had ever seen before.
A strong brand that had a dedicated following from other genres.
Timing. It hit the market at about the same time that broadband internet became the norm rather than the exception for domestic users. Huge phone bills rather than subscription charges were a major disincentive to play online games back when most people still had metered dial-up.

Ok, so back to DAoC. Before WoW, we did pretty much what all the other publishers did. We gave the press free stuff, we flew people around Europe to show the game off to journalists, we had booths at trade shows, we had banner ads on gaming sites (although we had to be careful not to tread on Mythic's toes as most of the gaming websites we'd have wanted to advertise on were based in the US). Before WoW almost every MMO relied on word of mouth and reviews on MMO specific game sites, we made sure that wherever people were talking about MMOs they were mentioning DAoC because that was and is the best way to get players into a game like this - in many ways we aren't selling a game we're selling a community and the community is our best marketing tool.

Some of you may remember we also had some troubles with our original distribution and marketing partners in the UK and it took us a while to get those cleared up. Nowadays we are with a very energetic PR agency and I'm confident we are getting very good value for our marketing budget. They keep a careful eye on the media for us and try their best to get DAoC mentioned in any relevant contexts. They also manage a large number of sympathetic journalists who are all DAoC fans and can be relied on to give us some good press in return for press accounts, GM tours, trips to Virginia for the Mythic showcase and other perks.
What we do is organise bursts of activity to get maximum value for money. It's a simple rule of marketing, if you have a fixed amount of money to spend, then spending a little each day is pretty much a waste of money. Spending a large amount at once is much better value so we use major events like expansions to spark off a new marketing push.

Distribution then. As I said earlier we had some problems with our original distribution partners and it took us a while to get untangled from that. After ToA it became clear that traditional distribution channels weren't good value, by default all of our customers were on the internet and so it made a lot more sense to concentrate on online operations - either directly or through third parties like Amazon or Play. We didn't stop selling the game in stores but high street stores have a lot of limitations. Firstly they need stock to each store individually. This is much less efficient than online retailers who can just ship everything from a central warehouse. Secondly, they have limited space on shelves. Shelf space is worth money and from a business point of view it's better for them to fill their shelves with new releases that will sell fast. Mostly they will order less of a game than they hope to sell too, as it's easier to order new stock than to send back unsold copies so even if there is interest in a game, they aren't necessarily going to keep it in stock. For many reasons then high street stores are not good options for MMOs with the notable exception of WoW which is not exactly typical of the genre.

That turned into a bit of an essay I'm afraid but hopefully it helps you all understand a bit more about what we are doing and what we've done in the past.

 

[Rulke]

Nice post Req, explained a lot

Warcraft is one of the oldest and best known brands in gaming, also Blizzard are a well known and respected developer especially in the online world thanks to Starcraft and Diablo. New games on the scene simply cannot buy that kind of pedigree.

Warhammer is huge these days though, even in the US, so hopefully that will play in WAR's favour. But the best thing they can do is keep releasing videos like the one showing the fluid RvR system, that looked Awesome ^^

 

[Thadius]

Reminds me of a time when I tried to buy an expanion in Game

Was told by the guy that "Wow is the best game, get that"

I asked again for the expanion and he just looked at me and said "whats that then?"

Problem is, because all the newbs to the mmo scene have never heard of daoc and think WoW is the one and only game out there. My friend took the piss when I said wow was shit, then he bought wow and got bored of it funnily enough.

Most people who were hyping WoW 18 months ago are now bored and /qtd

No point bringing them to daoc/eu, noone to play with!

 

[Himse]

Reminds me of a time when I tried to buy an expanion in Game

Was told by the guy that "Wow is the best game, get that"

I asked again for the expanion and he just looked at me and said "whats that then?"

Problem is, because all the newbs to the mmo scene have never heard of daoc and think WoW is the one and only game out there. My friend took the piss when I said wow was shit, then he bought wow and got bored of it funnily enough.

Most people who were hyping WoW 18 months ago are now bored and /qtd

No point bringing them to daoc/eu, noone to play with!

It depends how you play WoW. Some people play it and get bored because they dont achieve much, you do need to play it alot to stand a chance within the game

 

[Rookiescot]

Hehe, yes thats him indeed, I emailed him and he basically said he had played only EQ (1), WoW and EvE, and thats it, then went onto say that 2 million people couldnt be wrong, I replied that 3 billion copies of Windblows didnt mean it was the best (pointing at Linux), and that put enough money in advertising will draw punters but if they dont know the alternatives, they wont have comparision.

He didnt reply to that, but I did end the email "you are a poor journalist who bases judgement on what he likes rather than whats best for everyone, in fact you are just another wannabe IT monkeyboy who probably got his job by working his way up through the helpdesk at Dixons". Cant blame him for not talking to me, but he did talk shit.

U did it again ... rep for you

 

[Rulke]

It depends how you play WoW. Some people play it and get bored because they dont achieve much, you do need to play it alot to stand a chance within the game

When I played, "achieving" something involved repeated trawls through 40 man instances. If it hadn't been for my mic headset, my brain would have dribbled out my ears after the 50th MC run >.<

PvP was even worse.

 

[Rookiescot]

It depends how you play WoW. Some people play it and get bored because they dont achieve much, you do need to play it alot to stand a chance within the game

Dunno mate .. I think that WoW is where DaoC was a couple of years into release..casual players although slower to level can still compete in the end game (what there is of it in WoW .. its not my cup of tea).
What turns the majority of casual players off is when the game becomes too complex or hard. TOA made a huge gulf between casual players and guys who could devote more time. Casual players found it difficult to compete. Casual players left.
This hurt the player base no end in that numbers started to decline. At about the same time WoW gets released. People voted with their feet.
Now while I would never say WoW is a better game than DAoC...casual players can still log on for an evening on WoW for a couple of hours knowing that they still count and still have an impact on the end game.
Would you like to try being a noob in DAoC? Fact is its a pretty difficult and unfriendly environment most of the time.
Not having a pop at you mate .. its just your post got me thinking.

 

[scorge]

But I can see from here that you are not giving too much away with regards to anything the future holds for Dark Age and I respect you for that

Dont take this the wrong way, but you repect GOA for not informing its playerbase of what the future holds!

Its not as if the hold Intellectual property rights that will shake the foundations of MMORPG's as we know it, and are keeping it quiet for now

As a journalist shouldn't you want current news, not no news.

How does not telling people whats happening, fill column inches?

 

[scorge]

Ok, firstly there is a difference between distribution and marketing, there are links to be sure but retailers stock or don't stock games for reasons that are little to do with marketing.

I'll talk about marketing first then add a few things about distribution. Firstly remember what the MMO market was like when DAoC launched. There were a few established games like UO and EQ but mostly it was very much a niche market.

From a publishing point of view as well MMOs are a very different beast to a regular release. For most games, the marketing effort is divided into 4 parts. One quarter is prelaunch hype, building up the game before it is released, demos, gameplay videos, teaser websites etc. Half of it is spent on launch, blitzing retailers, magazines, the internet and pretty much any other channel you can think of. Once the launch party is over the focus moves to the next game. When the inevitable expansion is released six months later, the final quarter comes into play, to try and squeeze a bit more money out of what is now essentially a retired game. Obviously this model doesn't work well for MMOs because it's not just about the launch, it's about the long term. The marketing money has to be stretched over a much longer period.

WoW changed the whole landscape of the MMO market. Love it or hate it, you either played it or knew someone who did. Vivendi took a massive risk and spent the kind of money that most studios could only dream of having access to in promoting the game. Remember that they'd already spent a collossal amount of money in developing the game, they had access to a warchest that has been pretty much unrivalled before or since. Even Sony who have pretty deep pockets haven't got close to the amount of money Vivendi handed Blizzard to make and sell WoW. Nobody had really done this before, MMOs were still very much a niche market. The number of people playing EQ or DAoC every night was a tiny fraction of the number of people playing games like Halo or whatever the fotm football game was at the time. Blizzard had three main things going for them:
More money than anyone had ever seen before.
A strong brand that had a dedicated following from other genres.
Timing. It hit the market at about the same time that broadband internet became the norm rather than the exception for domestic users. Huge phone bills rather than subscription charges were a major disincentive to play online games back when most people still had metered dial-up.

Ok, so back to DAoC. Before WoW, we did pretty much what all the other publishers did. We gave the press free stuff, we flew people around Europe to show the game off to journalists, we had booths at trade shows, we had banner ads on gaming sites (although we had to be careful not to tread on Mythic's toes as most of the gaming websites we'd have wanted to advertise on were based in the US). Before WoW almost every MMO relied on word of mouth and reviews on MMO specific game sites, we made sure that wherever people were talking about MMOs they were mentioning DAoC because that was and is the best way to get players into a game like this - in many ways we aren't selling a game we're selling a community and the community is our best marketing tool.

Some of you may remember we also had some troubles with our original distribution and marketing partners in the UK and it took us a while to get those cleared up. Nowadays we are with a very energetic PR agency and I'm confident we are getting very good value for our marketing budget. They keep a careful eye on the media for us and try their best to get DAoC mentioned in any relevant contexts. They also manage a large number of sympathetic journalists who are all DAoC fans and can be relied on to give us some good press in return for press accounts, GM tours, trips to Virginia for the Mythic showcase and other perks.
What we do is organise bursts of activity to get maximum value for money. It's a simple rule of marketing, if you have a fixed amount of money to spend, then spending a little each day is pretty much a waste of money. Spending a large amount at once is much better value so we use major events like expansions to spark off a new marketing push.

Distribution then. As I said earlier we had some problems with our original distribution partners and it took us a while to get untangled from that. After ToA it became clear that traditional distribution channels weren't good value, by default all of our customers were on the internet and so it made a lot more sense to concentrate on online operations - either directly or through third parties like Amazon or Play. We didn't stop selling the game in stores but high street stores have a lot of limitations. Firstly they need stock to each store individually. This is much less efficient than online retailers who can just ship everything from a central warehouse. Secondly, they have limited space on shelves. Shelf space is worth money and from a business point of view it's better for them to fill their shelves with new releases that will sell fast. Mostly they will order less of a game than they hope to sell too, as it's easier to order new stock than to send back unsold copies so even if there is interest in a game, they aren't necessarily going to keep it in stock. For many reasons then high street stores are not good options for MMOs with the notable exception of WoW which is not exactly typical of the genre.

That turned into a bit of an essay I'm afraid but hopefully it helps you all understand a bit more about what we are doing and what we've done in the past.

Good post Req, but what GOA failed to do was to adapt to a changing market and playerbase, with that in mind you should shoot your market researchers. You should have been blitzing the market when WOW came out and riding on the tailend of the WOW success. Instead WOW steamrolled over DAOC without so much a squeak from GOA marketing (or at least the impression was that GOA didn't).

I bet the whole initial marketing budget for WAR in the UK, outstrips that of DAOC (in the UK) over the last 5 years. It would be nice to know what the marketing budget for DAOC is when WAR hits the shelves.

 

[old.Whoodoo]

stuff..

Spuperb reply req, you should be the one doing the PR!

But reading between the lines you seem to be admitting the advertising was balls up and you only noticed during TOA's launch, too little too late. OK, so most of you guys were not around then, but its a class example of GOA not heeding the words of the punters, as we cried out when SWG came out, way before WOW showed up, for more advertising.

As others have mentioned we have shouted for more advertising for a long time, when DAoC stopped being a market leader due to SWG, UO2, Ryzom, EvE, PLanetside and all the others that have rose in its wake, we should have maintained a pressence at the top. Unlike the others we had an edge, the superb PvP system that outgunned all others, and should have appealed to the people you mentioned playing games like Halo. The market was there for the taking, but nout happened.

You mention the community, we did our part to build on the playerbase, we pushed it on forums and to real life friends, but its no where near what should have happened. The advertising that did happen also did little to mention what was unique about the game, just another MMO with nothing to offer except more grind. We also cried out about the GOA web site, yes all fancy flash etc, but in the days of 50%+ still being on dialup, it would put anyone off trying to access it - including existing players!

For a long time we did feel unheard as a community, tbh things recently have improved, but the philosophy of no news is better than bad news, or need to know basis on certain issues disheartens us all, and hence we leave for pastures new or get bored asking. If I had a pound for everyone who asked me about the XML, pryd crash payoffs or patch updates while I was an E&E, I would be very well off.

Once again I seem to come across as a grumpy old git (its true but hey!), Ive always been one to promote the EU game until recently, because I believed in the product, but I have always felt GOA and their PR companies could have done so much more. Maybe I am wrong but as a once avid member of the Dyvet (that name sucks, RP its maybe but it sucks!) community, I cant help but feel short changed when things like UK advertising, COOP server, patches, availabilty, customer service, database fixes and all the others things we have complained about in the last 5 years fell on deaf ears. (Note, the current team seem better than ever I will say).

End of rant Req, thanks for a great reply again.

 

[Darzil]

Also, as you say, it's a changed world now. Many people have discovered the genre, many have also left WoW looking for other games. There is a HUGE opportunity if a way can be found to reach them.

Darzil

 

[Imgormiel]

Dont take this the wrong way, but you repect GOA for not informing its playerbase of what the future holds!

Its not as if the hold Intellectual property rights that will shake the foundations of MMORPG's as we know it, and are keeping it quiet for now

As a journalist shouldn't you want current news, not no news.

How does not telling people whats happening, fill column inches?

The idea here is quite simple. As a journalist we get many press releases and some stories off the cuff. Many of the press releases have print dates and some even with gagging orders on them ie that means we could not print what was given to us until a specific release date - this can also happen when a story leaks and the party involved seeks an injunction through the law courts to prevent the release of a story by proving that it is not in the public interest to print it.

The gagging order or consent idea works in principle with the Law courts, Police, local councils, Government and even the public in some cases. Therefore, what happens here is the story gets shelved till I could actually go ahead and write about it and then put it to print. Leaving the other press releases and related stories of the day/week/month to be used instead.

There is also another reason, things can tend to be put on ice anyway as a natural discourse if you are fortunate enough to have the luxury of time - which most journalists do not. But, if say you were to work for a weekly or a monthly then you afford that luxury and then also have the luxury of seeing what was a small story turn into something much larger with several different angles. This also afford the luxury of printing it for not just your own newspaper/magazine but also for several others on a freelance basis, which allows the journalist to maximise profit as a freelancer by selling different versions of the story to other organisations who use for it for the own ends.

I hope that I have clarified at least some of your question. If not then I will happily answer related questions in more detail or any other questions you have.

 

[Ati]

...we have a very robust plan for marketing WAR.

Think we care? Don't rub it in.

It's not that I'm ungrateful or anything, and I really enjoy this game still. But I do not intend to leave it for WAR, and I dont think GoA should assume that most/all of their DAoC players will go there.

From my perspective it looks like DAoC is doing some of your advertising for WAR, I mean it's supposed to carry the best PVP system in MMOs etc.

 

[scorge]

The idea here is quite simple. As a journalist we get many press releases and some stories off the cuff. Many of the press releases have print dates and some even with gagging orders on them ie that means we could not print what was given to us until a specific release date - this can also happen when a story leaks and the party involved seeks an injunction through the law courts to prevent the release of a story by proving that it is not in the public interest to print it.

afew points, how does the above apply to GOA not telling there customers what solutions they are looking at?

The gagging order or consent idea works in principle with the Law courts, Police, local councils, Government and even the public in some cases. Therefore, what happens here is the story gets shelved till I could actually go ahead and write about it and then put it to print. Leaving the other press releases and related stories of the day/week/month to be used instead.

same question as above

There is also another reason, things can tend to be put on ice anyway as a natural discourse if you are fortunate enough to have the luxury of time - which most journalists do not. But, if say you were to work for a weekly or a monthly then you afford that luxury and then also have the luxury of seeing what was a small story turn into something much larger with several different angles. This also afford the luxury of printing it for not just your own newspaper/magazine but also for several others on a freelance basis, which allows the journalist to maximise profit as a freelancer by selling different versions of the story to other organisations who use for it for the own ends.

I hope that I have clarified at least some of your question. If not then I will happily answer related questions in more detail or any other questions you have.

Playing devils advocate; you respect GOA for not informing its customers on the solutions currently being looked at to improve the player base, because journalists would not get as much money due to the story not being big enough,or them syndicating the story out to other peridodicals?

To put it bluntly, withhold theinformation, you want a story to earn some money, fu..ck the customers they can wait.

Honestly, how much money can a journalist make on GOA releasing information?