[MUD-Dev] Advertising Thread

[Ron Gabbard]

From: "Zach Collins (Siege)" <zcollins at seidata.com>
> On Sun, 25 Aug 2002, Richard Aihoshi aka Jonric wrote:

>> i.e. if there had been no traditional advertising at all, almost
>> all the prime target market would have been exposed to the game
>> anyway, just a bit less.  And reaching the core target audience
>> is far more important than reaching gazillions of people who are
>> either not likely to buy at all or who wait and see rather than
>> buying immediately.

> In other words, there is still the push for a huge opening day and
> large initial sales, much like movies and single-player games,
> rather than the continuous sales that the MMOG concept
> encompasses.  A game may be obsolete in two or three years, but if
> it satisfies the players it can remain open and the servers active
> for far longer.  This comes back to communities and the Social
> Networks thread: How do you create, support, and encourage the
> kind of advertising that keeps new players coming into your game
> three years or longer down the road, be it word of mouth or a
> small block ad in a magazine?

The question of how to advertise a game in the last phase of its
life cycle is too broad to answer without knowing the specifics of
the game, the customer base, the competing games, and other games in
the company's product portfolio.  Investment in advertising will
most often mirror expected growth rates.  However, this is not
always true as in the case of Funcom and Anarchy Online.  AO went
from growth phase to mature/declining really quickly due to their
catastrophic launch.  (I feel bad for them as it really is a good
game.)  As a result, they cancelled production of their second game
and have hung their hat for the time being on AO.  Thus, advertising
for AO is going to have to be a lot more aggressive and heavy than
it would have been if things had gone smoothly and they achieved a
strong customer base at launch.

Personally, I don't feel that games ever become obsolete.  The
technology supporting the game may become obsolete but a good game
is a good game.  (I still find a few pitchers of beer and a game of
Risk a LOT of fun.)  The obvious market for mature games are those
players who don't update their system every time a new game comes
out and may be a couple years behind in terms of bleeding edge
technology.  Go find those people and invite them to play the game.

Cheers,

Ron


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