Living through a Digital Apocalypse

[Starsman]

MMOs are far from being a new thing. We have been with them for nearly 20 years now. There are plenty of people out there that don't recall a world where MMOs did not exist.

Now the TV analogy... it is indeed close but not bullseye, not for every MMO. By definition an MMO does have a lot of work up front, years worth of production, 3 years is ideal but 6 years is not unheard off. By contrast, the amount of money you sink in subsequent content tends to be rather small.

TV shows do spend some up-front money for set-building but the up-front cost is not as disproportionate. Script writers and actors charge a LOT of money per episode. Even then, they market the show to the end, and not only in the station it's broadcasted. You see the show marketed in other stations that belong to the same network, in Hulu and Youtube via full video spots, over the web, on the radio, etc. They wont stop promoting a TV show until they cancel it, and even that last episode is heavily  promoted.

As far as the MMO model goes, boxed expansions have worked for a long time. It may no longer work well, though. Ideally, even if we complained about it, CoH would have seen a yearly expansion, even if this meant thinner independent issues. Think of the expansions as the "episodes", or perhaps the seasons, of a TV show. They are great points for new players to jump in and well marketed content for those that did "everything" to return to. Yea we likely got that in the form of issues, but few outside the game knew about those issues.

I quit the game for a while after GR came out, and I didn't realize how many issues came out until I decided to return to the game. Social media may work, but it tends to work best at engaging current audience than spreading the voice (unless you give the followers something they feel motivated to share, something that has strong marketing punch behind it.)

Mind you: there were other things wrong with CoH. We got used to it over years and feel it as second nature, but the UI for CoH was horrible. Too many things all over the place, too many things hidden under layers and layers. Important features like the power inventory represented as a tiny un-searchable and un-categorized list of names. Movement was not exactly natural either out of the box. I got a few casual gamers to try the game and they had a very rough time getting around the interface and the controls. It is not very helpful to bring players in if there is such a high hurdle between the player and the game. I attempted to bring this up a few times but most players seemed extremely content about it.

[Starsman]

I think he used to operate a car wash at Paragon just to balance his budget to zero.

I would love if my brain didn't default to "you are likely serious... " in this situation...

[Victoria Victrix]

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.

Everybody remember the very first Humble e-Book Bundle?  The one that netted about a million and a half dollars?

The one we were privileged to participate in?

I had a campaign ready to go to attach to that, which would have cost nothing.

EXTENSIVE preface about CoH, how we all met, what our characters were like as CoH versions, and how we decided to turn them loose in a new setting.

Extensive description of the game, and links.

Front page promotion on my website.

I was going to ask Hosun for some sort of special game-code for a "gimme" for people that bought the book.  Free German Shepherd as a callback to "Leader of the Pack" probably.

I was going to talk to him about it after labor day weekend.

....right.

[FatherXmas]

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."

Yes but "new" TV shows often have existing popular shows to lead in and out of as well as having "free" advertising around other shows on that network or network family (like seeing USA Network shows advertise on SyFy or vice versa). 

Now Popcap has a tendency to put up a "also by Popcap" screen when you quit one of their games and you could say the NC Launcher program did provide a similar function, displaying news about the all of the MMOs in their stable unless you always bypassed that with the direct game shortcuts.  However you couldn't avoid it during a patch (which makes me believe that's partially the reason CO and STO is patched weekly so they can flash you about the new items in the store.

Now you can't spend say a million dollars on ads unless you are absolutely sure you will make more than a million dollars back in the long run.  I don't think the industry knows what is the most cost effective way to attract new customers to an existing MMO.  For CoH, would it have been better to keep publishing a tie-in comic and get it into comic book shops everywhere or just have a reasonable size booth at all the major comic and game cons in NA with a couple of rigs up and running with developed characters ready to play?  Would Marvel or DC have allowed a nationwide ad for a superhero MMO in front of their movie when they have their own MMOs?  And before you say anything it's not like Turbine could have any influence over stopping the GW2 ad in front of The Hobbit.  And how much did that little ad cost ArenaNet and would they have done it if The Hobbit came out in February and not during the Christmas buying season?

I still believe that some of this "they should have advertise more" sentiment is based on us wanting others to see what we play.  Face it we hated it when someone would say "I never heard of that game" or "why aren't you playing WoW".  We wanted ads so others would at least be aware of the game we play and that MMO doesn't just mean WoW.  It's like being a fan of some overseas football or rugby team and are annoyed that there isn't more people who have heard of them.  We wanted an ad that was seen widely enough that someone would turn to their roommate/SO/friend and say "hey that's the game Joe at work/my lab partner/Jane's friend plays".  We craved for others to know about the game from sources other than us.  We want someone to walk up and say "hey I saw an ad for the game you are always talking about".

[FatherXmas]

MMOs are far from being a new thing. We have been with them for nearly 20 years now. There are plenty of people out there that don't recall a world where MMOs did not exist.

Now the TV analogy... it is indeed close but not bullseye, not for every MMO. By definition an MMO does have a lot of work up front, years worth of production, 3 years is ideal but 6 years is not unheard off. By contrast, the amount of money you sink in subsequent content tends to be rather small.

TV shows do spend some up-front money for set-building but the up-front cost is not as disproportionate. Script writers and actors charge a LOT of money per episode. Even then, they market the show to the end, and not only in the station it's broadcasted. You see the show marketed in other stations that belong to the same network, in Hulu and Youtube via full video spots, over the web, on the radio, etc. They wont stop promoting a TV show until they cancel it, and even that last episode is heavily  promoted.

As far as the MMO model goes, boxed expansions have worked for a long time. It may no longer work well, though. Ideally, even if we complained about it, CoH would have seen a yearly expansion, even if this meant thinner independent issues. Think of the expansions as the "episodes", or perhaps the seasons, of a TV show. They are great points for new players to jump in and well marketed content for those that did "everything" to return to. Yea we likely got that in the form of issues, but few outside the game knew about those issues.

I quit the game for a while after GR came out, and I didn't realize how many issues came out until I decided to return to the game. Social media may work, but it tends to work best at engaging current audience than spreading the voice (unless you give the followers something they feel motivated to share, something that has strong marketing punch behind it.)

Mind you: there were other things wrong with CoH. We got used to it over years and feel it as second nature, but the UI for CoH was horrible. Too many things all over the place, too many things hidden under layers and layers. Important features like the power inventory represented as a tiny un-searchable and un-categorized list of names. Movement was not exactly natural either out of the box. I got a few casual gamers to try the game and they had a very rough time getting around the interface and the controls. It is not very helpful to bring players in if there is such a high hurdle between the player and the game. I attempted to bring this up a few times but most players seemed extremely content about it.

But a brand new show usually has a cast of mostly unknowns or haven't been seen on TV or movies anytime recently so their initial per episode cost is relatively low.  It's only after the show becomes popular and the actors feel irreplaceable that they insist on major raises.  Funny that I never heard of Joss Whedon having that problem. 

And while try that MMOs aren't new, the MMO market is very different today then say 10 years ago.  Sticking with the TV metaphor, studios were OK back then with unique, quirky shows that had a passable size following but today they want Friends or Dallas.

And while you can have a new box edition out for the holidays every year with it's own ad campaign, places that stock box PC games have dwindled and those that still do have less space for stock than even 5 years ago.  A box or time card on the shelf is "free" advertising.  It reinforces the fact that your MMO is still alive and kicking.

Still there's been a lot of forces over the last five to ten years that have significantly changed the PC gaming landscape.  The death of gaming magazines.  The adoption of broadband download services (remember that broadband isn't universal or inexpensive in the US) and online stores have discourage retailers from stocking physical product (I notice in BestBuy that they are selling some games as just a card, requiring you to download it yourself, for the same price as the previous box edition).  Targeted social media advertising might help, custom ads displayed for people who may be more likely to buy your game,  but that only works if the likely target is willing to over share enough information that such a profile could be identified.