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General: Wood: Sellin' Beta and Pimpin' Box Sales
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
MMORPG.com's Jon Wood returns to his column today to talk about two questionable marketing techniques that he feels stand out as mistakes in the current MMO landscape.
I've got a real problem with the way that some MMO companies these days are selling and promoting their products. I know I've used this column to complain about marketing practices lately, but I was reading through a few threads on some of the most popular games on our site today, and they really got my ire up.
Star Trek Online
First, there's an issue that's been plaguing Cryptic and Star Trek Online ever since they started their closed beta. You see, back when they were trying to sell Champions Online as quickly and heavily as possible, the powers that be over at Cryptic decided to offer a $199 lifetime subscription to the game. We'll ignore the part where they were asking people to buy a lifetime subscription to a game that wouldn't be released for at least another month and move right along to the part that really gets my goat: The Champions Online lifetime (or six month) subscription's big selling point was that buyers would get access to the closed beta test for Star Trek Online.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
I agree on all counts.
I think it's fairly shameful the way beta is handled these days, with many companies offering access in exchange for subscription packages in other games they run.
Why can't developers see that doing this hinders your development process and chance at a solid, polished launch? Beta is when you are supposed to be taking care of the games largest issues, in effort to prevent them from being an issue for Live, paying customers come release.
Yet, as we see more and more these days, the testing process is being offered as a free trial of sorts more than an opportunity to help the developers push out a worthwhile, well done product.
It irks me about box sales being preached about as if they determine success as well, but not quite to the same degree as watching the beta testing process go the wayside in return for a few more extra subs come release (subs that will more than likely just run to a forum and whine, causing the game more bad press than good).
Companies are doing it very wrong, paid and/or public beta access (when in fact they should be hiring beta testers). If the objective is to make a stress test, then call it a damn stress test like Fallen Earth did. If they want to preview the game, call it a damn preview event like Guild Wars did. And selling beta access to another game that has nothing to do with the first game, now that's plain ridiculous in my opinion... developers get really innovative when talking about squeezing money off people.
And about numbers... I really find no credibility about numbers given out by press releases as it's an obviously biased information source. That's when I love EVE that actually gives out the concurrent users number at login and at a graph on their website... you WILL know the good and bad times, what truly matters on monthly subscriptions MMOs are the subscriptions... duh.
Truer words were neevr spoken. The Aion news is just ridiculous, like I was saying, warhammerand aoc both boasted similar numbers, or even greater. Like you said box sales are good for a single player game and also multiplayer, but its about the retention rate and active playerbase, which sad to say Aion has none of.
I think it´s fine that companies reward loyal customers with beta-access to new products. Actually I like the idea.
--
Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.
How does offering beta access for purchasing subscription time or pre-orders equal rewarding loyal customers?
Did you even read the article?
Boasting those box sales numbers are a joke when it comes to MMOs, and I would argue they are setting themselves up to shoot themselves in the foot like the other games did. When happens when people find out that a game sold a million boxes but there isn't a lot of people playing hypothetically? People will figure out retention rates and realize that the game did not live up to the hype. The only reason I can see for boasting sales numbers is to present an image of being a successful game hoping to attract more people. They are playing the same dangerous game that Mythic and Funcom played.
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I agree with every point in this article, especially in regard to box sales. MMO studios have to realize that positive reinforcement is not the answer to making people believe you have released a stellar product. I would actually love for a developer to be real with their customers. If you are having problems financially tell us, it might actually even get 15 bucks out of me.
These games should be approached for what they are by studios, not what the marketing PR has built it up to be. The only way to achieve this is to be honest about what your product is, rather than what you wish it was.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
How does offering beta access for purchasing subscription time or pre-orders equal rewarding loyal customers?
Did you even read the article?
IMO buying subscription over longer periods of time warrants a "loyal customer". Like buy two, get the third for free kind of marketing. I don´t see a problem with that.
And yes, I did read the article..........
What I don´t like in MMO marketing is "play free forever", just to have games full of cash-shops..
--
Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.
How does offering beta access for purchasing subscription time or pre-orders equal rewarding loyal customers?
Did you even read the article?
Purchased Subscription Time = Customer (and in this case it was purchased pre-Champions release so i'd throw in Loyal).
Have to say i'm feeling pretty darn bitter about the STO beta thing. Champions should be a F2P game, so my "lifetime" sub doesn't exactly mean anything (and it'll die a real quick death without swapping model soon). And then randomly selecting hundreds of non-paid beta slots (and even running numerous competitions for beta keys) prior to clearing the "paid for" queue just seems... mean.
Aion has no longevity either, it's a pretty F2P import game. And the insane launch queues were "fun" there too. But hey maybe it'll be fine, the subs a year from now (or even people that subbed after the first month) are a massivly better indicator than boxes sold.
I totally agree with the content of the article, & in fact this outlines a whole ethos of games companies lately about them making promises they not only fail to deliver on at launch, but they are effectively setting themselves up for failure.
To go off topic slighty, but in a loosely related fashion, look at how games sell themselves, giving a list of classes, races, playstyles & content that they simply wont have available at launch. Warhammer , AoC, RoM, Alganon & a whole ton of others have all made the exact same mistake, & yes I do see it as a mistake it is simply false advertising, games companies need to stfu about what they have planned for 6 months, 12 months 2 years in the future & stick to talking about only that which they KNOW will be in the game for release & only get into releasing info about future aspects if the game when they are actualy in production & have a timetable for delivery that can be met.
Games need to get back to delivering the stuff it talks of on the box/advert, and delivering it in a polished, tested, working state, the amount of shoddy gaming getting delivered is getting worse, but more reprehensible is the tactic of trying to smokescreen a games faults by trying to paperover the cracks with "new stuff in the pipeline" get the shit that was in at release working right first, as soon as a developer invites you into their "cloud-cuckoo land " fantasy of what they would LIKE to put in then it had better be more than just a fantasy because customers, if they like it, will want it, even expect it, and they may simply be incapable of realising their own dreams & in the process shatter those of their customers, there is a duty of responsibility almost to have respect for that imagination.
And selling someone short on something they have a passion for, is only ever going to end up with "the angry mob", developers need to start realising that they themselves are the catalyst for the shitstorms they find themselves in.
How does offering beta access for purchasing subscription time or pre-orders equal rewarding loyal customers?
Did you even read the article?
IMO buying subscription over longer periods of time warrants a "loyal customer". Like buy two, get the third for free kind of marketing. I don´t see a problem with that.
And yes, I did read the article..........
What I don´t like in MMO marketing is "play free forever", just to have games full of cash-shops..
You're not loyal until you're loyal.
Buying a lifetime subscription to a game I haven't touched yet isn't being loyal. Playing that game for a long time is. Being an active, vocal beta tester is.
I was in the CO beta starting in January. Do you know what Cryptic gave us closed beta testers? Not a damned thing. But if you forked over $250 before even playing the game and knowing whether or not you really like it and will actually become loyal, they were more than happy to shower you with gifts.
How does offering beta access for purchasing subscription time or pre-orders equal rewarding loyal customers?
Did you even read the article?
Purchased Subscription Time = Customer (and in this case it was purchased pre-Champions release so i'd throw in Loyal).
Have to say i'm feeling pretty darn bitter about the STO beta thing. Champions should be a F2P game, so my "lifetime" sub doesn't exactly mean anything (and it'll die a real quick death without swapping model soon). And then randomly selecting hundreds of non-paid beta slots (and even running numerous competitions for beta keys) prior to clearing the "paid for" queue just seems... mean.
Aion has no longevity either, it's a pretty F2P import game. And the insane launch queues were "fun" there too. But hey maybe it'll be fine, the subs a year from now (or even people that subbed after the first month) are a massivly better indicator than boxes sold.
In reference to my above post, go look at how many "I made a horrible, horrible mistake" posts there are on the official forums from lifetime subscribers who dropped big bucks to have lifetime access to a game they didn't know anything about, and then actually played the game, and realized they hated it.
Buying a lifetime subscription doesn't immediately make you loyal. Especially not if you haven't even played the game you're swearing a decent chunk of money to, and then turn around and vocally demonstrate your hatred for it. I'd call it foolish more than loyal.
I'm one of the few people who have been actually loyal to Cryptic over the past year, and they pass us up in favor of people who are willing to throw money at them.
But, of course, I can't completely fault them for it. Such is the world of business.
All true. Once you present a beta spot as part of a package you're selling and advertise it as such, "the tester" suddenly becomes "the customer", and the whole thing crumbles.
In essence, you can't make a person pay money for something and ask them to do work for you on top of it. Well, actually you can, but it'll hardly work as it should. I guess companies are well aware of this, too, they're not daft. So the whole beta testing process becomes diluted. Perhaps this is why they are diversifying their beta pool with invitations going out in every direction, at the expense of deprioritizing the people who practically paid for it.
Because, let's face it, those people will have a certain sense of entitlement, and Entitlement is just a lousy starting point for a testing process. You want some Gratitude to go with that.
It's the companies' own fault when they do this and have either a poorly tested product or an angry fanbase... or worse, both.
well the problem is that sometimes this method has worked for getting good beta testers. Take EQII if you were ( i forget the actuall name of the program i am gettign old) a subscriber to their premimum server you were given access to the EQII closed beta as the ininial invities. This actually produced a good group of peopel that were dedicated to EQ and wanted to do their best to make EQII a good game. However, the beta erroded overtime as peopel not in this program were brought in. I do agree that today many people see closed beta as infact a free trial play of the game. I would prefer that the compnaies tighten up who they let into their betas >Perhaps starting with a more dedicated beta testing group then brining in others to see more on the marketability of the game.
Magic is impressive, but now Minsc leads! Swords for everyone!
You know - I'm just not so certain of this fact anymore. At least when it comes to the biggest publishing companies (primarily thinking North American here, EA / SOE / perhaps Cryptic).
I wonder if the business strategy for many MMOs isn't a whole lot closer to single player games than is usually thought.
I'm starting to think that the big dogs in MMO publishing are starting to push for MMOs that provide just a few months of entertainment, and just hype the living daylights out of them prior to launch in order to maximize box sales. I'm thinking the strategy is simply to recoup and make a bit of profit off the first few months of live, and simply wait and see whether the game catches fire.
It's almost like they know they can't plan on another WOW, so they're just going to toss out game after game with these huge hype machines behind them - and only if the game proves to be lightning-in-a-bottle will the big money for the live game come forth.
Otherwise I think we'll see the WAR story repeated again and again, the dev team downsized and the game going into maintenance mode, as the parent company starts the hype machine for their next offering.
I'd even go so far as to say that the SOE Station model might very well become predominant, with the big companies having stables of MMOs that draw in just enough subscribers to keep the lights on with a bit of profit to the parent. Both SOE and EA are going that way, and Cryptic is closing in on it as well. They might even snap up the odd indy game or gaming company from time to time.
Personally, I hope I'm way wrong - as I'd like to see more immersive worlds that function on long-term subscriber loyalty, but it may be that only the smaller independant companies are likely to offer something of that sort.
Oh Jon I hope your reading this:
Today from Gamespy - http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/age-of-conan-hyborian-adventures/1044581p1.html
It seems like no sooner you talk about it does another company put out a new promotion, this is funny as hell. RE SUB TO CONAN AND GET 2 WEEKS FREE AND SECRET WORLD BETA ACCESS
screw the people who played the secret world puzzles months ago, give it to a AOC re sub whos only subbin up for a free beta!
I play all ghame
i must agree on all accts
When you take a look at Cryptic, then you see a shift in tactics with MMO development.
CO had less then 3 years development and STO is going to be pushed out of the door with hardly 2 years of development.
It's retarded and you don't need to be a rocket scientist to see the big "SCAMMY" scheme behind this.
They try to push a MMO out of the door with as little development time as possible (and thus as cheap as possible), deploy shady marketing practices with 6-month and lifetime subscriptions and try to sell as many boxes as possible.
So with that they already try to cash in the big bucks way up front, before the game is even released. And after it's released they don't seem to give a flying crock about longetivity. As they know with so little development time the game has no longetivity.
They just cut the live staff to minimum. Fix what is needed and deploy the minimum needed content updates. And so squeeze out as much subscription money from the poor fans that are left after the first month for as long as possible.
Close down when it's dried up. And move on to the next.
This is what they did and doing with Champions Online. And Star Trek Online will be next.
Cheers
"I remember when I beta tested Asheron's Call 2, Shadowbane and Auto Assault, all of which didn't promote their game with such sultry marketing schemes. Yet all three of those games are, you guessed it, canceled.. dead.. or lifeless to some degree. I really don't think the whole beta test process is the cause of MMO's failing, but rather the lack of game developers actually paying attention to beta testers." - Rhoklaw
^ ???WTF???^
Ummm Shadowbane, AC2 and AA devs cared DEEPLY about their games, all of those games are awesome....I wouldnt go and say that they didnt pay attention to their beta testers.....they were indie MMO's, not mainstream....thats why they went down. And yes I beta tested all of them in fact.
I play all ghame
Sigh, I've had enough of the CO-'preorders' whining about not getting into the CB right away. And now you stoke up the fire even more.
I've always thought highly of the MMORPG columnists, but I am disappointed now. It was just something extra. It isn't Cryptic's fault that people didn't even play CO after preordering a 6 month subscription, just to get guaranteed access to the closed beta.
And now they're whining that the game will already launch in 3 months, not giving them the expected half year or longer of (closed) beta, that other MMOs have had in the recent past.
Strange how childish grown ups (considering the amount of money they paid for it) are.
Very good post. There are two kinds of beta testers. The ones with the "test this and help make it better by diligently reporting every problem" and the "wow, cool, a new game, lets play it first before anyone else". I would venture to say that someone who pays a huge fee with the idea of getting beta access would probably fall in the latter category, and thus really not be much of a 'tester' at all.
I am very leery of 'lifetime' subscriptions at any rate. Especially in the MMO industry, who can say what their version of "lifetime" is? The customer thinks of it in terms of *their* lifetime but in reality, that 'lifetime' of a game is entirely up to the company selling the subscription.
/agree, though I understand why they hype those numbers.
AoC and WAR were simply lacking at launch. I don't think a well implemented beta would have changed that, much. AoC lacked content, and WAR lacked player connection to their toons. Both of those things are a big part of the crack that keeps people addicted to MMO's.
Did you see that AoC is doing the same thing? 3 month sub for AoC gets you into TSW beta?
I think there was a point in CO's development where they looked at the horizon, saw DCO coming and saw the writing on the wall... "let's just get this game in working condition and move on to STO.". The only chance CO has to survive is to maintain it on a shoestring budget. I think that's what the lifer sub was about. Paying off on that big front end investment, and idling it along.
I wasn't complaining (too much) about the Lifetime deal, just so far every aspect of it has been delivered on poorly. My only other experiance with such a deal was with LotRO and they delivered pretty much everything they put on the tin. Thankfully I dodged the Hellgate bullet.
In our beloved capitalist society Loyal = pays money. Any other definition is optimistic at best, delusional at worst. I had years of subscription to CoH that I imported from the US (the EU launch was about a year late), as with CoV etc. and that doesn't matter. I submitted dozens of legitimate bug reports in the CO "beta" (/snigger) for which 0 were actioned before live (dam you snake bucks). Does this earn me more "Loyalty" points? Can I spend them at the gift shop? Alas no.
I wouldn't even mind if they were giving beta invites out to hardcore fans first (i.e. people that have been activly worthwhile on the STO forum etc.) but they're not. They just lumped in the paid customers with the "free" ones, picked X of them and threw out those invites. Which means the primary sale point of the champions sub (as pointed out in the article) has exactly zero point nothing value. Which wasn't what people expected. And I fear Cryptic knew perfectly well was unsustainable when they "ran out" of the deals.
I feel about as loyal to Cryptic as they've been to their customers.
Very good post. There are two kinds of beta testers. The ones with the "test this and help make it better by diligently reporting every problem" and the "wow, cool, a new game, lets play it first before anyone else". I would venture to say that someone who pays a huge fee with the idea of getting beta access would probably fall in the latter category, and thus really not be much of a 'tester' at all.
I am very leery of 'lifetime' subscriptions at any rate. Especially in the MMO industry, who can say what their version of "lifetime" is? The customer thinks of it in terms of *their* lifetime but in reality, that 'lifetime' of a game is entirely up to the company selling the subscription.
In CO, I was both. I usually ran out of text room in the quest comments area. I reported every bug(they had a pretty good system for this, with a search and a "I have the same bug!" option. The more I saw how their focus was gonna be on customization of costumes than powers, I lost heart in the endeavor and hardly ever participated. Just before launch I logged in to see where things went, and learned in no time that I would not be buying the game. I even logged onto the Halloween event; played for about 2 hours before quitting and uninstalling. When you can't even get a superhero geek like me to play for free, you've got trouble.
Imagine if Tabula Rasa offered lifetime subs...
Well it beats hitting the F5 key a hundred times a day waiting for an invite. If Bioware gave an invite to SW:TOR with the purchase of Dragon Age: Origins then they would have sold twice the number or maybe $19.99 for a beta invite how many poeple here would buy a spot? I would.
I'm also getting the 3 month AoC to get a spot in The Secret World beta. I was going to return to the game anyway why not get an added bonus.
Its business 101 find something that poeple want and sell it. Make money.
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