Living through a Digital Apocalypse

Started by Arcana, December 21, 2012, 01:22:43 AM


FatherXmas

Tempus unum hominem manet

Twitter - AtomicSamuraiRobot@NukeSamuraiBot

Mister Bison

Yeeessss....

Servantes

#3
A good read indeed.


Hotaru


Sajaana

My only problem is the mantra, repeated about five times, of "All MMOs must end."  I dispute this.  The article makes MMO closings something akin to natural law: that the destruction of these things is inevitable and beyond anyone's control.  Yet we must be very clear.  Nature did not destroy these virtual worlds.  Human beings did, and they closed these worlds willingly.

The only reason "All MMOs must end" is because the industry wants all MMOs to end...at whatever time and for whatever silly reason strikes a publisher's fancy.


Arcana

Quote from: Sajaana on December 22, 2012, 06:40:01 PM
My only problem is the mantra, repeated about five times, of "All MMOs must end."  I dispute this.

Everything that has a beginning has an end, Sajaana.  The problem is when they end prematurely, when there are still a critical mass of participants capable of sustaining it operationally and financially.

You hand me a million dollars a month, which is approximately what City of Heroes was bringing in, and I'll operate all of the server shards in hardened facilities with triply redundant internet connectivity and put about 60 developers and 5 operations people on the payroll to support the game, and have enough pocket change left to pay myself a six figure salary to sit at home and take credit for everything.  By any measure except for people who can't add, CoH was not just financially stable, it was wildly profitable.  It was just never going to be a hundred million dollar game. 

The City of Heroes shutdown was like Archie Manning euthanizing Eli Manning because he thought he would not grow up to be Payton Manning.  That's what really stings.

Victoria Victrix

What REALLY stings is the pancaking ads for Guild Wars previewing in front of The Hobbit 2D.

HOW many players would we have had if we'd had CoH ads in front of The Avengers?
I will go down with this ship.  I won't put my hands up in surrender.  There will be no white flag above my door.  I'm in love, and always will be.  Dido

FatherXmas

Quote from: Victoria Victrix on December 23, 2012, 12:00:30 PM
What REALLY stings is the pancaking ads for Guild Wars previewing in front of The Hobbit 2D.

HOW many players would we have had if we'd had CoH ads in front of The Avengers?
Or any Marvel or DC movie.  Heck even movies like Kick-Ass, Hancock or Chronicle considering our independent canon.

Fortunately ArenaNet was able to call it's own shots when it came to hiring an PR firm for their game.
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JaguarX

I wonder if COH was doomed from the start.

No ad campaign even when it would have been too easy to put it with any of the numerous countless super hero movies that have been coming out as of late. Even GW2 got ad spot with Hobbit, meaning there is ad money somewhere.

COH never got really any exposure beyond the word of mouth solely based on the players shoulders.

Not even every major store carried the game or time cards yet other games like GW and GW 2 was everywhere.

I wonder if it was the plan from the start.

Just merely a random thought. Nothing more. Nothing here to jump on.

FatherXmas

Also don't forget GW2 is still "new" and this is it's first Christmas, so if you are going to spend money on advertising, now IS the time.

Can any of us think back to 2004 and 2005 holidays when CoH and CoV were new?  Ads in PC gaming magazines.  Were there PC game ads even on TV at all back then never mind movies?  Console games I'm sure but PC games?  XBox 360 just came out, but the original XBox and PS2 were still going strong.  The N still had the Gamecube for what that was worth but Sega's Dreamcast hardware was dead and buried.  And of course as the joke goes "PC gaming was dead".

We live in different times now.  Gaming mags are gone.  Most computer big box stores are gone.  There might be 20ft of shelve space a BestBuy devoted to PC games, their game cards hint books when back in 2004 there were multiple aisles three shelves high of PC games (of course back then Circuit City and CompUSA were still alive).  The only MMO that routinely have ads in primetime is WoW.  I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see another GW2 ad campaign until it's first big expansion or even next Christmas season, it depends on how well it does.

The problem with advertising is that often it's a case of "chicken or the egg".  You need money to advertise to get more people to give you money so you can spend some of it toward more advertising.  The other major and cheap way is word of mouth but that can only get you so far.  In those early days of CoH/CoV we had an honest to God comic book, in comic book stores, about our game.  How much more targeted advertising do you want?  These were our people, our primary audience.  There was a lot of promo material sent to comic book shops.  Swag given away at E3.  But it's only rarely that years after a game is launched that there's a significant ad campaign.  They get pushed out of dry dock and then it's up to them and word of mouth to keep the game going, to get new blood.
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JaguarX

Quote from: FatherXmas on December 24, 2012, 06:43:42 AM
Also don't forget GW2 is still "new" and this is it's first Christmas, so if you are going to spend money on advertising, now IS the time.

Can any of us think back to 2004 and 2005 holidays when CoH and CoV were new?  Ads in PC gaming magazines.  Were there PC game ads even on TV at all back then never mind movies?  Console games I'm sure but PC games?  XBox 360 just came out, but the original XBox and PS2 were still going strong.  The N still had the Gamecube for what that was worth but Sega's Dreamcast hardware was dead and buried.  And of course as the joke goes "PC gaming was dead".

We live in different times now.  Gaming mags are gone.  Most computer big box stores are gone.  There might be 20ft of shelve space a BestBuy devoted to PC games, their game cards hint books when back in 2004 there were multiple aisles three shelves high of PC games (of course back then Circuit City and CompUSA were still alive).  The only MMO that routinely have ads in primetime is WoW.  I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see another GW2 ad campaign until it's first big expansion or even next Christmas season, it depends on how well it does.

The problem with advertising is that often it's a case of "chicken or the egg".  You need money to advertise to get more people to give you money so you can spend some of it toward more advertising.  The other major and cheap way is word of mouth but that can only get you so far.  In those early days of CoH/CoV we had an honest to God comic book, in comic book stores, about our game.  How much more targeted advertising do you want?  These were our people, our primary audience.  There was a lot of promo material sent to comic book shops.  Swag given away at E3.  But it's only rarely that years after a game is launched that there's a significant ad campaign.  They get pushed out of dry dock and then it's up to them and word of mouth to keep the game going, to get new blood.

yep. I remember those days. Some places dont even havea PC game section.

There is still a COmpUSA out here but even their computer section have been taken over by console games even though they have rows and rows of computers. "?".  I remember some advertising for computer games on tv, of course mostly the usual WoW when it hit, which was a around the same time, a few months after COX, Everquest commericals here and there, and various other computer games, sometimes more so than console games. But no COH on tv.

I guess the target audience were comic book readers as I heard they put some ads in there, but me personally I never read comic books and if I just so happened didnt see the box in walmart and was in a curious mood, I wouldnt have never heard of this game. But I heard of WoW and I dont even like the lore much or even played it for too long, nor did I even seek it out. Heard of Everquest, never played it, really didnt even know what it was about besides some fantasy game. Even heard of NeverWinter nights (1991) in passing never played it, Meridian 59, some game called Nexus, Terra, Ultima Online back in 2003 (released in 1997 I think), Dark Ages, Runescape (seen an ad for it), EVE Online (ads and the big deal of it's release that was made), even Lineage 2 then by default figured there wasa Lineage 1 hanging around, then seen ads for EverQuest 2 and that's how I found out about the sequel to the first one, of course heard about Matrix online because I liked the movie, and got wind about the games console and MMO they released, never played either one, and seen Pirates of the Caribbean in an ad on a Disney film, and then on tv, non-disney channel, Warhammer commercial, and lastly Dragon Ball online, commercial and internet ad. 

But came across COX by pure luck and if on that particular day I didnt get bored and go to the local walmart in the early am, I would have never played nor heard of COH. It wouldnt even have existed in my world since I didnt read comics nor was subscribers to PC magazines and the few that I have read had WoW and Everquest ads in it with ads to other games, but not COH.

But tv ads existed back then, just not for COH it seemed. It seemed that COH aimed for niche market and got niche market numbers but then decided that niche wasnt enough. I think COH could have  aimed for more than just comic book reader niche market and went further and appealed to wide range of people. Yes it wasa super hero mmo by definition but it hada bit of fantasy, sci-fi, shooting, super heros of course, super villians a few years later, and everything in between a few years after that. It could of been the game where there was a little for everyone if they got their name out there and aimed for more than a few comic and PC game magazine readers. Hell, it seems that most players were casual gamers and thus probably wouldnt be reading up about every game that hit the market anyways. And not all players were serious comic book fans. Given COX unique group of players, I dont think they had any of the slightest clue of how to market this game and or what was the target audience was. I think it probably was a bunch of fantasy game marketing experts looking at a super hero mmo and had no idea what to do with it and thus did nothing much at all. They dont seem to realize there is more than a few gamers that would play an MMO that is not a pure fantasy based game of orcs, elves, barbarians and magic throwing mages and endless quests. The devs knew what they had,  but the marketing people seemed as clueless as a group of chimpanzees trying to build a NASA spaceship.

FatherXmas

#13
I live in a rather affluent and tech industry state in the Northeast.  We don't have a CompUSA anymore (lots in Florida I see).  Or a Fry's or a Microcenter.  We do have an Apple Store and a Microsoft Store though.

Walmart's PC section, at least at the Walmart closest to me, is a jumbled pile of misc. games in anti-theft boxes and shovelware (10,001 Mahjong Games, "Almost like Bedazzled" and "Mancy Brew and the Case of the Almost Copyright Infringement").  At least at Target it they almost have a whole aisle, well mostly one side of an aisle, but it's more than just shovelware, The Sims and WoW.

I guess if your area is too techy we just mail order parts and use digital distribution for software.
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JaguarX

Quote from: FatherXmas on December 24, 2012, 02:50:03 PM
I live in a rather affluent and tech industry state in the Northeast.  We don't have a CompUSA anymore (lots in Florida I see).  Or a Fry's or a Microcenter.  We do have an Apple Store and a Microsoft Store though.

Walmart's PC section, at least at the Walmart closest to me, is a jumbled pile of misc. games in anti-theft boxes and shovelware (10,001 Mahjong Games, "Almost like Bedazzled" and "Mancy Brew and the Case of the Almost Copyright Infringement").  At least at Target it they almost have a whole aisle, well mostly one side of an aisle, but it's more than just shovelware, The Sims and WoW.

I guess if your area is too techy we just mail order parts and use digital distribution for software.

lol yeah this area is not tech fluent at all. There is an apple store in one of the malls but the employees do not seem to know anymore about the product than I do, and that is not much. No microsoft store and targets here have computer game shelf. Sim games, WoW in one place while the rest of the display is those little games like that Mahjong and other various crap. Only Compusa here sell anything computer related on a decent scale, which isnt much at all. It's even hard to get good computer parts down here. You wont be able to go somewhere and build a decent normal average computer because they dont have all the parts or even most. You can get a hard drive and memory sticks and outdated video cards that's it. Well many people do call this city the forgotten crap hole of America. Many people dont even know this city existed, even people in the same state.

Starsman

Quote from: FatherXmas on December 23, 2012, 01:06:05 PM
Or any Marvel or DC movie.  Heck even movies like Kick-Ass, Hancock or Chronicle considering our independent canon.

Fortunately ArenaNet was able to call it's own shots when it came to hiring an PR firm for their game.

Heck, when was the last time CoH had ads in any printed comic? That was THE core demographic and it was, as far as I know, not targeted since the release of CoV (and that's a guess, I just asume there were print comic ads for CoV.)
For the sake of the community: please stop the cultural "research" in your attempt to put blame on the game's cancelation.

It's sickening to see the community sink that low. It's worse to see the community does not get it.

I'm signing off and taking a break, blindly hope things change.

Starsman

Quote from: FatherXmas on December 24, 2012, 06:43:42 AM
Also don't forget GW2 is still "new" and this is it's first Christmas, so if you are going to spend money on advertising, now IS the time.

I also saw a World of Warcraft ad play a few minutes after the GW2 ad.

Sure, WoW IS WoW but...

Got to portrait this on a story form. A long time ago I worked a rather lame door to door sales jig. However, the guys in charge were amazingly great marketing people. They told us this tiny tale, a tale that may be real, may not be, but either way the message is 100% true:

QuoteAn marketing executive is in a business trip. He boards the plane and once he sits down he realizes that the guy sitting next to him is the CEO of one of the largest chewing gum manufacturers in the world. He starts a conversation and during the talk this executive asks Mr CEO:

"I got to ask something, you got this huge brand, and the entire planet knows your product by name. The logo is a household icon. You have to live under a rock not to tie up your product to its identity... yet... you spend millions and millions on advertisement every year... why? You are already a household name... why waste so much money on advertisement?"

The CEO smiles and replies: "Well, it's very simple. You see, killing all advertisement for my product just because it's already known, is as wise as shutting off the engines of this plane simply because we are already in the air. Sure, we will glide for a few extra hundred miles, but we will eventually crash and burn. And chances are, turning the engines back on mid crash won't prevent our demise."

No product in the world remains in the spotlight forever. All products require constant advertisement to remain relevant. Why you think The Coca Cola Company makes sure you see a coke logo at least once a day? It's not just about selling it for the first time, its' about making sure you can't forget it either.

CoH was a profitable game to the end, but it was a shadow of what it could have been had they stuck to a hard marketing campaign. A reason WoW has managed to maintain its spot at the top of the hill is precisely because they have maintained various high profile ad campaigns throughout its lifetime.

QuoteThe only MMO that routinely have ads in primetime is WoW.  I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see another GW2 ad campaign until it's first big expansion or even next Christmas season, it depends on how well it does.

I am sure I saw an ad for SWTOR on TV last time I sat down to watch one of those things (within the last 60 days for certain, but don't watch TV regularly.) Mind you, a campaign does not have to be on national TV. A campaign at all would have been enough to keep things running much smoother.

Eventually you do need to cut back in advertisement, but entirely eliminating it is a bad idea. You are better off reducing workforce than reducing entirely eliminating marketing.

QuoteIn those early days of CoH/CoV we had an honest to God comic book, in comic book stores, about our game.  How much more targeted advertising do you want?

I hate to say this, and it may not be popular opinion, but the original comic run was... poorly executed. It needed to feel mainstream, it felt too indie. Would have been way more effective to spend that same money in printed ads inside the most popular comics of the time. Although there tends to be an overlap between gamers and comic book readers, the overlap tends to be stronger across the mainstream comic reader than over the indie comic audience.

If you wanted to do real comic prints as promotions, would have been more effective also to capitalize on existing franchises with super-star crossovers like Batman/Manticore or Superman/Statesman crossover specials and the like.

I worked in a comic book shop at the time. I found out about City of Heroes via GamePro. Darn we should have received posters and promotional material to hang up in the store! That on itself is wrong! I saw the comic in our shelves and walked by unimpressed. It we stopped ordering it because no one picked it up.

Mind you, there were a significant amount of ads for the game inside other comics. The printed CoH comic should have vanished before these did, though.

NCSoft is doing a good job promoting GW2 so far, but they really did a poor job with CoH, and a horrible mistake by entirely killing all marketing later on.
For the sake of the community: please stop the cultural "research" in your attempt to put blame on the game's cancelation.

It's sickening to see the community sink that low. It's worse to see the community does not get it.

I'm signing off and taking a break, blindly hope things change.

FatherXmas

Quote from: Starsman on December 26, 2012, 08:28:01 PM
I also saw a World of Warcraft ad play a few minutes after the GW2 ad.

Sure, WoW IS WoW but...

Got to portrait this on a story form. A long time ago I worked a rather lame door to door sales jig. However, the guys in charge were amazingly great marketing people. They told us this tiny tale, a tale that may be real, may not be, but either way the message is 100% true:

No product in the world remains in the spotlight forever. All products require constant advertisement to remain relevant. Why you think The Coca Cola Company makes sure you see a coke logo at least once a day? It's not just about selling it for the first time, its' about making sure you can't forget it either.

CoH was a profitable game to the end, but it was a shadow of what it could have been had they stuck to a hard marketing campaign. A reason WoW has managed to maintain its spot at the top of the hill is precisely because they have maintained various high profile ad campaigns throughout its lifetime.

I am sure I saw an ad for SWTOR on TV last time I sat down to watch one of those things (within the last 60 days for certain, but don't watch TV regularly.) Mind you, a campaign does not have to be on national TV. A campaign at all would have been enough to keep things running much smoother.

Eventually you do need to cut back in advertisement, but entirely eliminating it is a bad idea. You are better off reducing workforce than reducing entirely eliminating marketing.

I hate to say this, and it may not be popular opinion, but the original comic run was... poorly executed. It needed to feel mainstream, it felt too indie. Would have been way more effective to spend that same money in printed ads inside the most popular comics of the time. Although there tends to be an overlap between gamers and comic book readers, the overlap tends to be stronger across the mainstream comic reader than over the indie comic audience.

If you wanted to do real comic prints as promotions, would have been more effective also to capitalize on existing franchises with super-star crossovers like Batman/Manticore or Superman/Statesman crossover specials and the like.

I worked in a comic book shop at the time. I found out about City of Heroes via GamePro. Darn we should have received posters and promotional material to hang up in the store! That on itself is wrong! I saw the comic in our shelves and walked by unimpressed. It we stopped ordering it because no one picked it up.

Mind you, there were a significant amount of ads for the game inside other comics. The printed CoH comic should have vanished before these did, though.

NCSoft is doing a good job promoting GW2 so far, but they really did a poor job with CoH, and a horrible mistake by entirely killing all marketing later on.
All valid points but video games and household commodities like gum or soda operate under two very different business models.  Video games production is a lot closer to movie production than soda manufacturing.  There is a lot of money spent up front, the amount of time you have to sell your product is fairly short due to the limited shelf space and constant stream of products.  And like advertising movies, you spend the bulk of your ad dollars in the days or weeks before it's release to around four weeks after.  There are exceptions, like when movies are nominated for awards, they may get a bump in advertising then just as popular games get a boost around the holidays.

Now MMOs are not quite movies but more like expensive TV SciFi where there is a large upfront cost in set construction and location costs (off to another closed quarry or ultra modern building/campus or even an entire town).  And like TV it's longevity is based on it's ratings or in an MMO, active population.  And while it makes sense to fight turnover with advertising, advertising needs to cost less than what the new clientele is willing to spend otherwise you are losing money on the deal.

Also MMOs are a rather "new" type of product and finding the right model to market it is still a work in progress.  Many companies still look at them as simply another video game so ad money is only spent around it's release and the Christmas holidays and they depend on MMO news sites and word of mouth, both somewhat free, as a way to attract new paying customers.  Especially as F2P becomes THE expected way, from a new customer's POV, of how an MMO is sold and marketed.  Recent subscription based games like TSW, DCUO and SWtOR, aren't even lasting long enough in their original income model to pay off their production costs.  MMO players have now been conditioned to expect subscription based with registration fee games to go fully F2P within a year and there isn't a need to rush into it. 
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Victoria Victrix

I believe you have hit on the right analogy.  MMOs are indeed like TV series.  And TV series advertise constantly in the form of "This week on..." plugs among other shows.  Because someone who likes detective shows might be intrigued by a detective episode or character on a Science Fiction show.  And someone who likes horror might be intrigued by an intimation of horror on a police procedural.

Which is precisely why NCSoft should never have killed its promotional budget.  Poor Hosun Lee was having to operate on "what can we get for free."
I will go down with this ship.  I won't put my hands up in surrender.  There will be no white flag above my door.  I'm in love, and always will be.  Dido

Arcana

Quote from: Victoria Victrix on December 27, 2012, 03:25:06 AM
I believe you have hit on the right analogy.  MMOs are indeed like TV series.  And TV series advertise constantly in the form of "This week on..." plugs among other shows.  Because someone who likes detective shows might be intrigued by a detective episode or character on a Science Fiction show.  And someone who likes horror might be intrigued by an intimation of horror on a police procedural.

Which is precisely why NCSoft should never have killed its promotional budget.  Poor Hosun Lee was having to operate on "what can we get for free."
As I understand it, Black Pebble's budget was negative.  I think he used to operate a car wash at Paragon just to balance his budget to zero.