Vanguard: Vanguardian Philosophy: The Marketing Game

As many of you may know, a short while before Sigil had been acquired by SOE, they were trying to figure out what they could do to help get the game out to a larger audience. When this was stated, they were already in talks with SOE about the merger, and it is also apparent that SOE wishes to increase subscription numbers - who wouldn't? They wanted to 'relaunch' the game with the re;ease of the first expansion, increasing advertising, fixing the game up, and what not.

However, getting an MMO that has already been released another chance to pull in a larger audience isn't easy. Not that many games have done it successfully either. It has been done, though. EVE is probably one of the better examples, starting with a pretty lackluster launch, but eventually gaining an increasingly larger audience as the years went by. Supposedly EverQuest2 has gotten more healthy as it received more attention from SOE as well.

So it is possible, but what needs to be done to successfully relaunch a game? How do you get that second chance?

Fix it
Well, the very first thing that has to be done, obviously, is to fix the problems that turned people off in the first place. Those problems need to be narrowed down, pinpointed, and then systematically eliminated, because if they're around when you actually start to push for more subscriptions, people will just walk back in... and walk back out.

Those problems are pretty universally agreed upon, however. Performance issues, a generally buggy game, some balancing, low server populations, as well as a few other issues... All of these can easily turn players off from the game.

MMOs are always a work in progress. They aren't games that are ever finished, and they're just to big to fix every bug. However, they do need to strive for a certain level of polish before they can be openly received by the masses. It's polish that can win gamers over unlike few other things. The more stable, the less buggy, and the more fluid the game is, the better the over all play experience is. To some people, that can be arguably more important than any other aspect of the game.

This is definitely the first priority before any real major marketing schemes can be put into motion. However, there's already plenty of discussion about all of these topics.

Targeting the audience
This is, perhaps, part of the problem before the release of Vanguard. The game wasn't advertised nearly as much as it could have been. It received some magazine spots, it was hyped up in certain communities... but, that's part of the problem. It was mostly in certain communities. There's a certain amount of access in the MMO culture that's required to even hear about Vanguard. Mind you, that there are plenty of people around in Vanguard who are experiencing their first MMO, but there could have been so much more done to reach out to people.

Marketing is a tricky sort of business. How do you get the word out about an MMO? How do you get people excited about it? How do you target your audience and ensure that you'll draw them in, without turning them away?

Brad mentioned, pre-acquisition, a few things related to this. Some of them I agreed with, some of them I did not. What I did agree with, is that he stated many people thought Vanguard was something it wasn't. A fair number of people thought Vanguard was going to be a much harder game with more time investment required than it is, and passed it by due to that, or expected something different when they did try it. That isn't to say that Vanguard is not a difficult MMO, but you can certainly solo effectively in it, and it is certainly playable by non-hardcore gamers.

Yet, Brad also talked about current and veteran MMO gamers as his primary target. He wanted to pull their attention away from games such as WoW as they found themselves getting bored with them over time. This isn't entirely a bad idea, mind you. Players do leave MMOs after they get bored with them to look for another. This is not, however, a viable marketing strategy. Just because you're going into MMO communities and telling them how great Vanguard is, doesn't mean people will switch over. More likely than not, they're going to keep playing their game of choice with their friends.

Its a trap that a lot of games end up falling into. By relying so heavily on existing MMO gamers - and only the rather involved ones at that - you're missing out so many potential subscribers.

The target audience of Vanguard has generally been the 'core gamer' - that is, someone who doesn't have as much time on their hands to play the game entirely hardcore, but still puts in quite a bit of dedication regardless. Because of this, it isn't entirely surprising that so much attention was payed to former and current MMO players - after all, one of the big targets were former EverQuest players that had moved on and gotten jobs since they stopped playing.

Yet, there are likely plenty of people who could fall into the category of a core-gamer that have yet to be tapped.

Getting the word out
What needs to be done is to try a larger scale marketing. By reaching a larger audience and getting Vanguard known by a greater number of people, more people will be likely to try the game out. If SOE pushes marketing more heavily, then a relaunch for Vanguard can be more possible.

This isn't entirely foreign to SOE. They have had commercials for several of their games in the past, including EverQuest Online Adventures and Star Wars Galaxies. Although, while some of their more modern commercials (much better than the old EQOA ones, ugh) have focused on talking about the wonders of what MMOs are and what you can experience in them, with attention paid to people - which is good - it would be nice to really focus on the game world of Vanguard with a more cinematic spin. Make the game feel epic and exciting. People play MMOs for a number of reasons, but the idea of going on epic adventures and defeating powerful foes is one that rings true with many people.

Free trials can also be a very useful means to bringing in a larger audience. They are also rather risky, though. A free trial enables and increases one of the problems we are currently experiencing with Vanguard: spam tells. This is a difficult thing to work around, but by letting people actually get into the game, quickly and easily, you allow them to get an idea of what your game is like.

A large part of it comes down to location. Gaming magazines can get some attention, gaming websites can also get some amount of attention, but other games, notably World of WarCraft, have done very well by advertising in retail stores with free trial discs - which would let people avoid a 20gb download - and if SOE makes use of commercials on television as they have with other games, they could potentially reach a rather large audience.

These shouldn't be the only two tools put to use. Rather, these are two powerful tools that can form a basis of a strong marketing campaign.

Marketing can't be an afterthought
Many games have died due to a lack of marketing, as they were unable to get their name out in the open. Sigil had built up an audience before the launch of the game but the shaky start hurt. However, with effective marketing some of those people that had left the game may see fit to give it a second chance, and those who hadn't even heard about the game will become willing to give it a shot as well.

I believe Vanguard is a game that has a lot of potential. I find it to be a rather good game at that, and it needs to have that chance to bring in a larger audience. However, it won't be easy, but with proper marketing, far better than the game saw pre-release, and with the issues that were present at launch fixed, then Vanguard may have that chance. A strong marketing campaign is an expensive and risky endeavor, but if it is pulled off well, the rewards can be great.