Why don't mmo creators market their products well?

Raciex

This is something that has baffled me for a long time.



I find the marketting of mmo games to be so weird. When I switch on my TV and watch for a day, I'm almost certain met by some Xbox 360 commercial, or a Gears of War commercial or some other single player game commercial. When I visit gaming communities, I see ads for some of the upcoming mmos.



This reminds me so much of the online poker marketting. When I switch on my TV and watch WPT or something, I'm met with a PokerStars ad. Great, but when I switch on to watch like... Anything else, from Terminator 3 to Falcon Crest I'm met with a PartyPoker ad. PartyPoker managed to reach SO many more potential customers by not only showing themselves in areas that are directly related to what they are advertising. And they were also HUGE market leaders at that time as well.



Of course, this analogy fits perfect with a recent mmo.. 2 years ago, when I went to the cinema, sat down to watch a saturday night movie at home, walked around on the streets or whatever, I was met with a WoW ad. They promoted their brand and their game so hard to the public instead of just the gaming magazines/communities. And this is the reason for WoWs enormous success.



If LoTRo would market themselves only half as well as WoW and Blizzard did, they would be doing so well and would probably manage to get a few million players. I haven't seen one single ad or commercial for lotro excluding gaming sites, so my guess is that they will end up at a few hundred k playes (which is not bad at all, but far from the potential of LoTR as a brand name).



So why do you think mmo companies don't seem to value marketting? The one game who has marketted itself very very well also has become market leader by huge margin. And it's not because it's the mother of all games ofc. And not because Warcraft in itself is a bigger name than Lord of the Rings or Star Wars.

shae

It's something that's always confused me a little also, I cant' say I remember seeing any TV spots from SOE about any of their games.

I do remember MxO having a pretty big surge in advertising back when it was with the WB team, I still have the Matrix:Reloaded DVD with a preview of MxO on it but that's about as far as they went with that, it was pretty weak TBH.

I think it comes down to the fact that alot of these production/developement houses (ala: SOE, NCSoft, Turbine, Mythic) try to keep costs down and marketing is a HUGE cost. Warcraft on the other hand has made Blizzard money hand over fist and dumping 5 to 10 million inter world wide adversiting, while costly, isn't as big a hit to the bottom line over time.

Kickphat

If SOE marketed SWG like Blizzard did with WOW I bet SWG would have alot more subs than WOW does now as there are alot more StarWars fans out there than Warcraft

Raciex

Ye it's probably true that it costs a lot of money, and making a marketting campaign as large as that of WoW would simply be too risky for a medium sized company, putting it's entire existence in the hands of a single games succes or failure.



But geez still, SWG has LucasArts and Sony behind them. Not the smallest nor poorest companies around

Kurush

The only reason I can see is that other publishers simply didn't think these measures would pay off.  SOE does market its games fairly aggressively.  EA does also.  They just haven't gone as far as Vivendi and Blizzard.



Stuff like free downloadable trials and buddy keys don't have a lot of traction when you're trying to draw people in from the greater gaming market.  These things only really appeal to people already into MMORPG's.  What Blizzard and Vivendi did right was learn to appeal to everybody else.



Think about it.  The average consumer isn't going to spend six hours downloading a huge downloadable trial for a MMORPG. Even if they were willing to, it's not easy to get the word out about the existence of such a thing.  Even if you made them aware of it, it's another thing entirely to get them to participate.



Look at what Blizzard did instead.  You go to the gaming section of any major electronics store, and you can find a trial copy of WoW for just $3.  These are often sold in impulse buy areas, as well.  We think that's too expensive for a "free" trial.  To the average consumer already buying something, though, this gives them a chance to try out what everybody's talking about on the cheap.



Similarly, when you look at EA and SOE, they buy a lot of advertising space in gaming outlets.  Blizzard and Vivendi took it one step further, though.  They drop WoW in other places, to the point where even somebody who isn't into gaming can see it.  When you do that, suddenly  your title gains more credence to the non-gamer than being "just another video game."



That said, this marketing blitz only started later.  The initial rush, as far as I can tell, was fueled more by word of mouth than anything else.  Blizzard and Vivendi only kicked it up a notch when they realized what they had on their hands.  I think the other major MMO publishers like EA and SOE are thinking they'll do the same thing.  They've all got upcoming major titles up their sleeves, they've all seen what Blizzard and Vivendi has done right in terms of marketing, and they all have the dollar and knowhow to replicate those same practices.  They don't do it before launch, though, because they want to know who their new games will appeal to when they go live before they drop a huge amount of marketing dollar.