$100,000 UO Marketing Challenge......

[kennykilleduo]

Lily Said: " 3. Do you have qualifications to judge a contest like this or are you just another stratics poster? I mean seriously, what do you know about marketing an online game? "

I dont need qualifications if you read my post you would now this is for fun and the players vote , secondly I think 2 college degrees in business and 10 with companies that aremarketing machines , should give me some background ( not a expert though) , besides once again this is for fun , that is it..

I also would think anyone who is in advertising would do better , and maybe able to come up with some good ideas. UO fans are creative , but we should leave the work to our so called marketing department...

 

[kennykilleduo]

$100,000 dollars is nowhere near enough for anything but a token advertising effort.
Especially if you take into account the international nature of the game.

Internet advertising would be cheaper than physical advertising, though less effective, considering the lengths advertisers have gone to on the internet. Most people who don't block the most common forms of advertising completely, simply ignore them.

So...

Invest most of the money in doing something with the game. Something that would make it appealing to current MMO players.
Do that, and then make a big deal out of offering 21-day trials, or some such. Longer trials than the standard, and people will be more inclined to try it, because they're getting more time to play for free.
You make a big deal of it, and the various commentary sites around the internet will pick it up as news, and it'll propogate.

I'm sorry but this isn't all right.

Internet advertising can be highly efficient, if you know what you are doing. Stuff like google ads is a waste of money for most companies though. You need to target the exact right audience and websites. I agree $100k isn't a lot, but you could definitely get some ads in the right places. With 100k you don't need to think like a big company, but like an underdog.
I used to work in advertising and done it all, run adds in magazines, newspapers, television, billboards and internet. And to put it in perspective: I've seen a $3000 ad run on a smaller website bring in over 1000 customers.

Stuff like TV and magazines only work if you have a very big budget and target a general gaming audience, which UO simply does not do.


Now that would be a waste of money, if you don't have much cash to burn.
MySpace has a very different usergroup than UO. MySpace is a social thing, so many people that do not game visit it. And because it's a very big site, advertising is expensive. You might reach a lot of people, but a 13 y/o chatting to her classmates isn't going to start playing UO.
Also from what I've experienced, is that a 1 day advertising run usually doesn't work as well as, say, 2 weeks. The first time people might not click it, but their brain does register the UO logo. It means the second time they see it they might check it since they have some sort of recognition.

I think an actual MySpace/FaceBook page would be cheap and effective. It works for a lot of artists and musicians. Such a thing would benefit from a dedicated site manager (I guess the $100k would be a year to two years' salary?), with content updates twice weekly.. whether it be KR wallpapers, announcements, commentary, user-supplied media such as links & resources, etc..

I think UO should be marketed as a supported "retro" game instead of trying to compete in the same genre as contemporary mmogs, which completely outclass it in terms of production values. UO's reportedly a very good earner; I wonder if it's strong enough to take a small reduction in subscription fees, say as low as $8/month, to encourage numbers.

I would spend the money of updating UO.COM, what a joke that homepage is. There should be a counter that states how many players are currently on, perhaps a second counter that shows how many scripters there are on, so that the gaming public knows that EA turns a blind eye to scripting; you could have it almost like a newspaper with headlines about what is happening in brit today.

My ideas simple and free. EA stops trial accounts and instead allow peeps to play for free, with restrictions of course.

1. Block off all enterences to lost land, (use nice story to do so)

2. Free for anyone to play in lost lands and New Haven, no housing can be built there. (make g8 link to lost lands from New Haven).

3. Free accounts cannot go beyond a max 80 in any skill. (stops scripting, whats the point at 80).

4. Have 2 weekends a year they can visit rest of game to see whats availible if they pay.

5. We tell, everyone whats availible for free, and go visit them.

1:- A simple , free idea based/akin to - the Dragons & Eggs we see adorned to every second post. Start with A Young UO character, unskilled. Every impression/click improves his/hers stats and abilities. Can be very very cheaply set up, and word of mouth advertised. This could even be developed into a total Click based mini game for forums/websites, along the lines of Trading cards, but with cliks, impressions etc as the required currency.

2:- Micro Cash transactions in game, for items, buffs, skills AND GOLD. Would stop the cheats, the dupers the framers, the scripters overnight.

3:- Higher start skill levels, and a handful of MAJOR skills, Warrior, Mage, Crafter etc, with the various side skills being learnt from that, and a lot quicker.
3b:- Henchmen/Bots with decent AI to enable the solitary player to take on the bigger dungeons. The current NPCs are just a waste of time, money, disc space, when you hire a Samurai with huge stats, he should fight like it, not die to one swipe.

4:- Bring back monthly , weekly, hell even daily in game events, adventures, with unique 'loot'. If a poker house can offer 24 daily 1 hr freerolls with a prize, surely EA can afford one creator of events daily weekly etc etc.

5:- A 24/7 in game , live support agent. friendly, helpful, and with the empowerment to make big decisions instantly, and ability to fix,recreate,check,supervise.....

6:- NO WAY to cash prizes, cheats would ruin, check out Kwari, failed limply.

7:- More housing plots available and accessible to young players.
7b:- Enable landscaping

8:- Account age, rewards based on time spent ONLINE AND INGAME.
A 1 hr a week 10 yr vet =520 hrs.
A 14 hr a day 7 day a weeker -98hrs a week, 5096 in game hours in 1 year, and still cant dye a leather skirt.

9:- Fix factions, crafting, etc. Level the playing fields, enable factions to totally change landscape and buildings they conquer.

10:- Punkbuster

11:- Listen to the 5096 hr a year player.

Will take submissions until June 21 2008 , the start a poll for the best 5 with top 3 winning...

Little late but these are best one I could see..