I'm following up my naysaying post on Sony's new superhero game, set to launch in November with some positive ideas on how the game can be steered to success.
DC Comics and Cartoons
One wonderful thing this game could do would be to take previous MMO relations with IP holders to the next step.
Generally games companies have simply licenced an IP, gaining permission to use it sometimes in somewhat grudging ways. So Lotro could use the Lords of the Ring story, but not stuff from the films nor could it use stuff from Silmarillion.
What I think DC should do is take the IP holder - MMO publisher relationship to the next level and make mutual promotion part of the business strategies of both businesses. You buy a comic, there's an ad for the game. You watch a cartoon, there's a competition to win a MMO minipet. Play the game and you can win free comics or DVDs for certain achievements. Even weave the storylines of new DC comics into the storyline of the MMO. Make them mutually supporting products so kids reading comics or watching cartoons are reminded about the MMO and MMO players are alerted in-game to upcoming graphic novel storylines.
This would be a wonderful, synergistic way for both lines of product to buttress the popularity of the other formats and would, I think, increase revenue for all concerned.
Consider free to play
Free to play Lotro and free to play Clone Wars Free Realms launch in the same month as DCUO. It has to be a big ask to use the traditional pricing model of box purchase plus monthly sub for DCUO. We may be nearing the end of the era in which you can launch a game with that pricing model.
The gameplay of DCUO seems to favour F2P. It's fast paced twitch. I think it would be great fun for a couple of hours but I think you'd get really tired of it playing it 8 hours straight like people play WoW and Eve. Not to mention for us older players the wrist pain.
Consider Station Access
DCUO should go straight into Station Access with no additional fees. Station Access is very attractive - SWG, Vanguard, EQ1, EQ2, Pirates of the Burning Sea - but it's not quite attractive enough to be an amazing deal. It costs approx 2 games worth for a set of games from which most people are only going to pick 2 anyway. However add DCUO without raising the price and suddenly Station Access is really worthwhile as many people will want to play DCUO plus a couple of those older games for the price of 2.
If SOE decide to adopt my earlier suggestion and use a DDO like F2P scheme put the sub version of DCUO in with the Station Pass.
The Station Pass is aging and needs fresh blood to give it value. Doing this also allows you to revitalise older SOE games that deserve a wider audience.
Consider a sub-title
I've gone on record earlier with what I think of DCUO as a brand. At least make it DCUO - Batman and Superman need you! to get your best known Unique Selling Points to your market.
Put Batman and Superman on the DCUO homepage
OK, even if you can't play them they're around somewhere aren't they? Last time I looked all the images on the site are of generic costumes, nothing that anyone who played Champions for 15 minutes hasn't already seen. Now there's a little purple Superman but he's barely noticeable because a) he's tiny and b) he's purple. The main character used as background is Poison Ivy who, frankly, no one gives a shit about. You have the best pair of caped heroes in the genre - use them!
Plan a second hype cycle
Plan an expansion of some kind for October 2011 and really hype it. That way you'll pick up the burned out WoW players who didn't give you a look on launch because you launched against Cataclysm.
Good Luck!
You'll need it. I really think the key is developing a partnership with DC. If when people read DC comics or watch DC cartoons they're reminded about your game you'll have a steady stream of new players.
Sunday, 13 June 2010
Friday, 11 June 2010
Thursday, 10 June 2010
AoC: Billing stupidness
My AoC account got frozen on Sunday shortly after I'd ordered the expansion. Now I'm generally sympathetic if accounts need to be frozen as I realise that companies need to fight fraud, however it wasn't the reason this time.
It was, quite frankly, utter stupidity.
This is the message I've just received:
Hello,
The account is frozen due to the purchase stuck as pending. The charge
is stuck in pending because the account is set to canceled. I assume you
have set this to canceled so it would not automatically bill you when
subscription time came around.
To get this account unfrozen you need to log into your account
management page and reactivate the account allowing the payment to
finish processing.
If you have any further questions on this matter please feel free to
reply directly to this email.
Regards,
and this was my reply:
I've reactivated the account. Please can you remove the transaction for the collector's edition of ROTGS which I accidentally clicked while trying to sort this out.
Please also can you pass on my feedback to the appropriate person that it's ridiculous to suspend paying customers who have, as you surmised, canceled to avoid automatic billing. It's completely normal in this market segment to do so and it's dreadful to penalise customers. Essentially you're refusing me access to a game which is paid for up to September on the grounds I might not renew in September.
Please can you also arrange to credit my account with extra days as I have missed from Sunday to Thursday through no fault of my own. Possibly beyond Thursday as my account is not yet unfrozen.
No matter how well you design your game if you can't get ancillary aspects like marketing and billing right too you're going to lose customers. I'm pessimistic about whether they'll sort this out entirely to my liking. F2P Lotro is going to be a genuine rival attraction to me because while I prefer the AoC setting I really don't like automatic credit card hits or a system that punishes you for trying to avoid them.
PS: I've just received an email back from them. It's simply my email, forwarded to me. It doesn't say this email was generated automatically or anything so presumably they were trying to forward it to someone else but used the wrong email address. My confidence in them is not high.
It was, quite frankly, utter stupidity.
This is the message I've just received:
Hello,
The account is frozen due to the purchase stuck as pending. The charge
is stuck in pending because the account is set to canceled. I assume you
have set this to canceled so it would not automatically bill you when
subscription time came around.
To get this account unfrozen you need to log into your account
management page and reactivate the account allowing the payment to
finish processing.
If you have any further questions on this matter please feel free to
reply directly to this email.
Regards,
and this was my reply:
I've reactivated the account. Please can you remove the transaction for the collector's edition of ROTGS which I accidentally clicked while trying to sort this out.
Please also can you pass on my feedback to the appropriate person that it's ridiculous to suspend paying customers who have, as you surmised, canceled to avoid automatic billing. It's completely normal in this market segment to do so and it's dreadful to penalise customers. Essentially you're refusing me access to a game which is paid for up to September on the grounds I might not renew in September.
Please can you also arrange to credit my account with extra days as I have missed from Sunday to Thursday through no fault of my own. Possibly beyond Thursday as my account is not yet unfrozen.
No matter how well you design your game if you can't get ancillary aspects like marketing and billing right too you're going to lose customers. I'm pessimistic about whether they'll sort this out entirely to my liking. F2P Lotro is going to be a genuine rival attraction to me because while I prefer the AoC setting I really don't like automatic credit card hits or a system that punishes you for trying to avoid them.
PS: I've just received an email back from them. It's simply my email, forwarded to me. It doesn't say this email was generated automatically or anything so presumably they were trying to forward it to someone else but used the wrong email address. My confidence in them is not high.
Sunday, 6 June 2010
DCUO: destined to flop
Via Spinks I learned today that DCUO, the new superhero game is due out in November. It's launching at about the same time as WoW: Cataclysm, Star Wars Clone Wars MMO (using Free Realms) mechanics, and the free to play launch of Lords of the Rings Online.
That's an absolutely awful time for them to launch. Most MMOers like WoW enough to go back for an expansion, even if they didn't free Star Wars and free Lotro are strong draws.
But it's not just the timing that will hurt DCUO, it's the branding.
My Dad wrote adverts for many years. He’s now retired but we play a game when we watch adverts together. We try to spot adverts that are aimed at the person approving it not the buying public.
You see quite a lot of these adverts, elegant silver-haired men looking cool and suave. Then you think about the product and go hang on, why the hell are they trying to appeal to that demographic?
The reason of course is that the advert was written to appeal to the middle-aged man approving the advert, not the market they want to sell to.
A classic one is where you actually have the exec himself in the ad. They’re always terrible and off-putting but it’s very easy for a sycophantic ad man to sell it to the client that he’d look great on TV and get the account approved.
Victor Kiam: was not actually more appealing than George Clooney would have been even if the ad man said he would be.
Now consider DCUO.
To everyone at DC it’s an amazing brand, synonymous with wonderful stories and characters that they all know inside out. Just mentioning the letters DC makes them go warm and fuzzy and think , yeah, who wouldn’t play that?
To people outside DC it’s a terrible brand. It’s too lacking in distinction. A word like Blizzard is a lot easier to remember than two letters that might mean anything. Just ask someone what DC stands for without context. Washington DC? Don't Care? Letters are much less memorable and much less unique than words. Especially when players will pronounce your game Dick You.
Most crucially people don’t associate DC with what really sells – Batman and Superman. I had heard of DCUO for months and thought meh until Jon Shute mentioned who their characters are. I’m about as nerdy as can be, I own a lot of comics including DC ones and I didn’t know they had Batman and Superman. What’s more I didn’t even think about it – DC MMO? not interested, Batman MMO? oh that sounds cool.
The combination of the branding and the release date is going to kill them. And that’s even if they find a way to make playing in the Batman universe without being Batman fun which is a big ask.
And it's a great pity. I like Sony and am a fan of their games. I am sure DCUO will be a solid MMO on its own merits. But I can't see many people playing it.
That's an absolutely awful time for them to launch. Most MMOers like WoW enough to go back for an expansion, even if they didn't free Star Wars and free Lotro are strong draws.
But it's not just the timing that will hurt DCUO, it's the branding.
My Dad wrote adverts for many years. He’s now retired but we play a game when we watch adverts together. We try to spot adverts that are aimed at the person approving it not the buying public.
You see quite a lot of these adverts, elegant silver-haired men looking cool and suave. Then you think about the product and go hang on, why the hell are they trying to appeal to that demographic?
The reason of course is that the advert was written to appeal to the middle-aged man approving the advert, not the market they want to sell to.
A classic one is where you actually have the exec himself in the ad. They’re always terrible and off-putting but it’s very easy for a sycophantic ad man to sell it to the client that he’d look great on TV and get the account approved.
Victor Kiam: was not actually more appealing than George Clooney would have been even if the ad man said he would be.
Now consider DCUO.
To everyone at DC it’s an amazing brand, synonymous with wonderful stories and characters that they all know inside out. Just mentioning the letters DC makes them go warm and fuzzy and think , yeah, who wouldn’t play that?
To people outside DC it’s a terrible brand. It’s too lacking in distinction. A word like Blizzard is a lot easier to remember than two letters that might mean anything. Just ask someone what DC stands for without context. Washington DC? Don't Care? Letters are much less memorable and much less unique than words. Especially when players will pronounce your game Dick You.
Most crucially people don’t associate DC with what really sells – Batman and Superman. I had heard of DCUO for months and thought meh until Jon Shute mentioned who their characters are. I’m about as nerdy as can be, I own a lot of comics including DC ones and I didn’t know they had Batman and Superman. What’s more I didn’t even think about it – DC MMO? not interested, Batman MMO? oh that sounds cool.
The combination of the branding and the release date is going to kill them. And that’s even if they find a way to make playing in the Batman universe without being Batman fun which is a big ask.
And it's a great pity. I like Sony and am a fan of their games. I am sure DCUO will be a solid MMO on its own merits. But I can't see many people playing it.
Friday, 4 June 2010
WoW: is it like McDonalds?
I know it’s popular to compare WoW with McDonald’s but I think a better comparison is Elvis.
When Elvis sprang to the attention of popular culture it utterly transformed rock music. Of course the old time MUD players insisted it was nothing new, that old black guys had been playing those tunes in smoky bars for decades. The lovers of classical MMOs insisted it wasn’t really music, just trash for the culturally naive. And everyone accused Elvis the Pelvis of immoral techniques like instancing and soloability.
In 50 years time people will look back at McDonalds and think why was that ever popular. But they’ll look back at WoW and think that was truly great.
When Elvis sprang to the attention of popular culture it utterly transformed rock music. Of course the old time MUD players insisted it was nothing new, that old black guys had been playing those tunes in smoky bars for decades. The lovers of classical MMOs insisted it wasn’t really music, just trash for the culturally naive. And everyone accused Elvis the Pelvis of immoral techniques like instancing and soloability.
In 50 years time people will look back at McDonalds and think why was that ever popular. But they’ll look back at WoW and think that was truly great.
MMO: marketing games during the next decade
There's a real art to game monetisation. There's very evidently an amount that people are perfectly happy to pay for each type of microtransaction but then no more. We've seen angry player criticism of a number of monetisations: Oblivion's horse barding came out when people weren't ready for $2.99 for a piece of fluff armour. Runes of Magic's $10 basic mount was indignantly protested by a section of the player base although enough of them accepted it to pave the way for WoW's very successful $25 mount. Left for Dead 2 suffered a player boycott. Champions Online charging for respecs got people cross, not because the charge was out of line with other microtransaction charges (cf account transfers) but because the idea of paying for respecs was new and strange.
There are some general rules then it's this - it's safe to copy what people have got used to in other games and even add a little bit. At one point a monthly sub of $15 was new strange and unwelcome. I quite happily played Diablo 2 when Ultima Online started because I didn't see what the $15 was for and didn't particularly want to pay it. However once I'd paid $15/month once on a game I loved then I had no longer a barrier to paying it for future games.
Monetising for children is an especially fine art. The sneakiest method I've heard of was one Jesse Schell mentioned at DICE. What the developer is doing is giving children free access but allowing them to accrue store points that can only be spent if they subscribe. The free game is fun enough to keep them playing but there's a growing treasury of store points that they can buy loads of cool things with if they can just persuade Mum to pay a sub. They can play as long as they like completely free forever and of course the longer they play the more desperate they will be to get Mum or Dad to pay. Insidious, eh?
Not all monetisation has to come from players. Advertisers, lead generation companies and marketing people are very interested in accessing game player bases. This is a particularly sensitive form of monetisation as DDO's offerwall fiasco demonstrated.
It really is an area where the industry is taking rather clumsy baby steps and companies are occasionally provoking outrage as they fumble their way through this new science. It doesn't help that some of the steps are just plain stupid (US Allods players rather objected to paying ten times what Russian Allods players pay - who knew?). As a result developers are proceeding with a great deal of caution and know very well that this caution is causing them to leave money on the table.
However the fact that the industry has moved from a paradigm of everyone knowing how much games cost because they all cost about the same to a paradigm where each game that is produced requires its own monetisation means that we are heading into a period of massive change.
I'm sure that most new MMOs won't have a pricing structure quite like any other game before it, each will be unique as companies continue to experiment and push. That doesn't necessarily mean giving away less for free - the notional nirvana is a game that is hugely accessible but draws people in to spending Magic: The Gathering level sums to play at the top level. (I spent about £5000 on Magic during the 18 months I played it).
Non-video games of course have many examples of games that most people simply can't afford. Polo requires you to turn up with your gear, stick and horse as well as paying the club fees which for my local club are £70 per player per hour. Playing cards in the casino is sufficiently expensive that for most of us it's only something we'll watch James Bond do.
And of course the more the industry chases the accessible yet expensive nirvana the more pressure will build up in the player base for something cheap and fun that doesn't shake them down every chance it gets.
It's going to be an interesting decade in games marketing.
There are some general rules then it's this - it's safe to copy what people have got used to in other games and even add a little bit. At one point a monthly sub of $15 was new strange and unwelcome. I quite happily played Diablo 2 when Ultima Online started because I didn't see what the $15 was for and didn't particularly want to pay it. However once I'd paid $15/month once on a game I loved then I had no longer a barrier to paying it for future games.
Monetising for children is an especially fine art. The sneakiest method I've heard of was one Jesse Schell mentioned at DICE. What the developer is doing is giving children free access but allowing them to accrue store points that can only be spent if they subscribe. The free game is fun enough to keep them playing but there's a growing treasury of store points that they can buy loads of cool things with if they can just persuade Mum to pay a sub. They can play as long as they like completely free forever and of course the longer they play the more desperate they will be to get Mum or Dad to pay. Insidious, eh?
Not all monetisation has to come from players. Advertisers, lead generation companies and marketing people are very interested in accessing game player bases. This is a particularly sensitive form of monetisation as DDO's offerwall fiasco demonstrated.
It really is an area where the industry is taking rather clumsy baby steps and companies are occasionally provoking outrage as they fumble their way through this new science. It doesn't help that some of the steps are just plain stupid (US Allods players rather objected to paying ten times what Russian Allods players pay - who knew?). As a result developers are proceeding with a great deal of caution and know very well that this caution is causing them to leave money on the table.
However the fact that the industry has moved from a paradigm of everyone knowing how much games cost because they all cost about the same to a paradigm where each game that is produced requires its own monetisation means that we are heading into a period of massive change.
I'm sure that most new MMOs won't have a pricing structure quite like any other game before it, each will be unique as companies continue to experiment and push. That doesn't necessarily mean giving away less for free - the notional nirvana is a game that is hugely accessible but draws people in to spending Magic: The Gathering level sums to play at the top level. (I spent about £5000 on Magic during the 18 months I played it).
Non-video games of course have many examples of games that most people simply can't afford. Polo requires you to turn up with your gear, stick and horse as well as paying the club fees which for my local club are £70 per player per hour. Playing cards in the casino is sufficiently expensive that for most of us it's only something we'll watch James Bond do.
And of course the more the industry chases the accessible yet expensive nirvana the more pressure will build up in the player base for something cheap and fun that doesn't shake them down every chance it gets.
It's going to be an interesting decade in games marketing.
Thursday, 3 June 2010
Old-fashioned MMOs
Gordon inspired me to talk about old-fashioned MMOs one of which I visited in 2007. I thought my comment there was worth repeating here:
One of the worst experiences for me was trying DAOC in 2007. I had missed this game first time round and I thought it would make a great replacement for WoW after I'd burned out for the first time.
I pootled around doing some quests until I got one that sent me to a cave. North of the village. Now north of the village covered an area about half the size of The Barrens and I dutifully went off hunting. Couldn't find it. Logged off in disappointment.
Logged back on the next day feeling determined. Searched every inch of the north part of the zone for 3 hours. Would have found a freaking rabbit hole had it been in the north part of the zone. Logged off in disgust.
Logged on the next day. Decided to hunt for it online. Read strat sites for about an hour before finally getting a clue in the comments of some ancient wiki that pointed me to the solution.
You see when they used the word "North" what they actually meant was a compass direction about 1 degree above due West. Not N, not NW, not even WNW but WWWWWNWWWWW.
It was at that point I realised I could never play an old-fashioned MMO again.
One of the worst experiences for me was trying DAOC in 2007. I had missed this game first time round and I thought it would make a great replacement for WoW after I'd burned out for the first time.
I pootled around doing some quests until I got one that sent me to a cave. North of the village. Now north of the village covered an area about half the size of The Barrens and I dutifully went off hunting. Couldn't find it. Logged off in disappointment.
Logged back on the next day feeling determined. Searched every inch of the north part of the zone for 3 hours. Would have found a freaking rabbit hole had it been in the north part of the zone. Logged off in disgust.
Logged on the next day. Decided to hunt for it online. Read strat sites for about an hour before finally getting a clue in the comments of some ancient wiki that pointed me to the solution.
You see when they used the word "North" what they actually meant was a compass direction about 1 degree above due West. Not N, not NW, not even WNW but WWWWWNWWWWW.
It was at that point I realised I could never play an old-fashioned MMO again.
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