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SWG Advertising...or lack thereof
Valeran
Member Posts: 925
WoW has Ozzie Ozborne and Bill Shatner doing commercials.
SWG...nothing...and would be lucky to get Steve Erkel but probably couldnt afford him.
I know advertising is expensive but you have to wonder if they have marketers on staff at all other than the IT guy who manages the email list from former players.
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Ten Golden Rules Of Videogame Fanboyism
"SOE has probably united more gamers in hatred than Blizzard has subs"...daelnor
Comments
I would say that this is the No. 1 complaint of players who actually understand the population issues the current game faces -- that there is ZERO presence in stores (and it's not like stores "won't carry it," they just stopped making disks); that there is ZERO presence in gaming media; and that the ONLY players that are ever marketed to are former players who are most likely pissed off and have no interest.
The periodic vet trials bring back a decent chunk of people, but I'd guess that the retention level is insanely low.
I'd be willing to bet that LucasArts has put the kibosh on too much advertising. No sense in broadcasting competition to its own upcoming product.
So I started to walk into the water. I won't lie to you boys...I was terrified. But I pressed on, and as I made my way past the breakers, a strange calm came over me. I don't know if it was divine intervention or the kinship of all living things, but I tell you, Jerry, at that moment ... I was a marine biologist.
If your games sucked as bad as SOE's does, would YOU want to waste money advertising the fact?
They are spending money on marketing, except that it's going into RMT and TCG style gambling schemes being marketed at their hardcore gullible will waste money on anything fanbois.
In the case of the NGE game, they can't even fix basic collision so that mobs that SHOOT you can be shot BACK at... Want to advertise a game that has THAT "feature"? All that does is expose to a larger, potential audience how incompetent SOE's coders and Devs are.
Well, glad you could contribute to the discussion.
Obviously, YOU think SOE's games suck. However, SOE obviously doesn't think they suck. The question is not "why you wouldn't market them?," the question is "why doesn't SOE -- the company that stands to make money off it -- market them?"
So I started to walk into the water. I won't lie to you boys...I was terrified. But I pressed on, and as I made my way past the breakers, a strange calm came over me. I don't know if it was divine intervention or the kinship of all living things, but I tell you, Jerry, at that moment ... I was a marine biologist.
Plus after what soe did to us vets. Its a shame make you work not just 1 or 2 months but i mean around 6 months to get a jedi and max him out make it this awsome feeling you did it your one of the only ones on the server and its rare to one day pulling the rug out from under your feet and leting every noob who buys the game go home that same day and make a char identical to yours besides some lame robe they gave u for being a vet. This subject really makes me mad lol. Not you just what they did.
Back prior to the NGE, when they DID advertise, it was all flashlight this and glowbat that. A misrepresentation of the game play of a new player. Then there was all the nonsense about SWG going on 24/7 which was such a joke when the servers were down two hours a day, minimum.
I remember players complaining in the forum about the advertising, which, naturally, was LEC's perview, not SOEs, and was all the game LEC wanted, some sort of JK online thing, as opposed to a game that was about the original trilogy, which was NOT flashlights 24/7.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
Oh and sorry kidna off topic but i think they wouldnt get much out of advertising just wasting their money unless it was a advertisment saying they made a new server that was pre cu.
I would tend to agree on the LA thing which still makes me think that there will still only be 1 active StarWars MMO when TOR finally releases.
Hell...even preCU there was only 1 commercial and it was pretty lame give the IP asses at their disposal.
Even with the release of the NGE there was only small press releases to counteract the bad press there were getting within the industry but NOTHING marketed to new players. I think we all agree they have piss poor management but this is almost criminal.
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Ten Golden Rules Of Videogame Fanboyism
"SOE has probably united more gamers in hatred than Blizzard has subs"...daelnor
The only pre NGE advertising I recall SOE doing was a BRIEF campaign after the CU.
Their biggest blitz came after the NGE, which was laughable as almost all the footage shown was pre NGE with animations and the combat system before it was on crack.
To my knowledge SOE did NO advertising AT ALL for SWG before the CU.
Which ironically was when the game was most successful.
Retails stores do not reorder products that do not sell. That is why they no longer make boxes.
Why advertise for a game that doesn't sell. It isn't like SWG didn't have their own television ad campaign once. Magazine and website media blitz.
There is zero presence in stores, because there is zero demand. Even when it was packaged with 4 other Star Wars titles by Lucas Arts it didn't help.
I'm not a very avid consumer of gaming media (and certainly wasn't in 2004 when I got the game), but I didn't hear about SWG from any kind of advertising. I was looking for a Prima guide to something (maybe one of the GTA games, I dunno) and stumbled on the SWG one at Barnes & Noble.
Even pre-CU, their advertising and marketing sucked. And this was while the prequels were coming out! It is pretty incredible.
So I started to walk into the water. I won't lie to you boys...I was terrified. But I pressed on, and as I made my way past the breakers, a strange calm came over me. I don't know if it was divine intervention or the kinship of all living things, but I tell you, Jerry, at that moment ... I was a marine biologist.
I'm not a very avid consumer of gaming media (and certainly wasn't in 2004 when I got the game), but I didn't hear about SWG from any kind of advertising. I was looking for a Prima guide to something (maybe one of the GTA games, I dunno) and stumbled on the SWG one at Barnes & Noble.
Even pre-CU, their advertising and marketing sucked. And this was while the prequels were coming out! It is pretty incredible.
I think they were just counting on the IP to carry the title.
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Ten Golden Rules Of Videogame Fanboyism
"SOE has probably united more gamers in hatred than Blizzard has subs"...daelnor
DING DING DING DING DING!
After all, it worked for all the other boxes of bantha poodoo labled "Star Wars" that LEC had been foisting on the gaming public for years.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
DING DING DING DING DING!
After all, it worked for all the other boxes of bantha poodoo labled "Star Wars" that LEC had been foisting on the gaming public for years.
Just think how much more money GL might have made if they actually advertised any of that stuff. He'd have TWO money bins!
So I started to walk into the water. I won't lie to you boys...I was terrified. But I pressed on, and as I made my way past the breakers, a strange calm came over me. I don't know if it was divine intervention or the kinship of all living things, but I tell you, Jerry, at that moment ... I was a marine biologist.
DING DING DING DING DING!
After all, it worked for all the other boxes of bantha poodoo labled "Star Wars" that LEC had been foisting on the gaming public for years.
This probably one of those cases where SOE knew the industry and knew you had to pump your product continually and LEC said nah...its star wars and will sell itself. This may have been ok if the game launched relatively bug free and polished like WoW along with subsequent bug free and polished updates/expansions.
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Ten Golden Rules Of Videogame Fanboyism
"SOE has probably united more gamers in hatred than Blizzard has subs"...daelnor
DING DING DING DING DING!
After all, it worked for all the other boxes of bantha poodoo labled "Star Wars" that LEC had been foisting on the gaming public for years.
This is why the Star Wars IP as a video game IP is grossly OVERESTIMATED in value.
Other than KOTOR, what decent Star Wars title has been produced since the mid 90's?
Practically none. There is no consistency of quality in the franchise, ESPECIALLY on the PC. Which is why, frankly, Warcraft is a far more valuable game IP than Star Wars, the Warcraft games were ALL high quality, consistent, and were hits.
(as an aside, I'll even submit that at this point Warcraft is probably a more valuable MOVIE IP than Star Wars...)
LEC has for FAR too long been coasting on the name, the IP, and no substance, relying on the intertia from the movies to sell copies. Jim Ward inerited a Lucas Arts that made quality games both named and NOT named "Star Wars" into a joke that paid no attention to quality and relied on a perception that you could shape a turd into a Star Wars logo and it'd sell.
The NGE was just as much a delusion on the LEC side as it was SOE. It was easy to talk Ward's zombies into believing that Star Wars because it is Star Wars should have WOW type sub numbers, regardless of the game's quality, as evidenced by the state of the initial NGE... It was pre-pre-pre alpha in quality, but only had the virtue of giving you Jedi with one click. Honestly, that was what they THOUGHT was going to get them tons of subs. Has to be, since that was the reality of the game they expected on 11/15/05 to suddenly replace 250K pre NGE players with millions of new ones.
Trek suffers from the same problem, in that the holder of the IP thinks that the name is enough to sell. And it probably is enough to pay for a weekend's worth of hookers and blow for the suits.
But it's not their bread and butter.
Unlike Blizzard, which is about GAMES. Not movies, not TV syndication, not churning out mediocre books to rabid fans eager for anything ST or SW.
Lucas frankly makes far more money off Skywalker Sound or ILM, I'd wager. The games are something of a sideshow, and the abysmal quality of most of them shows.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
Its sad really when you think of all of the "what ifs"...
Once upon a time if they created a preCU server I would have gladly come back and played again. But now I probably would not. That community is now gone for me and no longer has a pull...they ruined that and it is probably what makes me antiSOE and vocal about it.
The lack of any advertising just shows what a failed marketing plan they had. Koster had the vision but was rushed to implementation by who....marketing. Just another thing WoW did better and will always do better. Hell...i hated WoW when I played it but I give them credit for doing what they do well.
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Ten Golden Rules Of Videogame Fanboyism
"SOE has probably united more gamers in hatred than Blizzard has subs"...daelnor
Last good Star Trek games were the "25th Anniversary" game and it's sequel, "Judgement Rites", and "Starfleet Academy"
Those were the only Star Trek RPG's that ever followed the episodic, exploration, problem solving theme of... uh Star Trek, instead of being nothing but FPS with phasers or "blow up ships in space".
Just as with Star Wars, good Star Trek games have been few and far between, and there hasn't been one lately.
At least the Perpetual/Cryptic abortion known as Star Trek Online is never going to tease us with the potentially great Pre-CU phase and is starting out NGE'd so we can save ourselves a lot of time and anguish by skipping it.
My redshirt guy always got killed immediately on the landing parties...and I loved it!!!
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Ten Golden Rules Of Videogame Fanboyism
"SOE has probably united more gamers in hatred than Blizzard has subs"...daelnor
Well, glad you could contribute to the discussion.
Obviously, YOU think SOE's games suck. However, SOE obviously doesn't think they suck. The question is not "why you wouldn't market them?," the question is "why doesn't SOE -- the company that stands to make money off it -- market them?"
Why pay for commercials when they can get the SOE Bucket Brigade to carry their water for them for free? Sony as a corporation has a sick fascination with viral marketing. SOE just takes it to absurd levels.
SWG now in its current form is the bastard child to the MMO community as Battlefield Earth is the bastard child of sci-fi movies. SWG's former incarnation the more enjoyable version that people played , had its flaws but did well for a game in 2003, Battlefield Earth the book was a wonderful read from start to finish, but somewhere down these 2 lines something went horribly wrong, one was made into a WOW clone ( something a lot of the current players cant even see) and the other was made into a crappy movie and half the story from the book thrown out the window. Now you have a subpar low quality game and a box-office bomb both failures and well-known , why would anyone want to even waste money on advertising on SWG when the new NGE2 is coming out soon?
My redshirt guy always got killed immediately on the landing parties...and I loved it!!!
As I recall every mission had a place where the redshirt could get killed if you screwed up.
And in "judgement rites" there was even a mission where the redshit guy gave Kirk hell for all the "redshirt deaths" in the past.
I'm sure SOE has no real desire to spend any money on SWG unless they have too. They know SWG isn't going to eplode into a sudden hit, they just want to make what they can while spending as little as possible. Not to mention I'm sure Lucas has made it clear that SOE better keep a low profile with SWG so as not to step on the toes of the new SW mmo.
SOE's plan for the last remaining year or so of the NGE's life is to monetize it as much as possible. Don't like TCG? Tough, I expect the desirability of the rewards from it to only INCREASE in the next months, they have to keep topping their previous offerings to keep the addicted gamblers swiping their Visa's. I expect the item mall recently added to EQ/EQ2 to also appear for the NGE as well. The TCG for EQ preceeded the one for SWG as you may remember.
I expect to see outrages like them putting elder robes (that are better than the actual elder robes), collection crap (better than the ingame ones of course) and even things like the Elder Jedi "blue glowie)" ability to show up in either the TCG or the RMT store, or both.
SOE might even take the cynical course of claiming that opening a RMT store answers the complaints about TCG in letting you out and out pay for the junk.
TCG is obviously costing them subscribers, and will probably cause them to lose more and more as the Dev team concentrates on adding "shinies and trinkets" to it as opposed to for "free" in the live game. As I said, they HAVE to do this to keep interest in TCG up, so expect the travesty of the diner and barn to be outdone by the NEXT thing added.
But given the insanity of a small percentage of players spending crazy money on it, they will more than make up for it.
SOE has ironically found a minority they like.
DING DING DING DING DING!
After all, it worked for all the other boxes of bantha poodoo labled "Star Wars" that LEC had been foisting on the gaming public for years.
This is why the Star Wars IP as a video game IP is grossly OVERESTIMATED in value.
Other than KOTOR, what decent Star Wars title has been produced since the mid 90's?
Practically none. There is no consistency of quality in the franchise, ESPECIALLY on the PC. Which is why, frankly, Warcraft is a far more valuable game IP than Star Wars, the Warcraft games were ALL high quality, consistent, and were hits.
(as an aside, I'll even submit that at this point Warcraft is probably a more valuable MOVIE IP than Star Wars...)
LEC has for FAR too long been coasting on the name, the IP, and no substance, relying on the intertia from the movies to sell copies. Jim Ward inerited a Lucas Arts that made quality games both named and NOT named "Star Wars" into a joke that paid no attention to quality and relied on a perception that you could shape a turd into a Star Wars logo and it'd sell.
The NGE was just as much a delusion on the LEC side as it was SOE. It was easy to talk Ward's zombies into believing that Star Wars because it is Star Wars should have WOW type sub numbers, regardless of the game's quality, as evidenced by the state of the initial NGE... It was pre-pre-pre alpha in quality, but only had the virtue of giving you Jedi with one click. Honestly, that was what they THOUGHT was going to get them tons of subs. Has to be, since that was the reality of the game they expected on 11/15/05 to suddenly replace 250K pre NGE players with millions of new ones.
Empire at War and the Battlefront titles were pretty good. Other than that, yeah, most SW games are crap.
So I started to walk into the water. I won't lie to you boys...I was terrified. But I pressed on, and as I made my way past the breakers, a strange calm came over me. I don't know if it was divine intervention or the kinship of all living things, but I tell you, Jerry, at that moment ... I was a marine biologist.