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One disastrous mistake SOE has already made - the same one EA made with SWTOR
noncley
Member UncommonPosts: 718
Do not let Devs be your PR people.
Devs are just like ordinary foilks. They like showing off their products, they like talking about it, they like being cheered and applauded by crowd of people.
However, they are not PR and Marketing people. Because they are eager to please but inexperienced in how to do this and also to sell their game properly - they crowd their little presentations with descriptors like 'Cool' and 'Exciting' without understanding that the audience decides what's 'Cool' and 'Exciting'. When they get to something they can't explain, they try to wheedle around it using the crassest marketing terminology from the 1980s - "We're using synergies to create value-added paradigms for next generation players'. Worst of all, they try to obfuscate away from hard facts by windy declarations of personal fervour. ('Trust us. You'e going to love it!').
The trouble is, this kind of clumsy, unprofessional marketing invariably creates a horrendous backlash against the company and its product. Daniel Erikson did more damage to SWTOR by his unprofessional bullshittery than if he had stormed naked onto the stage and simply screamed: 'This game is rather ordinary!'.
When I watch David Georgeson, he reminds me uncannily of Erikson who was, of course, fired six months after the disastrous launch.
As another poster - Wizardry - said so presciently:
"I heard the same three statements soooo many times it got annoying.
""This is OUR game,we are building it together"
""We are doing this because we care a lot about that "
"then the follow up,the begging of the crowd "You guys liked that idea too RIGHT ?" and the crowd would cheer."You liked how the Warrior looked ...RIGHT?" and the crowd cheers.otherwise the crowd i think was sitting on their hands bored.
"Personally,don't like Georgenson,he is not a bad person by any means,just a horrible PR guy,seems more like a guy suited for the office."
Comments
The SWTOR devs didn't know what to say when interviewed because they knew they had a 200 million dollar turd on their hands. They decided to build the game around story, which most mmo gamers couldn't care less about, and then layer that over top a typical WoW clone. It was a dead game out of the gate and all the PR spin in the world couldn't change it.
The EQN devs are promising something new and exciting. It could be total BS and fail miserably, but at least there's hope. Georgeson's excitiment seems genuine to me when I see him talk about the game.
I have nothing against Georgeson's excitement - I am just concerned that he is a designer and not a marketing expert and, as we are already seeing, he seems unable to manage expectations, deal with ambiguity or handle proper criticism. These are important aspects of marketing and they help define how the market regards a product as it comes to market.
You know who the worst possible people are to make technical presentations? Marketing guys. Why? Because they don't know shit and only care about giving something a shine instead of just letting a thing speak for itself. There was a certain marketing piece to this for sure. It was a big "reveal" afterall. But most of the talking was done at panels and they were guarded not to go into details they really didn't have all sorted out. I thought the main presentation that talked about the holy grails and what they did with them was more than fine. The fact that there are people out there in the internets that cannot help themselves but to create their own echo chambers and rant endlessly about hyperbole, speculation, and innuendo cannot be helped.
This ^^.
Folks at a convention want to hear from the devs, not PR and marketing folks. It gives a sense of being on the inside. I agree that devs should be coached on what to say and NOT to say, though.
I make spreadsheets at work - I don't want to make them for the games I play.
I also agree that Devs, if they are going to lead the presentations, should receive some good coaching in proper marketing and PR. But, as Wizardry pointed out, it was actually painful to see Georgeson pause at some points in his presentation where he thought there would be applause only to be met by silence.
I don't like PR guys. But I like the SOE devs, even Smedley is likeable in his special way.
making promises and then deliver something truly stunning like EQ Next and all the amazing technologoy behind is a big difference than making empty promises of awesomeness, like SWTOR devs did.
HeroEngine: X,-/
Forgelight Voxel Craziness: 8-))
absolutely spot on op when i watched the pony tail guy myself i thought this guy is bad sales guy
you can understand these guys are eager to pitch there game but it comes over a bit cheesy to me,let the game speak for itself over time.
People want to hear from devs/producers, not spin doctors (PR/marketing). Georgeson did fine. Yes there were several cold moments, several "no cheer" moments such as they he said this is how Firiona Vie look ingame. But those are not his faults. The fans there at SOE Live are long time Everquest fans. These are die hards that have stuck with SOE through the past 14 years, through EQ, EQ2, etc.. The reason for the lack of cheer and enthusiasm has to do with the fact that they were revealing a game that had nothing to do with Everquest, didn't look an ounce like Everquest, and didn't play anything like Everquest.
In other words, you could put anybody else up there, even a celebrity, the reception would've been the same. The fans there were Everquest fans, they really wanted to see a new "Everquest", but instead they got something that just isn't Everquest. Dave did what he could to get some response from the crowd, but having seen some other game reveals and heard the chees elsewhere, you can tell the crowd was not all too enthusiastic about what they saw. Heck, a year or two ago when SOE showed glimpse of EQ Next and first talked about working on a new Everquest title, they got louder cheers back then.
Don't blame Dave Georgeson for the lack of excitement there, it was not his fault. You need to consider the audience, the people who were sitting there waiting to hear about EQ Next.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
I think Guild Wars 2 takes the award for the most absolutely cringe-worthy horseshit I have ever heard. I'm not even kidding.
"When you look at the art in our game, you say 'Wow, that's visually stunning. I've never seen anything like that before,' and then when you play the combat in our game, you say 'Wow, that's incredible. I've never seen anything like that.'
hahaha... there is more.
In most games, you go out, and you have really fun tasks, occasionally, that you get to do, and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. 'I swung a sword. I swung a sword again. Hey! I swung it again.' That's great. We just don't want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun. We want to change the way that people view combat." -- Colin Johanson, Game Designer for Guild Wars 2.
At 1.12 in the video
If SOE had had marketing and PR people do the big reveal instead of the developers, this forum would be filled with people crying about ZOMG SOE USED PR PPL THEY ARE HIDING INFO ABOUT EQN.
Instead, we're now stuck with people crying about all their Disney cash shop fever dreams and fatalistic assumptions based off a tech demo and some comments during a presentation and some panels.
If you actually watch Dave in the panels, when a combat question is asked you can see the excited strain on his face as he tries hard not to say anything.
As for marketing people - look at AOC, SWOTOR, etc - almost every game that has come out has been pure marketing spin. Sure, the devs are often doing the talking in the interviews, but who is usually standing right there? The marketing guy. They are there to make sure the devs are sticking to the script, mentioning the buzzwords, hyping the crowd. Marketing people are there to sell the product. They have no real idea what they are selling nor care if its good or bad.
There are 3 types of people in the world.
1.) Those who make things happen
2.) Those who watch things happen
3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
I am not entirely sure you're putting this weekend in proper context. This wasn't a sales conference to pitch the latest vacuum cleaner to hotel owners. It was a room full of EQ fans who wanted to see what SOE has planned for EQ Next. People who have been playing EQ in one form or another for over a decade. If you rolled out a PR guy and layed a shiney turd for those people that would be an actual death blow to this game. SOE absolutely needed to show something genuine that was going to really connect with its core audience. We're talking about people who enjoyed and miss open world gaming plus loved the excitement of pushing through content knowing that a mistake meant a long night doing a corpse recovery. This wasn't a room of WoW fanboys and if you rolled a snake oil salesman out to spew forth mainstream bullshit it would have been a complete tactical blunder.
The presentation was awesome, I was glued to the screen, lots of oohs and aahs and applause from the live audience.
I really don't get how some disconnected PR person could have done a better job. It was great and exciting to watch.