NS publicity simplified.
themeatshield
Join Date: 2009-01-13 Member: 66078Members
Join Date: 2009-01-13 Member: 66078Members
In my first edition of this post, I rambled a bit. So here is the summary at the top:
A lot of people want to play NS2 when it comes out (because NS1 pwns). These people just need to hear about it - they don't need convincing. Get these people by just posting in forums and telling your friends.
The second major group isn't all that sure about NS2. This group won't be convinced by impersonal advertising - they will only be convinced by the recommendation of a friend. Just tell your friends that NS2 is awesome (assuming you've played it and it is), and they'll be likely to buy it.
The rest of us visit this website frequently enough anyway, we'll find out on our own.
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Here is my model for advertising NS2 (in order of descending effectiveness):
1. Direct word of mouth to personal (IRL) friends.
2. Direct messages to online friends (through steam, irc, msn etc).
3. Posting on popular gaming forums - where you ALREADY have an established name...
4. Posting on forums where you're a complete nobody (most people may ignore you).
5. Banner advertising (expensive, ineffective - but it may reach a few people that were already interested, but didn't know it was coming out).
There are three main groups of people:
1. Those that know NS2 is coming, check up on the website occasionally. This group of people do not need to be targeted. They will find out by themselves, or through advertising aimed at other groups. They used to play NS1 (or still do).
2. Those that used to play NS1 and would like to play NS2, but don't keep up with news relating to updates. These people will not find out about NS2 very easily if they're not told about it. If they merely hear about NS2, along with news that it's a good game, they'll buy it and play it.
3. Those that barely played NS1 (or not at all). These people will be very hard to reach, unless you know them personally.
Because there is no real need to advertise to the first group, and the third group is probably not worth quite as much effort, we should focus on the second group.
The second group WANTS to play NS2. Every time I mention NS1, they ask "when's ns2 coming out?". As long as the word gets out, they'll buy it. A quick post on any popular gaming forums, a short message to everyone on your steam friends, msn and email contacts list (only those into games ofc) will reach most people that are interested.
After this second group gets into NS, individual people will tell their close friends about the game (ie, group 3). This is probably the only good way to reach this group.
Basically: we don't need to advertise to the people that are up-to-date, we just need to reach the people that ALREADY WANT NS2, but aren't likely to check the unknownworlds website. Once these people hear about NS2 and play it, word of mouth will spread the news quickly enough.
<b>So, once NS2 comes out, all we really need to do is: post on forums and tell our friends (IRL and online).</b>
Note: this all counts on NS2 being a good game. If it isn't, people won't recommend it. Personal recommendations will make or break this game.
**edit: srry about the triple post**
A lot of people want to play NS2 when it comes out (because NS1 pwns). These people just need to hear about it - they don't need convincing. Get these people by just posting in forums and telling your friends.
The second major group isn't all that sure about NS2. This group won't be convinced by impersonal advertising - they will only be convinced by the recommendation of a friend. Just tell your friends that NS2 is awesome (assuming you've played it and it is), and they'll be likely to buy it.
The rest of us visit this website frequently enough anyway, we'll find out on our own.
********************************************************************************
****
Here is my model for advertising NS2 (in order of descending effectiveness):
1. Direct word of mouth to personal (IRL) friends.
2. Direct messages to online friends (through steam, irc, msn etc).
3. Posting on popular gaming forums - where you ALREADY have an established name...
4. Posting on forums where you're a complete nobody (most people may ignore you).
5. Banner advertising (expensive, ineffective - but it may reach a few people that were already interested, but didn't know it was coming out).
There are three main groups of people:
1. Those that know NS2 is coming, check up on the website occasionally. This group of people do not need to be targeted. They will find out by themselves, or through advertising aimed at other groups. They used to play NS1 (or still do).
2. Those that used to play NS1 and would like to play NS2, but don't keep up with news relating to updates. These people will not find out about NS2 very easily if they're not told about it. If they merely hear about NS2, along with news that it's a good game, they'll buy it and play it.
3. Those that barely played NS1 (or not at all). These people will be very hard to reach, unless you know them personally.
Because there is no real need to advertise to the first group, and the third group is probably not worth quite as much effort, we should focus on the second group.
The second group WANTS to play NS2. Every time I mention NS1, they ask "when's ns2 coming out?". As long as the word gets out, they'll buy it. A quick post on any popular gaming forums, a short message to everyone on your steam friends, msn and email contacts list (only those into games ofc) will reach most people that are interested.
After this second group gets into NS, individual people will tell their close friends about the game (ie, group 3). This is probably the only good way to reach this group.
Basically: we don't need to advertise to the people that are up-to-date, we just need to reach the people that ALREADY WANT NS2, but aren't likely to check the unknownworlds website. Once these people hear about NS2 and play it, word of mouth will spread the news quickly enough.
<b>So, once NS2 comes out, all we really need to do is: post on forums and tell our friends (IRL and online).</b>
Note: this all counts on NS2 being a good game. If it isn't, people won't recommend it. Personal recommendations will make or break this game.
**edit: srry about the triple post**
Comments
This is called : lying. There are some laws in some countries that forbid that 'explicitly'. You can't do that if you didn't play the game (not out yet). And only fools would fall for that trick.
And as gaming world has evolved with several dark episodes like
-CPL (watch 'frag', you'll understand: <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1266566/" target="_blank">http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1266566/</a> and more recently the 'transformation' that happened).
-the 'publicity' focused on some game that revealed to be crap-games : oblivion, HL² (yes i said it), Crysis, FarCry2. Beautiful games but 'empty' and boring games.
So; many players won't fall for it. Not like that. The more companies invest in communication, the more i ... don't buy until i have a serious testing session on it. And i'm not alone to think like that.
I think there is more than advertising the game. Make everything easy for player to enter the community and become a real NS player (interested and solid skillz) would help more. But i won't develop here the ideas, i have about all this. It's up to dev too.
Every good game i played did not have a huge communication. It was not needed.
-the 'publicity' focused on some game that revealed to be crap-games : oblivion, HL² (yes i said it), Crysis, FarCry2. Beautiful games but 'empty' and boring games.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Um actually thats mostly your opinion, The only game in there that sucked was farcry2 but the map editor is pretty cool
OH OH OH
AN EXTREMELY good example of a overhyped game is spore. I only provided 10% of the content it was supposed to and then expected us to play the expansions and buy them that costs almost as much as the game itself. It turned out to be a piece of crap.
Here some Wikipedia-fashioned <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith" target="_blank">Assume good faith</a> would be in order.