...has this part of the forum become utterly inundated with attempts at viral marketing?

Any review site that is well known is attaching some sort of marketing advertisement for the games being reviewed. Who can complain though, you find great games easily by seeing who gets the most hype. Games that manage to get enough people to hype their game shows that a lot of people are interested in it, which usually means that game should be worth checking out.

Originally posted by HikaruShidou

Any review site that is well known is attaching some sort of marketing advertisement for the games being reviewed. Who can complain though, you find great games easily by seeing who gets the most hype. Games that manage to get enough people to hype their game shows that a lot of people are interested in it, which usually means that game should be worth checking out.

No, not really.  Viral marketing tends to be totally counterproductive to creating a good "word-of-mouth" type of community endorsement, especially when a good majority of the "LEIK OMGZ THSI GAEM IS GOING TO SO KEWL" hype posts come from posters that have just registered the day they've posted and apparently have about as much knowledge of the English language as a 5 year old.

Hype, especially as a result of anti-social marketing campaigns, does not mean the game is worth checking out most of the time---in fact, it usually signifies quite the opposite.  Especially when the community hype has been heavily manipulated and exploited by a party that holds stake in the success of the game.  This is particularly true when a viral marketing campaign is started after release.  Certainly you've come across products that have been legitimately marketed through grossly expensive ad campaigns that have turned out to be utter crap in the end?

Honestly, the type of viral marketing that may be present on this board (I'm still not quite sure), is of the mere "wow, this is so blatantly obvious" type of slightly annoying advertisement, thankfully.  It's the experienced viral marketing that concerns me.  The type that creates strife within communities as fanboi plants start insulting seasoned members of "target" forums and create massive flame-fests and conjure rifts in established communities, worries me greatly.  It's been witnessed on this forum in the past, and is still being witnessed in certain sections of the forum.

At any rate, I'm grateful for the fact that these Asian companies haven't grasped on to the fact that in order to create a convincing marketing campaign in this matter, you have to be able to speak/write the native language of the target market fluently.  It's quite easy to pick out the fanbois/corporate shills for most Asian market MMORPGs that are starting to be marketed over here.

can you show me some viral examples on this forum

i would appreciate it '-_-

until then keep your philosophical stories to you

Originally posted by opidanus

can you show me some viral examples on this forum

i would appreciate it '-_-

until then keep your philosophical stories to you

Simple.  Check all of the newly registered accounts.  Half of them, aside from speaking very poor English, have spoofed email addresses listed in their profiles.  The ones that do have legitimate addresses also have some strange things going on.

One example of which is a user on here with a Chinese email address, and yet her location is listed as in the US.

I also have to question the motivations of all of these users that are listed as living in China, and are almost incapable of speaking legible English posting on a website dedicated to English products with a primarily English-speaking userbase.

There is something fishy going on here, no doubt.

These accounts are also posting a lot of very short posts with little to no content in reply to posts containing screenshots that are either official, or taken from a fansite.  This is so that these suspicious accounts can pad the hype meter for this game.

Either way, I don't really care; because most people now don't even trust the hype meters anymore because of companies doing exactly what is happening here currently.

i am not sure about the other companies but i can tell you that zu Online is based from a Chinese game

so the fan screenshots are posted mainly by chinese who played that game

i live in europe and the pictures i find are from the chinese site - i just like the game and enjoy finding info on it

now, about the hype - the forum posters from the official forums were asked if they would want to vote from their experience and info on what we already know, in fact the hype is working even for pre-alpha games, as we can see here

Originally posted by opidanus

i am not sure about the other companies but i can tell you that zu Online is based from a Chinese game

so the fan screenshots are posted mainly by chinese who played that game

i live in europe and the pictures i find are from the chinese site - i just like the game and enjoy finding info on it

now, about the hype - the forum posters from the official forums were asked if they would want to vote from their experience and info on what we already know, in fact the hype is working even for pre-alpha games, as we can see here

 

 

 

The selection underlined and italicized is the evidence I needed.  This is a form of viral marketing.

The hype alone doesn't bother me, but these ridiculous posts in here from people with no grasp of the English language in an attempt to promote the game isn't necessary.  The fact that all these garbage posts are showing up in an attempt to negate the safeguard against biased hype ratings is not needed.

The hype meter is there to show what the *members* think of the game; not what the company wants people to think of the game.

Hype the game all you want---just don't trash up the forums with promotional material.  It's not the proper place for it, and it's quite rude.

ok i realy don't have the time to debate this thing, i don't post "promotional" material for the simple fact that this is not a promotion... got it? look for PROMOTION to find what that meens

i only post stuff i find and if that stuff is posted in one place, i will give the link - i don't know whats so rude about it, it's not like i make you buy i don't know what product for gods sake

and one more thing: i think you should reeavaluate your thinking system about AMERICAN and ASIAN products, i say this as a third party, as an EUROPEAN

PS i will not continua this, it's just an empty discussion and the fact that you have such a high number of posts here show me what part of mmorpg is really kind of bad (hint: its not the hype system)

Originally posted by opidanus

ok i realy don't have the time to debate this thing, i don't post "promotional" material for the simple fact that this is not a promotion... got it? look for PROMOTION to find what that meens

i only post stuff i find and if that stuff is posted in one place, i will give the link - i don't know whats so rude about it, it's not like i make you buy i don't know what product for gods sake

 

and one more thing: i think you should reeavaluate your thinking system about AMERICAN and ASIAN products, i say this as a third party, as an EUROPEAN

 

PS i will not continua this, it's just an empty discussion and the fact that you have such a high number of posts here show me what part of mmorpg is really kind of bad (hint: its not the hype system)

 

Except I wasn't accusing you of anything.  Way to take it personally, even though the accusations weren't even directed remotely at you.  I appreciate the insult, though.  The world doesn't revolve around you either, in case you didn't realise, there are quite a number of other people posting in this section of the forum.

I had considered you to be one of the more constructive and informative posters here, but after this post I'm not so sure about that.

I like how you played the "lol, nationality" card, though.

Originally posted by zOMGREI

Originally posted by opidanus

ok i realy don't have the time to debate this thing, i don't post "promotional" material for the simple fact that this is not a promotion... got it? look for PROMOTION to find what that meens

i only post stuff i find and if that stuff is posted in one place, i will give the link - i don't know whats so rude about it, it's not like i make you buy i don't know what product for gods sake

 

and one more thing: i think you should reeavaluate your thinking system about AMERICAN and ASIAN products, i say this as a third party, as an EUROPEAN

 

PS i will not continua this, it's just an empty discussion and the fact that you have such a high number of posts here show me what part of mmorpg is really kind of bad (hint: its not the hype system)

 

Except I wasn't accusing you of anything.  Way to take it personally, even though the accusations weren't even directed remotely at you.  I appreciate the insult, though.  The world doesn't revolve around you either, in case you didn't realise, there are quite a number of other people posting in this section of the forum.

I had considered you to be one of the more constructive and informative posters here, but after this post I'm not so sure about that.

I like how you played the "lol, nationality" card, though.

The part in red (added some time after the initial post) - why? because i have different oppinions than you? and you expect equality and equidistancy from the ppl here when YOU are so subjective? LOL

And i had around the same opinion - i thought hardcore member meant something... i guess not

Double desillusion i guess

Originally posted by opidanus

 

Originally posted by zOMGREI

Originally posted by opidanus

ok i realy don't have the time to debate this thing, i don't post "promotional" material for the simple fact that this is not a promotion... got it? look for PROMOTION to find what that meens

i only post stuff i find and if that stuff is posted in one place, i will give the link - i don't know whats so rude about it, it's not like i make you buy i don't know what product for gods sake

 

and one more thing: i think you should reeavaluate your thinking system about AMERICAN and ASIAN products, i say this as a third party, as an EUROPEAN

 

PS i will not continua this, it's just an empty discussion and the fact that you have such a high number of posts here show me what part of mmorpg is really kind of bad (hint: its not the hype system)

 

Except I wasn't accusing you of anything.  Way to take it personally, even though the accusations weren't even directed remotely at you.  I appreciate the insult, though.  The world doesn't revolve around you either, in case you didn't realise, there are quite a number of other people posting in this section of the forum.

I had considered you to be one of the more constructive and informative posters here, but after this post I'm not so sure about that.

I like how you played the "lol, nationality" card, though.

 

The part in red (added some time after the initial post) - why? because i have different oppinions than you? and you expect equality and equidistancy from the ppl here when YOU are so subjective? LOL

And i had around the same opinion - i thought hardcore member meant something... i guess not

Double desillusion i guess

No, because you seemed to take my posts personally---they aren't even related to what you're doing, and the fact that you chose to insult me changes my opinion of you greatly.

I added that afterwards because I thought maybe it would help if I made it clear that I'm not targeting every single person in this forum; but evidently that point was wasted on you.

Opidanus, I think the ones zOMGREI is refering to, are the ones who:

1.) Make multiple threads with copy/paste text all proclaiming the games greatness.

2.) The "Hi, do you know any good games? Let me know. In the meantime, I found ZU Online. It is great! Here are all the details.". The poster will then copy/paste every detail from the website/feature list/FAQ for the game. Yet, they are incapable of finding out about any other game in detail? Usually, this is accompanied by copy/pasting  the same message in multiple threads.

To be fair, it's not only ZU players who do this, WYD Global players and even its devs for example are notorious for spamming up forums with their advertisements posted as "questions".

The problem is, when devs and fanboi players go around posting how great their game in such a way, it actually does a disservice to the game itself. I, for one, tend to avoid games where this type of viral marketing is done, as it makes the game appear as if its desperate for players.

I don't think zOMGREI was refering to you yourself, but rather just some others who have been noticed since ZU became listed here.

Originally posted by Zorvan

Opidanus, I think the ones zOMGREI is refering to, are the ones who:

1.) Make multiple threads with copy/paste text all proclaiming the games greatness.

2.) The "Hi, do you know any good games? Let me know. In the meantime, I found ZU Online. It is great! Here are all the details.". The poster will then copy/paste every detail from the website/feature list/FAQ for the game. Yet, they are incapable of finding out about any other game in detail? Usually, this is accompanied by copy/pasting  the same message in multiple threads.

To be fair, it's not only ZU players who do this, WYD Global players and even its devs for example are notorious for spamming up forums with their advertisements posted as "questions".

The problem is, when devs and fanboi players go around posting how great their game in such a way, it actually does a disservice to the game itself. I, for one, tend to avoid games where this type of viral marketing is done, as it makes the game appear as if its desperate for players.

I don't think zOMGREI was refering to you yourself, but rather just some others who have been noticed since ZU became listed here.

Thank you.  I really couldn't think of a way to say it in detail, but yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about.

It really is nothing personal.  If you like ZU, great!  That's fine, provided you're a genuine fan that contributes.

Nothing personal here, just my thoughts on flaming in general:

As a (hopefully) intelligent person, one can decide wether to like a game or not. All flaming and such are so useless. The fanboys won't like their game less, nor will the ones flaming start to play the game they trashtalk about.

even if da games have been hyped i only look at da 1 dat has da wierest name beacuse the sound dat the r made in china or japan dat r da only games i play

It's their right to advertise the game in any way they can - you get to play a game for free because they manage to make enough money in order to keep the game free. So I wouldn't bother too much about this, you can always ignore such messages. Truth be told, Zu is a very good overall game with a distinct atmosphere, but it's a GREAT game for the pvp fans, so I'm not surprised why some players advertise the game - if you like to fight other players all day long, this is the game for you...sadly though, I'm not that type of player, I value more the pve oriented games...