143 replies to this topic

[Wil McCullough]

Vellron2005, on 20 September 2017 - 01:14 AM, said:

snip

there will be people who feel the need to mention that a brochure needs to be printed in bulk, stored and shipped. all these take money. not much, in the grand scheme of things, but some people might bring these up.

there's however no need to even PRINT a brochure. it can be digital - a website or an EDM.

PGI even has a database of all its customers' e-mail addresses. we actually need to log in using them. the "cost" of coming up with an in-universe mech brochure is literally something like 2-4 hours of copywriting/adaptation and 2-5 hours of design work by the designer.

a website will need a developer's touch, SEO-friendly copy and a nice layout. this can be a tad more expensive. maybe a couple grand if the brand feels like splurging. an average one (after all, PGI's motto is "minimally viable" right?) will cost a couple hundred bucks.

PGI has done nothing to sell us the idea that design work is expensive. people like bishop, who know nothing about advertising and marketing, is doing that for them.

[Vellron2005]

Wil McCullough, on 20 September 2017 - 01:38 AM, said:

there will be people who feel the need to mention that a brochure needs to be printed in bulk, stored and shipped. all these take money. not much, in the grand scheme of things, but some people might bring these up.

there's however no need to even PRINT a brochure. it can be digital - a website or an EDM.

PGI even has a database of all its customers' e-mail addresses. we actually need to log in using them. the "cost" of coming up with an in-universe mech brochure is literally something like 2-4 hours of copywriting/adaptation and 2-5 hours of design work by the designer.

a website will need a developer's touch, SEO-friendly copy and a nice layout. this can be a tad more expensive. maybe a couple grand if the brand feels like splurging. an average one (after all, PGI's motto is "minimally viable" right?) will cost a couple hundred bucks.

Most dev companies have in-house web designers, payed on a monthly basis.. and already established websites..

For PGI, the "cost" of digital brochure would mean literally making a promo pic (1-3 hours of work) and posting it on their website's news reel, and making a forum post with a "download pdf brochure here" link.

Alternatively, they can sent the download link to their user's emails, like they already send promos.

Really not very costly.

So basically, it comes down to this simple and saddening fact:

If PGI wanted to boost their marketing, there are many cost effective and relatively cheap ways of doing so.

I've proven that brochures like the ones in my OP DO NOT cost obscene amounts of money. They might create them.

So the simple fact is - PGI does not want to do this, or, even worse, does not have the expertise to do simple stuff like this.

An overwhelming lack of effort on both accounts.

Edited by Vellron2005, 20 September 2017 - 01:54 AM.

[Wil McCullough]

Vellron2005, on 20 September 2017 - 01:50 AM, said:

snip

well put!

[MW Waldorf Statler]

a Brochure ???? .


once upon a Time by MWO
with Timeline Stories
Background and Previews of Maps

...all far far away ...now
we have nothing Background to each Aspect of the Gme . to Planets, Mechs or Background...please buy a Mech ...for further infos seeing SARNA
we have 3 ! sites .The MW5 homepage and a Facebook and a Twitter sister site for MW5 and nothing news of it for 10 Months

Edited by Old MW4 Ranger, 22 September 2017 - 02:27 AM.

[Angel of Annihilation]

Appogee, on 18 September 2017 - 03:03 AM, said:

I agree it's a bit chicken and egg.

But even though they are a small studio, and probably destined to stay that way through their grinding lack of ambition, they could still utilise their meagre resources better.

For example, their Community Manager could surely be spending her time more productively and with broader positive impact than organising 'whack-a-mole' private matches for a few dozen players.

If I were their marketing manager ... no, let's not go there. The wasted opportunity to help this game achieve its full potential just makes me sad.

Totally agree. I have done sales and marketing all my life and the opportunities that I notice they miss are just staggering and the ones they do try to capitalize on they usually do something crazy that makes it worse, not better. I mean its like the ultimate package on the mech packs, there is a zero dollar discount for buying everything. Seriously that is crazy when you consider that dropping the cost by even $10 would influence alot of people to just go for broke and get it all just because they were saving $10. Another is many colors costing 1000MC or around $5 each. WTH is up with that pricing? Just make each color cost like 25 cents and people will buy 40-50 colors to make their mechs look cool. This doesn't even count the PR gaffs that have occurred or the missed opportunities for good PR that they have missed.

But as to what the OP was mentioning, Star Citizen has a huge budget due to all the crowd funding that went into it. Isn't it something like 70 million dollars or something like that? Also unlike MWO, all that money went into development of Star Citizen. PGI on the other hand diverted most of the 5 million or so it generated from the Founders Program into other projects aside from MWO.

[Foxwalker]

This is the funniest thread in a long time. thanks!
I have a brochure to sell you some swamp land! I am reminded of going on a cruise and getting roped into one of those slick time share seminars.

Honestly, if you have ever been in business (legit business like MWO where they actually do have a product vs vaporware), you find that finding money for advertising hard to come by. When you do spend it, it seems like throwing money down a wishing well.

Big business with lots of cash can buy Superbowl ads. Small to mid size businesses scrap together a little cash to do some advertising, but really don't have enough capital to advertise like the big boys. I have had a mid size business, believe me, it always feels like throwing money away, when you need to make payroll or pay the electric bill.

Thanks for the entertainment.

[Wil McCullough]

Foxwalker, on 20 September 2017 - 02:59 PM, said:

This is the funniest thread in a long time. thanks!
I have a brochure to sell you some swamp land! I am reminded of going on a cruise and getting roped into one of those slick time share seminars.

Honestly, if you have ever been in business (legit business like MWO where they actually do have a product vs vaporware), you find that finding money for advertising hard to come by. When you do spend it, it seems like throwing money down a wishing well.

Big business with lots of cash can buy Superbowl ads. Small to mid size businesses scrap together a little cash to do some advertising, but really don't have enough capital to advertise like the big boys. I have had a mid size business, believe me, it always feels like throwing money away, when you need to make payroll or pay the electric bill.

Thanks for the entertainment.

what were you doing with your marketing budget?

a proper crafted and targeted facebook ad is like 1.5 cents per impression with a 10-15% click-through rate.

even for a smoke and mirrors stuff like seo, getting ranked on the first page on google for your country with five or so long-string keywords increases lead generation very visibly.

my agency had a client ask us to STOP writing seo-friendly copy (that's all we did) for his website because he couldn't handle the resulting influx of inquiries.

the copy was done for free. revamping his website cost him a one-time fee of a thousand bucks.

pretty weird how people piss away their marketing dollar, then come to the conclusion that marketing doesn't work when other small, medium and big businesses use theirs just fine to increase profits.

shrug.

[Carl Vickers]

Wow, this topic is still going on, pretty good candidate for #fakenews.

[Foxwalker]

The business was pre-internet. It has been a long time ago. I have to admit, WWW is a gorilla marketers' dream.
At the time, choices were, TV, Radio, Bill Boards an Val-Pak.

Will, maybe You should talk to PGI about their advertising? You sound well versed.

Edited by Foxwalker, 20 September 2017 - 03:40 PM.

[Wil McCullough]

Foxwalker, on 20 September 2017 - 03:27 PM, said:

The business was pre-internet. It has been a long time ago. I have to admit, WWW is a gorilla marketers' dream.
At the time, choices were, TV, Radio, Bill Boards an Val-Pak.

tv is ****. no one watches tv commercials other than advertisers. most people just get up for a bio break. aside, do you know britain has something called "tv pickup" during prime time? the national power grid has to surge electricity during prime time commercial breaks because EVERYONE and their grandma gets up to make a pot of tea at that exact moment.

bill boards are an advertiser's wet dream but they don't convert. too much to do before the viewer has the time to act on his/her curiosity.

in a pre-www time, and faced with the choice of tv, radio and billboards, i would have spammed the **** out of radio ads because at least it has a captive audience. i'm gonna guess your business split its budget equally three ways instead of weighting it towards radio. that's how you lose 66% of your marketing budget and a big reason why you saw bad advertising returns.

Edited by Wil McCullough, 20 September 2017 - 03:45 PM.

[Vellron2005]

Foxwalker, on 20 September 2017 - 02:59 PM, said:

This is the funniest thread in a long time. thanks!

Thanks for the entertainment.

You're welcome

I feel like some of you guys are missing the point somewhat.

The brochure is just a showcase.. I'm talking about the effort they put into it. Into a simple thing like a brochure.

PGI doesn't put that much effort into anything. If they did a brochure, and payed it the same (low) amount of money, I don't think it would look half as good, or make me wanna play the game as much.

I think most of us can agree PGI needs to step up the amount of effort and dedication they put into design, and invest in marketing..

Edited by Vellron2005, 21 September 2017 - 11:38 PM.

[Steinar Bergstol]

El Bandito, on 18 September 2017 - 07:02 AM, said:

Nah, man. Headshot that managed to get through armor should crack that cockpit glass wide open and paint some blood stains in the cockpit too. Gotta make the player feel the urgency and desperation.

How about PGI partner with someone who can make a hydraulic device players can mount on their desks which will smash them in the face whenever they're supposed to take pilot damage? The ultimate immersion experience!

(Honestly I actually like your idea though)

[Xmith]

Vellron2005, on 18 September 2017 - 02:48 AM, said:

https://robertsspace...phony-In-Motion

So, the above link leads to a brochure for a new ship in the Star Citizen videogame.. scroll down and open the brochure..

By the looks of it, you'd think you were buying a real-life Mercedes, or yacht. It's got all the trimmings of luxury, style, immersion..

Every little detail is thoroughly exaggerated, hyped, and portrayed in maximum style, and after just seeing the brochure - I WANNA PLAY THE GAME.

PGI, why don't you make brochures like this for mechs? Why don't you put this much effort into anything in this game?

You could learn a lot from Star Citizen and Robert's Space Industries..

Those people are not selling a videogame.. they are selling a lifestyle!

P.S.

The brochure is better than many I've seen in real life.. omg, my mouth is watering from seeing this..

How about a poll asking if anyone is ok with paying $75 for a Jenner? Assaults will easily be $200 or more. The more you want, the more it will cost.

[Vellron2005]

Xmith, on 22 September 2017 - 07:37 AM, said:

How about a poll asking if anyone is ok with paying $75 for a Jenner? Assaults will easily be $200 or more. The more you want, the more it will cost.

If PGI offered me a game in which I could wake up in a bunk bed, then walk about a base, interact with other player's avatars, look at my own trophies and then walk to the mech bay and physically climb into my Jenner and walk it into a dropship.. I would gladly pay $75 for that Jenner. (if I could afford to pay $75 for anything, that's a week's worth of lunch for me).

I see you have probably not read the whole thread, cose' if you had, you would see how it's not about the amount of money, but about what you get for the money invested.

Some things PGI could easily do, don't cost too much - I've already proven that I think. It's the lack of effort and attention to detail that PGI needs to remedy.

You can't ask $75 for a Jenner and then deliver that Jenner with a gaping whole in it's geometry or awkward walking animations, and nothing meaningful other than senseless, repetitive slaughter for that Jenner to do.

[Ano]

Actually, PGI have invested at least *some* effort in the marketing for MWO. Think about all of the recent single-mech releases: for each one, the hero mech has a short story written about it by Randall Bills. There are ToE tables with standard equipment, options, available hardpoints etc. In the run up to the release of pack, there have been cockpit demos, animation demos, camo previews, orthos, blueprints etc.

That's marketing right there.

I'm not sure there's huge value in creating 'brochures' per se* but I get that Vellron and friends aren't actually saying 'please give me a brochure' either. Actually, I think for quite a few mech releases, PGI have assembled what could be a really good collection of 'marketing' materials; they've just not presented them that way.

There are two mechanical issues which make this difficult

1) They don't have an suitable page/layout template (for web or otherwise) to display the materials they create.
For the longest time, new mech specs were shared in a giant scrolling text list. The standard preorder page is ok for shopping, but not so good for promotion.

2) It seems like new mechs are announced as soon as the concept art is done.
I get the 'build excitement' part, and they use the time after the initial announcement to actually make the models etc etc but it means that they don't have many visual materials to use for announcements. So by the time the camo demos and walk animations and cockpit demos etc are ready to share, the mech is days from launch, and at that point it probably seems a little pointless to do lots of extra marketing work.



I'd also assume that the person who handles PGIs graphic design work is probably also working on other things. A full-time designer, with a little support from a copywriter, could create some interesting and potentially useful things fairly quickly for PGI if they were smart about prioritising and templating, but someone putting 1-2days of time per week into it is always going to be switching between tasks and just pushing to get stuff done so they can back to their other responsibilities.


* FWIW, I don't think that SC brochure is particularly well-executed; the type is not well-set, large runs of oblique text are horrible, and the copy is inconsistent. But they have produced a few, and while none of the ones I've looked are are brilliant brochures, they do build the world, and there's no denying the funds RSI have raised!

[MW Waldorf Statler]

thats PGI

example Direwolf :

Left: Ingame model
Right:the Great Concept Art

[Vellron2005]

Ano, on 28 September 2017 - 05:03 AM, said:

Actually, PGI have invested at least *some* effort in the marketing for MWO. Think about all of the recent single-mech releases: for each one, the hero mech has a short story written about it by Randall Bills. There are ToE tables with standard equipment, options, available hardpoints etc. In the run up to the release of pack, there have been cockpit demos, animation demos, camo previews, orthos, blueprints etc.

That's marketing right there.

I'm not sure there's huge value in creating 'brochures' per se* but I get that Vellron and friends aren't actually saying 'please give me a brochure' either. Actually, I think for quite a few mech releases, PGI have assembled what could be a really good collection of 'marketing' materials; they've just not presented them that way.

There are two mechanical issues which make this difficult

1) They don't have an suitable page/layout template (for web or otherwise) to display the materials they create.
For the longest time, new mech specs were shared in a giant scrolling text list. The standard preorder page is ok for shopping, but not so good for promotion.

2) It seems like new mechs are announced as soon as the concept art is done.
I get the 'build excitement' part, and they use the time after the initial announcement to actually make the models etc etc but it means that they don't have many visual materials to use for announcements. So by the time the camo demos and walk animations and cockpit demos etc are ready to share, the mech is days from launch, and at that point it probably seems a little pointless to do lots of extra marketing work.



I'd also assume that the person who handles PGIs graphic design work is probably also working on other things. A full-time designer, with a little support from a copywriter, could create some interesting and potentially useful things fairly quickly for PGI if they were smart about prioritising and templating, but someone putting 1-2days of time per week into it is always going to be switching between tasks and just pushing to get stuff done so they can back to their other responsibilities.


* FWIW, I don't think that SC brochure is particularly well-executed; the type is not well-set, large runs of oblique text are horrible, and the copy is inconsistent. But they have produced a few, and while none of the ones I've looked are are brilliant brochures, they do build the world, and there's no denying the funds RSI have raised!

Yes, PGI has done marketing - but again, it's only the minimally viable. Some pictures of the mech shooting it's alpha, technical specs.. that's not enough.

The short stories are cool, and are a step in the right direction, but so much more could be done..

[Blackhound]

Anyone remember when PGI didn't actually work on the game for two years while still accepting our money, and Russ came forward admitting this in a letter to the community (which has since been scrubbed), then he blamed all of it on IGP? I mean, since everyone's talking about Star Citizen not being a real game.

MWO was also not a real game for some length of time. Eventually it became one. Eventually...

[Dr Hobo]

Vellron2005, on 19 September 2017 - 01:59 AM, said:

So.. I'm seeing a lot of people talking about how much more money RSI has over PGI..I guess that's reasonable.. more money = more / better stuff..

But my point, (and the entire point of this topic for that matter) is that if PGI had RSI's money, we would only get double the amount of mechs, but not double the amount of quality. And if RSI had PGI's money, we would get the same SC quality, but in less volume.

It's this difference in approach that I would like PGI to acknowledge and work on.

If you provide a quality product, people will beg you to sell it to them, and money will come. If you are content on just getting by with the minimal, you will never go big.

Case in point - MW5:Merc, currently in development.

Same engine as SC. And same possibilities. Alas, no mech customization.

Right off the bat, PGI elects to provide only the minimal. Instead of going all out, hyping the shait out of it, and actually providing us with a complete product that will be so awesome that it will make us beg our bank for a loan so we could buy it.

That's just bad business.

Also, people say, Mechwarrior / Battletech is a niche franchise. Sure. Keep thinking that.

And then remember that it's been around for 30-ish years, and people still love it. Also, it's currently going through a rebirth, as multiple games and new manuals are coming out.

So if you want to go from a niche to a global phenomenon, what do you do?

Advertise.

Marketing is key.

And a single picture and a headline on facebook (for those who already know about it and follow the page) or twitter does not cut it..

A 10-page, immersive, luxury quality brochure does.

If PGI approached development of ANYTHING in this game (or MW5 for that matter) with the attention that simple brochure has gotten, It would be a AAA game and it would have millions of dollars to invest.

MW5 is currently using Unreal Engine for it from the UNREAL tag in the trailer.

Star Citizen(I admit I've spent more there than here) is running CryEngine,now called LumberYard since Amazon aquired Crytek. MWO is running CryEngine now and we can see it looks worse now than it did back when I first started when it felt like effort was being put forward.

RSI had to totally rebuild CryEngine into StarEngine(what we have now). Having done game development(my dad wanted to make his own game did a lot of help bugtesting in really super early stuff) I can tell you,writing an engine,then fixing it,adding to it,making it all work properly,takes a helluva lot of time.

RSI also built a company with multiple studios to do various things for Star Citizen. While on the reputation of Chris Roberts and his older games.

On the other hand,PGI has the entire library of Battletech to explore,with 95% of the hard work done for them. Yet,you know nothing of the lore,FW doesn't give any benefits,and it's just a rock em sock em robot shooter that tries too hard to be E-sports.

Fallout 4 took 7 years according to Bethesda,and we didn't hear anything about it till the year or so beforehand. And all they did was copy paste Fallout 3,change some stuff so it wasn't exactly the same,took from the most popular games and said there,done.

Folks aren't used to actually being on the ride the whole way though. We were too for MWO. It's just..PGI doesn't put any effort forth,so why should we?

Why should we bother trying to get in on a new mechpack(the new Hellspawn) when the Civil War update was so mediocre?

I'm not saying that RSI is innocent either(Chris Roberts has a reputation of biting off far more than he can chew. Time will tell if Star Citizen will be the next DaiKatana.

Edited by Dr Hobo, 30 September 2017 - 11:45 AM.

[Vellron2005]

Dr Hobo, on 30 September 2017 - 11:43 AM, said:

Why should we bother trying to get in on a new mechpack(the new Hellspawn) when the Civil War update was so mediocre?

I'm not saying that RSI is innocent either(Chris Roberts has a reputation of biting off far more than he can chew. Time will tell if Star Citizen will be the next DaiKatana.

Well I agree...I see no reason to invest in a mech pack at this point.. they are ridiculously expensive for me, and have always been so. I only occasionally buy the cheapest MC pack..

As far as RSI's Star Citizen - It's already quite revolutionary if you ask me, and its setting new standards of game design. Simply cose' you can go from space station bunk bed to space ship, to space, to planetary orbit, then to planet surface, and then to speeder bike on the surface, and then to on-foot gunfight - all without ever seeing a loading screen.

That's something I've never seen in any other game (please correct me if I'm wrong).

It makes the experience of space quite hands-on and personal, and it's worth investing into. (if you can).

Even if it never gets finished, and is forever perma-beta, it is sill fun to experience.

And players that pledged will crucify Cris if they don't get it done