Originally posted by vesavius

Originally posted by BlahTeeb

GW2 and ArenaNet are against having CGI commercials. They believe it's like falsifiying gameplay, so they refuse to do it for GW2. Does cata look anything like the commercial?

 respect to them for that.

CG, while pretty, is BS when used for hyping games.

I think folks are missing a key distinction:  Marketing teams are not Development teams.  Their job is to entice people to buy the game, not show off in-game screenshots (unless they somehow entice you by sheer sight of an amazing UI, lol).  The idea is to attract the largest amount of people in a short amount of time - more bang for the buck.  CGI definitely works to this effect and quite well - so to say it's "falsifying gameplay" is hillarious, because after all the commercial  tells you "hey look, you will see this in game"...o wait, it doesn't (and if they ever do, shame on them).  The assumption of advertising implying actual gameplay or anything beyond general descriptions, is laughable, but to be offended by it?  is just silly, imagine it this way:

Anytime you see a cataclysm comercial, envision Activision executives rubbing themselves in $100 bills.  Then you will get the right idea.

Oh and to the original idea.  I hope they have a comercial full of CGI promoting the game...its win:win (assuming the game is not terrible).

Originally posted by Seival

Im afraid the only thing that can counter my theory is developer's removing Low/Medium/High stats from official realms and showing real number of users instead :)

Edit: Not just total number of users but also number of users for each realm. They can do it and it could be strong advertizing if only 12 million was a real number.

Active accounts >> Online users.

There are around 500 realms in the West for WoW. Census accounted between 1600 and 45000 characters (AVG of 17000) over level 10 that were seen online in the last 30 days (accounted during the last 30 days of data). That is the best numbers we can get from data collected from online users. It is fair to assume this tool caughts online alts, but it is impossible to estimate how many they represent. If you can point me to any reliable data source please let me know :)

So then we have the 12,5 million active accounts they reported in a press release. It is believed about a bit more than tier of the active accounts are from NA or EU (4-5 millions), but there is no way to back this claim up. I doubt they blatantly lied in a press release they organized.

Now back to the main topic. It is a possibility. Though does those TV ads really have an impact?

I seriously doubt they will have television commercials. If they do they will have to put them on the channels in which gamers watch. TV adverts have a huge cost and mmo gamers are a niche market in the business world, at least in regards to advertising.

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Originally posted by Morcotulcon

It's true that they might not need television, but there's not a single company that will lose a possible way to make a lot of money if they have the funds to make it possible. A-net will probably get enough funds for that with all the initial sales in the first months.

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If we are all gamers who will be buying GW2, and as much interest as I have seen around (which is considerable) it's obvious this game will do VERY well at launch with more than enough players to go around.

So the question is: why do we care as individual gamers whether they as a company make 100 million instead of 90 million because they put commercials on at the Super Bowl?

That doesn't affect our gaming at all because it's not like the parent company is going to say "Hey, GW2 made us 10 million more dollars than we expected from commercials. Let's put all that back into the game for development!"

The company will use some of that money to expand and do other things in the game (maybe), but as a GW2 customer I really don't care if there are 5,000 people or 10,000 people on my server as long as I am playing. It's not exactly a population sensitive game like Warhammer and you only need so many people to keep a server active. More revenue doesn't always translate into more CSR or more devs to improve a game as companies have a responsibility to stockholders first.

Should they do more commercials if they want to make money as a corporation? Sure. Does it matter to most of us that they make more money? Not really because they don't need to in the first place.

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Originally posted by arenasb
I seriously doubt they will have television commercials. If they do they will have to put them on the channels in which gamers watch. TV adverts have a huge cost and mmo gamers are a niche market in the business world, at least in regards to advertising.

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Its a sad day... but I finally have to disagree with you after so long. I think they will have TV commercials, just not before the game launches like every would normally expect.

Like they did with the original game, they will probably do TV spots after launch. Most of their marketing prior to launch would focus on magazine and website ads where they know they have a receptive audience: IGN, Gamespot, PCGamer, etc.

Originally posted by therez0

 

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Originally posted by arenasb
I seriously doubt they will have television commercials. If they do they will have to put them on the channels in which gamers watch. TV adverts have a huge cost and mmo gamers are a niche market in the business world, at least in regards to advertising.

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Its a sad day... but I finally have to disagree with you after so long. I think they will have TV commercials, just not before the game launches like every would normally expect.

Like they did with the original game, they will probably do TV spots after launch. Most of their marketing prior to launch would focus on magazine and website ads where they know they have a receptive audience: IGN, Gamespot, PCGamer, etc.

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Originally posted by AKASlaphappy

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Originally posted by therez0
 

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Originally posted by arenasb
I seriously doubt they will have television commercials. If they do they will have to put them on the channels in which gamers watch. TV adverts have a huge cost and mmo gamers are a niche market in the business world, at least in regards to advertising.

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Its a sad day... but I finally have to disagree with you after so long. I think they will have TV commercials, just not before the game launches like every would normally expect.

Like they did with the original game, they will probably do TV spots after launch. Most of their marketing prior to launch would focus on magazine and website ads where they know they have a receptive audience: IGN, Gamespot, PCGamer, etc.

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I hope they do not do any commercials; it is a waste of money for Anet that I would rather have spent on something else. The age of mass marketing is dying, you cannot stick a cinematic on TV and expect a huge return on it, things like DVR and Hulu make it almost pointless. If anything Anet would be better off doing a viral marketing campaign, this would be way better then a TV commercial.  If you want evidence to support this, look at Amazon. They do not put any commercials on TV anymore; when they did Amazon was spending so much money that they were not making any profit. After they quit mass marketing and went into viral\network marketing they reduced their marketing expenses and started to turn a profit. If you notice Amazon has not had a TV commercial in a long time, because for the amount of money that you spend you do not get the return on investment that use to get 20 years ago. So Anet would be better off spending that money on something else, then wasting it on TV commercial.

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You're right that TV advertising isn't what it used to be, and could be quite costly. But if Anet wishes to reach out to the widest spectrum of gamers, it will need to apply marketing methods other than methods used mainly for attracting the internet trolls (meant jokingly) that we MMO players are. Viral videos are ok, but again, those are targeting an audience of internet savvy people who may already know about GW2.

I think the best way for Anet to approach a TV ad, would be to partner with commercial videogame retailers like Gamestop. Overall, the costs incurred by Anet would be reduced, and piggy-backing off an established retailer would boost market credibility.

While I understand your example of Amazon no longer using TV commercials, I feel that your analysis is a bit incomplete. There are actually multiple reasons for diminishing returns on the advertising investment; one as you pointed was reduced reaction from the target audience. But another would be that Amazon's marketing reached peak brand-name saturation--everyone nowadays knows what Amazon is, partly because of highly successful TV marketing campaign during the holiday seasons in the late 90's (Amazon.com has tons of toys jingle, anyone?).

So, to translate this to Anet, a TV spot would be useful iff they carefully weigh at what point would they reach peak brand-name saturation and then cease the ads just as Amazon did.

On a different note, I think 'viral' marketing is a bit cliched... I don't think it has as much impact anymore as it once did.

But speaking of Hulu, tailored advertising could be a great success for GW2. Anet investing in AdSense keywords or a Hulu commercial could be a successful marketing strategy with minimal investment.

And of DVR usage, I've actually seen ads (obviously partly successful if I'm remembering them) where they did a still frame for 18 seconds of a 20 second spot, then did 2 seconds of a hyper speed (audio-less) commercial. The long still frame could be clearly glimpsed even while fast forwarding, and the other 2 seconds required the use of slow-mo to understand. So, while I don't think something like this would be effective for Anet, it is possible to advertise around DVR use.

Also, I don't think there is a concern about money being spend on marketing that could have been used on game development. What I've seen lately in investment contracts (especially for big budget games and sequels) is a minimum marketing expense stipulation, where the company is required to spend a certain minimum amount on marketing. While there's no way for certain NC and Anet have this arrangement, a safe bet would be yes. So I would rather see them spend that money to the most effective end rather than squandered on an ineffectual marketing campaign.

So the question now is, if you had never heard of Guild Wars or ArenaNet before, what would be most likely to grab your attention?

For me, I would have to say a Hulu commercial, but such could easily also be adapted for TV with a retail partner.

Originally posted by Emhster

Originally posted by Seival

Im afraid the only thing that can counter my theory is developer's removing Low/Medium/High stats from official realms and showing real number of users instead :)

Edit: Not just total number of users but also number of users for each realm. They can do it and it could be strong advertizing if only 12 million was a real number.

Active accounts >> Online users.

There are around 500 realms in the West for WoW. Census accounted between 1600 and 45000 characters (AVG of 17000) over level 10 that were seen online in the last 30 days (accounted during the last 30 days of data). That is the best numbers we can get from data collected from online users. It is fair to assume this tool caughts online alts, but it is impossible to estimate how many they represent. If you can point me to any reliable data source please let me know :)

So then we have the 12,5 million active accounts they reported in a press release. It is believed about a bit more than tier of the active accounts are from NA or EU (4-5 millions), but there is no way to back this claim up. I doubt they blatantly lied in a press release they organized.

Indeed. Low/Medium/High is not number of characters online in each realm currently. If it was then realms' population would change from Low to High each day (depending on time). But these "numbers" always remain the same. Thats why they indicate number of players who has created characters on each realm (i.e. number of users). So if we also take in count players who create characters on different realms, then real population will be even less then 3-5 million.

Many players have more then one character on one accaunt. So even if 17700-45000 characters were detected online over 30 days, then it does not mean the realm has 17-45K users. It means that ream's users have a lot of characters.

12,5 million were active accaunts worldwide over 5 years. Reports just do not tell for how long these accaunts were active :) Real "current" WoW population never was and never will be more then ~5 million worldwide.

EDIT 1: And do not forget about multiboxers :)

EDIT 2: And about users who like both common gameplay and twinking :)

EDIT 3: And about banned users who purchased new keys and created new accaunts :)

Oh, and back to the topic...

GW2 does not nead TV advertizing. Why? Becouse some people belive that if game has a lot of TV advertizing this game's current status is really bad.

By TV advertizing do not mean reviews, but cinematics like "We have 125 million users! We are the best! Come to us NOW!!! And do not forget to take your friends with you!!!".

Arenanet is the developer. NCSoft is the publisher. Its publishers job to advertise not the developer.  So the money for a commercial should come from NCSoft's budget not Anets.

Gamestop Guild Wars ad:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SKc27jIm8U

Originally posted by RameiArashi

Gamestop Guild Wars ad:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SKc27jIm8U

Originally posted by Seival

Originally posted by RameiArashi

Gamestop Guild Wars ad:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SKc27jIm8U

If ArenaNet (Or actually NCsoft) will make a commercial for GW2... It should feature a Charr chasing an Asura.

Originally posted by therez0

 

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You're right that TV advertising isn't what it used to be, and could be quite costly. But if Anet wishes to reach out to the widest spectrum of gamers, it will need to apply marketing methods other than methods used mainly for attracting the internet trolls (meant jokingly) that we MMO players are. Viral videos are ok, but again, those are targeting an audience of internet savvy people who may already know about GW2.

I think the best way for Anet to approach a TV ad, would be to partner with commercial videogame retailers like Gamestop. Overall, the costs incurred by Anet would be reduced, and piggy-backing off an established retailer would boost market credibility.

While I understand your example of Amazon no longer using TV commercials, I feel that your analysis is a bit incomplete. There are actually multiple reasons for diminishing returns on the advertising investment; one as you pointed was reduced reaction from the target audience. But another would be that Amazon's marketing reached peak brand-name saturation--everyone nowadays knows what Amazon is, partly because of highly successful TV marketing campaign during the holiday seasons in the late 90's (Amazon.com has tons of toys jingle, anyone?).

So, to translate this to Anet, a TV spot would be useful iff they carefully weigh at what point would they reach peak brand-name saturation and then cease the ads just as Amazon did.

On a different note, I think 'viral' marketing is a bit cliched... I don't think it has as much impact anymore as it once did.

But speaking of Hulu, tailored advertising could be a great success for GW2. Anet investing in AdSense keywords or a Hulu commercial could be a successful marketing strategy with minimal investment.

And of DVR usage, I've actually seen ads (obviously partly successful if I'm remembering them) where they did a still frame for 18 seconds of a 20 second spot, then did 2 seconds of a hyper speed (audio-less) commercial. The long still frame could be clearly glimpsed even while fast forwarding, and the other 2 seconds required the use of slow-mo to understand. So, while I don't think something like this would be effective for Anet, it is possible to advertise around DVR use.

Also, I don't think there is a concern about money being spend on marketing that could have been used on game development. What I've seen lately in investment contracts (especially for big budget games and sequels) is a minimum marketing expense stipulation, where the company is required to spend a certain minimum amount on marketing. While there's no way for certain NC and Anet have this arrangement, a safe bet would be yes. So I would rather see them spend that money to the most effective end rather than squandered on an ineffectual marketing campaign.

So the question now is, if you had never heard of Guild Wars or ArenaNet before, what would be most likely to grab your attention?

For me, I would have to say a Hulu commercial, but such could easily also be adapted for TV with a retail partner.

Yes after the commercials there were not too many people that didn’t know the name amazon, but that doesn't  do a company any good. Only thing that matters are sales, if that commercial does not generate revenue then it is a complete waste of time. That is the reason why Mass marketing is dying and why most business now days are cutting back on their marketing expenses compared to even a decade ago.

A former co-worker gave me a WOW demo disc. I did NOT try it.  Have no interest in paying monthy fees so dont see any point to trying out the game free for a short time..  Anet will get more out of me with micro transactions.

Seival your argument is so grade school mickey mouse 'conspiracy' theory.

Take a business class, then you will know why Blizzard simply CAN'T do the bs you're talking about. Seriously, take a basic finance class and you'll see why Blizzard would be bankrupt right now if they were lying about their numbers. Read up on Enron. Honestly, ignorance doesn't support your claims, it only makes you look childish and oblivious.

You're forgetting how many players there are WORLD WIDE. Not just NA. China alone boasts more than the number you're trying to squeeze out of your rear.

To the OP: Commercials would be cool. To people that say they don't work, they do. Impulse shopping is huge and it can only be obtained through advertising. A friend of mine, never having played an MMO, bought DCUO simply because the commercial during last Sunday's American Football game looked 'cool'. I wish I could have stopped him lol, he's already back on black ops.

Originally posted by helthros

Seival your argument is so grade school mickey mouse 'conspiracy' theory.

 

Take a business class, then you will know why Blizzard simply CAN'T do the bs you're talking about. Seriously, take a basic finance class and you'll see why Blizzard would be bankrupt right now if they were lying about their numbers. Read up on Enron. Honestly, ignorance doesn't support your claims, it only makes you look childish and oblivious.

 

You're forgetting how many players there are WORLD WIDE. Not just NA. China alone boasts more than the number you're trying to squeeze out of your rear.

 

 

 

To the OP: Commercials would be cool. To people that say they don't work, they do. Impulse shopping is huge and it can only be obtained through advertising. A friend of mine, never having played an MMO, bought DCUO simply because the commercial during last Sunday's American Football game looked 'cool'.

Nice post.

The part about DCUO made me laugh. :)

Originally posted by Seival

GW2 does not nead TV advertizing. Why? Becouse some people belive that if game has a lot of TV advertizing this game's current status is really bad.

PES, FIFA, FM, Killzone, Dragon Age and a lot of other games say otherwise.

Some nice feedback we have here.

But I don't know why people think commercials are bad or simply do not work.. because they do. Otherwise they wouldn't be so expensive, as it's very competitive. And If they didn't work both radio and television wouldn't really exist, as that's what drives the television market (poor PBS). — But then there are the people who think commercials would sort of 'taint' the potential playerbase or cause ArenaNet to enter the 'corporation phase' that Activision-Blizzard are sort of in, and I completely understand.

Originally posted by Morcotulcon

Originally posted by Seival

GW2 does not nead TV advertizing. Why? Becouse some people belive that if game has a lot of TV advertizing this game's current status is really bad.

PES, FIFA, FM, Killzone, Dragon Age and a lot of other games say otherwise.

You really think that advertizing did more good to these games than reviews?