21 replies to this topic

[DjPush]

In a couple of days Salt Lake City is having a gaming convention. I imagine that other cities have similar conventions. My question to PGI is:

Why aren't you trying to bring awareness of your product to the market? Is it not worth it to the company to promote your product? I mean, I would love to be able to go to this convention and see my favorite game, rocking out mech stuff at a booth in a convention center.

[Kaeb Odellas]

DjPush, on 26 June 2017 - 12:22 PM, said:

In a couple of days Salt Lake City is having a gaming convention. I imagine that other cities have similar conventions. My question to PGI is:

Why aren't you trying to bring awareness of your product to the market? Is it not worth it to the company to promote your product? I mean, I would love to be able to go to this convention and see my favorite game, rocking out mech stuff at a booth in a convention center.

Time and money.

Also, they're doing their own convention. With blackjack and hookers.

EDIT: Also, they had some presence at PAX Prime in 2013/14

Edited by Kaeb Odellas, 26 June 2017 - 01:00 PM.

[Mawai]

Time and money and return on investment.

A local gaming convention in Salt Lake City is just not large enough to be worth their time. Even the largest gaming conventions would likely not be a good investment.

Flights, booth rental, hotels, freebies, food, at least 2 people ... likely a minimum 5k to 10k (though I am guessing and could be way low ...). Let's say there are 100 comparable conventions in the US (never mind the rest of the world) .. that is a $1million dollar+ price tag. The number of folks they would recruit and retain sufficiently to spend some money is likely far less than that.

However, they could be doing more to attract players ..
1) Buy some banner ad space and target it at computer gamers.
2) Develop features that could be used as the basis for more extensive advertising.
3) Develop features that will help directly boost player retention. There is no feature that will prevent burn out and the associated dissatisfaction but good feature development will usually often these folks back.
4) Organize a grass roots advertising program where folks get an MWO T-shirt to wear at local conventions with a sign on the back containing a mech slogan and encouragement to ask about the game. That would also give them some relatively cheap exposure.

But attending conventions with a booth? ... just not going to happen.

Edited by Mawai, 26 June 2017 - 01:10 PM.

[Tordin]

Kaeb Odellas, on 26 June 2017 - 12:59 PM, said:

Time and money.

Also, they're doing their own convention. With blackjack and hookers.

EDIT: Also, they had some presence at PAX Prime in 2013/14

[MechaBattler]

Makes more sense for them to market MW5. It's a one time sale. And it will likely lead people to MWO anyway. Since it won't have an online component. Where as MWO is a niche free to play game with development limited to a feature or two a year. They don't do 'content' as most people consider it. They just add small features to the game. And of course sell mech packs.

[Bud Crue]

Kaeb Odellas, on 26 June 2017 - 12:59 PM, said:

Time and money.

Also, they're doing their own convention. With blackjack and hookers.

Wow. I've been giviing Russ grief for over a year for the whole "don't tell us how to do things, we know best" comment. After reading the above...apparently Russ really does know best. Color me impressed.

[Novakaine]

PR has never been PGI's strong suit sadly.

[Remover of Obstacles]

Are you calling PGI "cheapskates"?

[Coolant]

I don't understand why they don't advertise more. The game has been out for 4 years-ish and it still seems like there are some that still don't know what it is or even have heard of it. It's fine if this is not their type of game or genre, it's another to not even have heard of it.

[Kaeb Odellas]

Coolant, on 26 June 2017 - 07:53 PM, said:

I don't understand why they don't advertise more. The game has been out for 4 years-ish and it still seems like there are some that still don't know what it is or even have heard of it. It's fine if this is not their type of game or genre, it's another to not even have heard of it.

They did put out online banner ads back in the day. I remember one with a Catapult K2 walking back and forth shooting PPCs. I guess they didn't see enough return out of them to continue.

[Johnny Z]

Wait until the game goes big time!

[Vellron2005]

MWO and PGI has a real problem with marketing.

it's one of the main reasons the player base is tiny.. people simply don't know this game exists, or if they do, they've only heard bad things about it (salty community, lost of bugs and alike).

If I was PGI's marketing expert, I would invest heavily into exposure.. I mean banners, conventions, promo videos, facebook adds.. basically like Travian or World of Tanks/Battleships have done..

I mean, I'm from Croatia, and when I watch adapted foreign programming (like Discovery or History channel, or Scy-Fy channel and alike) I see promos for World of Tanks.. (MWO's largest competitor). Not once has anywhere MWO been mentioned..

Bad marketing..

[Kaeb Odellas]

Vellron2005, on 26 June 2017 - 11:30 PM, said:

MWO and PGI has a real problem with marketing.

it's one of the main reasons the player base is tiny.. people simply don't know this game exists, or if they do, they've only heard bad things about it (salty community, lost of bugs and alike).

If I was PGI's marketing expert, I would invest heavily into exposure.. I mean banners, conventions, promo videos, facebook adds.. basically like Travian or World of Tanks/Battleships have done..

I mean, I'm from Croatia, and when I watch adapted foreign programming (like Discovery or History channel, or Scy-Fy channel and alike) I see promos for World of Tanks.. (MWO's largest competitor). Not once has anywhere MWO been mentioned..

Bad marketing..

World of Tanks is not a competitor to MWO. It is in an entirely different league. Wargaming had a net worth of $1.5 billion as of February 2016. BILLION. They can afford to buy ad time on TV. PGI can't.

[PhoenixFire55]

DjPush, on 26 June 2017 - 12:22 PM, said:

Why aren't you trying to bring awareness of your product to the market?

Minimally Viable^TM might have smth to do with that.

[Vellron2005]

Kaeb Odellas, on 27 June 2017 - 12:09 AM, said:

World of Tanks is not a competitor to MWO. It is in an entirely different league. Wargaming had a net worth of $1.5 billion as of February 2016. BILLION. They can afford to buy ad time on TV. PGI can't.

It's the only game similar to MWO in any sort of way I can think off.. it's PVP large vehicle combat, and most of the people I've talked to about playing MWO were like, naaah, I already play World of Tanks..

Maybe if PGI advertised more, we could say "Battletech themed gaming has a net worth of 1 billion"

Gotta spend money to make money..

Edited by Vellron2005, 27 June 2017 - 11:23 PM.

[JediPanther]

They could always bribe pc gamer to do another feature in their magazine along with a new unique color pattern/camo/cockpit thing. Or maybe ign or any other game site for a review that doesn't suck.

[Kaeb Odellas]

Vellron2005, on 27 June 2017 - 11:22 PM, said:

It's the only game similar to MWO in any sort of way I can think off.. it's PVP large vehicle combat, and most of the people I've talked to about playing MWO were like, naaah, I already play World of Tanks..

Maybe if PGI advertised more, we could say "Battletech themed gaming has a net worth of 1 billion"

Gotta spend money to make money..

But you gotta have money to spend money. They don't have the money to do TV ads. They might have money to buy banner ads, and they have them way back in the day. That they haven't tried it again probably speaks to the effectiveness of those ads.

[Tier5 Kerensky]

Coolant, on 26 June 2017 - 07:53 PM, said:

I don't understand why they don't advertise more. The game has been out for 4 years-ish and it still seems like there are some that still don't know what it is or even have heard of it. It's fine if this is not their type of game or genre, it's another to not even have heard of it.

There are thounsands of games you have never heard of. The world is full of games many people have never heard of.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

MechaBattler, on 26 June 2017 - 02:09 PM, said:

Makes more sense for them to market MW5. It's a one time sale. And it will likely lead people to MWO anyway. Since it won't have an online component. Where as MWO is a niche free to play game with development limited to a feature or two a year. They don't do 'content' as most people consider it. They just add small features to the game. And of course sell mech packs.

Has you every news since December 2016 for MW5? of the PGI Homepage no word to MW5

The MW5 Homeside ...nothing ,the Facebook and Twitter PGI side to mW5 last news 4 December 2016...seeing the Career Search from PGI ..only Experience with Cryengine search ,only by a Art Dev Carrer additional experience with Unreal Engine (MW5?)

http://www.mw5mercs.com/

https://www.facebook.com/mw5mercs

https://twitter.com/MW5Mercs

Edited by Old MW4 Ranger, 28 June 2017 - 02:08 AM.

[MechaBattler]

Would you prefer they hype it up like Star Citizen then deliver a hanger module?