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Greyfox

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As it has been repeatedly stated, an updated and incorporated tutorial is already in the works, this isnt defending an antiquated system, this is pointing out the current system fails because of lack of awareness of it, not because of the lack of the system in itself.

 

New players leaving is not just a tutorial issue, and it's not going to be singularly solved with a tutorial that does a better job of explaining what wurm is, although it will go a long way.

 

There are many reasons new players dont stick around or grow bored of the game quickly, sandbox has been thrown around as a genre so much many don't realise what a true sandbox game is, and struggle with self set goals. The user interface requires a lot of reading tabs rather than looking at the game itself, which is what we're currently working on and will continue to do so.

 

Like I've said in the past few months, getting new players into the game is important, but focusing on what keeps them playing is just as important, if not more so. We will continue to work on improving not only the new player experience, but also ways to ensure that they realise just what is possible in wurm.

 

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Well, the post i made was looking at a singular aspect, I never said it would cure all of wurms problems, but it would make it easier for newer players and it was aimed at helping them more towards staying around when placed into the wild. 

The things you have now, do not work. But they can. I'm not sure who your post was aimed at tho.
 

Edited by Mclovin
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Probably aimed at me. I have been beating Retrograde sore with the tutorial :P

 

I am glad to hear that (again) Retrograde. And do not think I don't appreciate what you guys are doing. I simply wish to share my experience as a newer player and hope it helps.

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1 hour ago, Mclovin said:


I know forges/kitchens can be used, but there isn't a focus on this. Because when i am placed into the world there is nothing telling me to go use that. [Or maybe I should whip out my book of wisdom:D) - What I'm saying is, can we not carry the tutorial over and actually have Everything needed to get setup properly at their disposal? Make it more clear and more in depth so they stay around the actual starter deed a little bit longer gaining equipment/resource for their effort of actually learning? the bartender just allows you to go get full, what I want is for them to be Hand-held towards the oven and actually told to cook something, you could reward them with a boosted skill gain whilst learning there. The point is, when they do actually go to leave deed, they will have a better understanding before being plucked into the game itself.

I am guilty of not recently starting as a new player, which I will do tonight to see, but I've made accounts and naturally I just ran past it all and truth be told, when I started the game, I completed the tutorial which was pretty cool at the time and I got put into the starter deed, had the bartender there etc. I saw community signs about public mines..But nothing else really to keep me there.

I guess to sum it up, 'keep players' and make more aware that Starter towns are a better benefit, create it so they are as said aboe, you've got the things in game as you said but it doesn't engage to the player that, ok, this is how you're making your first meal, this is how you're gonna imp your tools, here are some logs, make a bow..Here is some wemp, make a bow string, if you want to get better at that make a better carving knife, oh and it can all be done inside saftey of these walls and nearly everything is at your disposal for a few hours.

You know?

 

Mclovin, when you make your new character I suggest you let the tutorial carry you. Pretend you don't know what you know about the game and run it by following the instructions to the letter. You will see what I meant when I posted how horrible it was.

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14 hours ago, Angelklaine said:

Mclovin, when you make your new character I suggest you let the tutorial carry you. Pretend you don't know what you know about the game and run it by following the instructions to the letter. You will see what I meant when I posted how horrible it was.

I haven't done the tutorial in years, but it should go back to being that "forced path" tutorial. The one where it forced you through a predetermined path, in which you had to press the climb button to get over a hill to complete the tutorial and reach the portals to the actual game.

The problem in today's era is that nobody has patience or the attention span to read/sit through anything. Most of the new blood that comes in clicks through whatever they can to get to "playing the game", then they have no idea in how to play or which direction to take (you'll see this happen time after time in youtube playthroughs of other games too).

Force them to learn. No entry into the game unless they actually pay attention and complete the "training". And if they quit, so what? They weren't going to hang around long anyway with that sort of attention span.

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On ‎18‎/‎02‎/‎2017 at 7:29 PM, Retrograde said:

Also, it is working, I'm not sure what results you expect but we have the means of tracking traffic and registrations and they have picked up considerably and still continue to do so.

 

Well I'm sure you have access to more up to date then the Wurmpedia server graphs, but according to them, Player count is not going up.  Spike in June for the 10 year and a spike in Dec/Jan that we see every year.

 

 

On ‎18‎/‎02‎/‎2017 at 7:29 PM, Retrograde said:

Social media relies on existing connections between people, and allows us to target specific interests, there's more than just posts on a facebook page to social media, and we work within that to identify those who wurm would actually appeal to, so its not just targetting people who like wurms page, but people who might like other pages about games similar to wurm, or themes within wurm.

 


First part of that is cute, a page with 3k likes trying to network on FB.  That might have worked 5 years ago.   Good luck getting past the paid adverts that will push your priority down now. 
Try actually paying for advertisement.  The post and share only works if you are popular, and Wurm is not popular, not yet anyway. 

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23 hours ago, Greyfox said:

Try actually paying for advertisement.  The post and share only works if you are popular, and Wurm is not popular, not yet anyway. 

 

Wow you don't even know why you're mad anymore do you?

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Without being hostile or trolling, any advertising would be a nice change.

 

Billy Bob: What do you play?

Me: Wurm

Billy Bob: What's that?

In 8 years never heard anything different.

 

Do I wanna see 50,000 new players here? No, not so much...but I have admittedly been bishing for years about the lack of advertisement. Would like to see the number of current servers justified.

 

And yeah I wish we did hear a smidge more then "We have a plan"... not looking for full details but general direction would be nice

example: We are definitely going to go in the direction of online gamer magazines like Massive, gamerRus....etc.

example: We feel it would work to use banners on other gamer websites that redirect players to Wurm Online

 

 

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13 hours ago, Zerocool said:

 

Wow you don't even know why you're mad anymore do you?

 

He does, they have been telling him for months that an adds campaign was ongoing with hundreds of thousands of views, and it turned out to be a "please like this post" in facebook, promoting WU.

And on top of that retro has the audacity to get all snippy, saying maybe they should try newspapers or magazines, but it never crossed his mind to buy add space on an online publication. As if newspapers and magazines were only paper, and only local.

But they know its not an option, because it involves investing A DOLLAR, wich is something the team cant possibly do for advertising.

PS: I havent seen any adds about Wurm.

Edited by Rathgar
PS
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What the hell do you all expect to get out of this? This thread is a huge LOL.

 

If you do not understand why certain questions wont get answers (or terrible ones), you have no conceptual knowledge of what this business needs, how it needs it, and the resources to do it. Resources being a -very- subjective word here.

 

Turbo-nerd screeching about something, or even a logical non-emotional and well constructed post will always get the same answer. Let it die already.

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Why would you see any ads since it would be directed at non wurm players

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7 hours ago, Rathgar said:

 

He does, they have been telling him for months that an adds campaign was ongoing with hundreds of thousands of views, and it turned out to be a "please like this post" in facebook, promoting WU.

And on top of that retro has the audacity to get all snippy, saying maybe they should try newspapers or magazines, but it never crossed his mind to buy add space on an online publication. As if newspapers and magazines were only paper, and only local.

But they know its not an option, because it involves investing A DOLLAR, wich is something the team cant possibly do for advertising.

PS: I havent seen any adds about Wurm.

 

Did someone put Retrograde at the coin purse while I was away? I'm betting he probably doesn't focus on things he has no control over.

 

It doesn't take long to get sick of interacting with this community and he is more or less at the helm of dealing with you guys when I pop in. It would probably be best to take any sass he offers with a smile, Given how long it took to get him, anyway.

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1 hour ago, Zerocool said:

 

Did someone put Retrograde at the coin purse while I was away? I'm betting he probably doesn't focus on things he has no control over.

 

It doesn't take long to get sick of interacting with this community and he is more or less at the helm of dealing with you guys when I pop in. It would probably be best to take any sass he offers with a smile, Given how long it took to get him, anyway.

 

That was me with the newspaper post anyway, don't give Retro credit for my well thought out, top shelf sass. He can't come close to my level of sass.

 

9 hours ago, Rathgar said:

 

He does, they have been telling him for months that an adds campaign was ongoing with hundreds of thousands of views, and it turned out to be a "please like this post" in facebook, promoting WU.

And on top of that retro has the audacity to get all snippy, saying maybe they should try newspapers or magazines, but it never crossed his mind to buy add space on an online publication. As if newspapers and magazines were only paper, and only local.

But they know its not an option, because it involves investing A DOLLAR, wich is something the team cant possibly do for advertising.

PS: I havent seen any adds about Wurm.

 

The Facebook posts that were talked about on the last page of this thread were in response to someone asking about why they were used, since they'd only go to people that have already liked the page - not past marketing campaigns. With the 1.3 release we had multiple ad campaigns running across multiple websites, and we invested at least a whole dollar. Future targeted campaigns will be run when it makes sense to based on update cycles and using the data that we already gather, and we'll invest like, at least 2 or 3 dollars - maybe 4, we'll see..

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rare rakes are clearly 6 dollars, tops.

 

unless its enchanted, got woa on that one?

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1 hour ago, Budda said:

 

That was me with the newspaper post anyway, don't give Retro credit for my well thought out, top shelf sass. He can't come close to my level of sass.

 

My mistake. All due credits to the true Budda of sass.

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Alright, jokes and light hearted ribbing aside, let's break down a few things.

 

Blanket mass market advertsing is an archaic form of advertising and is prohibitively expensive, the only real companies that manage this are AAA games that rely on blanket coverage to get the name out there and have huge advertising budgets to back up the millions spent in development cost and input.

 

Wurm has struggled with being known in the past and online presence can be an important thing, it's the difference between "wurm? whats that?" and "wurm? i've heard of that, what's it like?" Blanket advertising across many sites and formats gets presence out there but does little to convert to actual sales, it's spending money to be a recognisable game.

 

Beyond that, you have more targeted advertising. Instead of standing in the middle of a shopping center yelling your new game name out you're approaching people in a gaming store, people who will be more interested in your product and thus spending less time and effort (money) focusing on them to attract players rather than just getting your name out there. This is where sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Reddit push their advertising, being able to identify and address your target audience all through their tools, and why we use these focuses.

 

Saying you enjoy playing MMO games as a genre is similar to saying "I like eating at restaurants" There's so many aspects of it and so many different variations around the simple mmo mechanic of multiple people online. Sandbox as a genre has also been watered down in MMO gaming, with many "sandboxes" simply being a theme park with a few options to customise, rather than the open ended self goal orientation of Wurm. This is why we use more targeted advertising through social media.

 

Modern MMOS have a huge budget behind them and is actually why so many of them fail or become pay to win quickly, they need to recoup massive development costs and after spending so much on that, advertising is just another fraction of that cost so they go with more mass market appeal.

 

So the question is "what are we doing?" With 1.3 we focused on contacting MMO sites and begin getting the game out there, updating our press information as well as beginning coordinating with other sites and ensuring that our third party information is up to date. People nowadays use three forms of reference when looking into a game, social circles, third party sites, and the site itself. Social circles is always powerful advertising, knowing someone who enjoys the game is a huge draw, as it instantly means they're not alone in this new game, it's why we use Facebook and Twitter to do all those "share and like" giveaways, not to get random people to see it but so friends of those who do play can see it.

 

Secondly there's third party sites, congregated MMO sites and things like that. With 1.3 and since I have been in contact with many of those and have had my CRA team also working on keeping those updated, ensuring that all accurate information is available to them, we're also working on other projects to help there such as giveaways and sponsoring.

Lastly, there's our site, Wurmonline.com and the forums. This is where we share the bulk of our information directly, and it's where a lot of new and prospective players will come to check out the game and ultimately decide if its worth their time and money to play. What they read on the forums shapes their view of the game and the playerbase, it's important that we focus on sharing just what is going on within the game and community and thus the weekly news/valrei int'l.

 

We track player stats across many aspects, namely new players coming into wurm via golden valley, and premium numbers. While new player counts have gone up, conversion to premium is low. This means that spending more money on blanket advertising does not solve the issue, and that there are key areas we can improve the game to maximize the effectiveness of what we spend on in advertising.

 

What are our plans for the future? Wurm Unlimited reviews have given us extra insight into the issues new players face in Wurm, namely the UI, the usual graphics complaints, and learning curve. This is why we are working on an updated UI that provides a better experience without relying on the event bar to play (A fun trick is trying to play with the event bar minimised and seeing what you can and can't do.. I need to get out more).

A new tutorial that truly showcases just what Wurm is while also helping ease players into the game and also provide better systems for learning on the go is in the works as well, and as that comes to fruition we will share more then too. Those of you who have used the unstable client know just how awesome Wurm looks with better shading and lighting, and that will be in long before the other two (soon we hope!)

 

Until then we'll continue to work on social circle incentives, competitions that can provide rewards such as premium and silver and focus on easing a few of those old gripes that players have had over the years, so when the updated UI comes we can begin our big push and ensure that the players that do join find Wurm to be a much easier game to get into.

 

We're here for the long term, and will continue to work on improving core aspects of the game and addressing existing and new player issues, we've come a long way in the past year and we look forward to seeing what comes.

 

I hope that answers the burning questions about why we aren't on billboards and site wide ads, larger advertising rounds will occur during major updates and will remain options down the line.

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On 19.2.2017 at 4:11 AM, Retrograde said:

 

There are many reasons new players dont stick around or grow bored of the game quickly, sandbox has been thrown around as a genre so much many don't realise what a true sandbox game is, and struggle with self set goals. The user interface requires a lot of reading tabs rather than looking at the game itself, which is what we're currently working on and will continue to do so.

 

 

That! THAT! *screams loudly and points at it* THAAAT!

 

Also my empirical statistics based on the considerable number of "hardcore online players" I used to play with before finding Wurm...

0% of them stayed in Wurm. Only ONE actually played for like, a month or two. Majority of them barely survived few hours and 'logging off and never coming back' was common during the Tutorial.

 

This is from the time of SmurfWurm, the green people. I heard all sort of things, one surfacing most was "lol you slide and lol no animations and lol graphics".

So what has happened? ALL OF THAT HAS BEEN "FIXED!". Sadly, I am probably never able to make those players try Wurm again.

 

Trough the years of playing I've also been privileged to observe quite many people start out and vanish. One common pattern is that players are more likely wanting to "achieve things by themselves" which means that me as an "established player with thousands or tens of thousands of every possible resource in the game and mastery in so many skills" is there only to make new players uncomfortable. They want to make their fingernails bleed in struggle of foraging around for that one pumpkin, then sow it as field which they lovingly tend until it can be harvested. This is a metaphor of "having done it all by yourself". I could just drive my cart into their little slum of 4 packed uneven tiles with wooden fence around it... and present them with supplies that would take them YEARS! To accomplish all by themselves.

So I've learned not to offer anything to new players... lately not even much deeper knowledge. It is a fact that in my early days I also loved to discover things myself and feel the accomplishment of making a sickle (which I remember being very long and confusing process within my first hours of playing.)

 

Then there are those players who stick to me like glue, asking me to make them pretty much every single thing. Or ask me how to make nail, how to make large nail, how to make ribbon. Despite me every time showing screenshot of crafting window (or in early days show the activated item and targeted item with context menu options) with red highlights and arrows.

 

Some harshly uneducated dissecting;

 

So if I would go and black&white the crop out of players, these two types would be the distinct ones.

Type 1: Self discovery, exploration, curiosity, internally entertained.

Type 2: Driven by thrill and competition, group types, externally entertained.

 

Remaining players of both types tend to deviate in two distinct paths;

Type 1: Self-sufficiency, personal empire building, maximization of everything.

Type 2: PvP, community events like unique slays, rifts, hota...

 

(Note; There is gray area in everything, also in between of these types. Some people are like "ambitypes" of these two types. Which is why I mention the distinction.)

 

Not remaining players of both types tend to deviate in distinct reasons:

Type 1: Knowledge/resource/discovery saturation.

Type 2: Combat system, boredom, loneliness.

 

So what does all this have to do with OP [Marketing thread]?

Realize that if we would be running "Dads who dress as princesses" Club in this city, we would need to advertise it the way EVERY single dad should be targeted with advertising. Then accept that only a small fraction of those are curious enough to come see what it is about, and only a tiny fraction of those will become regular participants.

 

As Retro points out in his response. Wurm is "a sandbox MMO". These days we have to call it "a true sandbox MMO" because they are calling all kind of games "sandboxes". Now some other games actually follow suit and start calling them "a true sandbox MMO" also, so we need to start calling Wurm "a real true actual sandbox MMO" and the spin goes on. See the pattern? It is beautiful point that people do not even seem to understand it.

 

And theres that, Wurm is spearhead to show what "sandbox" as a word means, and there is (hopefully) gonna be a game which will shove the spear further and make Wurm look like themepark game.

 

Somehow Wurm has been managing to have healthy number of players which suggests that any "marketing strategy" they have got and will have is probably as good as it is. Especially when considering putting Wurm ad on Superbowl, just imagine that. The "demographics of players" who we'd expect to stay in Wurm, and whats coming pouring out of the... whatever the super bowl is, when its spilled and poured. Issue is not how Wurm team is marketing/advertising, nor the issue in how game (or community) is treating new players. There is no Issue. Wurm is just popularity equivalent to "dads who dress as princesses" club.

Edited by Raybarg
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Thanks Retro, that's a really interesting summary of what's going on.  I've never really thought about it, since the only marketing I care about is me being able to play wurm, but it's interesting to see the mechnics at work.

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You have to remember, a lot of folks (Like me) got tired of advertising as a whole and just got programs like Ad-block too. I haven't seen ads for years. It blocks even the majority of those ads that websites try and shove in your face before a video you DO want to watch.

Currently even Youtube seems to be attempting to slide those 30 second ads before a video in, and so the videos are just appearing as a black/blank slate because the ad-block is taking care of them. This means I can't watch the videos now...but it's a 'small price to pay' (Puns!) for not having a bunch of obscure companies trying to do the 'keep track of what you like' stuff they've been doing over the past bunch of years.

I even get websites that are 'noticing you are running a ad-blocker, and requesting you remove it' and I just laugh and shut the website off, some of which do a blur feature on the website so you can't read it. Most of that 'targeted' advertisement is a joke, because I look an item or something up for SOMEONE ELSE and then it tried to put up ads for the item I have no desire for.

Pushing your product on someone who doesn't care is actually a good way to LOSE more people or to get blocked by someone. I grew up with TV showing us whole spiels of ads and 'taking breaks' in between my show I actually wanted to see to attempt to sell me something...as a child who had no money, and could not/wouldn't anyway spend it on said products.

We're not all made of money.

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Only tangentially related, but good news on that front - YouTube announced they are stopping 30 second ads in 2018.

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Nice break down Retro, gives a good look into the plan/ideas being thrown around. 

UI updates will do a world of wonder for newer players and it's existing players.

Thread should be closed since that reply summed it up and it'll only get lost in bs responses.

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Just make chinese and russian language options -> flood of players, despite it's niche game

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