The MMO market is very much a niche in computer gaming terms. Comparativeley speaking it's a tiny market. How many boxes of ToA do you think the average branch of Game is going to sell? Half a dozen or so at best? Compare that to how many copies of Doom 3, GT4 or the latest movie tie-in game are going to be flying off the shelf. It's a very small release. 25000 people playing every night across Europe sounds like a lot until you think about how many people are probably playing Halo or Championship Manager for example.
The people who are interested in subscription based MMOs look to specialised media for their information - just as with any other niche market. They look at specialised websites and they talk to the MMO community. It's my experience that most MMO gamers are at least aware of the different products on the market and well able to comparison shop across their preferred genre. Mainstream computer games are about the big launch, the multi page reviews in the gaming magazines and big point of sale displays in game stores. MMOs don't have the market penetration or the model to do that successfully. Because of the long term time investment they don't lend themselves well to magazine reviews and the like and because they are looking to catch subscribers over several years rather than top the best seller charts for a few weeks, they go for more long term marketing.
There is information about DAoC in most of the places that people interested in such a game are going to look. Comparative reviews on MMO websites for example and we also do covermounts and free trials in concert with major European games magazines (including UK titles such as PCGamer).
I agree that distribution needs to be looked at but this probably requires a different model rather than getting more boxes out to each shop. There's no percentage in providing more boxes that are going to be returned unsold, the central retailers like Amazon and Play.com are a much more efficient way to get the box from the press to peoples homes.
The people who are interested in subscription based MMOs look to specialised media for their information - just as with any other niche market. They look at specialised websites and they talk to the MMO community. It's my experience that most MMO gamers are at least aware of the different products on the market and well able to comparison shop across their preferred genre. Mainstream computer games are about the big launch, the multi page reviews in the gaming magazines and big point of sale displays in game stores. MMOs don't have the market penetration or the model to do that successfully. Because of the long term time investment they don't lend themselves well to magazine reviews and the like and because they are looking to catch subscribers over several years rather than top the best seller charts for a few weeks, they go for more long term marketing.
There is information about DAoC in most of the places that people interested in such a game are going to look. Comparative reviews on MMO websites for example and we also do covermounts and free trials in concert with major European games magazines (including UK titles such as PCGamer).
I agree that distribution needs to be looked at but this probably requires a different model rather than getting more boxes out to each shop. There's no percentage in providing more boxes that are going to be returned unsold, the central retailers like Amazon and Play.com are a much more efficient way to get the box from the press to peoples homes.
