UO ads in other EA games.

[Xalan Dementia]

I have played alot of games that feature ads for other games, whether its on a billboard in a racing game, or a wall ad in a baseball game. Why can't EA run UO ads on these other games? With internet access they are able to cycle ads on these games as they wish. Why not have the occasional UO ad pop in. Have a contest among the UO playerbase to design a billboard style ad for UO, judging by the creativity of the players there would no doubt be a wealth of entries.
Also we have all talked about how UO could do better with a store shelf presence. I remember the first time I ever tried WoW was after buying a 99cent trial cd from a game store. This was right before they started the standard 14 day online trial we all know of mmo's now. How expensive would it be to setup a campaign of placing new player cds for UO in stores? CDs are cheap to produce and they could keep the packaging to a minimum to reduce costs.
Or they could develop a type of demo package that could be acquired by players at a game store, if cds are too expensive to offer just one trial. Add a demo/trial of maybe 4 different games from different genres.
Perhaps offer something unique to the cd version of the game, either an ingame item or include a map poster or mini guide. Of course they need to at least link or reference Stratics with this trial so the new player can find help before they get frustrated.

Thoughts?

 

[Hunters' Moon]

Do like alot of games do and offer a gametime card instead of a disc. There are about a dozen different gametime cards available in Walmart alone.Most of them are Facebook games.I can see no reason why EA can't supply major deptartment stores with one-month gametime cards along with a neat trinket of some sort as a bonus.

 

[wanderer1origin]

Uo would do well if ea admitted UO was a ea game lol

 

[cazador]

Because they don't care...

 

[Picus of Napa]

It's a shame. I wonder what the play rate is for the real new player, does he/she stick around past the first two months? It would seem the cost vs. revenue trade off isn't worth it or they would run such ads(right?). I would be surprised if enough players stuck around for 1 full year to both cover the cost of the add plus make enough profit. Sad, it's an amazing game but both the player base has been greatly reduced and the game doesn't have that wonderful feeling it did for all the people who have played for 10+ years.

Meeting RPing vendors, fighting "bandito's" to keep you're stuff, forming guilds and aliances, waring, revenge, dispise, theft, riches, friendship, trusting random people and collectivly learning the game.....UO of the past was a nifty experement but today it's not a easy place to master.

 

[Uvtha]

I have played alot of games that feature ads for other games, whether its on a billboard in a racing game, or a wall ad in a baseball game. Why can't EA run UO ads on these other games? With internet access they are able to cycle ads on these games as they wish. Why not have the occasional UO ad pop in. Have a contest among the UO playerbase to design a billboard style ad for UO, judging by the creativity of the players there would no doubt be a wealth of entries.
Also we have all talked about how UO could do better with a store shelf presence. I remember the first time I ever tried WoW was after buying a 99cent trial cd from a game store. This was right before they started the standard 14 day online trial we all know of mmo's now. How expensive would it be to setup a campaign of placing new player cds for UO in stores? CDs are cheap to produce and they could keep the packaging to a minimum to reduce costs.
Or they could develop a type of demo package that could be acquired by players at a game store, if cds are too expensive to offer just one trial. Add a demo/trial of maybe 4 different games from different genres.
Perhaps offer something unique to the cd version of the game, either an ingame item or include a map poster or mini guide. Of course they need to at least link or reference Stratics with this trial so the new player can find help before they get frustrated.

Thoughts?

Its been gone over 1000 times now. UO looks (is) very old. UO Is a game based on a legenday franchise, yet one that has put out one non mmo game in the last 20 years. UO costs 13 bucks a month. UO uses a third party forum as their official "go to" site . Advertising money would not be worth it. You would get new players, sure, but the cost per player I'm guessing would be far too high.

If the game isn't supported enough to keep making expansions, I don't see how on earth they could justify a marketing campaign/shelf presence push.

 

[Xalan Dementia]

thats what im kinda saying, It shouldnt cost EA very much at all if all they do is have a contest for ad designs and then place the ads in other games they already own. I'd think that might get some people interested enough to try UO or research Ultima, especially the younger crowd who now seem to not care about graphics since every popular free to play seems like a 90s cartoon.
As for the monthly cost, ya that still is high it would seem for a game this old, it needs to at least drop back down to 10/month but if that happened it'd prolly shorten the games life even more.

 

[Mitzlplik_LS]

Do like alot of games do and offer a gametime card instead of a disc. There are about a dozen different gametime cards available in Walmart alone.Most of them are Facebook games.I can see no reason why EA can't supply major deptartment stores with one-month gametime cards along with a neat trinket of some sort as a bonus.

Well,I can say this.... EA DOES have cash cards at Walmart...... but you can not use them on Ultima Online. My wife bought me a couple for xmas and I was lookin forward to buying a few things like the enhance tool....... but instead had to spend them on Battlefield Heroes. The only Ultima game you could use it on is that Farmville ripoff/remix they call Lord of Ultima. Pretty assinine to not include ALOT more titles. One would assume when you buy an EA card,its good for EA games...but they are pro`s at shootin their own feet.

 

[Vor]

Well,I can say this.... EA DOES have cash cards at Walmart...... but you can not use them on Ultima Online. My wife bought me a couple for xmas and I was lookin forward to buying a few things like the enhance tool....... but instead had to spend them on Battlefield Heroes. The only Ultima game you could use it on is that Farmville ripoff/remix they call Lord of Ultima. Pretty assinine to not include ALOT more titles. One would assume when you buy an EA card,its good for EA games...but they are pro`s at shootin their own feet.

I got a voucher for the Origin store last week on my Birthday. Couldn't use it for UO items annoyingly, and the only other thing I use the god-awful Origin for is Battlefield 3, which I have the premium version of so don't need to pay for any DLC. Sorry EA, your attempt to get me to spend cash I wouldn't have without the voucher has failed.

 

[Xalan Dementia]

ya gametime card would be great. They bend over backward to take care of the free to play junk that gets them some micro transactions, when they should offer UO on the cards to grab the players that arent afraid of a monthly fee. Heck even if they just set up the cards so you had to visit a site to redeem/enter the code, and on that site they have some ads for other EA titles. They probably already do this but only for the other games they already have on the gametime cards. If none of these ideas strike them, they could at least acknowledge UO alil more publicly. And like I said, the UO playerbase is very creative and could easily be called upon to create ads in a contest, just make or offer in game prizes for the contest and boom theres free art and concept work for the ad campaign, then they can just pepper a few UO ads in there site ads etc. Dont sound pricey or hard to do.

 

[Gameboy]

Sometimes it feels that UO is more of a word of mouth game. You only know or hear about it from someone else.

 

[NuSair]

Part me wonders if UO has a clause in it's contract when it was sold as part of Origin Systems to EA that stated if it was shut down or something similar that it would revert back to RG. There was a similar clause when the CCG was sold (in part) to Wizards of the Coast, that if there wasn't an expansion in X time frame, the game would go to Alderac Entertainment (basically).

That would be interesting.

 

[Sauteed Onion]

Make a giant bacon breakfast, and blame it on UO. That should attract some attention.

 

[Xalan Dementia]

Make a giant bacon breakfast, and blame it on UO. That should attract some attention.

So perhaps an Epic Meal Time Baconated Mongbat?

 

[Ashlynn_L]

it's kinda hard to work an old game like UO into a "in game advertising" in something such as err, I dunno, Battlefield or Mass Effect.

Maybe it'd fit more into Hotline Miami. That is set in 1989. =P

 

[Zosimus]

Most games are all digital downloads anymore. You wont see many store shelf titles like we all were used to in the early 2000's.


Most games are truly word of mouth at the beginning. Many mmo news sites bring it to players attentions. Word spreads that way.


Companies that owns the game are the ones that decide to advertise. I see many many games that are advertised. WoW of course, Wizard 101, Pirates 101, Rift, SWTOR are a few I see on the telle before/now. G4TV is always talking about consoles and PC games.


UO is out there. People still talk about it. many sites like Massively and MMORPG will have articles from time to time. Pockett ( if nobody knows her well she used to play UO) is a well known gamer and represents many sites and hers and she mentions about playing UO.


Word of mouth is very important to the gaming industry. Social media plays a huge part in todays world for advertsiment. Just doing advertsiements on television is so the 90's. I know the house deco contest and the remarks about Facebook friends and all that drama was a huge headache. I thought to myself when I read comments referring to the facebook issue that the most important factor was so over looked. Nobody mentioned a word that maybe some of these facebook people may get interested in UO to see what it was all about.


Social media, your friends, your life in most parts are all tied together in todays digital world. How may people have a smartphone and at least check Stratics once a day that comes here? Or how about using company time and sneaking a peak on the computer at work to see what is going on? How many have a facebook account and do you say anything about UO and post screen shots? Youtube is huge and videos can be made by plyaers if they wanted to advertise.


In the end we all been through this topic before. EA just doesn't spend advertising dollars on UO. The community has many ways to do it themselves. There are many that contribute to guides and such on here. How hard is it to post on facebook, twitter, ect ect like Hey this is what I did in UO today...(screenshot). Six seconds at the latest? Maybe if 50 people tried this and you gained 20 interested people and really got 15 to try it out and 12 subbed after the free trial then you got 12 more players that are playing Now imagine if the number was 1000 people that tried this.


You don't lose any more time trying other options out yourselves than reading this post