An advertising budget wouldn't hurt either. That was something we sorely needed over all these years.
They had budget, tried advertising, and it failed to prove worthwhile.
A single TV ad campaign (not one ad, but one campaign) just in the US alone can cost upwards of $100 million. Before you do it, you need to be sure then that it will be guaranteed to bring in $200 million as a result - which is more than CoH made in profit in its entire history.
Seriously, do you honestly think that paying for a month of ads to run during shows like Big Bang Theory and Arrow are going to do more in a month than 9 whole years of coverage in the gaming press, word of mouth, etc? Really? Or do you think they'd more likely be spending $100 million to make back $20 million in new subscriptions, losing $80million and closing the game within a year as losing money.
WoW can advertise on TV because it is a more accessible, sticky game. It is more mass-market, doesn't take much thought, etc. They know that they can afford to spend the equivalent of $30 per customer to attract them and make it back with profit. WoW is the market leader, the brand everyone knows, and is the exceptional winner in MMO that no other MMO has ever come close to. Noone knows quite why, or they'd have emulated it. Hundreds of companies have tried.
CoH tried various forms of advertising, starting with the most targeted and effective you'd think - games mags, comics, conventions, etc. Of those, only going to conventions wasn't a total waste where it cost more to advertise than they made back. Now if advertising in games stores, magazines and comics, where you are appealing only to actual fans of the genre or gaming didn't pay back its cheaper advertising costs, why would anyone try a TV ad campaign to a less qualified and targeted audience that costs more per eyeball to reach?
City found that its most effective means of advertising was word of mouth. So they incentivised you lot to share it more. They gave free coverage to fan sites to encourage people to make them. They printed fan-fiction, because that tends to make the writers tell their friends about getting published, even friends that don't play. And they gave free subscription time for each person you referred.
I really do wish people would stop with this myth that TV advertising is some magic wand. It is hideously expensive, poorly targeted, and only the most mass-market or high profit stuff can afford it. NCsoft experimented with various forms or marketing and found most were complete washouts. But giving high-paid devs time in their paid day to do streaming TV, work on youtube videos, attend conventions, and run competitions are all advertising.
